This article was originally published with The Red & Black on July 28, 2015 and can be found here.

Football in the Southeastern Conference boils down to winning. If you don’t grab enough victories, changes will be made. That has certainly been the mindset of several head coaches this offseason.

In 2014, Georgia’s Jeremy Pruitt, Arkansas’ Robb Smith and Vanderbilt’s David Kotulski were the only new defensive coordinators in the Southeastern Conference. This season, there will be eight if you include Vanderbilt head coach Derek Mason absorbing Kotulski’s position.

 

A motivation for more than half the conference making changes is parity in college football. If something is working somewhere else, you adopt it as your own.

It’s why assistant coaches for successful head coaches land premier jobs. Athletic directors want to bottle what worked with the coach’s previous team. Defensive coordinators are expected to climb the coaching ladder to bigger programs while delivering better results with their new players.

Texas A&M head coach Kevin Sumlin spoke ofthis imitation game when asked about John Chavis. Chavis was the defensive coordinator at LSU for six years before the Aggies hired him this offseason. The Aggies were 0-4 when playing the Tigers during that time, leaving some to say Sumlin made the hire to remove one of his foe’s best weapons.

Sumlin wholeheartedly confirmed the motive.

“That’s exactly what I did,” Sumlin said. “It’s a great fit for us and a great fit for him. We were in the market, obviously, and here’s a guy who’s got a tremendous track record in the SEC and recently in the SEC West.”

Sumlin’s approach is comparable to what Georgia head coach Mark Richt did in January 2014. When Georgia defensive coordinator Todd Grantham left for the same position at Louisville, Richt hired Pruitt after his first season as a defensive coordinator. Although Pruitt spent his lone year as a coordinator with Florida State, he previously coached at Alabama under Nick Saban from 2007 to 2012.

The Crimson Tide won three national championships during that time, so it’s easy to see Richt’s strategy in this case. He hired Pruitt to build Georgia defenses the same way Saban and Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart built their own. The Bulldogs showed signs of progress in Pruitt’s first year on the job, and there is optimism that the former Alabama assistant will bring even more success in the future.

Although matching opponents is often a catalyst for change, sometimes it’s more about timing for both sides.

No situation matches that better than Auburn‘s new defensive coordinator Will Muschamp.

The Tigers struggled down the stretch defensively last year and gave up 34 points or more in four of their last five games. Meanwhile, Florida head coach Will Muschamp suffered through another subpar season in Gainesville and was fired on Nov. 16.

With one of the hottest defensive coordinators and a former Auburn assistant now available, Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn found the timing impeccable. He fired defensive coordinator Ellis Johnson two weeks later and began pursuing Muschamp.

 Although rumors swirled that Muschamp would go to South Carolina or Texas A&M, his eventual reunion with the Tigers showed it was all about being at the right place at the right time.

Malzahn wasn’t shy in showing appreciation for his new defensive coordinator.

“In the offseason we hired Will Muschamp, in my opinion, the best defensive mind in all of football,” Malzahn said. “Our defensive players have taken on his personality, which I really like. I would put this staff against any in college football.”

The last reason for change can be explained with a joke. A retiring head coach met his successor and handed the young man three envelopes.

“Open these envelopes if you run into something you can’t handle,” the old coach said.

His first six games on the job are a disaster, and the media is calling for his job. The man remembers the three envelopes and quickly opens the first one.

“Blame your predecessor,” it read.

The writers accept the idea and leave him to his work. The next season is even rougher than the first, and the coach can’t sleep at night. He shuffles through his desk and finds the second envelope.

“Fire your assistants,” it read.

He brings in new assistants, but the results remain the same. His team continues to get pummeled, and it looks like he’s almost out of time. In desperation, the coach tears open the third envelope, hoping for a way to make it all better.

“Prepare three envelopes,” it read.

Vanderbilt head coach Derek Mason reached envelope No. 2 in his first year with the Commodores. The team’s defense struggled in Kotulski’s only year as defensive coordinator, as Vanderbilt finished the season with a 3-9 record and stood  at 104th in points allowed.

 Mason’s predecessor, James Franklin, set the bar extremely high for Vanderbilt, and it was clear from the season-opening 37-7 loss to Temple the results would not be the same.

The departures of Kotulski as well as offensive coordinator Karl Dorrell bought Mason more time. While it was unrealistic he would be fired one year into the job, the team’s struggles put unavoidable pressure on Mason.

The problem now is he is the defensive coordinator, which means there are no more scapegoats on that side of the ball. Firing coordinators can be a quick fix at times, but it can’t save any head coach’s job in the long run.

The many new defensive coordinators are a result of the cyclical nature of coaching at the collegiate level. The coaching changes were up this offseason, but it’s unfair to expect anything close to that in January 2016. Coaches are given leniency early on; it’s only fair to allow time to build something spectacular. As we saw this time, once that brief grace period has come and gone, you can expect vacancies to pop up.