Like the promise of a new season, the fact that coaches get hired and fired is a fait accompli. We always know that coaches are hired to be fired. It’s a plain and simple fact that the expectations at the highest level of college football are not in direct proportion to the goals achievable by all programs. In other words they can’t all win.
As we near the end of 2014 it became obvious that certain coaches were on their death watch and soon to be out the door. However with each firing comes opportunities for mid-major level coaches to take the next step and get aligned with a big-time program. Dave Doeren has done amazing things in a short time at NC State after a successful career at Northern Illinois. Charlie Strong went through the back door by being an assistant at Florida, then coach at Louisville, and finally perched atop the lucrative and high profile Texas Longhorns football squad.
Not all coaches make a smooth transition however as Turner Gill found out through his promotion to head coach at Kansas after leading Buffalo to the MAC title. Those expectations we spoke of were clearly not attainable within the framework of the Jayhawks football program. Larry Fedora moved from a stable environment at Southern Mississippi, to a North Carolina landscape that seems rife with underachieving personnel
The 2014 version of the coaching carousel started with Brady Hoke, Will Muschamp and Dana Holgersen among others starting on the hot seat. Actually June Jones at SMU stepped down early in September to get this ball rolling, and the Mustangs fell into the interim coach scenario for the remainder of a forgettable 0-11 campaign to date. Muschamp was of course let go and was allowed to finish out this season which concluded with a loss to Florida State. The watch is still out on Brady Hoke at Michigan and Dana Holgersen looks safe at West Virginia with his medium 7-5 bowl eligible record.
The big shocker so far has been the firing of Bo Pelini. Cornhusker nation obviously was not going to be satisfied with a continuation of 9-3 seasons and not see any progress beyond that mark. Pelini was well-liked on campus and was a favorite with his players. However, with the switch to the Big Ten there were high expectations and they have not been realized. A number of poor efforts this season probably doomed Bo Pelini to the coaching unemployed quicker than Nebraska had anticipated. This firing has sent ripples through the coaching ranks.
So where are we so far with the coaching carousel at this point?
Two significant rumors continue to swirl around the Florida job and naturally they are being denounced as false. Steve Spurrier, who is the golden son of the Gators has been named several times and continues to refute those comments. Spurrier would like to continue for another three to four years as the head coach at South Carolina. Surely after this season is concluded, Spurrier and staff have some work to do.
The more interesting name thrown out has been Chip Kelly from the Philadelphia Eagles. Kelly left a potent Oregon program to become an NFL head coach and if Kelly has any success in the 2014 playoffs, then Florida can consider him out of the picture. The question for the Gators will obviously be the issue of waiting until late January for that kind of commitment. One other quiet rumor has Hugh Freeze leaving Ole Miss for Florida and that seems to make the least sense. Leaving the competitive SEC West for the SEC East doesn’t quite seem right unless the money was just too tempting.
One of the more interesting hires has been offensive coordinator Chad Morris becoming the head coach at SMU after a terrific four year run on Dabo Sweeney’s staff at Clemson. Chad Morris has his roots firmly planted in Texas high school football and like Gus Malzahn is itching for the chance to become his own man at the helm of an FBS program. Now SMU will be no piece of cake for Chad Morris, but his roots could get him some talent quickly and turn the former Southwest Conference doormat into a better program. Pundits will point out that Chad Morris took a pay cut just to be a head coach, and yes it is true that Morris was the highest paid assistant coach in FBS football. However like Terry Bowden, Malzahn and Freeze, it becomes the chance of a lifetime to be the main man on campus.
Who will be the next one to fall in this crazy world of expectations? The aforementioned Larry Fedora cannot continue on this way for long with the Tar Heels and Paul Rhoads seems on shaky ground at Iowa State. There will always be a constant watch at programs like Colorado and Indiana when those two schools miss a bowl for another season.
In 2012 there were 30 coaching changes, all for various reasons. Some hires were promotions to better coaching gigs, but others were quick fill-ins for swiftly departed or retired. I know you can’t just measure a coach by wins and losses, but that unfortunately is the measuring stick I use in most cases. In the new world of the NCAA, there is little time or patience for an unsuccessful five-year plan. Just ask Ellis Johnson at Southern Miss how patient the fans and alumni are after plummeting to an 0-12 season.
An interesting side bar here is that of the 30 new coaching positions in 2013 , seven teams had better records {23%} with five teams {16%} staying identical. This obviously means that coaching cannot be the only barometer when it comes to replacing talent. Over 60% of the new coaches ended up with worse records moving forward and will need to put their own stamp on the program quickly or suffer the same fate of Johnson. These statistics by the way are really flawed because New Mexico State improved from 1-11 to an impressive 2-10 while powerhouse Southern Miss went from 0-12 to 1-11, which is not really a resounding improvement. So realistically five teams made incredible steps forward with new coaches. five others stayed the course which gives us ten coaches {33%} who steered their teams to a bowl game which seems like the ultimate criteria these days.
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