College Football starts in just over 6 weeks. I can't wait.
But it's not to late to start studying up for the upcoming year. No better way to start than taking a look at the new head coaches. Every year in the college ranks coaches get fired for "not meeting expectations" aka losing, or winning coaches get fired for doing things so stupid that the AD has to move them along.
The Big Boy programs then reach down in the ranks to hire the latest, hottest, can't miss head coach leaving the smaller programs trying to keep things going with another reach hire.
Here's a look at all of the 21 new head coaches for 2018. Bruce likes to complain about the length of the BBofG updates. Wait til he gets a load of this
But it's not to late to start studying up for the upcoming year. No better way to start than taking a look at the new head coaches. Every year in the college ranks coaches get fired for "not meeting expectations" aka losing, or winning coaches get fired for doing things so stupid that the AD has to move them along.
The Big Boy programs then reach down in the ranks to hire the latest, hottest, can't miss head coach leaving the smaller programs trying to keep things going with another reach hire.
Here's a look at all of the 21 new head coaches for 2018. Bruce likes to complain about the length of the BBofG updates. Wait til he gets a load of this
| Team                      | Out with the Old In with the New Out - Rich Rodriquez In - Kevin Sumlin - HC Texas A&M Out - Todd Graham In - Herm Edwards - Annoying TV Analyst Out - Bret Bielema In - Brad Morris - HC SMU Out - Jim McElwain In - Dan Mullen - HC Miss State Out - Jimbo Fisher In - Willie Taggart - HC Oregon Out - Tyson Summers In - Chad Lunsford - Interim HC and Special Teams Out - Paul Haynes In - Sean Lewis - OC Syracuse Out - Mark Hudspeth In - Billy Napier - OC Arizona State Out - Hugh Freeze In - Matt Luke - Interim HC and OL Ole Miss Out - Dan Mullen Joe Moorhead - OC Penn State Out - Mike Riley In - Scott Frost - HC Central Florida Out - Willie Taggert In - Mario Cristobal - OC Oregon Out - Gary Andersen In - Jonathan Smith - OC Washington Out - David Baliff In - Mike Bloomgren - OC Stanford Out - Joey Jones In - Steve Campbell - HC Central Arkansas Out - Chad Morris In - Sonny Dykes - Off Analyst TCU/ HC Cal Out - Butch Jones In - Jeremy Pruitt - DC Alabama Out - Kevin Sumlin In - Jimbo Fisher - HC Florida State Out - Scott Frost In -Josh Heupel - OC Missouri Out - Jim Mora In - Chip Kelly - HC San Francisco 49ers Out - Sean Kugler In - Dana Dimel - OC Kansas State | According to the Doofus And the fist team listed is the last team to hire a new coach. After RichRod was fired as a result of sexual harassment/hostile work environment allegation (his record had nothing to do with it I'm sure), the Wildcats reached out to recently fired Kevin Sumlin. Can he recreate that good ol' timey magic? Sumlin was riding high in 2011 and 2012. In 2011 he went 11-1 at Houston and got promoted to A&M. His first season there, he went 11-2 including a victory over Alabama and a Cotton Bowl victory over Oklahoma. It was all downhill from after that. He never finished above .500 in the SEC finishing with a 51-26 overall record. He's a good recruiter and has previous experience within the state of Arizona, luring Christian Kirk and Kyle Allen to College Station. Sumlin's offensive background should mesh well with star dual threat QB Khalil Tate. And with USC, UCLA and Arizona State in transition he could challenge in the PAC 12 South his first year. The Sheriff will be rooting silently for Kevin. He's a former Purdue LB This has to be one of the worst if not the worst hire in College football ever. Muddy Waters to MSU at least made some sense at the time. This one fails even that test. The only logical reason that he was hired was that the AD was his former agent. The last time Edwards was on the sidelines was in 2008 for the Chiefs when he was canned. His record in the NFL was an uninspiring 54-74. Since then his has been an "analyst" for ESPN most known for his incoherent blatherings enthusiastically given but not received. He's never been a college head coach, the closest coming as a DB coach for San Jose State. I'll be sure to fade the Forks until the point spreads get ridiculously large. Bielema was overweight and overrated coming out of Wisconsin. Arkansas took 1 second to figure out the first issue and five years to figure out the second. The Hogs wanted to revitalize the offense after Bret took then all the way down to 93rd overall. They went after Gus Malzahn but missed so they went with.....um...a guy who went 14-22 at SMU? I get it, Chad's turned around a dormant SMU and his offense was electric going 13th overall. But, oh, those defenses. Bad bad bad. 103rd last year. It was a disaster, allowing 487 yards per game with a secondary that got ripped to shreds and a run defense that gave up 213 yards per game. Bama is going to pound away at that defense and his offense won't keep up with Gus. Down the road, at Texas A&M they just got Jimbo Fisher too. The SEC West has nothing to fear from Arkansas. The Hogs will get barely bowl eligible, be serial attendees at no name bowls before finally moving on. Florida wanted Chip Kelley, he went to UCLA. They wanted Scott Frost, he went to Nebraska so they went with a home town favorite. Mullen was the OC for Suburban Meyers championship teams in 2006 and 2008 before jumping to Mississippi State and bringing the Bulldogs into the national conversation. Scott Stricklin, who helped lure him to Starkville, is now Florida’s AD making it an easy hire. Not only does he know his way around Gainesville, he also knows how to coach an offense. The Gators have struggled when they have the ball, finishing eighth or worse in the SEC in scoring every year since 2010. Unlike Thirdbaugh, he really does know how to coach QBs. Alex Smith, Tim Tebow, Chris Leak and Dak Prescott can all attest to that. At Mississippi State, the toughest job in the SEC West, Mullen went 69-46 and guided the program to eight consecutive bowl games. For comparison, the Bulldogs had just 12 previous postseason bids before his arrival. With a stellar defense returning and an improving offense, Florida and Georgia will be the perennial favorites to win the SEC East once again. Too fast too soon? There's a lot to like about this hire. Taggert turned around South Florida. He started out 6-18 but a switch in offensive style and tempo to the “Gulf Coast Offense” helped them go 18-7 over the next two regular seasons. He leveraged that success into a gig at Oregon. The Ducks improved by three games from 2016 to ’17 under his direction. But he only stayed a year before moving back to his home state. He's a great recruiter and knows the territory well but has he really proven himself for the biggest of stages? FSU demands national championships even souring on Jimbo Fisher at times. It's FSU. They will get the athletes and will rack up 9 and 10 win seasons but I doubt they will surpass Clemson and get into the playoffs. If it aint broke, don't fix it. Georgia Southern failed to heed that advice when it hired Summers and went away from the triple option. The result - a 5-13 record culminating in a 55-20 loss to winless UMass. Chad Lunsford came in after that game and started to right the ship going 2-3. He has the triple option background having coached slotbacks, H-backs, Tight ends and special teams at Georiga Southern where he was a Frank Broyles nominee. He knows the recruiting landscape having spent nearly all his coaching career in the Peach State. He was also recruiting coordinator during Auburn's Natty run. The Big Guy says he's a great guy. Good enough for me. The Eagles return to the upper echelons of the Fun Belt. It took a while. reportedly as many as 15 candidates turned down the high privilege of getting to lead the Golden Flashes. Since the Flashers have had only nine winning seasons since 1962 and two since '90 KSU wasn't exactly an aspiration goal for coaches. But patience may have paid off as Kent State finally found their man in Sean Lewis. Lewis was the OC at Bowling Green under Dino Babers when the Falcons were lighting up the MAC. At 31, Lewis is the youngest HC in Div 1A. It's a dice roll but better than getting a retread. Nice pick. Kent State will be fun to watch and might start winning games. When Herm Edwards was hired as "CEO" of ASU football he was tabbed in part by claiming he would keep the current coordinators. that lasted all of 20 minutes. OC Billy Napier quickly bolted for The Ragin Cajuns. Better to move the family to Shreveport than be part of that clown show. Napier is a young coach (38) on the rise. He's coached under some of the best including Saban (WR), Dabo (OC) and Tommy Bowden (TE). But Saban assistants have not always done that well and he was fired by Dabo after finishing 10th in offense in the ACC It was worth a shot by ULL, just not sure he's going to put the Cajuns upper tier of the Sun Belt championship. This was a move a year in the making. Prior to the season, Matt Luke was named interim HC after Hugh Freeze couldn’t stop calling a female escort service. Hey Hugh, if your not going to keep it in your pants, at least don’t use a company phone to make the call. Rookie mistake. Luke did all right as interim going 6-6 including an upset of Mississippi State in the Egg Bowl. But, Ole Miss was in a difficult position. The school has NCAA sanctions hanging overhead and had to conduct a coaching search at the same time as several other SEC schools; including in-state rival Mississippi State. Luke may have had the interim tag removed but the transitional tag is lurking just underneath. When Dan Mullen left for Florida after guiding the Bulldogs to respectability and eight straight bowl appearances, things were looking bleak. But Mississippi State moved quickly and brought in an intriguing hire. Moorhead was the brains behind the prolific Penn State offense that won the Big Ten in 2016 and finished 7th in scoring last year. More impressive was his stint as HC at his alma mater Fordham. He took a 1-10 program to winning records each of his four years and playoff appearances in his last three. This could be one of the better hires even if the record might not show it. Bama and Auburn aren’t going away and Texas A&M made a huge move in hiring Jimbo Fisher. The Bulldogs will remain competitive though, about as much as you can hope for in Starksville. Frost was the hottest candidate on the carousel after taking Central Florida from 0-12 to 12-0 in two years. He was on every major power’s short list with Florida making the biggest push. But, Nebraska was the ultimate prize winner, nabbing their former QB to lead them back to the promised land. As a player, Frost transferred to Nebraska after playing two years at Stanford. He was Nebraska’s quarterback in 1996 and ’97. In ’97. Nebraska won the Big 12 title and the Orange Bowl 42-17 over Tennessee. The Cornhuskers ended up No. 1 in coaches poll and sharing thea national championship with a clearly inferior team. As a player, Frost was coached by Stanford’s Bill Walsh and Nebraska’s Tom Osbourne. In the NFL he played under Bill Parcells, Bill Belichick, Mike Tomlin and Jon Gruden. Not bad. His coaching career took off when he joined Oregon as WR coach on 2009 getting promoted to OC for the 2013 season. From 2013-15 the Ducks were fourth, fourth, and fifth in the country in scoring offense. He leveraged that into the head gig at Central Florida. Taking over for the winless Knights, they improved to 6-7 in Frost’s first year. Then lightning struck, as UCF went a perfect 13-0 beating Auburn in the Peach Bowl, finishing with a No. 6 ranking. And those offenses, the Knights went from 126th in scoring prior to arriving to 66th and then number 1 last year. No doubt, Nebraska is going to be much better on offense than the stale pro style run by fired Mike Riley but can the defense keep pace?Frost’s defense leave much to be desired. Last year the were 93rd overall. Wisconsin no longer has a free pass to the Big 10 West. Nebraska will push the Badgers hard. But until the defenses improve a playoff spot will remain out of reach. Oregon was once considered a dream job but after Willie Taggert left for FSU, they were conducting their second head coaching search in as many years. After an extensive nation wide search they found their man just down the hall in Interim HC Mario Cristobal. Hiring from the inside is kind of a thing in Eugene, counting Cristobal, the Ducks have had five different head coaches since 1995, four of those were promotions from within. Cristobal was the team's offensive coordinator and OL coach last season, and he has head coaching experience. He went 27-47 at FIU, though that record doesn't indicate the kind of rebuild he undertook there. The Panthers were pathetic when her arrived but he took them to back to back bowl seasons. At the time he was considered one of the the fastest rising stars in the coaching ranks. But after a 3-9 finish in 2012 he was canned. FIU has been pathetic ever since. He wasn't unemployed for long. Saban picked him up and was the OL coach from 2013-16, helping top create the Tides dominant OLs that led to national titles. I was a big fan of Cristobal at FIU so I predicting this will be a great hire. Oregon returns to a favorite in the Pac 12 very soon. And there’s a new Spartan connection. Bobby Williams, former MSU head coach, who has coached at Alabama in on- and off-field roles since 2008, has been hired as special teams coach for the Ducks. Oregon State has been awful for a long time. But it wasn’t always that way. Back in 2001, the beat Notre Dame in the Fiesta bowl, finishing 11-1 and a number 4 ranking. The quarterback of that team? Jonathan Smith. Smith has spent his entire career in the Pacific Northwest and has coached some damn good offenses. From 2010-11, he was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for FCS powerhouse Montana, leading the Grizzlies to the NCAA Division I semifinals in 2011. He then joined Boise State University for the 2012 and 2013 seasons as the Broncos’ quarterbacks coach and helped guide the team to the 2012 Mountain West Conference co-championship and to a victory over the Washington Huskies in the Las Vegas Bowl. Smith followed head coach Chris Petersen to the University of Washington to serve as the Huskies’ offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. The Huskies went on to lead the Pac-12 in scoring offense in 2016 and finished second in ’17. Knowing that he doesn’t have head coaching experience he hired former Beaver HC and fired Nebraska HC Mike Riley as assistant head coach. I like this hire. Oregon State won’t be reaching #4 in the polls but they will return to respectability and bowl eligibility. Bloomgren comes to Rice after seven seasons with the Cardinal, first as the offensive line coach (2011-12) and then as OC of Stanford’s pro-style offense in 2013. It set the stage for several years of dominance in the PAC 12. Stanford has won eight or more games in each of Bloomgren’s seasons and reached the Pac-12 Football Championship four times, winning three titles. He’s a superb recruiter. Rivals.com named Bloomgren one of its 2014 National Recruiters of the Year. In 2012 ESPN recognized him as its Pac-12 Recruiter of the Year. He’s been approached before but Bloomgren’s been waiting for just the right job. Two years ago he earmarked Rice as one of the five schools (along with Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, and Vanderbilt) where he wanted to be head coach. I guess he likes to coach smart kids at private schools. Rice will become the Northwestern of the CUSA, lots of good years sprinkled in with a few really good ones. South Alabama has only been in Div 1A for seven years so getting a brand name HC is next to impossible. But even though they went bowling twice since 2014, they want more. So they reached down to the D-II and JUCO ranks and got a stand out. Campbell won the Div-II championship at Delta State and in 2007 he took the JUCO title at Mississippi Gulf Coast. He then went to Central Arkansas, going 33-15 (20-5 over the last two years) and winning the Southland Championship last year. He has great connections in the JUCO ranks throughout the Southeast so recruiting will become a strength. Don’t be surprised if South Alabama becomes a power in the Fun Belt. Excellent hire. The last we saw Sonny he was going from a hot coaching candidate coming out of La Tech to the Hot Seat at Cal. When Chad Morris left the Mustangs to go to Arkansas, they wanted to keep the offense going and to build on what Morris did. Morris took a 1-11 program to 7-5. You can check box number 1. Sonny will keep that offense going. You know what you’re going to get with Sonny, lots of offense but about those defenses. They’re more an afterthought. SMU regresses in the win column and will stay home for the holidays. I give Sonny 2-3 years max. It was the most botched hire of the season and maybe of all time. Vol fans have an overrated view of their place in the football world. When Butch Jones was fired they were thinking of landing high profile candidates such as Jimbo Fisher, Jon Gruden, Chip Kelly, Dan Mullen and Scott Frost. None had any interest. So when Ohio State DC Greg Schiano was named the fan base went ballistic unleashing a torrent of objection on social media and staging on campus protests. They even went so far as to unfairly tie him to the Joe Paterno fiasco. Currie tried chasing Duke’s David Cutcliffe, Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy, Purdue’s Jeff Brohm and North Carolina State’s Dave Doeren. Finally, when Currie took an unapproved trip to Los Angeles for a meeting with Washington State coach Mike Leach he was summoned back to Knoxville and fired. The Vols then put former HC Phil Fulmer in charge and he did what other SEC teams do when looking for a HC. He went for a Bama assistant, getting DC Jeremy Pruitt. Saban’s assistants have been hit and miss but this one looks like he might succeed. He was DC for FSU when the had the #1 scoring defense in 2013, moved to be the DC at Georgia (16th then 8th in scoring defense) before moving to Bama (1st and 1st). He was also a finalist for the Frank Broyles award in 2013 and 2016. Pruitt was Nick Saban’s key recruiter at Alabama, and he knows the SEC stints in Tuscaloosa and Athens. If he can swing a few Alabama-level recruits, Tennessee will be well on its way. Tennessee will be a tough out and score an upset or two as Florida and Georgia dominate the SEC East. Good to great hire. A&M went all in. They took all their chips, took out a mortgage, borrowed against the inheritance and put everything down on Jimbo Fisher. His $75 million, all guaranteed, 10 year contract is the biggest contract in college football. To put it in perspective, Texas, considered the richest program in college sports, hired Tom Herman last year for half the length and $45 million less in guaranteed money. Fisher's annual pay of $7.5 million is more than the total amount of football revenue generated at the University of North Texas and Texas State University combined. That’s just one cog in the football program’s commitment, which includes a renovated stadium and plenty of money for Fisher to build his staff and off-field analysts. Give Aggies AD Scott Woodward credit for luring a national-title winning coach away from a blue blood power in a talent-rich state. And who is behind this gob stobbing amount of money? Six new full-time coaches in the SEC set a conference record. Agent Jimmy Sexton represented five of them at Arkansas, Florida, Ole Miss, Tennessee and Jimbo. And that's not counting a new seven-year, $49 million deal he negotiated for client Gus Malzahn at Auburn. Somebody got a big pay day over the Holidays. A&M has been the national championship football program without a national championship. Since 1995, the football team has one top 10 finish; 15 times this century it has not been ranked in the final Top 25 poll. Since 1996, its best back-to-back seasons were a combined 20-6 in 2012-13 under Sumlin The last time it won a national title was 1939. The US was sitting on the sidelines as WWII was in full force. Expectations are through the roof now. For Texas A&M patience is not necessarily a virtue. Let's just say A&M isn't spending $75 million to average 10-3 each season. Fisher comes in on a bit of a skid. He was 83-23 over eight seasons at FSU (which puts him the top 5 active coaches) including a national championship in 2013 but last season is easily his worst with the Seminoles going 6-6. Fisher will get quite an introduction at A&M: Two of his first four games are against Clemson and Alabama – the last two national champions. A&M has some swagger now, something needed if they are going to take on Nick and Gus, and LSU will get it’s act together at some point too. This one is going to be fun to watch play out. It’s the best hire TAMU could make. No one wants to be the guy after the legend. After the dream season of 2017 UCF’s options were limited. So they went with someone under the radar in 39 year old Missouri OC Josh Heupel. Maybe they figured taking former Big 12 QBs was the way to go. Frost was a QB for Nebraska, Heupel was QB for Oklahoma in 2000 when the knocked off #1 Nebraska. He was an AP Player of the Year, Walter Camp Award and Archie Griffin Award winner in 2000 and thrived under the direction of Sooners offensive coordinator Mike Leach. UCF wanted a coach committed to continuing to run the fast-paced, high-scoring brand of football Frost developed. Heupel fills that bill. Heupel’s offenses at Missouri were flashy and entertaining. The Tigers finished the season with six straight wins and averaged 51.3 points in those games. Missouri improved from 124th nationally in offense the year before Heupel arrived to 13th last year and seventh this season. That got him on UCF’s radar. But he’s barely three years removed from being fired at Oklahoma for a subpar offensive season. UCF also wanted to shore up the defense so it hired Randy Shannon as its DC, the same job he had with Florida last year. A defense that Heupel and Mizzou ripped for 455 yards and 45 points. Heupel isn’t a Florida guy (though the same could be said for Frost) and recruiting UCF isn’t as much about shaking the best players out of the state as it is having an eye for overlooked talent. That sounds like what Mizzou had to do in the SEC. This is another transistional hire. UCF will be looking again in 3-4 years. Heeeee’s Baaaack!! Kelly comes to Westwood from Oregon via the NFL. He went 46-7 as Head Duck, In those four seasons, he made it to two Rose Bowls, a Fiesta Bowl and the National Championship Game. Oregon finished inside of the top five in the final Associated Press poll in three out of the four seasons His offenses were legendary. Oregon finished eighth, first, third and second in scoring offense nationally and first in the Pac 12 every year. Kelly’s practices at Oregon were groundbreaking in their speed and rhythm, even in the use of eardrum-shattering music to break up the monotony and to train players to adapt under adverse conditions. His record in the pros was dismal. He got off to a fast start with the Eagles going 10-6 becoming just the second coach to ever win his division in his first season. Philadelphia also posted a 10-6 record in 2014 but failed to make the playoffs, and Kelly was fired before the end of the 2015 season after his team went 6-9. He fired at San Francisco after just one year going 2-14. He replaces former HC Jim Mora who did less with more than just about any coach. There are only five teams in all of college football (Alabama, Ohio State, Florida State, Clemson, and LSU) that produced more NFL draft picks than UCLA during his tenure. Yet they won just 29 conference wins over six seasons – sixth in just the PAC 12. As one local high school coach said “UCLA got their number 1 coach. That never happens” But defenses have adapted and the rules have been tweaked taking away some of his advantages. All in all, it will take a couple of years to get his players in and trained in his methods. Then UCLA will be a contender. Good selection. Dimel certainly has been through some turnarounds. As an offensive linemen for Kansas State back in the 80’s, Dimel's Wildcats went 6-26-1. He got picked up by the Minnesota Vikings but didn’t stick around long so he returned to K State as a graduate assistant. Those teams went 0-21-1. That lead to a staff change which brought in Bill Snyder. Snyder finally won a game but went 1-10. As Dimel said "I started out 1-31-1" he ground was laid, however, and the result was one of the greatest turnarounds in college football. Kansas State made the climb from a perennial basement to bowl games to national championship contention under Snyder. Also notable was who was on Snyder's staff back then: Bob Stoops, Mike Stoops, Jim Levitt and Mark Mangino and now Dimel, all of whom ended up as head coaches. Dimel continued to get promoted ending up as OC in 95-96 and then was named HC at Wyoming in 1997. He was 34 and the youngest HC in college football at the time. The Cowboys made a nice turnaround going 22-13. That led to the head coaching gig at Houston. It’s when the bottom fell out. Dimel was 8-26 in three seasons at Houson, including an 0-11 campaign in 2001 He was let go in favor of Art Briles When Snyder returned to K-State in 2009, he brought Dimel back with him as offensive coordinator. K-State went 6-6 but didn’t make a bowl in the first year after getting the band back together, but since then the Wildcats have rolled of eight consecutive bowl seasons and won a Big 12 title in 2012. It’s a great story, turnarounds with Snyder at KSU (twice) and at Wyoming but the fact that Wildcat fans are cheering the move says enough for me. UTEP won’t be the worst program and may actually win a few games. But challenge in CUSA? Nope. Perhaps the best part of the hire is that his son Winston will be transferring to UTEP. He has a staggering 25 touchdowns from the fullback position at Kansas State. |
