As a nearly retired educator who loves college football, I have all of these off-season questions that make me think..hmmm.
Analogy- I worked for what used to be a very well known cafeteria for 8.5 years, in the 1990s.. It was a total beating, but I learned to cook and run a business in 3-4 years. I stayed too long, ate too much delicious food. During that time asst. mgrs and assoc. mgrs worked 70+ hours per week, totally oblivious to the outside world. GM's for the most part worked 35-40 hours per week and made big $. When our CEO checked into a Motel 6 in San Antonio one year and cut his own throat to kill himself in the early morning hours, mgrs. did not flee the company like crazy. We kept on working. Why? We were too tired to leave or were totally brainwashed to ignore the outside world? I finally left years later after family events made it happen.
Do the assistant coaches have much of a say in what the gameplan will be? Iow, assume they are working 80+ hour weeks, similar to my mgt. job. Example, flashback to November 1983, and Coach Fred Akers has been tinkering with the QB lineup all season. It comes down to the Aggy game and Akers decides on the golden-armed Rick McIvor. Rick throws 4 TD passes, totally surprising aggy, and we win 45-13 to finish 11-0.
We're on the verge of a NC, after we win against Georgia in the CB. Pretend there is a meeting after the game and If an asst. coach said something like, "You know Georgia's probably working on nothing but McIvor for the next five weeks," would that have gained any traction with any of the top coaches?
I don't think anybody would have given it a second thought, but we will never know.
For younger people, McIvor was still accurate passing on a very blustery, windy, day at the CB, which is known for tough winds, Ward missed two FGs, and we dropped probably 7+ passes. Had Akers come out with the running QB, Rob Moerschell, in the 2nd half, Georgia would have been totally surprised, we would have scored at least a TD to go ahead by a comfortable margin, and we would never have to endure the nightmare of the dropped punt. One national championship missed.
There are plenty of other examples of what ifs that would lead us to many more national championships. Go to the recent one, of course. Ohio St. knew the play that was coming at the 2 yard line. How? Why were we at a coaching disadvantage at the 2 yard line, but we were at a coaching advantage the entire game against their wide receivers? Are defensive coaches just smarter than offensive coaches? Do we not scout ourselves? Or is that even a thing?
Same scenario of questions - our OL vs. OhioSt. DL. Are we always going to be at a coaching disadvantage, or is this just one game when Ohio St. had better coaches? Does anybody think Ohio St. just had better players?
I think we are exactly where we need to be wrt NIL and players. We just need to improve our coaching. I'm not keeping track exactly but I bet the tush-push has about a 99% accuracy rating for getting one yard. We just need someone to run it.