The dust has finally settled and FBS college football has welcomed 22 new head coaches to their respective programs, a turnover rate of 16.9% nationally. Every conference except the MAC welcomes at least one new coach, while the FBS Independents also hold steady with their 7 current leaders.
There are 13 head coaches who have more seniority at their current school than Brian Kelly at Notre Dame, including: Kirk Ferentz (1999, Iowa), Gary Patterson (2000, TCU), Mike Gundy (2005, Oklahoma State), Frank Solich (2005, Ohio), Kyle Whittingham (2005, Utah), Pat Fitzgerald (2006, Northwestern), Rick Stockstill (2006, MTSU), Ken Niumatalolo (2007, Navy), Mark Dantonio (2007, Michigan State), Troy Calhoun (2007, Air Force), Nick Saban (2007, Alabama), Dabo Swinney (2008, Clemson), and David Cutcliffe (2008, Duke).
Before we jump into the new hires here’s a quick look at the best and worst hires of last year (so far):
Good
Scott Satterfield, Louisville (8-5)
Mack Brown, North Carolina (7-6)
Rod Carey, Temple (8-5)
Chris Klieman, K-State (8-5)
Ryan Day, Ohio State (16-1)*
Will Healy, Charlotte (7-6)
Tyson Helton, Western Kentucky (9-4)
Jim McElwain, Central Michigan (8-5)
*This includes his interim games from 2018.
Bad
Geoff Collins, Georgia Tech (3-9)
Manny Diaz, Miami (6-7)
Dana Holgorsen, Houston (4-8)
Mike Locksley, Maryland (3-9)
Walt Bell, UMass (1-11)
Tom Arth, Akron (0-12)
Scot Loeffler, BGSU (3-9)
Now for the new hires. This off-season collection does have a re-tread-ish feel to it mixed with a few promising and hyped coaches finally stepping up into the big leagues.
AAC
Memphis – Ryan Silverfield
USF – Jeff Scott
Silverfield takes over for Mike Norvell (who is coming up immediately below in the ACC) and inherits the high expectations in Memphis. His background was largely in the NFL before coming to Memphis as an assistant in 2016. The Tigers decided to promote from within.
Jeff Scott, also 39 years old like Silverfield, comes over to USF after a successful 12-year run at Clemson where he was wide receivers coach and later co-offensive coordinator for the Tigers. He also brought aboard Charlie Weis, Jr. to be his OC in Tampa. This feels like a high-ceiling hire at minimum which the Bulls should be excited about after the Charlie Strong Disappointment (CSD, for short).
ACC
Boston College – Jeff Hafley
Florida State – Mike Norvell
Hafley is a New Jersey native with a ton of ties to the Northeast (Siena, Albany, Rutgers, Pitt) as a player and young assistant coach. He spent 7 years in the NFL before coming back to college last year as Ohio State’s co-defensive coordinator and secondary coach.
Norvell comes to save Florida State after 30 wins since 2017 while at Memphis, including 3 division titles and one AAC championship. This appears to be a much better hire than the strange journey Willie Taggart took to Tallahassee last time around.
Big 12
Baylor – Dave Aranda
Here’s an interesting move that in 2017 would’ve felt like the unquestioned home-run hire of the year. Yet, Aranda’s stock kind of feels like it’s dipped a little bit coming off a National Championship that was overshadowed by Joe Burrow, Joe Brady, and others from the LSU offense. Still, Baylor has to be stoked to be able to recover from the burnt ashes left behind by Art Briles and move on to Matt Rhule then Aranda.
Big Ten
Rutgers – Greg Schiano
Here’s a re-tread hire, and honestly, if you’re Rutgers (12-47 record for a .203 winning percentage since 2015) why not at this point?
Conference-USA
FAU – Willie Taggart
Old Dominion – Ricky Rahne
UTSA – Jeff Traylor
They say water seeks its level and that seems to sum up the Willie Taggart coaching odyssey. He parlayed 20 losses across 3 seasons at Western Kentucky into the USF job where he started 7-21 but 2 years later found himself head coach at Oregon. Somehow, a 7-win season in Eugene was enough for Florida State who just paid a massive buyout after 1.5 seasons after witnessing 12 losses from 21 games. Now, Taggart is back in the G5 and realistically it’s not a bad landing spot for him in Boca Raton following up Lane Kiffin.
Rahne spent the last 6 seasons at Penn State and before that with Vanderbilt and Kansas State. Except for a 3-year period, Rahne has spent the last 14 years working with or under James Franklin. He inherits an intriguing job from long-time coach Bobby Wilder who was DGT™ after making the step up to FBS in 2013 (29-20 from 2013-17) but cratered to 9-15 over the last 2 seasons.
Traylor has quietly been a rising star in the coaching ranks. After spending a quarter century in Texas high school football he was plucked by Texas in 2015 where he spent 2 seasons before moving on to SMU for one year then the last 2 seasons at Arkansas. He’s walking into a tough job at UTSA where Larry Coker looked like he was getting things going back in 2012-13 (15-9) but the Roadrunners have been 22-46 over the last 6 seasons.
Mountain West
Colorado State – Steve Addazio
Fresno State – Kalen DeBoer
Hawaii – Todd Graham
New Mexico – Danny Gonzales
SDSU – Brady Hoke
UNLV – Marcus Arroyo
A new look Mountain West!
You have to admire Addazio’s consistency at Boston College while going 4-4 in ACC play in 5 out of his 7 seasons with the Eagles. They finally decided it was enough and Addazio was fired. He lands in Fort Collins way across the country which feels like an odd fit given his background on the east coast, primarily.
Kalen DeBoer has an interesting past. He was a player at D-2 Sioux Falls, started his coaching career there as an assistant, became their head coach in 2005 going an incredible 67-3 with 3 National Championships, then moved on to assistant jobs at Southern Illinois, Eastern Michigan, Fresno State, and one year at Indiana for 2019. He’s now back at Fresno as their main guy.
Todd Graham had taken the last 2 seasons off from coaching after being fired at Arizona State. He’ll now become a pesky thorn for many west coast teams as he lands at Hawaii.
New Mexico went back to their past hiring Danny Gonzales who was a former safety for the Lobos and an assistant for them for a decade to start his coaching career. He spent 7 years at SDSU before the last 2 seasons at Arizona State as the Sun Devils’ defensive coordinator.
Brady Hoke is a sneaky 61 years old and returns for his second stint at SDSU where he went 13-12 from 2009-10 before flaming out at Michigan. It still cracks me up that Hoke had losing seasons in 5 out of his 8 years as head coach before taking over the Wolverines.
UNLV seems like they made a good hire in Arroyo who had OC experience at Prairie View A&M, San Jose State, Wyoming, Southern Miss, and Oregon before landing in Las Vegas.
Pac-12
Washington – Jimmy Lake
Washington State – Nick Rolovich
Jimmy Lake had been a lieutenant under Chris Petersen for 8 years going back to their days at Boise State and was one of the top assistants in the country to watch for a head coaching gig. Petersen did him a solid and allowed him to step into the Washington job.
Rolovich spent 10 out his first 17 years as a coach with Hawaii where he was a 2-year starter at quarterback and became their head coach over the last 4 seasons. If you were Washington State and checked the national passing stats, Rolovich’s Hawaii teams were right behind the Cougars for most passes thrown so it seems like a good fit to keep the Air Raid going without Mike Leach.
SEC
Arkansas – Sam Pittman
Ole Miss – Lane Kiffin
Miss State – Mike Leach
Missouri – Eli Drinkwitz
Did anyone want the Arkansas job? For a while it appeared the players might have to run the program themselves. Instead, the Hogs hired Sam Pittman a 58-year old journeyman offensive line coach who has worked at 16 different programs through the years. He was recently with Georgia, and Arkansas for 3 years before that, and his only head coaching experience was with Hutchinson Community College back in 1992-93. Arkansas being good feels decades ago and this has to be a humbling hire for everyone involved.
The resume for Lane Kiffin will never not be amazing. USC assistant then later co-OC, to Oakland Raiders head coach, to Tennessee head coach, to USC head coach, to Alabama offensive coordinator, to Florida Atlantic head coach, and now back at the Power 5 level with Ole Miss.
It’s pretty amazing to think about the bizarre personality of Mike Leach and how he spent 10 seasons at Texas Tech and 8 more at Washingon State. Are we looking at a situation where he’s in the SEC with Mississippi State for a decade?
It didn’t seem that long ago (it was 4 years) that Drinkwitz was the young new OC coming over from Boise State and bringing quarterback Ryan Finley with him to NC State. He then parlayed 3 years with NC State into the head coaching gig at Appalachian State which he bolts after one season for the SEC.
Sun Belt
App State – Shawn Clark
Replacing Drinkwitz is Shawn Clark who has the distinction of being maybe the only head coach I’ve ever seen without a specific birth date on his Wiki page. It says 1974/75, so he’s either 44 or 45 years old you know whatever. As you’d expect, Clark has no head coaching experience and has been a long-time offensive line coach being promoted from within after spending the last 4 seasons with App State.
I don’t know why Kiffin’s face looks photoshopped.
Lane was actually unavailable for that press conference, so his good buddy Gavin Hawk/Cary Elwes took a break from “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” to fill in for him.
Doesn’t look as dready or piratey without the mustache
Or as thin.
Inigo Montoya: Who are you?
Lane Kiffin: No one of consequence.
Inigo Montoya: I must know…
Lane Kiffin: Get used to disappointment.
Aside from some Mountain West and SEC hires, most of these to me make a lot of sense.
Kinda feel like Mizzou hoodwinked themselves on Drinkwitz. 3 raccoons stacked on top of each other in a trenchcoat would have been primed for success at App St last year. Not sure what Drinkwitz proved there in 1 year inheriting the machine that Satterfield had setup. Maybe it will work out for him, but that’s one where I’m iffy. Addazio at CSU already seems like a total disaster compared to what they could have had.
It’ll be interesting to see Hafley at BC since Lea was in the running and now that Jurkovec is there….Also from looking at their schedule, I feel like they could/should be 8-4 even if they lose most their toughest games (Clem, LOU, @VaTech, @FSU) because the rest is really easy.
Apparently, CSU allowed Urban Meyer to quarterback their coaching search, which explains why they ended up with mediocre coach and ill-fitting dude (and also, conveniently, good friend of Urb) Addazio landing that job. I wonder what his finders’ fee was and suspect that CSU won’t ask Meyer to vet their next HC three years from now.
This picture looks like Jeff Quinn took his kids with him on a recruiting visit.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EPnnvzlXsAEpM-C?format=jpg
Paywall so I’m sorry but this look at how turbo-charged the SEC and Big 10 are going to be compared to the rest of the NCAA in terms of money is very interesting. I guess for Lea it doesn’t matter much since his offer is coming soon probably anyways from some school out there, but a high academic school matching him NW or Vandy could lean into a bigger budget with ease pretty soon here.
“Meanwhile, the best programs in the Pac-12 are going to find themselves competing with the bottom of the Big Ten and the SEC in terms of coaching salaries, which will further damage the league’s ability to attract top talent. Purdue’s Jeff Brohm is scheduled to make $5.35 million for this school year. That’s more than the reported amount for every coach in the Pac-12.”
https://theathletic.com/1574318/2020/01/31/southeastern-conference-revenue-report-sec-record-distribution/?source=shared-article