Dear Andy: From Arizona State to Auburn, an educated guess as to who gets those jobs
#Dear #Andy #Arizona #State #Auburn #educated #guess #jobs
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(Note: Submitted questions have been lightly edited for length and clarity.)
If you had to take a guess at who coaches at each school with an open head coach position, who do you think goes where? — Sean
It has been a while since someone brought Andy Staples Search on board for a consulting gig. (Perhaps I need to hire a branding expert, because the initials of all the entities I get involved with seem to spell the same word.) So thank you, Sean, for encouraging one of my many, many side hustles.
Some of these will be educated guesses based on conversations with people around the sport — and occasionally conversations with people directly involved. Some of them will be recommendations because I just think that person would work well in that job.
This is the place that should be calling Deion Sanders every five minutes. Put Coach Prime in Tempe and he could assemble a roster that could hang in the next iteration of the Pac-12 every season. He would upgrade Arizona State’s personnel quickly, and his tenure at Jackson State suggests he could assemble a staff that could make that roster competitive quickly. With USC and UCLA leaving, Oregon and Washington would be the powers in that league. There is no reason why Arizona State can’t be competitive with those two.
If the administration feels Sanders would be too unorthodox a hire after the Herm Edwards experiment — which is silly, because the situations are very different — then a logical option is Oregon offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham. Dillingham was a young high school coach who broke into college football by volunteering at Arizona State, and he’s shown this season at Oregon that he is a more-than-capable play caller. His help in revitalizing quarterback Bo Nix also suggests a developmental capability that could be critical in a metro area loaded with talented quarterbacks.
Auburn
I’ve been feeling bad about an answer I gave to a question about Lane Kiffin and Auburn a few weeks ago. A reader asked if I thought the Mississippi state law that limits public employee contracts to four years would be a hinderance if Ole Miss had to go head-to-head with Auburn to keep Kiffin. In that answer, I listed the reasons why Kiffin probably has a better situation at Ole Miss — he has near-complete control; the new SEC scheduling format should make things easier for Ole Miss — and said they’d likely outweigh more guaranteed money. The more I thought about that, the more I realized that isn’t realistic for most people. I think my original answer may have been wrong.
I’m bad at math, so I’ll use round numbers. If two entities offer a person a fully guaranteed $10 million-a-year deal and one entity is limited to a four-year contract and the other isn’t, then it’s possible that person could have one piece of paper that guarantees $40 million and one that guarantees $100 million. Most people aren’t completely motivated by money, but that’s an awful lot of money to leave on the table.
If Auburn wants Kiffin and that’s the kind of deal Auburn wants to offer, it would be incredibly difficult to say no.
Of course, Kiffin is having fun with the speculation ahead of Thursday’s Egg Bowl against Mississippi State. When a television reporter tweeted on Monday night that Kiffin would leave Ole Miss for Auburn on Friday, Kiffin fired back.
BREAKING: #OleMiss HC Lane Kiffin plans to step down as the Rebels coach Friday and head to Auburn to become the Tigers next head coach, according to sources
Sources say the Tigers haven’t officially offered the job to anyone yet.
So Lane to Auburn is happening. Story soon.
— Jon Sokoloff (@JonSokoloff) November 22, 2022
— Lane Kiffin (@Lane_Kiffin) November 22, 2022
But not once did Kiffin say that he’s definitely staying. Nor has Ole Miss announced it has reached a new deal with Kiffin, which almost certainly would accompany Kiffin turning down a legitimate overture from another school.
An Ole Miss coach once said he’d leave Oxford “in a pine box” and then left for Auburn. That coach is now a U.S. senator. Kiffin hasn’t made any promises, though.
Kiffin makes a ton of sense for Auburn. The recruiting failures of the Bryan Harsin era plus the loss of draft-eligible top-end talent means the Tigers need a coach who can flip a roster quickly. Kiffin has proven to be the best at that in the new era of transfer rules. Unlike Harsin, Kiffin would understand that he must go head-to-head with Alabama’s Nick Saban and Georgia’s Kirby Smart for players.
But if Kiffin wants to stay at Ole Miss, Auburn would need to look elsewhere. Liberty’s Hugh Freeze would win and win quickly at Auburn, but would the administration be willing to hire him given the reason he was fired at Ole Miss? Freeze just signed a new deal at Liberty, but we know Auburn can afford buyouts.
The rumor mill has heated up with talk of Boulder as a potential landing spot for Coach Prime. This is a more difficult job than Arizona State because of location, but it’s still probably an easier job than Jackson State. If Deion wound up at Colorado, the folks in Tempe might get an annual reminder of what they could have sought.
If those rumors are just smoke, who would work at Colorado? Former BYU and Virginia coach Bronco Mendenhall knows how to build a roster in that part of the country, and he could bring a style that could make Colorado a tough out in the same way that Jonathan Smith has made Oregon State a tough out.
Interim coach Brent Key has gone 4-3 since taking over following the firing of Geoff Collins, and the Yellow Jackets probably would have won one and maybe two more if they hadn’t lost starting quarterback Jeff Sims in the Virginia game. Last week, Key and his staff rotated between Georgia Tech’s third- and fourth-string quarterbacks to beat North Carolina. Key absolutely has earned a serious look at this job.
If new athletic director J Batt wants a fresh start, he should consider Coastal Carolina’s Jamey Chadwell. Georgia Tech won more than it probably should have running the triple option with Paul Johnson. Chadwell runs a version of the triple option that can work — and put butts in the seats — in the 21st century. While the offense uses triple option principles, the offensive linemen won’t be cut-blocking the defensive linemen every day in practice. Plus, the offense is incredibly quarterback-friendly. Chadwell’s Chanticleers run most of the time, but when they do throw, they’re incredibly efficient. Last year, QB Grayson McCall led the nation in yards per attempt.
The fear with Chadwell is that neither he nor his staff has had to recruit at the Power 5 level. Chadwell was the head coach at Division II North Greenville and then succeeded as Charleston Southern’s head coach in the FCS before taking over at Coastal Carolina. But the success at multiple levels should be proof enough that this group can figure it out after a third jump in competition.
If that fear is too great on the Flats, then the safe choice probably is Alabama offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien. O’Brien worked at Georgia Tech under George O’Leary, the last non-option coach to succeed there. O’Brien also did an excellent job under incredibly difficult circumstances as Penn State’s coach from 2012-13. His experience as an NFL head coach also should help him recruit.
Nebraska
An extension for Lance Leipold at Kansas through 2029 suggests he isn’t in the mix at this point at Nebraska or at Wisconsin.
Matt Rhule, who found success at Temple and Baylor before a rough tenure with the Carolina Panthers, is available to come back to college right now. And his style of roster construction and culture building would fit well at Nebraska. His Temple and Baylor teams were tough and solid on both lines of scrimmage. That’s how Wisconsin and Iowa have found continued success with similar recruiting ponds, and it’s probably the identity Nebraska seems to seek.
Rhule’s tenure at Baylor is informative as well because he made sure to hire people who could help him navigate recruiting the state of Texas. The hiring of Joey McGuire, the former high school coach who went on to become Texas Tech’s head coach, is the best example of Rhule’s adaptability. Those who watched him in Carolina would have questions, but Rhule just might be a better college coach.
If Rhule would rather take a year off and work in television — check out his appearances this week on the NFL Network’s Good Morning Football — than dive headlong into another meat grinder of a job, there are still plenty of options among sitting head coaches.
While one coach in Saturday’s Sunflower Showdown seems set, the other also fits the profile and has not yet locked himself in longer. Kansas State coach Chris Klieman has won huge in the FCS, and in Year 4 he has Kansas State in the Big 12 title game. Before coming to the Little Apple, Klieman went 69-6 and won four FCS national titles at North Dakota State. He understands how to run a developmental program in a place that isn’t near a lot of four- and five-star recruits while also dealing with massive expectations.
If I were Nebraska athletic director Trev Alberts, I’d also want to assess Iowa State coach Matt Campell’s interest. This season hasn’t gone the way anyone wanted in Ames, but what Campbell has done relative to the degree of difficulty for that job remains amazing. He could build a quality roster at Nebraska. The question is whether he’d want to leave. He has built a good situation for himself at Iowa State.
South Florida
If Georgia Tech doesn’t want Chadwell, USF athletic director Michael Kelly should pounce. The guy should have been a Power 5 coach already, but USF would be the beneficiary of Power 5 athletic directors’ lack of imagination.
Also, I think USF would be better served hiring a Sun Belt or MAC head coach instead of a Power 5 coordinator or position coach. The Bulls just opened their indoor facility, but they still don’t have all the resources of the schools they compete against for players in the Sunshine State. USF needs a coach who appreciates what he has instead of being put in a position to miss what he doesn’t have anymore.
In this vein, Toledo’s Jason Candle could fit the bill. He has the Rockets in the MAC title game for the second time in his tenure, so he’ll be a little busy through next week.
Wisconsin
The timing of Paul Chryst’s firing suggested that Wisconsin wanted to give interim coach Jim Leonhard as much runway as possible to earn the job on a permanent basis. This week, The Athletic Wisconsin beat writer Jesse Temple made a compelling case for Leonhard to get the job.
Leipold could make a lot of sense in Madison. But if Leonhard can provide a sound plan for the future of Wisconsin’s offense and recruiting — we know he has the defense under control — then he feels like the best choice.
You’ve said Kentucky is the best job in America and Mark Stoops getting an extension after losing to Vanderbilt would seem to prove that point, but not so fast. It seems a fair number of Kentucky fans don’t seem to be thrilled about the new contract. Trouble in paradise? — Louis
The problem with having the best job in America is that if you do too good a job, it becomes exactly like the other jobs.
With this extension that brings his annual salary to $8.3 million, Kentucky now pays Mark Stoops like a coach who is expected to compete for conference titles. In the current SEC divisional format, Kentucky probably would never compete for a conference title as long as Kirby Smart coaches Georgia. When the SEC ditches divisions in a few years, Kentucky would have to finish No. 2 out of a loaded 16-team group to play for the conference title.
By breathing life into a program that was moribund when he took over, Stoops still has made Kentucky far more money than Kentucky has paid him. The question is whether the market required this particular raise. And maybe it did. Stoops would fit well at Nebraska or Wisconsin, and both those programs have plenty of money. He could have been attractive to Auburn. So unlike Missouri’s extension of Eli Drinkwitz a few weeks ago, this doesn’t feel purely like a case of a school bidding against itself.
But with each good season and with each raise comes a natural ratcheting of expectations. What makes this raise feel wrong is that Stoops and company have not met expectations this season. Previously, Kentucky could have a mediocre year and it was fine as long as it got sandwiched between nine- or 10-win seasons. That won’t be the case as Kentucky fans become more accustomed to success.
I remember watching Steve Spurrier speak to crowds in South Carolina during the summer of 2014. The Gamecocks had won 11 games for three consecutive seasons. They had beaten rival Clemson five consecutive times. South Carolina fans, who have been historically beaten down rooting for a team that played more than 100 years of football before winning its first bowl game, should have known better than to expect such things indefinitely. Though their costumed mascot is named Cocky, history should have taught them not to get cocky. But they had been spoiled. And after crashing back to reality, their expectations are still readjusting.
That is bound to happen at Kentucky through a combination of the program’s success and the program paying like a more successful one. If you pay Auburn paychecks, you eventually will land on Auburn expectations. And we all know how that ends.
Stoops should enjoy this for now. He’ll need to beat Louisville this week, or the backlash will come sooner and from more people. But for the moment, Kentucky still remains America’s best job. The people who write the checks are happy, and that’s why they’re writing bigger ones. But unfortunately, human nature dictates that ultimately those big checks will lead to big expectations. At that point, we’ll have to deem some other job the best in America. Maybe it’s Purdue. Maybe it’s Minnesota. Wherever it is, it’s where they’ll pay you a lot for winning a medium amount and still keep the complaints to a minimum.
Depending upon what happens in the next two weeks, it is possible that Notre Dame will have played three Power 5 champions in its 12-game regular season. Has any school ever done that? If it occurs, what would it say, if anything, about the value of being an independent? — Gerry
If it does indeed come to fruition, what can Notre Dame take from a season where three of its opponents make the College Football Playoff? — Karl
The best recent example I thought of for Gerry’s question was the 2011 LSU team, which beat Pac-12 champion Oregon, Big East champion West Virginia and eventual national champion Alabama in the same season. My colleagues at The Athletic helped me remember a few more.
Matt Fortuna reminded me that Notre Dame’s schedule has come close to pulling this off twice in the past nine years. In 2013, the Fighting Irish played Big Ten champion Michigan State and Pac-12 champion Stanford. Oklahoma would have been the third conference champion but finished second in the Big 12. In 2017, Notre Dame played SEC champion Georgia and Pac-12 champion USC. The Irish also played Miami, which won the ACC Coastal but lost to Clemson in the title game.
Editor Jason Starrett pointed out that Notre Dame’s opponents pulled off that feat in 2003. Florida State won the ACC. Michigan won the Big Ten. USC won the Pac-10.
Editor Matt Brown used the final AP poll to find some similarly difficult schedules. He sent along this note.
Since 1998, only two teams have faced three regular-season opponents that 1) went on to finish in the AP top 10 and 2) were in different power conferences.
The 2000 Miami team played Washington (Pac-10 champion, finished No. 3), Florida State (ACC champion, finished No. 5) and Virginia Tech (Big East runner-up to Miami, finished No. 6). The 1998 Louisiana-Monroe team played Florida (finished No. 5), Kansas State (finished No. 10) and Arizona (finished No. 4) — though somehow, none of those three won their conference title.
What does that say about the value of Notre Dame’s independence? It says that the Irish will continue to play fun schedules for the foreseeable future. When UCLA and USC announced their moves to the Big Ten while the Big Ten fought against the Playoff expansion plan, I thought that would be the move that forced Notre Dame football into a conference. But when the dust settled and the presidents who run the CFP forced the 12-team model through, it meant Notre Dame can stay independent for at least as long as this format prevails. The Irish give up the possibility of a bye because they can’t win a conference, but that’s probably a fair swap for the likelihood that any Notre Dame team that finishes 10-2 or better will make the field.
As for what this year’s opponents’ results mean for this year’s Notre Dame team, I think how we feel going forward will depend on what the Irish do Saturday against USC. The Marshall and Stanford losses are objectively awful, but there is no question the Irish have gotten better as coach Marcus Freeman’s first season at the helm has progressed. A strong finish should reinforce the notion that Freeman was the correct choice — something that seemed debatable six weeks ago.
Notre Dame handled both halves of the ACC title game (North Carolina and Clemson). If the Irish can beat USC or push the Trojans to the brink, then everyone probably should walk away from this season feeling good about the future of the program.
A Random Ranking
Before we get to this week’s Random Ranking, let’s take a moment to appreciate the Thanksgiving side dish draft that I participated in with Ari Wasserman and Scott Dochterman on the podcast. Scott’s No. 4 and No. 5 choices were absolute shockers.
This week, reader Jerome would like me to rank hot beverages. Away we go…
- Coffee
- Irish coffee
- Mexican hot chocolate
- American hot chocolate
- Green tea
- Hot cider
- Peppermint latte
- Masala chai
- Mint tea
- Hot buttered rum
(Top photo: Matthew Hinton / AP)
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