🏈 Your Top Five College Football Coaches

[bama alum]

If you are a college AD with practically unlimited funds (most likely because your football program has had good success in the past) and you needed a new head coach, whom would you select? Let's exclude Coach Saban from this list. Who is on your top five wish list?

My list would include

• David Shaw
• Art Briles
• James Franklin
• Bob Stoops
• Urban Meyer

(The latter two are complete pricks but year after year turn out a good product and keep the fan base energized.)

Les Miles, Dabo Swinney, Mark Dantonio, Jimbo Fisher, and as a wild card Todd Berry (if he can win at ULM...), are my second five if I need to go that deep.



Your turn.

 

[AFF]

I'd want someone fairly young to build the program and stay a while. I'd leave off David Cutcliffe, Mark Dantonio, Bob Stoops, and Steve Spurrier because of age. And I'd leave off Urban Meyer because he's a big baby who can't handle the pressure of losing.

A lot of good coaches to choose from. A few that come to mind:

• Jim Mora
• Chris Petersen
• Gus Malzhan (yeah, I know)
• Kevin Sumlin
• Kliff Kingsbury

 

[TerryP]

I caught bits and pieces of a discussion on the SVP/Russillo show this afternoon on this very subject.

Here's their opinion (a click will take you to some opinions shared by others on Twitter.)

 

[psychojoe]

Bill Snyder would be on my list. Kansas State is supposed to be one of those places where you can't win in football. He has won there, in a big way. Briles, Shaw, Peterson, Miles.

 

[bama alum]

Bill Snyder would be on my list. Kansas State is supposed to be one of those places where you can't win in football. He has won there, in a big way. Briles, Shaw, Peterson, Miles.

That's why I put Briles on my list. Baylor used to be a doormat, worse than Vandy. Even if Briles bolts to Nebraska in January, Baylor is set up pretty well for a while.

 

[TerryP]

I'm having a hard time with who to put on this list. I see some names I'd agree with and others I'm far from convinced they could handle the job.

Take @AFF and his list including Kevin Sumlin. We're seeing a lot of discipline issues over there right now. There's rumors circulating there were player involved in an armed robbery this week. We saw how he handled Manziel.

No program is immune to having issues with kids and getting in trouble. I don't feel comfortable using that as a criteria. However, I can't help but look at Sumlin and suspect the old adage is true, "the inmates are running the asylum."

He's put up impressive offensive numbers at A&M and at Houston. There's no doubt about that and I suspect it'll continue.

However, when it comes to this job? I can't see him being able to handle the position.

I don't think Meyer could handle the pressure. There's evidence to support that suspicion.

I think David Shaw could. I'm inclined to think Jim Mora, Jr. would be able to as well. Bill Snyder...if he were 15 years younger.

 

[AFF]

Yeah, I'm not really comfortable using off-the-field-issues criteria either. Players in trouble with the law is just so rampant these days. You need to have top notch talent. But the bigger their star the bigger their sense of entitlement and of somehow being above the law...

In terms of recruiting talent, Sumlin has done an amazing job. No doubt some of that bump could be from A&M joining the SEC. Still, credit where it's due. They've had top 10 recruiting classes pretty much every year he's been there. And, he's kicking the crap out of Texas in the state recruiting war...which is almost unheard of.

As for this job - that's a different story. In fact, I'd have to totally rethink the list. For sure, I'd drop the bottom three from my list and probably keep Mora and Petersen. As for David Shaw, I'd consider him as an OC, but I don't think he has enough HC experience.

 

[bama alum]

I'm having a hard time with who to put on this list. I see some names I'd agree with and others I'm far from convinced they could handle the job.

Take @AFF and his list including Kevin Sumlin. We're seeing a lot of discipline issues over there right now. There's rumors circulating there were player involved in an armed robbery this week. We saw how he handled Manziel.

No program is immune to having issues with kids and getting in trouble. I don't feel comfortable using that as a criteria. However, I can't help but look at Sumlin and suspect the old adage is true, "the inmates are running the asylum."

He's put up impressive offensive numbers at A&M and at Houston. There's no doubt about that and I suspect it'll continue.

However, when it comes to this job? I can't see him being able to handle the position.

I don't think Meyer could handle the pressure. There's evidence to support that suspicion.

I think David Shaw could. I'm inclined to think Jim Mora, Jr. would be able to as well. Bill Snyder...if he were 15 years younger.

Terry, it took me a long, long time to work on type this post because I kept changing my mind quite frequently. The only reason I didn't put Snyder's name on the list is because of his age. Fifteen years ago...No brainer. Jim Mora, Jr...I don't know. Yeah, he's doing a good job at UCLA, but when I compare resurrecting UCLA to making a winner out of Baylor or Vandy...or even Boise St., I see the latter as more of a success. Maybe I'm a little biased against Mora because he was a dud in the NFL. (shrug)

 

[TerryP]

Terry, it took me a long, long time to work on type this post because I kept changing my mind quite frequently. The only reason I didn't put Snyder's name on the list is because of his age. Fifteen years ago...No brainer. Jim Mora, Jr...I don't know. Yeah, he's doing a good job at UCLA, but when I compare resurrecting UCLA to making a winner out of Baylor or Vandy...or even Boise St., I see the latter as more of a success. Maybe I'm a little biased against Mora because he was a dud in the NFL. (shrug)

I'm not sold on Mora as well—but more than some of the others out there. I've been on the Briles bandwagon since, well, no before, the acronym CAB offense was put on his style back in his days at Houston. I had a friend point out Briles before we hired Shula in 2003 and looking back now?

But, Briles comes with a caveat.

When we hired Price I thought he could do well ONLY because we also had Kines as DC. I think Briles could do well here but that's also dependent on who was hired as a defensive coordinator. Staying away from our staff for choices I could see a tandem of Briles and Bielema as a hell of a duo—Briles and Muschamp would be unreal.

James Franklin falls in the same category. Who is the DC? I do like the lineage with a little time spent with Snyder at KSU. His offenses did fairly well at Maryland.

Bottom line: there are very few that I see in a CEO role where I'm not worried about a coordinator.
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[bama alum]

Well, hopefully unlimited resources means that the HC will hire quality coordinators.

Even though we are still over a month away from the first kick, never mind that fall camps haven't begun yet, the coaching rumor mill has already started. Supposedly, Michigan (then by default LSWho?), Nebraska, and Florida will all be looking for new coaches in January. Don't get me wrong, I don't want Smart to leave, but IF (okay...just if, that's all) he did go take a HC position somewhere, I'd hope Saban would bring Muschamp in for the DC position.

 

[TerryP]