| Coach | School | First Season | Overall Record (as head coach, at current school) | First (full) regular season | Last 12 games |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Justin Fuente | Virginia Tech | 2016 | 30-17 | 9-3 | 7-5 |
| Will Muschamp | South Carolina | 2016 | 25-21 | 6-6 | 5-7 |
| Dino Babers | Syracuse | 2016 | 21-23 | 4-8 | 6-6 |
| Matt Campbell | Iowa State | 2016 | 24-21 | 3-9 | 7-5 |
| Bronco Mendenhall | UVA | 2016 | 21-24 | 2-10 | 7-5 |
| Mark Richt | Miami | 2016 | 26-13 | 8-4 | 7-5 |
| Kirby Smart | UGA | 2016 | 38-11 | 7-5 | 9-3 |
| Chris Ash | Rutgers | 2016 | 8-32 | 2-10 | 1-11 |
| Barry Odom | Missouri | 2016 | 24-22 | 4-8 | 8-4 |
| Clay Helton | USC | 2016 | 31-16 | 9-3 | 6-6 |
| Lovie Smith | Illinois | 2016 | 12-31 | 3-9 | 5-7 |
| Ed Orgeron | LSU | 2017 | 27-7 | 9-3 | 11-1 |
| Tom Herman | Texas | 2017 | 22-13 | 6-6 | 8-4 |
| Matt Rhule | Baylor | 2017 | 15-17 | 1-11 | 10-2 |
| Justin Wilcox | Cal | 2017 | 16-17 | 5-7 | 6-6 |
| Tom Allen | Indianna | 2017 | 16-16 | 5-7 | 7-5 |
| PJ Fleck | Minnesota | 2017 | 20-13 | 5-7 | 11-1 |
| Jeff Brohm | Purdue | 2017 | 15-19 | 6-6 | 3-9 |
| Chad Morris | Arkansas | 2018 | 4-16 | 2-10 | 2-10 |
I know wins/losses doesn't tell a whole lot of the story, but I still think it's interesting. Only 4 of these 19 coaches are performing more than 2 games better than their first season.
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Chad Morris is the most overrated college coach the past 25 years.
Lane Kiffin is on Line 1 with a rebuttal
Ironically both are amazing OC's.
And were pivotal in creating/elevating dynasties.
Chad Morris hire saved Dabo's job, got them Deshaun Watson and a litany of other recruits, allowed them to train Clemson guys Scott and Elliot as his understudies to run Morris' offense after he left.
Lane Kiffin transformed Bama's offense into the spread age, extending the dynasty, and made Venables his bitch in the 15/16 NCG.
Different skill set from head coach, obviously. Morris W/L record as a head coach is terrible, bottom line. Locksley looked good as bama OC too, and he is like 5-60 as a head coach.
I'm not making that argument. Though Locksley was running a more RPO-heavy variant of the installed Kiffin offense. That wasn't Locksley's offense, per se. Additonally, Kiffin was about 100x better at making in game adjustments and play calls than Locksley. They had opposite experiences in their biggest game as OC's against Clemson. Kiffin was watching what Venables was doing, baiting him into those defenses, then running plays that couldn't be adequately covered by those defenses. Venables sat in an unexpected two high look for much of last year's national championship and when the field compressed in the RZ Locksley had no adjustments or answers to adjust and create success, despite moving the ball well between the 20's.
Morris W/L as a head coach also requires context that he took over a terrible SMU team, built their talent up to where they might be the best G5 team this year and are currently undefeated, and has one of the worst jobs in college football at Arkansas in the SEC West. I'm not saying he's a great HC, nor am I suggesting you can't win at Arkansas, but any job in the SEC West is going to be tough to rack up wins. He's been BAD at Arkansas, not just against SEC West opponents either, and even with inheriting a poorly fitting and not great roster from Bielema, he should be doing better than he is. However, I don't think the door is closed on Morris as far as becoming a good HC one day.
I get that SMU was a disaster and Arky is in the brutal SEC west. My point is that I think his record is who he is. Like Bill Parcell's says. I don't think he is Nick Saban or Frank Beamer being held back by the jobs he has. I think he's a mediocre coach.
I agree that's a fair assessment of his time as HC so far. I think there may still be hope for him though. He's very young. I think in the right spot he could find success, and while I do think he will be fired from Arkansas here at some point (they might not be able to afford it right now), we will likely get to see this play out anyway as I doubt he falls out coaching after this (he's 50).
SMU was a disaster Chad helped but they have like 11 transfers starting. Those weren't Chad's doing. He just made SMU viable to transfer to, Dykes has been the one recruiting those guys and made a lot of this years roster.
I'm from Arkansas, and don't know if Morris makes it to the end of the season if he loses to Western Kentucky......he sold a big game coming in and everyone was excited....definitely hasn't delivered.
Ironically the team Morris left is undefeated and their Offensive Coordinator is none other than Rhett Lashlee who left the Auburn OC job making bank a few years ago to be the OC at UConn so he could call plays on his own (he played for the Gus Bus in high school and followed him along the way). He took a huge pay cut to go to UConn to prove himself. The next season after a few games Gus gave up play calling duties.....ouch. The coaching carousel is a crazy one.
6-36. If you're going to throw out stats, please take 7 seconds to do a google search.
He's "like" 5-60... it wasn't a global warming peer review.
Well,
Almost.
#justDCthings
Had the same reply ready to go
I disagree, and I think that this is something that win/loss records don't explain, but Morris took one of the 20 hardest G5 jobs (Dykes is winning with the team Morris built) followed by one the 15 most difficult difficult P5 jobs. I'm not saying he's a great coach, but he has to be graded on some sort of a curve.
Agreed. SMU is a good football team, and its mostly due to the players and system Morris put in place.
Arkansas is always going to be a very hard place to win. The fact that...ya know...its the state of Arkansas not withstanding, you are never going to recruit as well as multiple other teams in your division. Hardest division in the sport to compete, and the last time they had any kind of sustained success was because they literally had two starting NFL running backs in their backfield.
Not an excuse for Morris, but I too think he is a better coach than results at his current job suggest.
He's also an incredible asshole...I know a guy that was his HS quarterback and Morriss (who was the OC at the time and the HC was Art Briles-quite a staff) made an example out of him in front of the whole team at half-time of a game (he did repeatedly over the course of the season). Well, my buddy had enough so he threw the closest clipboard at Morriss' face and cut a huge gash in his nose-still has the scar to this day. So if you ever notice the scar on Chad Morriss' face, now you know how it happened.
So, you know Michael Brewer, eh. Also, I think you're suggesting there isn't as much fluff between the two as this fluff piece suggests.
That HS (Lake Travis, I believe) actually produced a pretty absurd run of P5 QB's so he could be talking about quite a few different people.
The last 9 starting QBs have had D1 offers, and supposedly the current one (10) will too.
It's not Brewer, this guy is at least 5 years older
It seemed the most logical conclusion. but, I guess I shouldn't assume.
Interesting that you know a different HS QB that played for Morris.
He was never at Brewer's level, in fact, he tore his ACL his senior year and quit football after that.
And Chad Morris was one of - if not THE - most wanted names by the VT fanbase circa 2014-2015.
Moral to the story - the VT fanbase (like pretty much every fanbase) is not a very good judge of potential coaching hires.
VT fans just wanted offense at the time. We got Fuente. Still waiting on the high powered consistent offense.
Well, we have seen some offense. Scored 43 points vs UNC.
Just sayin'.
High powered... 43 came in a 6 OT. game .. Consistent- couldn't move the ball in the first half against Furman. The offense is better than it was in 2012... but its neither high powered or consistent yet.
Fairly high powered and consistent under Evans no? Early returns seem good with Hooker. 107 points in 3 regulation games.
Hendon Hooker can be a star and change the offense's trajectory. If he is this will dramatically change how people Fuente and vice versa.
Watch the tape - all the skills are there. It's a matter of him proving he cam be the gamer Ryan couldn't be once the open the entire playbook.
Only 31 of those 43 came in the 60 minutes of timed football. 31 is pretty average in the modern era.
42 against Miami. Have scored at least a TD in 10 of the last 12 regulation quarters of football (the Hooker era) if I counted right. Fairly consistent.
And all it took was pulling his precious project QB and starting someone who was a much, much better fit for what he wanted this offense to do.
I have seen this take a lot but honestly this coaching staff has never appeared to be in love with Willis in my eyes. It seemed like it pained them to find something good to say about his performances. They have been open that Hooker made great strides in the off season. It could be as simple as Hooker just wasnt ready to go early in the season due to lost time and/or injury.
Yeah. With all of Fuente's emphasis on protecting the ball and being efficient Willis never made much sense. I tend to think Hooker's shoulder injury kept him out early this season. Also Fu's comment a while back about being a QB who played before he was ready. I think he was being overly cautious with HH (and QP probably) and was willing to let Willis take the lumps as long as the offense was serviceable til he felt Hooker was completely ready.
That's just my read of the available info. They don't give us much so all we can do is speculate.
Will Muschamp anagrams to Sawmill Chump
Tom Herman anagrams to Hot Merman
Barry Odom anagrams to Body Armor
Justin Fuente to "Infuse Jet Nut"
Is this why the jet sweep is so popular?
or he could be "Unite Jest Fun"
Is that the new Hard. Smart. Tough?
Damn Row the Damn Boat
11-1 but look at the wins:
-Maryland
-Rutgers
-Illinois
-Purdue x2
-Nebraska
-Georgia Southern
-Fresno State
-San Diego State
-Georgia Tech
-Wisconsin
Lost to Northwestern.
1 quality win. I would *hope* VT would have similar results.
Me thinks you're a tad bias, 11-1 is good regardless of who you play. Look at the peak 10 win seasons under beamer, we'd still have a loss every year that made you scratch your head (see GT or UNC). Going 11-1 and beating a down but still solid wisconsin team is nothing to hang your head about. Furthermore Fresno has been pretty good the last 2 years. Credit where credit is due Fleck is doing a good job up there
Not saying it is, but you have to look at the schedules. Going 11-1 with that schedule is much, much easier than going 11-1 with any of the other teams listed.
My peak memory of a Beamer season we went 11-1 with our only loss was to Florida State and the next year we went 11-1 again with only a loss at Miami AND with Dave Meyer as our QB.
But yes, PJ Fleck is doing a good job at a place that's hard to win at.
You have a very weird memory of the 2000 season and Dave Meyer...Nevermind you were saying Dave was the QB for the Miami game. Thought you meant the whole season.
At Miami with Santana Moss, Reggie Wayne, Andre Johnson, Clinton Portis, Najeh Davenport, Bryant McKinnie, Jeremy Shockey, Mike Rumph, and Ed Reed. And that was just the guys that had good careers in the NFL.
I was at the Gopher game against Maryland this past weekend where they beat the crap out of 'em. They have had some shaky wins, no doubt, but that team plays with some tenacity in all phases of the game. They were actually pretty fun to watch - he is doing one hell of a job at a university that has been a dumpster fire for quite some time.
Wife got her law degree at Minnesota. I've been making fun of her for two weeks about what Penn State's gonna do to the gophs. We'll see if it's real on saturday. I don't think it is.
Agree or disagree this program has been hot garbage for a while in a 3 year window he has significantly improved recruiting, beaten wisconsin for the first time in 15 years, and gotten them ranked in the top 20. Dont care who you're playing that's impressive.
In our last 12 games we have losses to Duke, BC, Cincinnati, Pitt, and Miami. Go back 14 games instead and you add a second BC loss plus one to GT. Most of those teams are worse than some of Minnesota's wins over the same stretch, and their only loss was to the eventual West champion.
Glass houses, man, they'll get after ya.
Using Sagarin ratings (end of last year for last years games and what he published this week for this year) here are the teams and the rankings for the last 12 Minnesota games and the last 14 VT games (14 because 2 are 1AA and are not apples to apples).
EDIT: This is not about Fleck and all about statistics. What Fleck has done has been great so far and I think he is a fantastic coach.
So, looks like all of our losses were against worse teams than both Minny's best win and only loss over that stretch, and 4 of our last 7 losses are worse than Minny's second best win.
I don't know about you, but the strength of their last 12 opponents looks only slightly worse than the strength of our last 14, and they went 11-1 while we went 7-7. Thanks for the legwork on compiling the numbers.
I mean I'd rather be 11-1 and its impressive that Fleck has done that. However, they have avoided a lot of the hard competition. Our schedule was arguably better but not enough overall. But most of their good teams were last year, this year they haven't played anyone.
So sure Fleck has done better in the last 12 FBS games, but to me our young team has looked better almost every weeks, so I'm excited to see where we go.
Just think all those programs knew they had their guy in 2016
Gotta hand it to Orgeron. Hearing the guy talk is physically painful, but he did what was necessary to get LSU back on track. For years they had an offense that was more boring to watch than VT during the end of Beamer's run. This year they've got one that is awesome to watch, and Burrows is a legit Heisman frontrunner. As much as I dislike the SEC West homerism, LSU/Bama should be the game of the year as the Tigers can in fact score now.
My top 2 are OSU and LSU. I would LOVE to watch that game those two teams are on a whole other level
I think LSU would win. That is based strictly on the body of work to this point. As good as Ohio St. has looked, they have played really no one but Wisconsin. They will wipe the floor with Michigan, so that leaves that Penn St. game as the only one of real substance on their entire schedule.
LSU has Ws in hand @Texas, Florida, and Auburn
We will probably find out who's better in the CFP...would be an incredibly closely match up if it were to happen.
Saban is loving how many people think LSU is going to beat them next week. I can assure you of that.
I'm sure...but if LSU lose to Bama they probably still make the playoff, so they could still play Ohio State...so we might get to see this game after all.
That is true. The possibility of two SEC teams getting in rose substantially with the Oklahoma loss this past weekend.
He can love it as much as he wants, it doesn't change the fact that LSU has an offense thats good enough to beat Alabama this season.
You mean soothing?
Include Tom Allen, don't include Bronco Mendenhall?
I did include bronco.
So we should hire Matt Rhule?
Don't think we can afford him. He's at a private school, so his salary isn't publicized, but there rumors saying it's $5M+/year
And, you know.....they don't have rules or a soul or anything to get in his way.
maybe no rules, but definitely a rhule
take your leg.
Whenever the NY Giants Head Coaching position opens up I think Rhule goes there. He got his start in coaching as an assistant for Tom Coughlin and interviewed for the position the last time around.
What he has done has been good with the situation, but Baylor hasn't played anyone of note this season. I expect a bunch more losses coming shortly.
So the two coaches with better records since 2015 (Smart, Helton) were either hired from within (Helton) or hired into a position that opened up the day after we hired Fuente.
Chris Ash is gaining experience. He just needs to pull himself up by his bootstraps. It'll help to have a firm handshake and look people in the eye when he talks to them. He's just got to go into all the local programs and sell himself as a hard worker. Get his foot in the door, you see.