It’s that time of year where the college football season is winding down and we have data points on the coaches who are Doing Good Things. It’s been a weird year where a large group of coaches don’t have many data points to begin with so there’s a lot of questions about just how good or bad some of these men are doing in 2020. This could be potentially a hilarious article to look back on in a few years.

Nevertheless, we will push forward with our list of the best (and worst) for 2020 with the usual caveat that we’re not covering the super obvious coaches (Harbaugh, Fickell, Campbell, Herman, etc.) in most instances.

DOING GOOD THINGS

Philip Montgomery – Tulsa

Entering year 6 with the Golden Hurricane this ship didn’t look to be going anywhere. Despite a 10-3 record in his 2nd year with Tulsa they’ve lost at least 7 games in the 4 other seasons. Montgomery was consider a pretty good hire out of Baylor but kind of fell off the radar recently. Now, Tulsa is 6-1 overall in 2020, unbeaten in league play, and will face Cincinnati for the AAC Championship this weekend.

Jeff Hafley – Boston College

Maybe the least impressive submission on our list but not much was expected from Boston College this year and they finished their season 6-5 (they are declining a bowl bid) and transformed their offense into something far better than watching paint dry. Things are looking up!

Tom Allen – Indiana

National coach of the year, Tom Allen perhaps? The Hoosiers were knocking on the door last year (8-5) and have been maybe the biggest surprise of the season sitting at 6-1 with wins over Penn State, Michigan, and Wisconsin. They are locked out of the Big Ten Championship but should play in a very tasty bowl game.

Doc Holliday – Marshall

Holliday is one of the longest tenured coaches at a school right now and had things rolling for the Herd in the 2013-15 seasons going 33-8 before slumping down to 3-9 and 14 more losses from 2017-19. It sucks that Marshall is just coming off an embarrassing shutout loss to Rice but they’ve had a heck of a season so far.

Hugh Freeze – Liberty

I didn’t want to include him, but I have to do it as a respected journalist. Freeze has won 1o out of his last 11 games and would be unbeaten over that stretch if not for a 1-point loss to NC State a couple weeks ago. It’s too bad we didn’t get to see Liberty play Coastal Carolina two weekends ago.

Kalani Sitake – BYU

The BYU program felt like it was trending downward after hiring Sitake, now they’ve come out of nowhere and have become one of the top teams in the country with an entertaining quarterback. Their loss to Coastal Carolina was a set back but the Cougars are once again on the national scene in a big way.

Lance Leipold – Buffalo 

UB had quietly put together a nice 2-year run (18-9) leading into this season and while good things were expected in 2020 no one could’ve predicted this breakout. Leipold and the Bulls just finished a 5-0 undefeated regular season with an impressive +154 scoring differential. They’ll head into the MAC Championship Game as the highest scoring offense in the country.

Brent Brennan – San Jose State

Things weren’t easy for Brennan when he was hired in San Jose. The Spartans started 3-22 under his regime before improving to a much more respectable 5-7 last year. All of a sudden, SJSU became one of the best teams in the Mountain West completing a 6-0 season with every win by at least 10 points. You have to think Brennan is going to be an awfully attractive candidate for a lot of the larger West Coast programs.

Jamey Chadwell – Coastal Carolina

Coastal completed a thrilling last-second win this weekend to avoid the let down upset at the hands of Troy. They’re now 11-0 and set to play Louisiana in the Sun Belt title game. Chadwell had been pretty much an unknown prior to this year (besides a 2019 win at Kansas) and is reportedly ready to sign a huge extension to stay in Myrtle Beach.

Billy Napier – Louisiana

Napier’s success was a lot easier to see coming this year. In 2019, the Ragin’ Cajuns went 11-3 but were unable to beat Appalachian State for the Sun Belt crown. They’ll get that chance again when they face Coastal this upcoming weekend mentioned above. Last year, Louisiana beat Coastal by 41 points but this year that is their only defeat.

NOT DOING GOOD THINGS

Scott Satterfield – Louisville

Things have gone very poorly for Satterfield culminating in his weird handling of an interview with South Carolina last week. The Cardinals got back on track with a win at Wake Forest this past weekend but finished 2020 with a super disappointing 4-8 record. This should set up a very weird off-season in Louisville.

Dino Babers – Syracuse

Once upon a time, Babers was a hot coaching name. That now looks like one of the most bizarre memories of the past decade. Syracuse finished last in the ACC with a terrible 1-10 record that included a 30-0 loss to Satterfield’s Louisville team above. The team we saw in South Bend a couple weekends ago should be a lot better in 2021, but man, Babers seems to have lost the plot recently.

Dave Aranda – Baylor

Aranda picked a good time to bolt Baton Rouge. However, his new digs in Waco haven’t been treating him too well. The first-year head coach beat both Kansas schools in 2020 and…no one else. Some thought Baylor was poised to make some noise in the Big 12 and at least prior to the weekend the best you could say was that they lost a bunch of competitive games. Then, they finished their season with a 42-3 massacre at home by Oklahoma State.

Thomas Hammock – Northern Illinois

It feels like Northern Illinois has been solid to very good for as long as I can remember and then all of a sudden you look up and they’re terrible. I can’t believe Hammock will be long for this place. They just finished their season 0-6 and maybe weren’t quite as bad as Bowling Green but even being in that conversation is incredibly damning.

Mike Leach – Miss State

Florida couldn’t even beat LSU like Leach did in the opener. Things started so well for the Bulldogs! It’s blown up entirely since their first game my goodness. Their offense is a hot mess and they’ve scored 14 or fewer points in 5 games this season while only Vanderbilt has averaged fewer points overall in the SEC for 2020. Mississippi State finishes their season this weekend versus Missouri and will be favored to go 2-8 on the year.

Kevin Sumlin – Arizona [no longer employed]

When we added Sumlin to this list this past Friday afternoon he was a cool pick based on a very under-the-radar terrible job he was doing at Arizona. Then, he went out and suffered maybe the worst loss in school history as Arizona State crushed the Wildcats 70-7 on Friday night and Sumlin woke up without a job. He finished his career in the desert with 12 straight losses!