It was just over a week ago when I wrote a column about how being a college football coach didn’t seem like it was all it seemed to be. Coaches were getting fired left and right, and even those who weren’t being shown the door were having the heat turned up, some after just one or two seasons on the job.
And then things got weirder. More coaches either left or got fired, which means more jobs are open, which means even more coaches will leave their current gigs. It’s a wild, vicious cycle, and for those of us who are fans of college football, it’s become an integral part of the sport.
Later this week, several teams will square off for their conference championships, and we’ll finally get a final four so we can stop arguing about that. Before we get there, though, let’s take a look at my top five faces who’ve popped up in new places.
Billy Napier, Florida
Wait, Florida hired the Oxi-Clean guy?
Hey, anytime you can hire a guy who dominated the Sun Belt Conference, you have to make that move.
You know, it really does feel fitting for the University of Florida to have a head coach named “Billy.”
OK, OK, I’m trolling. And look, as a UGA fan, this is one of the few times over the last few decades that I’ve been able to pick at the Gators, who have been really good for a really long time. I thought Dan Mullen was going to be the guy to take Florida to the next level, but he didn’t seem to be able to get out of his own way. (Tying himself to Todd Grantham also turned out to be more of an anchor than a life preserver.)
I think Billy Napier is going to do really well at Florida. He’ll recruit better than Mullen, and he really couldn’t do worse at managing players and relationships and expectations than Dan Mullen.
(Of course, I also thought Mullen would do a great job at Florida, so…)
Sonny Dykes, TCU
Other than Sonny Dykes sounding exactly like the name of a coach who should be coaching college football in Texas, what does he bring to the table? Well, we saw Dykes field some offense-first teams while he was at SMU, and presumably that will transfer to TCU, where they’ve been a team that trusted their defense for so long now, even as college football trended the other direction.
Can he help TCU become a Big 12 power? With Texas and Oklahoma jumping ship to the SEC, perhaps that window is open more than it seemed like previously.
Lincoln Riley, USC
It’s hard to fault USC for going after Lincoln Riley. After all, there is an entire generation of potential college football players who have no memory of USC being a college football power. They won a title in 2004, and since then it’s been a slow decline into mediocrity. The problem is, USC fans and boosters haven’t forgotten. Clay Helton just went 46-24 over the last six seasons, and it wasn’t good enough. If you look at the names of the coaches that have been at USC since 2004, there are some heavyweights in there: Carroll; Orgeron; Kiffin; Sarkisian.
The problem is, the college football axis of power has shifted since 2004. All the best teams and players are in the Southeast, and USC has increasingly found itself on the outside looking in. Meanwhile, Southern California is producing a lot of great football players, and many of them are leaving and playing elsewhere. Perhaps Lincoln Riley can bring his high-powered offense to the West Coast and make it a nice place to be. But if his defenses are as consistently bad as they were at Oklahoma, it won’t really matter who is the coach at USC.
Was Riley afraid of playing in the SEC? It sure seems that way, like perhaps there was too much competition playing on the field and recruiting in living rooms. Even if his reasons for leaving were purely altruistic, Riley steps into a situation where it should be much easier to win than it was at OU.
Clay Helton, Georgia Southern
I know, nobody really cares about this hire, but I think this is a great move for a school like Georgia Southern, which competes around the fringes in the South. Helton was good at USC, even if he wasn’t great, and nobody is expecting Georgia Southern to return to their dominant days of when Erk Russell was head-butting linemen in helmets. For a school like Georgia Southern, a coach like Helton can move the needle. And with so many other coaches struggling to make any noise at all, perhaps a coach like Helton at a school like Georgia Southern could be a perfect fit.
Brian Kelly, LSU
This one really came out of left field. Ever since Ed Orgeron announced he was packing up and heading for Destin, I’ve heard dozens of names thrown around as possible replacements. But Brian Kelly? A 60-year-old guy who never coached outside the Upper Midwest, whose last bowl win at Notre Dame was the 2019 Camping World Bowl? That’s y’alls man?
Don’t get me wrong: Kelly will like do an above-average job, and for a guy who has a penchant for sticking his foot in his mouth, following in the footsteps of Les Miles is a pretty safe place to be. I don’t think he’ll be able to recruit at the level of a Saban or Smart, but he’ll do about as good of a job as Jimbo Fisher is doing at Texas A&M.
Meh. Geaux Tigers.