The Football Bowl Subdivision (do we need to re-name this in the playoff era? I vote yes.) saw 24 new head coaches hired this off-season, which includes a couple of interim tags that were removed for the full-time gig back in December.
Remember, the new Big 12 debuts this season which is going to change the landscape a little bit. Most especially, things are going to be quite different in the AAC with a ton of coaching turnover which is where we start for today’s grades.
The American
Charlotte – Biff Poggi
Grade: D-
Firing Will Healy for a guy named Biff? Our guy Biff is this big, overweight man who was a former investment banker with a face that looks like he’s been BS-ing his way through life. He was a Maryland high school coach for a long time, spent some time at Michigan as an analyst and associate head coach, but has no real experience in college. With the step up from Conference USA, this smells like Charlotte is going to be looking for a new coach within a year or two.
Florida Atlantic – Tom Herman
Grade: B
The Tom Herman Reclamation Project™ is beginning. It worked for Lane Kiffin so maybe there’s a common thread for these coaches getting it done at FAU. Although, you have to worry about Herman in Boca Raton and living in wider Florida generally speaking. He could have this team humming quickly but run into other problems.
Navy – Brian Newberry
Grade: B
I’m excited we don’t have to type Coach N’s name anymore. What can Navy do, realistically speaking? They were going to stay a triple option offense but Newberry has been DGT™ with the defense. So, it made sense to make him the leader and bring in a triple option offensive coordinator. Job done.
North Texas – Eric Morris
Grade: C+
Most weren’t expecting this job to open up. North Texas decided to change directions and go with 37-year old Mike Leach disciple Eric Morris who was briefly the interim Texas Tech OC, former Incarnate Word head coach, and had been OC at Washington State in 2022. It’s an okay hire with decent potential if he gets the Mean Green offense going strong.
South Florida – Alex Golesh
Grade: B-
You wonder how much Golesh has ridden the coattails of Josh Heupel at UCF (2020) and at Tennessee (2021-22) but you have to like the association either way. Then again, offense hasn’t been much of an issue for the Bulls who were 2nd to last in defensive scoring allowing 41.2 points per game in 2022. Golesh hired Todd Orlando to handle the defense who, once upon a time, was viewed as a rising star but hasn’t done terribly well in recent seasons.
Tulsa – Kevin Wilson
Grade: D+
Wilson was thoroughly mediocre to bad during his 6 years as head coach at Indiana. For the last 6 years he’s been an assistant at Ohio State riding coattails, I presume. He has the feeling of someone who works well with a smaller role surrounded by more talent (definitely the case at his stops with Oklahoma and OSU!) and doesn’t move the needle as a head coach getting a second chance.
UAB – Trent Dilfer
Grade: C+
This looks and feels weird.
I’ve liked Dilfer a lot as a commentator in the media and with his involvement with the Elite 11 quarterback camps. He’s really good in those roles. I don’t really understand jumping into college coaching for the very first time (or UAB hiring him) when he’s turning 51 coming up in March. This has been a sneaky good program doing a sneaky good job and as they make the jump up from Conference USA I thought they could’ve gone with someone more proven.
ACC
Louisville – Jeff Brohm
Grade: B+
Things had really stagnated at Louisville for a while, even in a conference where it wasn’t that difficult to rise up and make some noise in recent seasons. Brohm had been doing a pretty good job at Purdue, certainly better compared to Louisville’s recent track record, and he’s a former son coming back to his roots. This was a smart hire.
Georgia Tech – Brent Key*
Grade: C-
Key took over as interim head coach this past season and actually got a nice little bounce from the program while winning 4 games. I think that was maybe more to do with addition by subtraction with Geoff Collins being an absolute dork who didn’t endear himself to many players. Key is a Tech alum, too. I’m just not sure going from a defensive guy to a career offensive line coach is going to do much at such a tough place to win.
Big 12
Cincinnati – Scott Satterfield
Grade: C+
Satterfield’s career has been weird. He was an extremely hot name after his run at Appalachian State, won ACC Coach of the Year in his debut season at Louisville, then largely took one big dump with the Cardinals since 2020. He’s also given off extremely weird corrupt pastor-type of vibes that I can’t explain but fit well in the South, but less so in Cincinnati. With the step up to the Big 12, and the change from a defensive-first program, I don’t see this going very well.
Big Ten
Nebraska – Matt Rhule
Grade: B-
Part of this grade was Nebraska landing “a name” which they did. But, are we sure Rhule is that good? Is he worth 8 years and $74 million? What’s his specialty and what is he good at again? He went 1-9 against ranked teams at Baylor and his stock seemed way out of proportion to his achievements which showed during his .289 win percentage with the Carolina Panthers. I’m selling him being able to move the needle much at Nebraska.
Purdue – Ryan Walters
Grade: B
I applaud the gray suit choice.
With Purdue’s long history of offense and head coaching hires revolving around offense, this was a bit of a head scratching hire. They were in the mix for some guys usually right down their historical aisle but took a chance on the young Walters as a defensive mind. His track record as the DC at Illinois went pretty damn well and maybe it’ll translate well to Purdue?
Wisconsin – Luke Fickell
Grade: A
It seemed like Wisconsin was ready to keep defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard but curiously moved on from keeping the alum after a brief interim stint. But, it made sense when the Badgers swooped in and plucked Fickell away from Cincinnati. The program gets to keep the defensive acumen at a high level and brings in the incredible social experiment of Phil Longo’s Air Raid to spice things up. This is the type of big swing that is worth it, unlike Nebraska’s approach which I’d like to point out again.
Conference-USA
Liberty – Jamey Chadwell
Grade: A-
This was a great hire for Liberty who had been toiling away as an independent and are moving up to Conference USA this season. Or should I say moving down? Anyway, Chadwell was 31-6 over the last 3 seasons at Coastal Carolina and it felt like he could’ve done better than this Liberty job. That’s a win for the Flames, though.
MAC
Kent State – Kenni Burns
Grade: B
This job wasn’t expected to be open (Kent State was 17-17 since 2020 and won the their division in 2021) then head coach Sean Lewis bolted to be Coach Prime’s offensive coordinator in Colorado. Kenni Burns comes from the P.J. Fleck coaching tree and found a lot of success overseeing running backs for Minnesota and their record breaking Mohamed Ibrahim. This is a sold hire.
Western Michigan – Lance Taylor
Grade: B+
Taylor could thrive in the MAC.
Our old friend Lance gets a head coaching gig after 1 season away from Notre Dame. For a bit, it looked like he was in the running to get the Louisville job (where he had been OC) which would’ve been one heck of a rise for him. He’ll be an upgrade over Tim Lester whose 6 seasons in Kalamazoo dissipated all of the momentum from the P.J. Fleck era.
Mountain West
UNLV – Barry Odom
Grade: C+
Odom was fired at Missouri in 2019 after 4 lackluster seasons and pivoted to a few seasons as the defensive coordinator at Arkansas where his unit trailed the Hogs’ offense by quite a bit. Technically, UNLV is bringing in someone with a decade of SEC experience and you can spin that as good if that’s all you’re looking for in the mighty Mountain West.
Pac-12
Arizona State – Kenny Dillingham
Grade: B+
I have to give Arizona State credit for doing a complete 180 in moving on from the failed tenure of Herm Edwards and turning to the soon-to-be 33-year old Dillingham who played for the Sun Devils and was an offensive assistant (2014-15) at his alma mater to star his college coaching career. In recent years, Dillingham has put together impressive coordinator jobs at Memphis, Auburn, Florida State, and Oregon prior to getting a Power 5 job. He’s relatively well known in college football circles but really has a chance to become the next offensive superstar head coach with a good tenure in the desert.
Colorado – Deion Sanders
Grade: B
He goes by Coach Prime, check the name tag okay?
This hire has been lauded nearly everywhere in the media and it’s certainly a move that will take Colorado from an after-thought to splashed all over the 24/7 media coverage that exists in this sport. Still, the Colorado 2023 schedule is very tough and could bring a lot of losses and frustration for someone who is used to winning so easily in the SWAC. Plus, Sanders is going to face a very tough time managing so many new players, many of whom are chasing NIL and the glamour of being coached by Prime. That will probably get pretty damn messy.
Stanford – Troy Taylor
Grade: C
On the surface, this looked like a terrible hire. Taylor entered college coaching in 1995, later switched to California high school football, then took a long break to become a radio broadcaster before returning to high school coaching. In 2019, he took the Sacramento State job and put up some big offensive numbers while coming very close to a National Championship this past season. Taylor still faces a huge roster rebuild, with all the difficulties of handling Stanford’s admissions in the NIL era, and is a relatively unknown commodity in college football.
SEC
Auburn – Hugh Freeze
Grade: F
Most of the country would say this hire isn’t worth it, but not Auburn. Freeze had a 10-3 season at Arkansas State, a 10-3 season at Ole Miss, and a 10-1 season at Liberty. In his other 7 seasons as a head coach he is 53-36. Why would they be convinced the scummy Freeze is worth a 6-year deal worth nearly $40 million? This is the SEC, baby.
Mississippi State – Zach Arnett*
Grade: B
The Bulldogs lost head coach Mike Leach suddenly before their bowl game and the program kept defensive coordinator Zach Arnett onboard with a 3-year contract to be their new leader. It kind of felt like they didn’t have much of a choice after Leach’s death but Arnett’s track record at the school has been quietly super fantastic. The year before his arrival, Mississippi State was 61st in FEI defense and Arnett improved that mark to 39th, then 33rd, and all the way to 13th this past season.
Sun Belt
Coastal Carolina – Tim Beck
Grade: D
Tim Beck is kind of synonymous with coordinating underachieving Power 5 offenses at Nebraska and Texas. He’d been at NC State for 3 seasons where he coached rising quarterback star Devin Leary which resulted in only the 54th FEI offense in 2021 and when Leary got hurt this past season they dipped down to 96th according to FEI. Perhaps something to think about when believing it’s impossible for Tommy Rees to get a head coaching job somewhere soon. Coastal Carolina thought Tim Beck was pretty cool, I guess.
Texas State – G.J. Kinne
Grade: B+
Once upon a time, Kinne was the Tulsa quarterback in 2010 for that game at Notre Dame. He’s still quite young (just turned 34) and has worked under some big names in college including Gus Malzahn, Chad Morris, and Sonny Dykes before taking the Incarnate Word head coaching job prior to 2022. Kinne took the Cardinals all the way to the national semi-finals (beating new Stanford head coach Troy Taylor in the quarterfinals) while averaging 51.5 points per game. He might be a name to keep an eye on for the future.
I agree with Fickell and Wisconsin being the best hire and fit. I’m skeptical on them turning to the air raid, but I guess it’s 2023 and no one wants to be left behind, so I get why the change could be a positive one. But I would think for them with their location and advantages, that’s power running, OL monster country – base yourselves like Notre Dame or (sigh) that other team in the Big 10 that does well there. But I guess if you try to be too much like Michigan you might slip and end up being something closer to Iowa’s offense, and no one wants that.
Regarding Deion, I think Colorado will end up well in five years if we look back at this as a B. Gotta be a big chance that he can’t manage/administrate such a major program and it goes off the rails. Or if he does do well, surely he’s going to jump to a more desirable location/program anyways. I guess, hey you’re Colorado, one of the most irrelevant P5 places around, why not go along for the ride and see what happens, and I like taking a chance…Just not sure what I see a good payoff is for their program in the medium to long-term for this one, with a much bigger chance that there’s some pain/disaster along the way.
Yeah. I think that was an A hire for Colorado. They are at rock bottom, so you’re fishing for low level candidates. Coach Prime will at worst improve the talent level by a huge amount.
Don’t really feel like it’s a great landing spot for him though. Seems like he could have coached one more year and landed a low level SEC job.
I had the same thought. Did he have a connection to Colorado? Seemed like a random jump.
We shall see. Everything about Coach Prime screams self-serving grifter to me.
ESPN desperately wanted Colorado to hire him, and not because that’s in Colorado’s best interest.
True, but self-serving grifters can still create positive results for those around them (i.e. Dabo). While I doubt Deion will raise Colorado Football’s long-term profile, it’s not like it could get any worse. This is a pretty low-risk, high-upside move for them.
That’s true. Nowhere to go but up for the Buffs
I don’t see how that upside lasts, but I guess it could be fun to go along for the ride if it works. Like you said, not like they have anything to lose anyways.
I live about 10 miles from the Colorado campus and boy are they excited about Prime. And, in true Lincoln Riley fashion, he’s got some transfers coming in and bumped up their recruiting at the last minute.
I just can’t figure out why Prime wanted to come here other than that he’s impatient for the big payday. Maybe he sniffed out other schools and they didn’t want him since everyone pretty much knows Prime is loyal to Prime and nothing else.
I suspect it’s a desperation move for Colorado since they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t. If Prime succeeds, he’s gone in 2 years, I guarantee it because someone will dangle better money and facilities in front of him. If he fails, then I guess their damnation is just to go back to the hopeless pit of despair in which they’ve been living for quite some time (and which I have enjoyed greatly). So maybe it’s not so bad for them if he fails since it wasn’t going to get any better.
Hard to believe that Nebraska hired Rhule at that salary – eight years at $72 million. While it’s backended, that’s probably due to the largess that will be coming to B10 media contract plus the buyout of Frost ($5 million a year for the next two years).
That annual salary negates almost all of what Carolina owes him ($40 million for five more years). Nebraska average contract salary – $9 mil. Carolina – $8 million. Rhule is now in the top ten in head coaches average salaries nationally. Backending it means Rhule will still get some Carolina buyout money.
Reminds me of what Ed Orgeron said when he was fired by LSU.
According to him,”They said, ‘Coach, you’ve got $17.1 million on your contract. We’re gonna give it to you.’
“I said, ‘What time do you want me to leave and what door do you want me out of, brother?'”
Rhule should have gone to Thailand with Kingsbury
I think the Kevin Wilson grade is really the only one that is fairly off the mark. He took IU football to bowl games in back to back seasons, after the school had 1 single bowl appearance in the 20 years before his arrival. While he was at Oklahoma as OC, their offense was incredible (he won the Broyles award in 2008). If he has learned to not mistreat his players, he’s got a shot to be a great hire for Tulsa. At the very least, he will make their offense fun.
I don’t understand the Stanford hire at all. I thought it was dumb when they were reportedly interviewing Jason Garrett, and then they went and hired an even weirder candidate.
My hot take is that they might as well have hired Garrett rather than an FCS coach. Even though he’s weird and dorky, that makes him a fit for Stanford. By all accounts, Garrett was a very good administrator and good process coach with the Cowboys. No college experience, might not have worked, but I get the feeling there was a chance it could have been OK there. Not to the levels Harbaugh got them or anything, but I could see Garrett at Stanford going like 7-5, 8-4 fairly consistently and doing enough to get by without seriously chasing down high levels of success.
No weirder than Harbaugh when they hired him. Taylor is a lifelong west coast guy who did well at Sacramento State. I think Stanford hired pretty well considering the state of their program.
Garrett would have been a disaster. I wish they hired him.
Me: Taylor is a dumb hire, Garrett would have been slightly less dumb.
Hooks: Taylor is a dumb hire, Garrett would have been good.
ACS: Taylor is a good hire, Garrett would have been dumb.
Truly the full spectrum of 18Stripes opinions on Stanford’s hire here.
well good thing we can all find common ground on things like tommy rees
While funny, I meant Garrett could have been (somewhat) good there, which reads way differently than “would”.
you just wanted to see JG install the naked boot nude leg action playbook (nudity)
/offensive coordinator jac collinsworth trying to figure out which one is the line of scrimmage
//naked
Rhule is at least a logical hire for Nebraska. He’s a rebuild specialist (at least in college) and had both Temple and Baylor winning 10+ games by his third season. If nothing else, he’s a break from Nebraska just hiring Not The Last Guy in a fit of pique.
IMO, the real question will be what happens 3-6 years from now if he’s going 9-4, 10-3, 8-5 and not winning much of consequence — basically Pelini 2.0. Will Nebraska freak out and blow everything up again?
rhule is a very weird guy who has a penchant for lying for no good reason in press conferences and interviews
i’m interested to see how that meshes with nebby
Nebraska really needs to get over wanting the coach to be their friend.
an outside of the box weird little guy like rhule could be really good for that! he is not a nebraska man
unless there’s been a smock renaissance that i missed
in terms of actual coaching i think he’ll do a pretty solid job there but we haven’t seen him in like an actual real extended stay
is the B1G getting rid of divisions? that could hurt a bit
From what I can tell, he never beat a single ranked team while at Baylor. If he’s got the record you’re showing but beating 0 ranked teams, I can’t see Nebraska fans putting up with that. Nebraska fans’ unrealistic expectations for their program are absolutely wild.
I also think Rhule is a really good hire for them and the kind of guy who can right the ship. I think the other concern for Nebraska has to be that he has a few good years, Penn State finally moves on from Franklin and then he gets poached away.
Penn State just won the Rose Bowl. Is there really any sort of likelihood Franklin gets run out of town any time soon?
Jeremy Chadwell coached two different stints at Charleston Southern and had a stay at North Greenville
beginning to feel like he has a type
From Rhule and his agent’s viewpoint and considering his backend loaded contract with Carolina, he should be making about $7.5 million this year ($5.5 from Nebraska, and $2 mill from Carolina), up to $9.5 million in year three and escalating to $12.5 million in 2030. Freeze will be making $6.6 a year for the seven year length of his contract. I imagine it’s fully guaranteed. No info on his assistant coaches salaries to compare with Frost’s. (Carolina may owe him just $6 mill and I’m calculating it over three years.)
I don’t see Nebraska being able to make some of that up in increased attendance, as many of those new hires may be expected to do. Looking at the attendance figures for just the P5 schools where the coach was fired (not those who left or the Miss St situation), lagging attendance seems to be the norm for most new hires with an expectation the new coach will make up some of the contract salaries with increased attendance.
2022 FBS Attendance Trends
Along those lines, year over year Kansas attendance is up over 95% and over five year period up over 68%. Donor money would be expected to increase, too. The Leipold hire and his new contract is a home run hire. Perhaps the Sanders hire will similarly pay for itself with increased attendance, though there may be limits on how much he can raise the program to compete for titles.
Nebraska fans are pretty loyal, their fan base is pretty consistent at the games. The closest NFL team is Denver, Kansas City or Minneapolis, depending on where you live in the state. Everyone that can shows up for the home games in Lincoln. So Rhule won’t make up any of that money in increase attendance, but my guess is, attendance won’t drop either.
I think NE overpaid Rhule based on what results they will most likely get out of him. However, probably a better hire than the extension MI st did with Tucker. I expect similar results our of Rhule that I think Wisconsin will get with Fickell. It wouldn’t surprise me to see both coaches competing for the West division in 2023.
In 2024 when USC and UCLA come into the conference, who knows?
Right. The residents are extremely loyal to the Huskers. I doubt anyone there goes to Denver or Minneapolis as fans, maybe to Chiefs games which is a six hour drive round trip down the interstate. Great game day atmosphere in a college town.
Dips in attendance was not really a factor in changing coaches in Lincoln which is more similar to Auburn and Wisconsin than to Colorado or Arizona State (1 year and 5 year periods above). Those decreases in gate receipts as a factpr are especially true for the G5 teams who fired their HCs – and one determinant in new hires. A 6-6 team like Kansas can generate the excitement and significant jump in attendance.
The other side of the LA teams leaving the Pac 10 or 12 or… is that the hires in Dillingham and Sanders will be their third year at that time and with a better chance to play for championships, especially in the new era of transfers. Solid additions to a conference that already has some excellent coaches.