SI list of 10 best & 5 worst college FB coaches
Sports Illustrated put out their list of the 10 best (and 5 worst) college football coaches. Nice to see Hoke in the coaches expected to be on the list in 3 years. Without having really studied the records of the coaches in detail I was surprised that Spurrier was out of the top 10. I also think that putting Ferentz in the bottom 5 makes no sense unless the dominant metric is dollars per win.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-football/news/20130708/best-wo…
That bottom five is horrible. Kiffin is really the only one you could even make an argument for.
Maybe it is fitting where Hoke is on the list because he hasn't had a very big sample size to show his work. In 3 years I believe he will be top 5.
Wisky finished 3rd in their division last year. 2011 was legit. They tied with OSU in 2010.
I think Hoke will surpass him eventually, but for now, Bielema has the more impressive résumé.
Hard to disagree with anyone in the top 10. I do disagree with Ferentz though. Bottom 5? Puh-leeze. The man has kept Iowa fairly relevant for roughly a decade (except maybe the last few years). It's Iowa, they might've overpaid him, but he's a good coach. Absolutely not in the bottom 5. There's might be 5 other Big Ten coaches worse than him
peterson, petrino, briles and the guy for a & m. not bad coaches, but no way top 10.
I have to agree with you on Mack Brown. I've never been all too impressed with him.
Edit: sorry, I completely misread your post at first.
I'm not so sure about Gary Patterson. Are 4 of the top ten coaches in all of college football really in the Big 12? Even the commentary about TCU is contradictory: "an impressive transition to the Big 12" but with "plenty to prove following a 7-6 debut."
As others have noted, the degree of difficulty (i.e., of Eastern) needs to be considered with English. Still, isn't his overall record at this point worse than his predecessor's?
One of the more interesting what-if scenarios in Michigan's history is the one where he (English) gets the coaching job in '07. (Aside: I have no interest in the one where DeBord gets picked.) I don't know whether he would have prospered long-term, but I'll bet he would have done better than 3-9 in '08.
Hoke in '07 is interesting in retrospect, too. I think he benefitted much from additional "reps" at SDSU, though, making him a better and more experienced candidate in '11.
And to be fair to English, he's set up for failure at EMU. He should have gotten out of there while he had the chance last year after a 6-6 campaign.
"The 2009 Orange Bowl proved an aberration in Ferentz's otherwise unimpressive recent tenure. Take away that one 11-2 season and the Hawkeyes are 47-41 since 2005 under their $3.6 million-per-year coach." - Mandel, regarding Ferentz
The issue I have with Ferentz being here, if we're going to use random performance metrics, is the math that Mandel seems to be employing. Even if you remove 2009, he is still 5-4 in bowls and would be 89-72 over the course of his career at Iowa, which began back in 1999. That's good for a .553 winning percentage, which might be among the best in his peer group on this list, if you will. As it is, he is 100-74 there, which is a .578 winning percentage. He's led Iowa to finish at least fourth in the conference 9 times in his tenure with the Hawkeyes, with 4 finishes at 3rd or better, with four 10-win season to boot. I don't think anyone else in the "Worst 5" can really put forth a similar resume at one school.
Agree on Ferentz but Mandel states that in compiling this list he's putting emphasis on what coaches have done recently. 2012 season weighted the highest, 2011 next, 2010... Ferentz overall has been pretty successful at Iowa but most of that success has occurred in the early part of his tenure.
He went 11-1 in year two at UL (#6 in final AP poll) and 12-1 with an Orange Bowl win in year four (#5 in final AP poll). He went 21-5 in years three and four at Arkansas (#12 and #5 in final pollls). Considering the schools, the dude is pretty legit.
The list is indeed whack though when you consider Spurrier's absence at the top, Ferentz and English at the bottom, etc.
crashed to Earth after Petrino was let go
I don't think you're giving John L Smith the credit he deserves for that crash...
Fitzgerald is a good coach, no doubt about it, but have you paid attention to him over the years? His personality is basically one douche moment after another. The sideline jump for joy was not exactly out of character for him.
Bob Stoops is a really tough guy to evaluate, at least for me. His resume speaks for itself that he belongs in the top 10, but then there are some games you watch over the years and you're like "Woo, this guy really isn't that great of a coach."
He's head and shoulders better than Mack Brown though.
There have been a couple of recent drafts where a billion Oklahoma players went in the first 3 rounds, but Stoops either didn't crack double-digit wins or had a bad bowl loss. I mean, with the kind of talent he evidently pulls in, he should be in combat with Alabama on the field.
Never forget their huge upset in the California Bowl back in 1987! haha
Plus, Charlie Batch.
No way Ron English belongs on the "worst list". He has done good things at EMU of all place.
Stew Mandel is a 100% douchebag. The worst college football writer out there with the most ridiculous opinions.
What Art Briles is doing at Baylor is not top 10 impressive. He's barely .500 overall, and .404% in a very mediocre Big 12. He's certainly turned the program around, but he's by no means a top 10 coach. The entire list of "just missed" and "could be in three years" can present stronger arguments than him. Furthermore, he prefaces the list by clarifying that he is talking about "right now". Apparently Briles is a better coach "right now" than the guy that led ND to a national title game appearance last year...just doesn't make sense.
He's riding the RGIII train right now. He's not a top-10 coach.
Um, last year RGIII played for the Redskins. In the NFL. Not for the Baylor Bears.
You know who *did* play QB for the Bears LY? Nick Florence. As a junior Florence put up 9.29 YPA. Of course I'm sure RG3 did much better his junior year. In fact, let's look at RG3's career YPA numbers at Baylor:
2008 7.8
2009 7.0
2010 7.7
2011 10.7
So in 2012 Florence put up numbers better than 3 of Griffin's seasons. Baylor's recent success is more then just Griffin.
Check out Baylor's page at sports-reference.com. The Bears' SRS rating (a simple power rating) over the L2Y is the best since the '79 & '80 campaigns.
Baylor is not an easy place to win. Briles has done a heckuva job.
He got two right...Weis and Kiffin on the "5 worst" list. What those two managed to do to two of the top programs in the country is amazing.
If he isn't already, Stewart Mandel really should be on the mgoblog "no-fly" list.
with his unconventional use of the words "Meyer" and "rub off on" in a sentence.
Without stated criteria, this list is just linkbait garbage. Are the "best coaches" guys who maximize their talent? If so, Chris Petersen shouldn't be above a guy like Bill Snyder, since Boise State has far more talent than just about all of their opponents. Are the "best coaches" guys who you would like to hire to run your college football team? If so, Bobby Petrino shouldn't be on this list due to his unreliability and morally bankrupt character.
On a similar note, it doesn't really make sense to put Ron English on the "worst coaches" list when he took on a bottomless pit of suck and led it to its best season in the last 16 years. He may or may not be a good head coach, but his inclusion in the bottom five is completely unjustifiable when he's outperforming historical expectations at Eastern.