In most sports, the toughest head coaching jobs tend to remain the most difficult and that certainly applies in college football. Some of the jobs at the bottom end of the FBS will always be tough due to reasons such as small fan bases resulting in lower revenue and program location, which can not only make recruiting tougher but also results in higher travel costs for road games.
The following list consists of head coaching jobs with chronic difficulties due to nearly insurmountable disadvantages rather than jobs like Kansas, with momentary problems such the aftermath of the disastrous hire of Charlie Weis. Whilst the job at Idaho is also shrouded in uncertainty at the moment with their Sun Belt membership expiring in 2017, the move to the Big Sky in FCS suddenly makes it a much easier place to win football games.
Here are the toughest head coaching jobs in college football:
Hawaii Rainbow Warriors:
The only issue that stands out above all the rest is geography. Every road games involves a lot of travel for the players and a heavy cost for the program, which is why Hawaii usually ends up with difficult schedules out of conference. In 2016, they will play California in Australia on the opening weekend and a week later travel to Michigan. Both of these games will be incredibly lucrative for the program, but they are highly unlikely to win either. The negative effect of travelling so far in the space of a week could also hinder them throughout the season.
Even their road games in conference will involve flying thousands of miles to reach places like Nevada, San Jose State and Boise State. When it comes to recruiting, you’re generally left with players who either really want to play for there, desiring the Hawaiian lifestyle or the less desirable players. A recruit with a number of offers is unlikely to pick a team with such an arduous schedule. If you throw in constant uncertainty over the financial viability of the program, you have an uphill battle season after season.
Wyoming Cowboys:
Admittedly the city of Laramie, Wyoming isn’t as remotely located as Hawaii but it certainly doesn’t have the other obvious benefits that living in Hawaii has to offer. This makes it an incredibly difficult place to recruit quality players to with any consistency. The Cowboys suffer in the same way that teams like Oregon State and Iowa State do with being geographically isolated but without the benefits of prestige and money that comes with being in a Power -ive conference.
Wyoming is one of the smallest states in terms of actual population and has very little in the way of in-state talent. So bringing recruits from different parts of the country and trying to sell them on the off-field life of going to college here is always going to be immensely difficult. They also struggle with travel to road games but to a far lesser extent than a program such as Hawaii.
Wake Forest Demon Deacons:
Being a very small private school with very tough admission standards means you’re always going to have a tough time recruiting talented football players to your program. Only Rice, Tulsa and the service academies have smaller numbers of undergraduate enrollees, and none of which play in a Power Five conference. In all fairness, being in a Power Five conference gives them advantages that many of the others on this list don’t have, however it can also be a hindrance when it comes to scheduling. Just ask Vanderbilt what playing eight SEC games per year is like.
It’s just very difficult to be successful in the long term when the program has little history of success to recruit on, and any coach who does well at Wake Forest is unlikely to succeed in the long term. Jim Grobe had some great seasons at Wake Forest including a BCS bowl game in 2006 after winning the ACC. He still found it tough to replace the talent on the team, and the Demon Deacons slipped back under six wins per year very quickly.
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