Why some football coaches are ditching college jobs for the NFL
Recent changes in college football are prompting some long-time college coaches to more eagerly pursue NFL opportunities. One of them is Saints first-year defensive backs coach Terry Joseph, who says he loved working in college football for most of the past 19 years. But he left the Texas Longhorns because of how recruiting had changed since recent rule changes liberalizing player movement and payments. Joseph and other long-time college coaches say those changes have largely ended the days when lifelong relationships could be built out of years of mentoring and developing players. They say college coaches now constantly must monitor whether players they’d successfully recruited previously are looking to leave for better financial or playing-time opportunities.