The most famous football coach that isn't actually employed as a football coach has to be George Whitfield. Working with the likes of Johnny Manziel, Cam Newton, Robert Griffin III, Tajh Boyd, Braxton Miller and Logan Thomas, some have bought in to Whitfield's reputation as a quarterback guru. That reputation and clientele allowed Whitfield to get a job as a contributor on ESPN's College GameDay this fall.
If Urban Meyer, Kevin Sumlin, Frank Beamer and Dabo Swinney allow Whitfield to work with their quarterbacks while still on their respective rosters, he must be doing something right.
One quarterback who won't be joining Whitfield's list of proteges, though, is Auburn's Nick Marshall. Following reports that Marshall would work with Whitfield this summer, Gus Malzahn had this to say:
"We've never had anyone work with our quarterbacks while they still had eligibility," Malzahn told AL.com. "We feel really good about how we go about it and the success we've had before. There won't be anyone working with our quarterbacks until their eligibility is exhausted."
Malzahn's thinking is understandable and, quite frankly, I'm surprised more coaches don't take this stance - especially with their quarterbacks. A quarterback is a finely-tuned race car, and it's easy to see why control-freak coaches wouldn't want someone else tinkering with what's under the hood.
"You want them thinking exactly like you want them to think," Malzahn said. "When you get multiple people working, there's multiple thoughts, so we want them thinking one way."
Entering his ninth season as a college coach, Marshall will somehow be Malzahn's first multi-year starting quarterback. Considering Marshall was playing cornerback as recently as 2011, one can see why Auburn's head coach wants his quarterback exclusively enrolled in Malzahn University this summer. Who could know how to help his quarterbacks better than him?
I'm just surprised more coaches don't think the same way.