Rhetorical question of course. Dude managed to be a head coach(or at least fake it) in the NFL for 9 years. I guess the real question is, is he better than Tedford? If so, how much better? Had talent up the wazoo at Cal: Pat Barnes, Deltha O, Tony G. Jeremey Newberry, Brandon Whiting, Bobby Shaw, Longwell, Tarik Glenn, Dameane Douglas, Nail Benjamin, Matt Beck. Yet managed only a 6-6 record with a loss to Navy in the Aloha Bowl.

Good offensive coach, but had very little on the defensive side that one year. Little did we know that when Mooch came up with the rallying cry, "It's all of us against all of them" that season, the "us" referred to the Mariucci family.

I think you are asking was Steve a good Head Coach and in my opinion thats different than asking if he was in general a good coach. Steve is/was a very good football coach.

Steve related to the players and explained what was expected of the players in a very understandable manner. Great energy and attitude and a team guy.

In 1990 and 1991 he did a very nice job as our offensive coordinator.

now you got me playing "what if" again....what if he had stayed at Cal a few seasons?

Never forget the look in his eye after being elevated to OC, I asked him if we were finally going to run outside. With Russell White in mind, he said "Oh Yeah, definitely". And I'll never forget the game plan he put together for the '92 Citrus Bowl - ran wide back and forth time after time, sweeps, hitch passes, every possible way to get the ball outside and make the Clemson lineman run, run and run some more. By the end of the first half they were wasted and then Russell White had his way with them, inside outside, wherever. It was the single greatest game plan I've ever seen. Didn't hurt that current entering frosh B. Treggs' daddy ran a punt back all the way in the first quarter to set the mood. Mooch knows football. Didn't stay around long enough to show what he could do as HC for us.
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Also threw the ball for the first 8-10 plays in that game--completely fooled Clemson. Russell got most of his rushing yds in the 2nd half when McGlockton et al could barely run.

I really think Mooch had the makings of a great young college football coach. Great, positive, energy, creative---if we had just promoted him when Snyder left..

I won't comment on Mooch as a head coach, but see my YouTube links below.

But I just wanted to point out that not only did he have a 9-year NFL coaching career, but he has a nice, perhaps cushy, job with the NFL Network.

The head of NFL Films once called him "our Brad Pitt."

Very entertaining offense, terrible defense---wonder if he could have built up our defense? Certainly he had potential. We were a couple of Pat Barnes fumbles (one very
questionable at the end of the bowl game vs. Navy) from being 8-4 that year.

The terrible defense in Mooch's only year as HC was Tom Holmoe. Which was another reason why Holmoe's elevation was so questionable. Now, the Bears defense did later improve when Holmoe was HC while the offense disappeared. As in when the offensive game plan seemed to be to have Deltha to run punts and interceptions back for touchdowns.

So, blame Mooch for picking the wrong staff.

IMO, he was not nearly as good as most on this board believe but, unfortunately, we never got the chance to find out.

Yeah, he was a good coach. Not a great coach or anything, but better than most. The season he had at Cal was better than what anyone did before or after him, and he did a good job with the 49ers (Jed York fired him because Jed York is an idiot). He crashed and burned with Detroit, but that entire organization was such a mess at the time that I think most coaches would have failed there.

sycasey;841902221 said:

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Yeah, he was a good coach. Not a great coach or anything, but better than most. The season he had at Cal was better than what anyone did before or after him, and he did a good job with the 49ers (Jed York fired him because Jed York is an idiot). He crashed and burned with Detroit, but that entire organization was such a mess at the time that I think most coaches would have failed there.

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Mariucci did a better job than Gilby or Holmoe, but Snyder and Tedford certainly both surpassed what Mooch did in his single season.

TorBear;841902228 said:

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Mariucci did a better job than Gilby or Holmoe, but Snyder and Tedford certainly both surpassed what Mooch did in his single season.

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Good summary. I would add Mike White and Ray Wilsey to the list of coaches who surpassed Mooch. I would add Marv Levy to the coaches who were worse (but only Levy's college years not his Pro years)

68great;841902234 said:

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Good summary. I would add Mike White and Ray Wilsey to the list of coaches who surpassed Mooch. I would add Marv Levy to the coaches who were worse (but only Levy's college years not his Pro years)

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Mooch was weighed down by the worst defense in D1, "coordinated" by Tom Holmoe. I really think Mooch had a lot of the qualities you would look for in a young D1 college football coach and if the Niners had not poached him, he would have fired that defensive coordinator (recommended to him by Bill Walsh) and easily had as much success as Snyder and Tedford. Maybe more. Snyder ran up against a dominant UW and Tedford a dominant SC (and now Oregon). The late 90s/early 2000s (pre-Carrol USC) was a really weak time in the Pac-10. Deltha O'Neal almost beat that Rose Bowl bound Stanford team by himself. I think Mooch would have taken us to a Rose Bowl in that era. Holmoe was that bad. It is part of what made that 2002 turnaround look so spectacular.

TorBear;841902228 said:

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Mariucci did a better job than Gilby or Holmoe, but Snyder and Tedford certainly both surpassed what Mooch did in his single season.

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True, but given a sense of where the program as a whole was during Mooch's time it's probably fairer to compare him to the seasons immediately around him than to seasons that happened well before or well after.

Again, I think he was good but not great. We'll never know what he might have done with more seasons at Cal, but I think he would have wound up with a winning record.

Great motivator and rah rah guy. "The 4th Quarter is Ours!". He told this story about a water pump that always got the guys pumped up. The collapse at the end of the season and then bailing to go to the Niners always left a bad taste. Plus he brought Holmoe to the program. Ugh.

sycasey;841902221 said:

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Yeah, he was a good coach. Not a great coach or anything, but better than most. The season he had at Cal was better than what anyone did before or after him, and he did a good job with the 49ers (Jed York fired him because Jed York is an idiot). He crashed and burned with Detroit, but that entire organization was such a mess at the time that I think most coaches would have failed there.

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What????....Jed York wasn't even in the picture at the time. He only became the Niners president in 2008. You must mean his parents since they are the ones who blew everything. Jed York has been a God send for Niner football. I think it was because Mariucci and Terry Donahue who was just plain lame butted heads big time and Mooch lost the battle....

sycasey;841902285 said:

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True, but given a sense of where the program as a whole was during Mooch's time it's probably fairer to compare him to the seasons immediately around him than to seasons that happened well before or well after.

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I agree, but it sounded a little more open-ended when you said, "The season he had at Cal was better than what anyone did before or after him."

Of course, the 49ers were a pretty good team that he inherited. Not a supreme test of coaching ability.

Cal_Fan2;841902334 said:

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What????....Jed York wasn't even in the picture at the time. He only became the Niners president in 2008. You must mean his parents since they are the ones who blew everything. Jed York has been a God send for Niner football. I think it was because Mariucci and Terry Donahue who was just plain lame butted heads big time and Mooch lost the battle....

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My bad. The other York.