The Top Five College Football Head Coaching Jobs
By Ty Duffy
Texas: They have tradition. They can lop off the cream every year from one of the nation’s richest talent beds. They have the nation’s richest athletic department, and this is before the new TV deals kick in. Competitively, they have the media pull of an SEC or Big Ten team, without facing the week in/week out grind. Oh, and they’ll pay you around $6 million per year for your trouble and give you money to bring in the nation’s top assistants. Downside:…you have to wear Orange?
Alabama: It’s the best program in the best division of the nation’s best conference. In modern football, it has more tradition and cache than any other job. They bring in a lot of revenue and, as the eight-figure coaching staff can attest, they are willing to spend it on football. It has the gravitas to pull kids from in-state, from the region and nationally. Alabama comes with tremendous pressure and expectations, but the resources to meet and surpass them. Downside: Your statute will be creepy and unflattering.
Florida: Florida isn’t a “traditional power” but, with eight conference titles and three national titles since 1990, Spurrier and Meyer made it one for today’s kids. It’s the only SEC school in the country’s best recruiting ground. It’s not quite the carte blanche Texas or Alabama is, but can recruit to be just as competitive every year, running any type of system. Downside: You’ll never be Tebow.
Oklahoma: The Sooners aren’t swinging as big of a belt-buckle as Texas, but they have the funding, support and recruiting capability to rival any other program. You have pressure to beat Texas, but doing so, especially in the new Big 12 without a title game, will be a printed ticket to at least a BCS bid. Downside: Recruiting against Texas.
Penn State: There’s no practical experience with this job’s appeal, since the job hasn’t opened externally since 1950. But, the program has tradition, turns enormous profits every year and, functioning at full capacity, would own the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Pennsylvania. They are capable of winning 10 games now. Picture the damage they could do with a vibrant coach and a multiple-page offensive playbook. Downside: Death stares from Tom Bradley at every alumni function.
Next Five: LSU (can bring enough talent to win 11 games without a functional quarterback), Notre Dame (problem has been coaching hires not national appeal) , Georgia (right coach could own Georgia recruiting), Michigan (helmet, tradition, revenue, new facilities), Oregon (what other school allows kids to wear neon spats?).
No Ohio State: Staples still has Ohio State No. 2. They would be No. 2 or No. 3 on my list as well, if not for the impending sanctions, which I feel will be enough to knock the Buckeyes, temporarily, out of this discussion. To be an elite job, a coach has to feel he could build a title winner within a full cycle of recruiting classes. It’s impossible to make that claim about Ohio State. The sanctions should include a postseason ban and drastic scholarship reductions. They could be worse than those levied at USC and we still haven’t seen the full effect of USC’s sanctions.
If the punishment comes as expected, Ohio State still may be a national title contender in 7-10 years. If you’re say Urban Meyer, you don’t want to replace Tressel. You want to replace the guy who replaces Tressel.
[Photo via Getty]