To be a successful college football coach, you need to spend 70% of your time recruiting and 30% coaching. For the pros you spend 80% of your time coaching and 20% handling personalities (good and bad) on your team and the owner. Two different management problems. Not surprised college coaches do poorly in the pros (i.e. Lou Holtz) and pro coaches do poorly in college (i.e., Charlie Weiss). One of the few that did it well in both was Jimmy Johnson. I talked to a lot of former “Landry” Cowboys who couldn’t stand Johnson. They described him as “Rah Rah”. When you look at what Johnson did was pretty much clean the stables in Dallas and start over with nothing but rookies (college players) who were probably still into the rah rah thing. Ultimately, Johnson failed to manage the owner and was gone. But he left with a ring and put the Cowboys on center stage for a decade. Not a bad resume. Mind you, this is a Redskins fan saying this.
Two rings actually, and I think if he had stayed he'd probably have had two more. The nucleus of talent was there - even Switzer managed to win a championship with that team.