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.
There was a hunt for the next Sean McVay in the NFL this year. It was quickly adopted by college ADs. ADs went on a youth movement (with a couple vintage/retro hires sprinkled in) looking for the next hot up and coming innovative OC to jump start their program.
Tenures are getting shorter too with 27 changes this year - compared to 21 last year. Here's my take on all 28:
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.
There was a hunt for the next Sean McVay in the NFL this year. It was quickly adopted by college ADs. ADs went on a youth movement (with a couple vintage/retro hires sprinkled in) looking for the next hot up and coming innovative OC to jump start their program.
Tenures are getting shorter too with 27 changes this year - compared to 21 last year. Here's my take on all 28:
 Akron Zips  Appalachian State Mountaineers  Bowling Green Falcons  Central Michigan Chippewas  Charlotte 49ers  Coastal Carolina Chanticleers  Colorado Buffaloes  East Carolina Pirates  Georgia Tech Yellowjackets  Houston Cougars  Kansas Jayhawks  Kansas State Wildcats  Liberty Flames  Louisville Cardinals  Maryland Terrapins  Massachusetts Minutemen  Miami Hurricanes  North Carolina Tar Heels  Northern Illinois Huskies  Ohio State Buckeyes  Temple Owl  Texas State Bobcats  Texas Tech Red Raiders  Troy Trojans  Utah State Aggies  West Virginia Mountaineers  Western Kentucky Hilltoppers | Old: Terry Bowden New: Tom Arth Old: Scott Satterfield New: Eliah Drinkwitz Old: Mike Jinks New: Scot Loeffler Old: John Bonamego New: Jim McElwain Old: Brad Lambert New: Will Healy Old: Joe Moglia New: Jamey Chadwell Old: Mike MacIntyre New: Mel Tucker Old: Scottie Montgomery New: Mike Houston Old: Paul Johnson New: Geoff Collins Old: Major Applewhite New: Dana Holgorsen Old: David Beatty New: Les Miles Old: Bill Snyder New: Chris Klieman Old: Turner Gill New: Hugh Freeze Old: Bobby Petrino New: Scott Satterfield Old: DJ Durkin New: Mike Locksley Old: Mark Whipple New: Walt Bell Old: Mark Richt New: Manny Diaz Old: Larry Fedora New: Mack Brown Old: Rod Carey New: Thomas Hammock Old: Urban Meyer New: Ryan Day Old: Geoff Collins New: Rod Carey (via Manny Diaz) Old: Everett Withers New: Jake Spavital Old: Kliff Kingsbury New: Matt Wells Old: Neal Brown New: Chip Lindsey Old: Matt Wells New: Gary Andersen Old: Dana Holgerson New: Neal Brown Old: Mike Sanford New: Tyson Helton | Not sure what the thinking is here. Bowden took a 1-11 team to 2 bowl trips and a MAC East title. He beat Big Ten West Champ Northwestern this year but a 4-8 record got him the ziggy. Arth is young (37) and had a great career at Div 3 John Carroll both as a player and coach. As a QB he is a member of the 2011 D3 All Decade team. As a HC he went 40-8 building the program into a powerhouse with three post season appearances and two road wins over #1 Mt Union and Wisconsin Whitewater. in 2016 he was D3 coach of the year. He levered that into a HC at Chattanooga where the recruiting was excellent though the record was - not so much, 11-13. He knows the Ohio recruiting landscape having spent nearly his entire life in Ohio. Akron is getting full of themselves. Bowden had things on the right track but slipped. Not sure Arth will take them to the next level. Hopefully he does better than his QB career. He backed up Peyton Manning for 3 years, never taking a snap. He was also the lowest rated QB in in the 2004 NFL videogame ESPN NFL 2K5. If nothing else, it's the most unusual HC name of the year. He's another of the many, popular, up and coming young (35) offensive gurus. Drinkwitz started out following Gus Malzahn from Auburn to Arkansas State, then stayed behind when the Red Wolves brought in Bryan Harsin who named him OC. He followed Harsin to Boise State eventually becoming OC for the Broncos. In 2016 he went to NC State as OC replacing Matt Canada. He had a good track record at NC State. They improved offensively every year. He also mentored an unknown transfer QB Ryan Finley into a potential first day draft pick. App State was the most coveted Group of Five openings. It's a good hire. He should keep things rolling in Boone. You ever run into those guys who no matter how inadequate they are to the task at hand always manage to land on their feet. That's Loeffler. Granted, I'm biased, he's a former scUM QB from 1993-96. He stuck around as a Grad Ass including when Brady played (taking up a good portion of his CV). He bounced around as a QB coach including a stint with the Lions. He then made it to OC where he bounced around at Temple, Auburn, Va Tech and Boston College. Not sure what everyone saw in him as his offenses were ranked 32, 73, 91, 94, 72, 124, 101, and 95 in opponent-adjusted S&P+. At least he's an Ohio native and knows the landscape. Expect a few years of struggling to reach mediocrity, (an improvement), Loeffler gets canned and reappears, once again, on his feet, somewhere else In investing, they call it a dead cat bounce. For CMU, they look at it as getting an SEC HC on the cheap. A life time ago (about 7-8 years) he was the up and coming OC. He was the Bama OC that went 12-0 in 2009 crushing Florida's #1 defense and winning the 2010 BCS championship against Texas. He followed that up going 12-1 in 2010 beating LSU for the Natty again. He left for Colorado State where he showed progress every year. With the offenses leading the way, the Rams went 4-8, 8-6 and then 10-2 flirting with a NY6 bowl in 2014. He was named Coach of the Year in the MWC. He was that year "it" candidate and returned to the SEC to guide Florida. That's when things went strange. His defenses were great but the offense stunk (sound familiar?). He was working his way further onto the hot seat when at a press conference he claimed that there were death threats against players and his family. When he didn't/couldn't back up the claims, the Gators leveraged his refusal into a canning at a severely reduced buy out. He spent last year as WR coach at Michigan (he's forgiven) and has a working knowledge of the local area from a stint at MSU. He followed John L Smith up from Louisville as WR/ST coach and asst head coach. Looks like a good hire. I'm going with Florida really being a bad situation (the SEC really can be that way) McElwain gets his offensive mojo back and the Chips become MAC contenders in a couple years. Is Chattanooga the new cradle of coaches? Healy was the QB coach, passing coordinator and recruiting coordinator there from 2009-15. Unlike Arth's teams, the Moccasins were winning games. The Mocs won or shared Southern Conference Championships in each of Healy's last three seasons and made the FCS playoffs in 2014 and 2015. In his final season with the team, Chattanooga went 9-4 and advanced to the FCS Quarterfinals. A superb recruiter, Healy nabbed back to back FCS best recruiting classes at Chattanooga. At Austin Peay, a team that had won 1 game in four years, he manufactured the fifth best recruiting class. His last two teams there went 13-10 with Healy winning the Eddie Robinson FCS coach of the year award in 2017. He's this years youngest on this years list (34). I like the hire. Charlotte has upside as a program. Healy will start tapping into it. Coastal Carolina sure does things differently. The previous head coach was the former CEO and Chairman of TD Ameritrade. Moglia actually did quite good going 41-13. In 2017, he stepped aside for medical reasons, naming Chadwell interim HC. He went 3-9. Moglia returned in 2018 going 5-7. He stepped aside permanently naming Chadwell again as HC. Prior to Coastal Carolina, Chadwell was HC at North Greenville, Delta State and Charleston Southern so he knows the territory. The record was a solid at 60-35. There's nothing to get excited about with the back and forth HCs. The Chanticleers will occasionally hit break even then move on in some unique way. What is it with the state of Colorado liking Georgia assistant coaches. Former Dawg OC Mike Bobo is struggling over at Colorado State. Now the UGA DC will give it a try in the Centennial State Tucker has strong Dantonio ties. He was a Grad Ass under Mark from 1997-98. He then took what he learned to Miami (OH) to be DB coach. In 2000, he rejoined Saban as DB coach at LSU. He must have had enough of Saban's BS because after just one year he rejoined Dantonio to be his DB coach at Ohio State. When MD left, he was named OSU co-DC in 2004. In 2005 he went to the NFL where he coached as a DC for Cleveland, Jacksonville and Chicago. After bombing with the Bears and nowhere else to go he rejoined Saban. Must have been more of the old BS. One year later he's following Kirby Smart to Athens as DC. Anyone good enough to be MD's DB coach is good enough for me. I'll be rooting for him. Just hope he finds his way around the recruiting trail. He's never coached out west. Rumors were that Houston was going to take the Charlotte job but when a better situation in the Tar Heel State opened up he jumped on it. Houston is the only coach not with North Dakota State to win the FCS championship since 2010. He won the title at James Madison in 2016. In 2017, he returned to the championship game only to lose to Chris Klieman's (see Kansas State new HC) NDSU Bisons. He's familiar with ECU having beaten the Pirates in 2017. He's also familiar with the spotlight as hosted ESPN Game Day twice at James Madison. Overall he went 37-6 in three seasons with the Dukes, He also won four conference titles in five seasons between stops at Lenoir-Rhyne and The Citadel. The guy knows how to win. ECU has been a train wreck ever since dumping Officer McGruffin McNeil back in 2015. The Pirates go back to upsetting ACC teams on a regular basis and challenging UCF for the AAC title. I'm going to miss the triple option. Sure it put a hard cap on Tech's upside but when that thing was humming it was a joy to watch. Now it's relegated to the service academies and Georgia Southern where Johnson perfected it. Collins is one of those guys who zigs when everyone else zags. Seeing how recruits were getting more and bigger recruiting letters, as Mississippi State DC, he decided to send a hand drawn letter to targets with a simple message "You're a Baller" Another was a Andy Warholesque Can of Swag type letter letting them know there is a truckload of it in Stark Vegas. Must have worked. In 2014, the other MSU led the SEC in sacks and red zone defense. He joined Jim McElwain as DC in Florida in 2015. With the Gators, he oversaw a defense that ranked 11th in scoring defense in 2015 improving it 6th in 2016. He got promoted to HC at Temple where he went 15-10 again with stout defenses. He knows the Georgia high school landscape from his time with the SEC schools. He was also with Tech as a recruiting coordinator in 2006. He did pretty good bringing in Morgan Burnett, Jonathan Dwyer, Derrick Morgan and Joshua Nesbitt to a school that really does have high admission standards. Now he brings that creativity to Atlanta with the first ever appointment of SWAG (specialist with advanced graphics) coordinator. He also wants to take advantage of a vibrant downtown and marry it with Tech - to make it an in-city school to Atlanta to what The U is to Miami and USC is to Los Angeles. I'm excited. I may miss the triple option but it will be fun to see a good defense on the Flats again and a creative coach bringing in some talent. Most head coaches like to go from the Group of 5 to the Power 5 teams. Not Holgorsen. He leaves the Big 12 to join the AAC. Why? Recruiting. He knows he can win with 2nd and 3rd level recruits from Texas in the AAC. West Virginia is going to have it's first 5 star recruit in forever and he's not expected to be a Mountaineer. He's also a bit homesick. Holgorsen, other than his time in Morgantown and a brief stint at Oklahoma State has spent his coaching career in Texas. His start was WVU was a bit rocky too. He was appointed HC in waiting which the existing HC Bill Stewart didn't take too kindly too. Stewart asked some local reporters to dig up negative info on Holgorsen. Dana apologized for getting booted from a casino in the early hours but nothing else could be substantiated. Stewart was launched and Holgorsen got the HC job a bit early. Now he returns to Houston, where he was OC under Kevin Sumlin from 2008-09. In 2008 the Cougars were 3rd in scoring, in 2009 they were first. He made a star of QB Case Keenum who became the all-time leading passer and had more touchdowns than any quarterback in the history of college football. Holgorsen knows the path to a NY6 bowl is easier at talent rich Houston versus trying to beat Oklahoma and Texas with recruiting classes that will struggle to get in the 30's. Great fit. The balding visored one will make a lot of noise in the AAC again and make it to championship games. Not every program bought into the OC youth movement. Kansas saw what happened at Arizona State and try and get a beached Big Name. Amazingly, it worked. Kansas is the deathbed of coaching. No Big Name has gone there before. Not sure why the Mad Hatter decided to go to Lawrence. Maybe he is just crazy enough to think he could make it work. Or maybe he decided that there is no downside. Unlike LSU, fans are not expecting playoff appearances. They just want to stop being an embarrassment. His gritball will give Kansas an identity in the wide open Big 12 and his name will attract better recruits. Another good hire. He won't get the Jayhawks to any championship games but he will get them to bowls which all that the fans want while they wait for basketball to start. They tried to replace the legendary Bill Snyder once but it was an abysmal failure so he agreed to come back. Now they will try again. It better work becasue I'm not sure Snyder has in it in him again to come a third time. This time tabbed a HC from the best program in the FCS. North Dakota State has won seven of the last eight FCS titles. Amazing. Klieman didn't get it started. He was the DB coach when Craig Bohl (now at Wyoming) won the first title. He was the DC for titles number 2 and 3. There was no drop off when Bohl left. Klieman won four of the next five title games. Going from FCS phenom to Div 1A doesn't guarantee success but it can work. Mike London started getting things going Virginia but stalled and was sent back to the FCS. Bohl appears to be on the same track at Wyoming (his offenses were awful this year). But Lance Leipold has something going at Buffalo and Jim Tressell won a NC at Ohio State. KSU AD Gene Taylor was Klieman's AD at NDSU making some in the Wildcat fan base question whether the search was extensive enough. If he stumbles the long knives will be out quick. I don't think he will. KSU will continue to be a tough out and make annual trips to bowl games. Wow. Liberty has gone completely rogue. First they hire the Baylor AD who oversaw the Bear scandals now they hire Freeze who had two scandals going at the same time. He probably would have gotten away with using the company phone to call an escort service (rookie mistake). But the massive recruiting violations which led to an NCAA "failure to control" violation did him in. I'm not even going to speculate whether Freeze will succeed or not. I hope he fails miserably and the Trustees get control of their athletic program before it's too late. Then again, maybe they are the problem. Louisville wanted Jeff Brohm but he decided there was still unfinished business in West Lafayette. It might have been a blessing in disguise. While there was not "it" candidate like Scott Frost last year, Satterfield was probably the closest thing to it this year. He was also on the short lists for UNC and Georgia Tech. Satterfield has spent nearly his entire playing and coaching career at App State (he was the QB coach for the squad that beat scUM in 2007). As HC he transitioned the program from FCS to the big time without missing a beat. Over the last four years he has gone 40-11 Satterfield is superb at identifying and developing players. Despite recruiting rankings in the bottom half of the Sun Belt, he has won three titles and nearly upset Penn State this year. He'll need that ability in Louisville. There roster is a train wreck and play in the same division as Clemson and Florida State. Great hire. The Cardinals won't knock Clemson out of the top spot but they could pull a few Syracuse type nail biters on them. They will go to progressively better bowls and then Satterfield will get promoted. If Liberty was my lest favorite hire, Maryland's is a close second. For a university reeling from a horrendous scandal involving the death of a player, the last thing they need is a HC with a tainted past. As HC at New Mexico he was suspended after punching one of his assistant coaches in the face. An administrative assistant accused him of age and sex discrimination before withdrawing an EEOC complaint. He also had a profanity laced dust up at a bar with a student journalist who’d been critical of his team. Nice He's always been known as a great recruiter in the DMV area. He was able to get Stefon Diggs, Vernon Davis, and Shawne Merriman to stay local with Maryland. He also won the Broyles award as OC for Bama this year. But the record speaks for itself. He's 3-31 as a HC including a 1-5 record as interim HC at Maryland after Randy Edsall was canned. Maryland is about to go into the abyss. Apparently, UMass looked far and wide for the next young (34) up and coming OC and found him at - Florida State? The Noles offense was a disaster this year. But only took over play calling duties late in the season and he did have much more success at Arkansas State and Maryland as OC. While known as a good recruiter, he has zero background in the Northeast. This is a crap shoot by the Minutemen. The bar is low though. UMass hasn't won more than four games since joining Div 1A in 2012. The Turnover Chain stays at the U and so is the guy who came up with college football’s most widely known sideline schtick. It looked like it was headed to Philly when Diaz first agreed to be the head guy at Temple. But when Mark Richt decided to step down Diaz left the Owls in the lurch and agreed to stay in Miami. Imagine how he would feel if a top recruit did that to him. It's not the first time Miami (FL) took a Temple coach. The Canes brought in Al Golden back in 2010 before replacing him with Mark Richt. The circle continues. Diaz is a natural fit in Miami. He's a local boy. His Dad is a two time mayor of Miami. He played at FSU and coached his entire career in the South including stints at Middle Tenn St, Miss St and Texas. Many DC say they are going to be aggressive but Diaz lives it. His teams are annually among the best in sacks and tackles for loss. Diaz immediately fired the offensive assistants (including Mark Richt's son James the QB coach) and brought in former Spartan Dan Enos. For better or worse, the U has its swag back. Forget vintage, this is a pure retro hire. Reagan was still in the White House when North Carolina hired Mack the first time. UNC football was a perennial doormat and an afterthought to the basketball program. He was a young (36) OC coordinator from Oklahoma, the Sean McVay of the era before there was a Sean McVay. It took a couple of years but he got the Heels winning. Over his last eight years UNC went 67-26-1, 6 bowl games and rankings in the Top 25 four of his last five years. Heady stuff for Heel fans. He left after the 1997 season (while Saban was still prowling the Spartan sidelines) for Texas. He started out slow, earning the moniker "Coach February" for his great recruiting classes but less than stellar results on the field. But he got things going as the Longhorns earned 11 top 25 finishes in his first twelve years, went 4-1 in NY6 bowls capped by a Natty in 2005. The downfall started in 2010 when he had a losing record ending with his resignation after the 2012 season. He's spent the last six seasons in the broadcast booth Rather than hire the next Mack Brown, UNC hired the original. Will it work? To an extent. He'll get UNC stabilized but he won't hit the heady years from when Walkmans were a thing. It's the final step in the Mark Richt resignation drama. When Richt retired they took Diaz back from Temple. Temple then took Carey from Northern Illinois forcing the Huskies to scramble. With nowhere else to go they tabbed one of their own. Hammock is a NIU alum and coached there from as a RB coach from 2005-06. In fact, he has only coached RBs working with Wisconsin, Minnesota and finally the Baltimore Ravens. I have my doubts given his lack of any HC or even coordinating experience. This reeks of a last minute desperation hire. NIU has been a good enough program for so lang that momentum alone will keep things going but NIU is about to fade. If nothing else, it was the least surprising hire of the carousel. During the summer it appeared that Day may be appointed HC before the season began. But Urban couldn't be seen leaving under a cloud so he orchestrated one final year and then retired (again) for medical reasons. OSU must have seen something as they brought in their Sean McVay (he's 39) a year before it became a thing. He was making noise in the NFL as a QB coach and rumored to be OC with the Titans when Urban brought him in. He went 3-0 as interim HC and Ohio State's offense hummed this year averaging 43 points per game. He's got some big shoes to fill but the transition will be smooth. Ohio State will continue to roll. Temple is officially a stepping stone. The last four HCs (Al Golden, Steve Addazio, Matt Rhule, and Geoff Collins) moved on to Power Five programs. Carey took over the Huskie program when Dave Doeren went to NC State. Over the last six years NIU has gone 52-30. But the wheels seem to be coming off the caboose. They only won two MAC champonships, went 0-6 in bowls and the record has gotten worse each year starting in 2012. Give Temple credit for finding a viable candidate so late in the process but the string of Temple coaches moving on up ends with Carey. Another in the line of young (33) OCs. Texas State saw a need, the offense averaged a mere 19.8 points per game and decided to fix it Spavital is a Sumlin-Holgorsen disciple having been OC at Texas A&M, Cal and West Virginia. He's coached some prolific college QBs (and then busts in the NFL) including Brandon Weeden, Geno Smith and Johnny Football. He has a strong background in Texas so should uncover some nuggets. But I question his DC hire- his brother Zac. Still, there is only upside. Texas State hasn't won more than three games since 2014. Good hire. I don't ever recall a coach getting fired at the college level and then being hired as HC by an NFL team. Time will tell if TTU regrets letting Kingsbury go. In the meantime they decided to shelve the Mike Leach-Kingsbury, Air Raid attack The offenses should be still high scoring. While the Red Raiders may have averaged 484.3 yards per game; Utah State's more run heavy offense averaged 493.8. Wells took over after Gary Andersen (see below) left for Wisconsin after the 2012 season. He had initial success going 19-9 his first two years. then things began to slide. after going 3-9 in 2016 he was in serious risk of being fired. He rebounded though finishing 10-2 this year with the third highest scoring team and 27th in fewest points allowed. He'll need that defense in the high flying Big 12. Texas Tech won't challenge Texas or Oklahoma any time soon but a more balanced team should make for consistent bowl trips. Did Lindsey escape oblivion? On December 4th he agreed to be OC at Kansas after getting canned by Auburn. Then Troy called their former QB coach home to be the HC. Before Auburn, Lindsey was a successful OC at Southern Miss and Arizona State. He's also a long time Alabama High School coach so he really knows the local high school circuit. Troy is one of the best Power Five programs going. They've had double digit winning season three straight seasons. Can Lindsey keep it going? I doubt it. Auburn fans were delighted to see him go. Troy isn't Auburn but they do have standards. Troy begins to slip behind App State in the Sun Belt. Well, that was an interesting round trip. Andersen left Utah State in 2012 to go to Wisconsin. After winning the Big Ten West in 2015, he abruptly left, in one of the strangest coaching decisions ever, to go to Oregon State. He bombed - going 5-19. Bad even by Beaver standards, he was canned and came back to be USU Associate HC whatever that is. When Wells left he became HC once again. Can he recapture that old magic? In his first stint he turned around a joke of a program into a team that went 11-2 and ranked 16th. Now he inherits a team that also is coming off an 11-2 season. Things are rarely as good the second time around. Snyder didn't have nearly as much success at Kansas State when he returned. Neither will Andersen. A lot of ADs passed on Brown. I'm not sure why. After developing up tempo offenses at Troy, Texas Tech and Kentucky he returned to Troy as HC in 2015. In just his second year he went 10-2 and became the first ever Sum Belt team to get ranked. He went 11-2 and 10-3 the next two years earning the nod at West Virginia. He's creative and gets the most out of his players. Recruiting will be tough but it was at Troy too. I like the hire. WVU stays relevant in the Big 12 and a lot of ADs will be kicking themselves. While Louisville was swinging and missing trying to land Brohm, Western Kentucky was doing the next best thing - they brought home his OC. Helton ws Brohm's OC at WKU from 2014-15 as the Hilltoppers consistently finished with top 10 offenses. He then joined his brother Clay at USC as OC coaching up Sam Darnold. He spent last year at Tennessee as OC and given the quick HC search at WKU, it apparently was a holding pattern position for him while he awaited this position to open up. WKU has slipped badly since Brohm left. Things are going to pick up rapidly in Bowling Green. Good hire |
Remember - the 2019 GO JUMBO trip is Oct 26th at the Westgate SuperBook
