Ranking the 20 College Football Coaches You Would Pick to Start a Program

Imagine for a moment that you are the athletic director at a school about to start a football program.

Who do you hire?

Would you go with the aging coach loaded with tons of experience?

What about the young guy who has burst onto the scene and taken his current program to unprecedented heights?

Would character matter to you or just success?

In this list, the top 20 coaches you would want to start your program have been compiled.

Guys who are a little older and closer to retirement are a little lower than you may want them to be, as we tried to stick with "up-and-comers," guys who are still relatively young but have enjoyed at least moderate success.

Which one would you hire?

Honorable Mention

Bo Pelini

Mack Brown

Urban Meyer

Charlie Strong

Frank Beamer

Brady Hoke

Will Muschamp

Derek Dooley

Dave Doeren

Kyle Whittingham

20. Bret Bielema

Bielema may be considered arrogant, brash and annoying by some, but when viewed through the lenses of objectivity, he has been a great hire for Wisconsin.

Bielema became just the third coach in NCAA history to win 12 games as a rookie, and he has followed up the seasons since his 2006 debut with great success.

Wisconsin has been a Big Ten champ each of the past two seasons.

Bielema's penchant for preaching fundamentals makes him the perfect option for a new program.

19. Steve Spurrier

There is something to be said for experience.

Spurrier's age (66) would be a problem for a new program, as the process of actually becoming competitive can take the better part of a decade, but if anybody over retirement age has the gas left in the tank to do it, it would have to be Spurrier.

His upbeat, sarcastic comments endear him to fans of the program he is with and annoy the fire out of the rest of us.

That said, you can't look away from a guy who turned around a floundering program at South Carolina and won a title as head coach at Florida.

18. Brian Kelly

Like him or not, Kelly is a solid coach.

Notre Dame has not been kind to him so far, but he has time to turn it around before he finds his seat scorching.

His track record at Cincinnati was great, especially considering his development of quarterbacks and leading the team to its first-ever outright Big East title.

Before that, he turned around a listless Central Michigan team, leading them to their first winning season in over half a decade.

Given a new program, Kelly has the coaching chops to either turn a program around or get one off the ground.

17. David Shaw

Shaw took the Stanford Cardinals to a BCS game in his first season at the helm.

Granted, he had a plethora of returning talent to field.

That said, he has already made some great recruiting snags and has demonstrated his ability to coach a team successfully, even when it is hampered by some serious injuries.

He's young, good at what he does, and has the potential to be great.

Who wouldn't consider him?

Stanford is going to take a step back this season, but it won't be a slide, and Shaw will be a big part of the reason why.

16. Dana Holgorsen

You might ask why a second-year head coach is on this list.

Get used to it; Holgorsen's not the only one.

His brand of the "Air Raid" offense is ridiculously potent, as displayed by the Mountaineers to devastating effect in their 2012 Orange Bowl victory.

Before going to WVU, he was offensive coordinator at Oklahoma State.

The season before Holgorsen arrived, the Cowboys ranked 61st nationally in total offense, right around the middle of the pack.

In his first season with the program, they jumped to No. 1.

He also was responsible for the early tutelage of some guy named Keenum while at Houston as an assistant.

At the young age of 40, Holgorsen would get a long, hard look from any program looking to get off the ground.

15. Larry Fedora

Fedora has a great opportunity to make a name for himself right off the bat in a BCS conference.

North Carolina is poised with an explosive defense to make a run at the ACC title, and Fedora has the chops to make it happen.

He took over at Southern Miss. in 2008, led the team to its four best offensive seasons in history, and capped it off with a Conference USA championship after destroying the then-No.-6-ranked and undefeated Houston Cougars in the 2011 title game.

In his first season at UNC, he will have the opportunity to prove that 2011 was not a fluke, and he is capable of handling the reins at a large program.

14. Mike London

London had Virginia in contention for the ACC title game last season until the last game of the regular season.

He was elected the ACC's Coach of the Year, with good reason, taking the Cavaliers from a 4-8 season with two wins over FCS opponents in 2010 to 8-4 in 2011.

The man is a skilled recruiter and proved during his time at FCS-school Richmond that he has the ability to coach a team to great success.

Virginia needed a boost, and London was a perfect hire.

It's not exactly a new program, but the similarities lead one to believe London would succeed as the first coach of a program just as well as he has at Richmond and Virginia.

13. Al Golden

There are a couple of very simple reasons for this choice.

Golden is young, and he turned around a program that had been booted from the Big East conference for non-competitiveness.

He has handled the recent scandal at Miami with class and more panache than the average guy would, and he has proven in his time at Temple that he can turn around a program.

Besides, he still wears a tie on the sidelines; you don't see that every day.

12. Kevin Sumlin

Sumlin spent the last four seasons coaching Houston and enjoyed some solid success with the program, including two C-USA titles and two double-digit win seasons.

He was hired to take over the Texas A&M vacancy in the offseason, which poses challenges all its own heading into a new conference.

All that said, Sumlin is on the young end of the coaching pool and, last season, coached the Cougars to a ranking as high as No. 6 in the BCS.

It will be interesting to see if he can handle a job in the toughest conference in America, but even if he does not succeed, any athletic director looking for a coach to start a new program would do well to consider Sumlin.

11. Bobby Petrino

Just kidding.

11. Lane Kiffin

You may not like Kiffin's brash, arrogant style, but the man gets the job done.

His brand of recruiting and his flamboyant nature would make him a candidate but could also be detrimental if unchecked.

His recruiting has been excellent, and he has his USC Trojans poised to make a run at the BCS title in 2012.

Of course, any program willing to hire him must be willing to deal with the controversy that Kiffin can't seem to avoid, including potential recruiting violations, but these days, who isn't dealing with those in one form or another?

10. Bronco Mendenhall

Mendenhall may be one of the most underrated coaches in the game.

BYU has had double-digit win totals in five of his seven seasons at the helm and have yet to miss a bowl game.

At age 46, he has several years of solid coaching left in the tank and an obvious ability to produce wins.

9. Gene Chizik

Putting aside the less-than-stellar records without Cam Newton, Chizik helped get a floundering Iowa State program headed the right direction and has been an incredibly good recruiter for Auburn.

He's young, energetic, and has a system that will keep the Tigers at least competitive in the uber-difficult SEC.

Translate that to a new program, and you have a guy that could get it off the ground very quickly.

8. Nick Saban

What really needs to be said about this one?

The only reasons Saban is not on top are his age and success.

At 60 years old, he's been around for a while and may be prone to retirement, due to his immense success (three national titles).

However, no one could question his experience, and if started very soon, a fledgling program could greatly benefit from his talented recruiting and on-field decision-making.

7. Pat Fitzgerald

Really?

Fitzgerald does more with less then any coach roaming the sidelines today.

Northwestern is not known as a football powerhouse, given the talent pool from which they must recruit, but Fitzgerald has been able to get this once-listless program heading the right direction.

At 37, he is the second-youngest head coach in the game, and since taking over the program in 2006, he has had only one losing season, while leading the team to four consecutive bowl games, a rarity for Wildcats football.

6. Les Miles

When starting a new program, publicity, as long as it's not the type accompanying illegal actions, is a good thing.

Miles can certainly provide that.

He has a penchant for stirring things up but also keeps things rolling for his football program.

He is 5-2 in seven bowl games with LSU, and has demonstrated his excellent recruiting capabilities since coming to the Tigers in 2005, bringing in top-flight recruit after top-flight recruit.

Any program starting from scratch will need to emphasize defensive temerity, and Miles' squads are known for this quality.

His age could pose a problem, as it takes several seasons to get a program off the ground, but who wouldn't jump at the chance to hire the "Mad Hatter"?

5. Chris Petersen

Did you expect him to be left off this list?

It just could not be done.

His teams are averaging better than 12 wins per season, including two undefeated seasons and two seasons with just one loss.

At 47, he would have plenty of time to help get a solid program off the ground and begin getting the recruiting pipelines established.

His off-field demeanor makes him extremely likable, in spite of the BCS complaints.

Give a him a few years with a new program, and he would have them on the way to a successful future.

4. Mike Gundy

Is there anyone else reading this who did not even know about the Oklahoma State football program before Gundy's infamous rant?

Gundy has rapidly proven that he is more than just a big mouth willing to defend his players.

In 2011, he led his team to their first-ever Big 12 title and first BCS bowl berth.

2010 saw Oklahoma State win ten regular-season games for the first time in school history.

Gundy has proven to be an excellent recruiter, a great coach and someone who can build a program in a relatively short period of time.

Sounds like the perfect storm for a new program.

3. Gary Patterson

It feels as if Patterson has been with TCU forever, but he has only been the head coach of the Horned Frogs since 2000.

The man has been a coaching virtuoso in his time with the program.

His teams have been predicated on fundamental, hard-hitting defensive play, and it pays off.

Since joining the Mountain West conference in 2005, the Horned Frogs are 6-1 in bowl games, and Patterson has coached them to six double-digit win seasons.

At age 52, he's got plenty left in the tank for a run at the monumental task of building up another program.

2. Chip Kelly

Kelly's Oregon squads have dominated the Pac-12 in his three seasons at the helm.

The Ducks have two losses in the conference over a three-year span, and six total.

They have won the conference title in each of those seasons and capped off last year's campaign with a Rose Bowl victory.

Kelly's innovative offense has been difficult for teams to slow down, and he has done an excellent job of recruiting guys who can flourish in his system.

He's a prime candidate for any new program to target.

1. Bob Stoops

Under Stoops' watch, Oklahoma has dominated the landscape of Big 12 football.

In seven of his thirteen seasons with the Sooners, they have won the conference, including the 2000 season that saw the program bring home the national title.

The key selling points for any program looking to get off the ground with a new coach would be loyalty and age.

At 51, we can assume that he still has several great coaching years left in the tank, and he has never been a head coach elsewhere.