Top 10 College Football Coaches

After doing a little research, here is what I have come up with as the Top 10 College Football Coaches:

1. Pete Carrol (USC)
2. Mark Richt (UGA)
3. Rich Rodriguez (UM)
4. Lane Kiffin (U. Tenn)
5. Steve Sarkisian (U. Wash)
6. Charlie Weis (ND)
7. Les Miles (LSU)
8. Bill Stewart (WVU)
9. Nick Saban ('Bama)
10. Urban Meyer (UF)

I have to admit, there a few surprises on this list, but you can't argue with the data. Maybe I need to be a little clearer.

I saw this article at fanblogs.com today about college football coaches on Twitter. They break it down by conference, but don't give us the really important stat: How many Twitter followers does each coach have? So I went and looked at each coaches' Twitter page and the list above is the Top 10 coaches by number of followers.

Is there any meaning to be derived from this ranking? Maybe a little. I think the list reflects at least three factors: (1) Personal popularity quotient of the individual coach (See "Pete Carroll"); (2) Degree to which the coach and his program embrace new technology for reaching out to fans (and recruits)(See UW's Steve Sarkisian) and (3) Intensity of the fan bases following each program (See all those SEC schools on the list).

To complete the exercise, here's the list again with hyperlinks to each coach's Twitter page and the number of followers for each coach:

1. Pete Carrol (USC)(17,393)
2. Mark Richt (UGA)(3,959)
3. Rich Rodriguez (UM)(3,953)
4. Lane Kiffin (U. Tenn)(3,651)
5. Steve Sarkisian (U. Wash)(3,301)
6. Charlie Weis (ND)(3,190)
7. Les Miles (LSU)(2,773)
8. Bill Stewart (WVU)(2,009)
9. Alabama ('Bama)(1,896)
10. Urban Meyer (UF)(1,729)

(Note 1: The Alabama Twitter feed isn't Nick Saban's. It's a collective feed for the staff as a group. If it was just a Nick Saban feed I would expect his ranking to go up).

(Note 2: If you actually have a full and rewarding life, don't start following football coaches, or especially football bloggers, on Twitter. Nothing good can come from it.)