According to a recent poll, Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh is more popular than Nick Saban. Does popularity matter when trying to recruit?
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According to the Q Scores Company, which measures awareness and appeal of personalities, Michigan Wolverine’s head football coach Jim Harbaugh is more popular than Alabama football head play-caller Nick Saban.
Harbaugh’s Q score was a 25, which means that he was listed as a favorite personality among one-fourth of the millennial males surveyed. Nick Saban’s score was a lesser 21.
68% of those polled said they were “familiar” with the imposing Alabama football coach.
(Side note: What millennial male – or person on this planet, really – ISN’T familiar with Saban?? Is this real life??)
So this begs the question…do personality scores and popularity have an effect on recruiting?
ESPN analysts Brendan Fitzgerald and Kevin Carter discussed the topic in video on the ESPN.com website earlier this week.
Carter doesn’t seem to think the score matters at all.
“Q Score…national titles…,” he muses, “I think national titles hold more weight.”
Fitzgerald then incorrectly states that Saban is entering his eighth season as Alabama football’s main man. It is, in fact, the beginning of Coach Saban’s tenth year with the Crimson Tide.
Fitzgerald goes on to ask, “If you give Harbaugh another 8 or 9 years, will he do the same thing at Michigan” that Nick Saban has done at Bama?
Kevin Carter’s initial answer is a simple, “Yes.”
He follows that by saying, “I think there are many different ways for a coach – a leader – to exhude the type of quiet confidence that makes people follow or believe, or “buy in” to what you’re selling.”
Both Harbaugh and Saban are capable of doing that; however, most people would say Michigan’s head ball coach is anything but a quietly confident leader. Check out the rap video he starred in on YouTube if you haven’t had a chance to do so yet.
Carter obviously believes that personality has an impact on recruiting, but it plays a very small part in the grand scheme of bringing talent to a program. In fact, even Saban’s collection of Alabama football national championships are only a part of what draws players to the Capstone.
“If you don’t develop talent, if you don’t win games, if you don’t send guys to the NFL, then you’re not going to get the recruits, period.”
Develop talent? Check.
Send guys to the NFL? Check
Win games? Check, check, check, and check.
Top it off with a couple of SEC titles and national championship trophies, and at the end of the day, whether or not “millennials” find your personality attractive doesn’t matter.
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Nick Saban may not be everyone’s favorite coach, but the Alabama football program doesn’t have any problem landing top recruits. Bottom line? Guys want to play where they’re going to win, and where they have the biggest opportunity to pursue the sport at the next level.
Pretty sure Alabama football has all of that covered. Roll Tide.