It can effectively describe the slew of college coaches who didn’t make it as NFL head coaches. They succeeded in college because of recruiting and schemes effective within the context of NCAA limitations. In the NFL, the talent parity and hyper-scheming of everybody was above their level of competence. (Vice versa for Charlie Weis, who is too pure of a schemer and underprepared for the other particulars of college head coaching.)

Then there are defensive coordinators like Mike Nolan at Denver, who weren’t good head coaches but are absolutely lethal as coordinators because they can focus on the things they are good at. Orgeron is the Peter Principle in action. He’s so good and relentless as a recruiter and a D-line coach that placing him as a head coach is a waste of his best talents.

Because of the differences in job requirements, quality at head coaching isn’t directly tied to quality at a coordinator’s position. Really, that’s also why we can’t claim much about Lane’s time in Oakland other than that he has had an opportunity to learn. Even if he had head coached the Raiders to a Super Bowl or two (don’t laugh; go with the hypothetical) prior to coming to Tennessee, we couldn’t say that his skills would translate back to college head coaching.

And now you’ve dragged me into it…