Big Ten Football: Power Ranking the Coaches of the B1G

Athlon Sports came out with its yearly coaches ranking on Thursday, and it's predictably objectionable, so mission accomplished, I suppose. I won't go through the entire thing, but when Ohio State's first-year coach is first and Indiana's second-year coach is last, it's pretty obvious that Athlon was basically ranking programs.

With that, here's the Big Ten Blog's ranking of the coaches, based on the actual coaches.

1. Brady Hoke, Michigan

There's no question that Michigan needed to be whipped into shape after Rich Rodriguez left the building, and Brady Hoke was exactly the man to do just that.

Hoke learned to embrace Denard Robinson's strengths, restored discipline and technique to a defense in disarray and led Michigan to its first BCS bowl victory since 1999. Not bad for one year's work.

2. Bret Bielema, Wisconsin

The Wisconsin Badgers have been to two straight Rose Bowls, and that's due entirely to the work Bret Bielema has done turning the program into a well-oiled road grader.

He has recognized something Wisconsin can do on offense that's nearly impossible to stop, scoring over 40 points per game in Big Ten play over the last two years, and that merits way more praise than he usually gets.

3. Urban Meyer, Ohio State

This isn't going to go over very well with Buckeye fans, but hear me out: Urban Meyer was a great, great coach at Florida. He's got the rings to prove it. He also burned himself out in the process of making himself a great coach at Florida, and it cost him his health and his livelihood.

He's at Ohio State now, and there will be constraints on the level of work he puts in there (which is a good thing). But can Meyer separate what made him great from what made him an absolute wreck at the hands of stress? I'd like to see it first.

4. Mark Dantonio, Michigan State

Michigan State has turned into something it hasn't been since the late '60s: a force to be reckoned with in the Big Ten.

The conference title still eludes Mark Dantonio and the Spartans, but they're putting up double-digit wins now and look like they might do it again this year. If Dantonio can get to 10 wins again in 2012, he'll move up in these rankings next year.

5. Pat Fitzgerald, Northwestern

It's inaccurate to say that Pat Fitzgerald has masterminded the Northwestern football resurgence; that process began with Gary Barnett, then Randy Walker. But Fitzgerald has turned the Wildcats into a legitimate Big Ten program on a consistent, perennial basis.

He's got a de facto lifetime contract in Evanston, and he deserves it. Think of it this way: When's the last time you heard any "Northwestern should be demoted" jokes?

6. Bo Pelini, Nebraska

Bo Pelini is a better coach than most give him credit for; behind that simple-guy-in-a-sweatshirt persona is a crafty, disciplined football mind, one of the better ones in the Big Ten.

But Nebraska has such a penchant for random disappointing losses out of nowhere (the 28-point drubbing by Michigan, the home loss to Northwestern, the 9-6 loss to Texas A&M last year, as ref-aided as it might have been) that one has to wonder when the consistency's going to show up in Lincoln.

7. Bill O'Brien, Penn State

Penn State was in a bind after finding itself in need of a head coach for the first time since the days of Lyndon B. Johnson, but they scored a coup in hiring Bill O'Brien, a young, talented coach who (like the next coach in the list) comes from the tutelage of Bill Belichick.

O'Brien is a tremendously creative offensive mind—look, for example, at his use of TE Aaron Hernandez as a running back for the Patriots last year—and he's recruiting well enough to keep Penn State competitive for the long haul.

8. Kirk Ferentz, Iowa

Kirk Ferentz is now the dean of Big Ten coaches, coming up on his 14th season at Iowa; nobody else in the conference is even close to that longevity.

He's got two new coordinators—both for the first time in his tenure at Iowa—and it's been a while since Iowa was consistently very good. Over the last six seasons, Iowa is actually under .500 in Big Ten play. Given Iowa's weakness on defense, that's unlikely to change in 2012.

9. Jerry Kill, Minnesota

Ninth may be unfair to Jerry Kill once his career is said and done—and he's definitely on the right track in the long, deliberate turning around of the Minnesota program—but he's going to need a bowl victory or two before he starts moving much higher on this list.

And for the record, being the ninth (or even 12th) best coach in the Big Ten isn't necessarily a bad thing; this league, even with its recent turnover, is filled with good coaches. Kill is a keeper.

10. Kevin Wilson, Indiana

It's not entirely Kevin Wilson's fault that he inherited a traditionally lousy program and had to turn to a true freshman quarterback so early in the season, but that's what happened and Indiana's 1-11 season was the logical end result.

Wilson, whose pedigree includes successful stints at Oklahoma, Boise State and Northwestern as an assistant coach, is going to need to manufacture success for Indiana relatively soon. The fact that his assistant coaches kept getting hired away by significantly better teams leads one to believe that Wilson knows what he's doing and can get this job done.

11. Tim Beckman, Illinois

TIm Beckman lands this far down on the list simply by dint of being a first-year coach and not having a Big Ten pedigree outside of being Ohio State's cornerbacks coach five years ago.

He guided Toledo to a 7-1 MAC record in consecutive seasons before hopping to Illinois, so there's a bit of promise here, but Beckman's going to need to be judged on a resume that he just doesn't have yet.

12. Danny Hope, Purdue

Perhaps his predecessor left an unfairly high bar to clear, but Danny Hope simply hasn't met the standards one would expect from Purdue after the glory years of Joe Tiller in the early '00s.

Injuries have played some part in that, but even if nobody got injured for Purdue this year, the Boilermaker's don't look like much of a contender in a startlingly weak Leaders Division. Hope has been in West Lafayette long enough that he doesn't have any excuses about that fact.