Tag: best coaches

College football: Top head coaches entering 2023 season

Who should be No. 1 – the GOAT or the B2B champ?

Welcome to the point on the college football calendar that we’ve closed the school year and spring practice is a distant memory but remain over 80 days until regular season games begin.  What does that mean?  Lists of the best and worst of certain things and a whole lot of them.

Bill Bender of The Sporting News released his college football head coach rankings from 132-1 on Tuesday.  After just one year as a head coach Marcus Freeman of Notre Dame checked in 30th in Bender’s rankings as the Irish went 9-4 with a Gator Bowl victory in his first season.

Who did Bender rank as his top coaches and who may have showed up a little lower than we think they should have?  Here are Bender’s top 35 and our thoughts on each.

Head Coach Rankings: How Good Were All 76 This Bowl Season?

Head coach rankings from the 2021-2022 bowl season: who did the best jobs, and who struggled?

Which head coaches did the best jobs this bowl season, and which ones struggled? Here are all 76 head coaches this 2021-2022 bowl season ranked from who rocked and who didn’t.

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Head Coach Rankings: Bowl Season

Which head coaches and their staffs did the best jobs this bowl season, and which ones had a rough run?

Very, very loosely based on what the expectations were for each team, talent level, betting lines – at least a little bit – and which teams played above their heads and which ones sputtered, here’s our ranking of the jobs done by all 76 head coaches in the post-season.

Two key notes. 1) There isn’t any extra love or punishment for one bad decision – like a fourth down try that didn’t work, and 2) the interim head coaches were randomly thrown in here, but they all deserve a break from the scrutiny.

CFN Final Rankings | National Championship 5 Thoughts
Ranking Every Bowl | National Championship Game Notes
Bowl Season Coaching Rankings 
1-10 | 11-20 | 21-30 | 31-40 | 41-50 | 51-60 | 61-70 | 71-76

76. Mack Brown, North Carolina

Duke’s Mayo Bowl
South Carolina 38, North Carolina 21
Brown’s double-digit favorite team didn’t have it …18-0. That was the score after the first quarter, and the Tar Heels couldn’t adjust to stop the run and get off the field. This was a good South Carolina team, but it wasn’t 543 yards of total offense good.

75. Deion Sanders, Jackson State

Cricket Celebration Bowl
South Carolina State 31, Jackson State 10
With all the momentum in the world after a big recruiting coup, and with all the national buzz and attention, Sanders’ Tiger team was a total dud. Amazing all year long, the Tigers weren’t even close, finishing with fewer than 200 yards of total offense, eight penalties, and three turnovers in an ugly loss.

74. Eliah Drinkwitz, Missouri

Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl
Army 24, Missouri 22
Of course Missouri would’ve been a whole lot better had star RB Tyler Badie played, but the call of Brady Cook at quarterback almost worked. It was a great game against a well-coached team, but this is an SEC team with SEC talent that lost to a service academy. That’s not okay.

73. Jake Dickert, Washington State

Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl
Central Michigan 24, Washington State 21
Washington State got to play a random MAC team to fill in after Miami tapped out. Maybe the Cougars weren’t focused, maybe they let their guard down, maybe a few missing parts made a difference as the team didn’t wake up until it was too late. Central Michigan turned it over twice, got flagged 11 times, and it still won after getting up 21-0 in the first half.

72. Mike Leach, Mississippi State

AutoZone Liberty Bowl,
Texas Tech 34, Mississippi State 7
Yeah, there were a whole lot of key opt-out losses – to be fair, the offensive tackle situation was a problem – but you’re an SEC team, Mississippi State. You don’t lose to Texas Tech 34-7 with the offense sputtering that poorly. You can’t have a brand that’s all about offense, and then struggle that much will plenty of time to prepare.

71. Scott Satterfield, Louisville

SERVPRO First Responder Bowl
Air Force 31, Louisville 28
The Cardinals had the offensive explosion, it had the Power Five/ACC talent, and it couldn’t hold up to the Air Force passing game? The offense worked well and it still wasn’t enough because the Air Force coaching staff’s game plan got the job done. Satterfield really needed this win, and he didn’t get it.

Bowl Season Coaching Rankings 
1-10 | 11-20 | 21-30 | 31-40 | 41-50 | 51-60 | 61-70 | 71-76

NEXT: Head Coach Rankings: Bowl Season Top 70

Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6, Page 7, Page 8

The Sporting News Ranks All FBS College Coaches

How high is Brian Kelly on The Sporting News best college football coaches list? Very high. Find out right here!

As we’ve plowed through the sports-less spring and into the summer we’ve discussed a ton of various things and debated several lists here at Fighting Irish Wire.

Plenty of outlets have offered their rankings of the best current head coaches FBS college football, most of which have Brian Kelly in the top ten.

Bill Bender of The Sporting News released his head coaches ranking this week and to the surprise of nobody that has been paying attention, Brian Kelly is listed in the top ten, this time checking in sixth.

Here’s what Bender says of Kelly, who he moves up one spot compared to last year’s rankings:

There was a point when Kelly looked on the way out of South Bend, but he’s refurbished the program with success. The Irish are 33-6 the past three seasons and have a Playoff appearance. Kelly has Notre Dame in the postseason conversation in November on a yearly basis, and the chase for that elusive national championship continues. – Bill Bender of The Sporting News

The only five coaches to rank ahead of Kelly in this list are easy to name: Nick Saban, Dabo Swinney, Ed Orgeron, Lincoln Riley and Kirby Smart.

Of those, Saban, Swinney and Orgeron have national title’s to their names while Riley and Smart have each made the College Football Playoff, like Kelly in 2018.

Immediately after Kelly come Ryan Day of Ohio State who I’d guess is ranked in the top five a year from now, Dan Mullen of Florida who has raised the expectations in Gainsville to sky-high this fall, James Franklin who nearly led Penn State to the CFP in 2016 and Jimbo Fisher who won it all with Florida State in 2013 but hasn’t reached the same heights since taking the Texas A&M job two years ago.

I don’t have a real problem with any of the list. It’s nice to see someone not throw endless bouquets at Jim Harbaugh’s feet as he checks in 11.

Mack Brown’s rise from 24 to 14 is also interesting as I had that being a brutal hire for North Carolina in my mind, but it has looked nothing short of great just over a year in.

ESPN’s Best College Basketball Coach Hirings of Last 25 Years

The top five are obvious but who have the other fantastic hires of college basketball been the last quarter century?

When you think back to 1996 and go through today there are some college basketball head coaches who have knocked their jobs out of the park.

Roy Williams has won three national championships since being hired by North Carolina in 2003.  Bill Self hasn’t had a year where he failed to win a Big XII and his Kansas Jayhawks won it all in 2008.  Jay Wright has taken Villanova to new heights and a pair of national titles while Tom Izzo has led the Michigan State Spartans to eight Final Four appearances and a national championship in 2000.

Those are the obvious ones to best hires in that run.  What about the other, not so obvious great hires?

ESPN’s John Gasaway ranked the 25 best college basketball hires of the last 25 years with the caveat that the coach still has to be active even if they’re now employed by a different program.

Those obvious names made the list with Williams one, Wright two, Izzo three and Self four.

John Calipari at Kentucky, Tony Bennett at Virginia and Mark Few of Gonzaga are all on the list as well. A name Notre Dame fans are plenty familiar with checked in at 14th as well.

14. Mike Brey, Notre Dame Fighting Irish (2000)
Brey chose his mentors well. When you’ve been an assistant to both Morgan Wootten (DeMatha High School, 1982-87) and Mike Krzyzewski (Duke, 1987-95), you’re tough to beat in that category. The Fighting Irish have been to 12 of the 19 NCAA tournaments that have been played since his hiring, and ND nearly beat team of the decade Kentucky in the 2015 Elite Eight.

There isn’t much to complain about here if you’re a Notre Dame fan or Brey supporter.  Perhaps Leonard Hamilton at Florida State being ranked eighth might seem as a bit of a slight but Hamilton has had the Seminoles playing at a higher level than Notre Dame the last couple of years.

Whatever the case it’s nice to see Brey get some national love for a program that had an entire decade without an NCAA Tournament appearance before his arrival.

Makes you really miss what could have been with Matt Doherty, doesn’t it?