The writers of Coach really had a no-win situation. The best part about the show was that he was taking a team of nobodies and trying to turn a football program around at a fictitious school that supposedly had a once great football program. Minnesota State was the underdog. They started out taking things slow. They didn't rush into making them champions. In th first season they were happy to just get a few wins. Then they made it to their first Bowl game (where they got killed in a blizzard). Then Hayden beat his mentor and won his first Bowl game. This culminated in the team winning the national championship.
That is where the trouble began and the producers knew it. Where do they go from there? Sure, the team trying to defend their championship was enough to sustain one season. But that was it. The main reason for the shows existence was gone.
So what did the writers do in a last ditch effort? They give Hayden another bunch of underdogs, an expansion NFL team. It just didn't work. Coach (the show) was about Minnesota State. Not Florida. The shows really lost a lot of quality after that move. It was a classic example of a show that should have gone out on top a season or two earlier.
