Who will be the Texas A&M head coach Notre Dame takes on in the 2024 season opener?
Notre Dame opens the 2024 college football season at a location they’ve only played at once before: Texas A&M.
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When the Irish do so it appears it’ll be the first game for a new head coach at Texas A&M. That’s because according to a report by ESPN’s Pete Thamel, current Texas A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher is expected to be fired.
Fisher is 45-25 in six seasons at Texas A&M. When he was rumored to be interested in leaving for the then-open LSU job in 2021, Fisher signed a 10-year contract with $95 million guaranteed.
He is expected to be paid in full – good work if you can get it.
Ranking all 14 head coaches in the SEC in 2023 from worst to first.
The SEC is host to some of the best coaches in all of college football. Each week is much more than just a physical game, the coaches are playing a chess match from the opposing sidelines. Four active coaches in the conference have competed for a national title with three of them winning it for a combined 10 rings.
Even some of the schools that have struggled in recent years such as Vanderbilt and South Carolina seem to have found their answer at head coach and are trending in the right direction. Where do first-year head coaches Zach Arnett and Hugh Freeze rank? Saban or Kirby Smart? Roll Tide Wire ranks the SEC coaches heading into the 2023 season.
PHOTOS: Tennessee football head coaches through the years
Tennessee has a storied football program that began play in 1891.
The Vols have won six national championships (1938, 1940, 1950, 1951, 1967, 1998). Robert Neyland won four national championships as Tennessee’s head coach, while Doug Dickey and Phillip Fulmer each guided the Vols to one title.
Tennessee has won 13 Southeastern Conference championships: Phillip Fulmer (2), Johnny Majors (3), Doug Dickey (2), Bowden Wyatt (1) and Robert Neyland (5).
UT won two Southern Conference championships under Neyland in 1927 and 1932.
Tennessee also won the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association title in 1914 under head coach Zora G. Clevenger.
Below are photos of Tennessee’s head coaches through the years.
In a conference that still has Nick Saban, there’s hardly a question who occupies the No. 1 spot on the list. Despite Georgia and Kirby Smart finally conquering Saban and the Crimson Tide, Smart is likely to remain below Saban on any list until the Alabama head coach resigns.
Is Smart the clear-cut No. 2 head coach in the SEC? Toppmeyer says yes, and really anyone else should probably say yes as well.
On Smart, USA TODAY wrote:
Smart knows recruiting. Smart knows defense. And he proved last season that still can be a winning combination, even in this quarterback-driven era. Despite Stetson Bennett IV’s improvement, Smart has not delivered an elite quarterback. And he still must prove he can avoid any major program drop-off after the loss of 15 players to the NFL Draft. Saban has separated himself from others by the way he keeps the machine rolling with no significant backsliding. The way Smart recruits, he’s positioned his program to do the same.
But as for the rest of the conference, there’s plenty of debate as to who goes where.
Here’s a look at Toppmeyer’s head coaching rankings as we inch closer to September’s kickoff:
The past decade of college football has seen some memorable hires, and several of those hires are notable for the wrong reasons. A recent list by 247Sports has taken a look at 13 of the worst head coach hires of the past decade. Yes, a Nebraska head coach also made a list, and I’m sure you could figure it out fairly quickly. However, before looking at the individual coaches on the list, let’s look at a conference breakdown.
All 13 coaches come from the Power 5, with the SEC leading the way for all conferences with five different entries on the list. The Pac 12 comes in second with three coaches, the Big 12 and Big Ten come next with two coaches apiece, and the ACC makes a single addition, but one that left a lasting impact at their respective school.
Scroll below to look at some of the past decade’s worst college football coaching hires.
Insert “this is fine” meme. A look at how CBS Sports ranked Bryan Harsin among his Power Five peers.
As we look towards the 2022 college football season, the Auburn Tigers are hoping for a better final result than last year. It won’t come easy as they have one of the toughest schedules in FBS. Fortunately, most of those games will be played at Jordan-Hare Stadium.
CBS Sports college football analyst Tom Fornelli recently revealed the Power Five head coaching rankings from 26 to 65. They weren’t too kind this year for the Auburn head football coach [autotag]Bryan Harsin[/autotag].
According to Fornelli, Harsin checks in at No. 48 dropping a total of 21 spots after a disappointing showing in the 2021 season.
What CBS Sports Says…
Jake Crandall / USA TODAY NETWORK
Look at what Auburn has done to Harsin! He came to Auburn last year with enough reputation to debut in our rankings at 27, and yet, one 6-7 season later — not to mention surviving a possible coup — has him dropping 21 spots in the rankings. The good news is hopes for Auburn aren’t high in 2022, so if Harsin exceeds them, he could fly right back up the board. The bad news is hopes aren’t high for Auburn in 2022, and Harsin’s already on the hot seat. 2021 rank: 27 (-21)
It isn’t shocking to see where Harsin fell on this list, he lands on most of the hot seat rankings heading into 2022. Most of which isn’t the fault of the head coach. Perhaps it has everything to do with Harsin being held to unrealistic expectations and a Board of Trustees that seem to want him gone after a season that fell apart in year 1.
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Nick Saban is a legend in the football realm, no doubt. With all of his accolades, it is hard to dispute the argument that he is one of the greats at his craft, if not THE great.
However, when honing in on the upcoming season, does Saban still reign supreme over the rest of college football in 2022?
Yes. The answer is usually yes, so long as he’s on the sidelines.
247Sports’ Brad Crawford ranked the top-15 college football coaches for the 2022 season, and the Crimson Tide head coach took the top spot.
Crawford goes into detail as to why Saban deserves to be ranked as the nation’s best college football head coach.
“The standard for excellence in college football, Nick Saban seems to get better with age. Many questioned if he was near the end of the line a few years ago after the Crimson Tide lost to Clemson in the national championship game, but Alabama has won a title and played for another since, showing this locomotive is not slowing down as college football’s behemoth in the SEC West. Some thought last season would be a “bridge” year for Alabama after losing so many players to the NFL Draft, but the Crimson Tide overcame a midseason loss at Texas A&M to win out as SEC champs and reach the title game before losing in the fourth quarter to Georgia. With the nation’s No. 2 signing class and the two best players in America back (Bryce Young and Will Anderson Jr.), 2022’s preseason No. 1 is the team to beat again and Saban’s a big reason why.”
The 2022 offseason has just begun and Roll Tide Wire will continue to cover all things Nick Saban and Alabama football as it continues.
Contact/Follow us @RollTideWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Alabama news, notes and opinion. You can also follow AJ Spurr on Twitter @SpurrFM.
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Whether you’re a drill sergeant, players’ coach or wonderkid, the most important thing is to be authentic.
Successful NFL head coaches can come in many different forms. Whether you’re a drill sergeant, a players’ coach, or a hotshot wonderkid, the most important thing is to be authentic.
The Atlanta Falcons and Detroit Lions each hired new head coaches during the offseason, and while both have had some success, they couldn’t be further apart in terms of their personalities. The Falcons brought in highly touted Titans offensive coordinator Arthur Smith to help fix their broken offense and maximize the late career of quarterback Matt Ryan.
Meanwhile, the Lions took a different approach — since Matthew Stafford had already requested a trade — and went for Saints assistant head coach Dan Campbell, an out-of-the-box hire to help turn around a losing culture.
With Atlanta set to host Detroit at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Week 16, we thought it would be a good time to compare the two first-year head coaches and have fans vote on which is having the better season.
ESPN ranked all head coaches in the FBS based on their playing careers, and Sarkisian landed within the top five.
Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian was quite the athlete in the 1990’s before he became one of the top play callers in college football.
ESPN recently ranked all 130 FBS head coaches based on their playing careers (link requires subscription). The ranking put an emphasis on which players made meaningful contributions in college, regardless of level. Those who were multiyear starters or award recipients of FBS teams get more credit, as do those who played professionally.
With that in mind, Sarkisian landed at No. 5 overall. Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh, Northwestern’s Pat Fitzgerald, Tennessee’s Josh Heupel, and Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy were the only current head coaches listed ahead of him.
Sarkisian first starred at quarterback for El Camino College, setting national junior college records in both completion percentage (72.4) and pass efficiency (203.8 rating). He then transferred to BYU and earned WAC offensive player of the year honors as a senior in 1996, when he led the nation in pass efficiency (173.56) and broke Steve Young’s career completion percentage record (65.2). He won the Sammy Baugh Trophy and then played three seasons in the CFL, starting for Saskatchewan in 1999.
It’s obviously not a must to have been a former player in order to be a successful collegiate coach, but it certainly provides unparalleled experience. In Sarkisian’s case, it was likely a key contributor to him becoming an offensive guru and elite quarterback developer.
Notre Dame fans will immediately think back to one game upon hearing his name.
Frank Solich has decided to retire as Ohio University’s football coach in order to focus on his health.
At 76, Solich is leaving the job as the winningest coach in the history of the Mid-American Conference as he led the Bobcats to a 115-82 mark over 16 seasons. In that time Ohio finished with a winning record 12 times, appeared in 11 bowl games, and won four MAC East Division titles.
Many remember Solich for his time as Nebraska’s head coach as he took over for the legendary Tom Osborne in 1998. Solich led the Cornhuskers to three final top-10 rankings in six seasons but was fired after a 2003 season in which they went 9-3.
For Notre Dame fans visiting Fighting Irish Wire, Solich was Nebraska’s head coach the last two times the traditional powerhouses met as he beat the Irish in both 2000 and 2001.
Personally, I am surprised I made it over 130 words about Frank Solich without mentioning Bob Davie playing for overtime in that 2000 heartbreaker.
