Big Ten Football: Power Ranking the Conference's Head Coaches
The Big Ten Conference didn't escape the annual offseason coaching roulette in 2014-15, but the result presents a better top-to-bottom group of men leading their respective programs.
Ranking them requires a set of guidelines and understanding which factors are more important than others. For example, a coach who won big a decade ago but is currently in a slump won't rate as highly as a coach who might have a worse overall record but is coming off back-to-back bowl wins.
In short, if teams were holding a draft for the head coaches going into next season, in what order would they be chosen?
The wild card is obviously Jim Harbaugh, a coach who's experienced tremendous success in both the college and professional ranks. He's clearly in the conversation for the top few spots, but how much should his NFL accomplishments account for, if anything?
Take a look at our Big Ten football coach power rankings and be sure to let us know who's being undervalued, who's overrated and, of course, why I'm just plain out of my mind.
All stats via cfbstats.com.
14. Darrell Hazell, Purdue
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Darrell Hazell got his first head coaching gig at Kent State, where he went 16-10 in two seasons. It was enough to get the attention of Purdue, a school stuck in the Big Ten cellar ever since the retirement of former coach Joe Tiller.
But in his first two seasons with the Boilermakers, Hazell hasn't done anything of note. His teams have gone a combined 4-20 with just one conference win.
It's hard to get an idea of how good a coach might be when you stick him in a tough situation and evaluate his progress after just two years, but because Hazell has struggled mightily thus far, he kicks off the power rankings at the bottom.
13. Kevin Wilson, Indiana
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When you talk about Indiana and try to come up with positive things to say, it often starts with the offense. In 2013, the Hoosiers averaged almost 40 points a game, and yet they failed to reach bowl season because the defense gave up nearly the same amount.
Kevin Wilson now has four seasons under his belt and—aside from the occasional decent win or near-upset—has done nothing to raise the prestige of Indiana's program. His best season came in 2013, when he led his squad to a 5-7 record.
Overall, Wilson is just 14-34 at Indiana with a 6-26 record in conference play, so you can see why he's near the bottom of the power rankings.
12. Tim Beckman, Illinois
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Continuing slowly up from the Big Ten cellar, we now reach Illinois' Tim Beckman, a coach who accomplished great things at Toledo and looks to be on his way to doing similar things with the Fighting Illini.
As head coach of the Rockets, Beckman went 21-16, which included a pair of 7-1 records in conference play to round out his three-year career.
Things were ugly at first in Illinois, but he's taken his team from two conference wins to four to, most recently, six in 2014—along with a bowl appearance.
As teams like Ohio State and Michigan State continue to assert dominance, Nebraska and Wisconsin remain steady and Penn State stays on the rise, it's going to be difficult for schools like Illinois to keep up, but Beckman has things headed in the right direction.
11. Paul Chryst, Wisconsin
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Paul Chryst is a fairly recent participant of the college football coaching carousel, having left Wisconsin as the offensive coordinator to coach at Pitt, where he went 19-19 in three seasons and helped lead the Panthers to three bowl appearances.
But there isn't a hidden nine-win season amid the 19-19 record. In fact, the Panthers won six games in Year 1, seven in Year 2 and then six again in Year 3 of the Chryst era, which points the needle straight toward "average."
He'll have a better situation right away at Wisconsin, so Chryst should be able to pile up a few more wins in the short term. Long term, the question remains whether he'll continue to be average or if he can help the Badgers get back to a Rose Bowl.
10. Kyle Flood, Rutgers
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At a program like Rutgers, which typically doesn't attract many top recruits and doesn't have a history of major bowl wins, going 23-16 is enough to raise a few eyebrows.
Even more impressive is the fact that the Scarlet Knights could have taken a major step back after joining the Big Ten, but coach Kyle Flood led his team to an 8-5 record, which includes a win during bowl season.
With only three years of head coaching on his resume, it's hard to tell what Flood's ceiling is, but his journey so far has been a success. He bridges the gap in our power rankings between the question marks and those with serious accolades to their names.
9. Randy Edsall, Maryland
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Randy Edsall marks the first coach in our power rankings with significant experience at the FBS level, including a combined 15 years between UConn and Maryland. With the Huskies, Edsall went 74-70 and reached the Fiesta Bowl, but he's gone just 20-30 with the Terrapins.
But more important than the overall record is the trend from recent years, and the Terps are 7-6 in each of the last two seasons—which has included the jump to the Big Ten.
With two straight bowl appearances, Maryland is on the rise and looks more then capable of competing with anybody in the Big Ten.
Can Edsall find some magic and take his team the top, though?
8. Pat Fitzgerald, Northwestern
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Head coach Pat Fitzgerald has been with Northwestern for nine seasons and is the second-longest tenured coach in the conference—still a ways behind the next man on our list.
In those nine seasons, the Wildcats have gone 60-53 with spurts of greatness often followed by several seasons of mediocrity. The highest finish in conference play is third place, and his teams have gone 5-3 on three occasions.
In other words, Northwestern scares you about one-third of the time.
One thing that gives Fitzgerald the nod over several aforementioned coaches is he's at a school where historically, it's difficult to win, and he doesn't have as much talent to do it with.
Northwestern might be content with occasionally being good, but at this point it's tough to see Fitzgerald breaking through and leading the Wildcats to new heights.
7. Kirk Ferentz, Iowa
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Kirk Ferentz is one of the most talked about head coaches in college football mainly because of his massive salary, which—as Bleacher Report's Greg Wallace explains—is set to deliver him more than $4 million this season. The buyout is no better at a whopping $13 million.
For all that money, you'd expect results—and occasionally the Hawkeyes have had them. There's an Orange Bowl victory over Georgia Tech under Ferentz's belt, and his overall record of 115-85 at Iowa is nothing to scoff at.
Iowa is another school that doesn't instantly grab the attention of top high school recruits, so averaging seven wins a year could be looked at in a positive light despite the grass appearing greener elsewhere.
After failing to win more than eight games in a season since 2009, however, fans might be growing tired of Ferentz. Can he deliver another special year before the school considers looking elsewhere, or will the Hawkeyes be content with where they are?
6. Mike Riley, Nebraska
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Mike Riley is a lot like Kirk Ferentz, except Oregon State has even less of a history than Iowa and yet Riley was able to bring winning to Corvallis—something that before 1999 hadn't been done since the early 1970s.
He had a brief, three-year stint in the NFL as head coach of the San Diego Chargers before returning to Oregon State, and his move to Nebraska was a surprise to everyone. Riley went 93-80 at Oregon State, reaching the Alamo Bowl once but never winning more than a Sun Bowl.
In 2008 and 2009, his teams had a chance to make it to the Rose Bowl, but they both lost to Oregon in the final game of the season—preventing the trip.
He's a likeable, conservative coach known for taking 2- and 3-star guys and turning them into coveted NFL talent, and he should be a good fit at Nebraska.
5. Jerry Kill, Minnesota
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Minnesota head coach Jerry Kill is no stranger to the pressures of leading college football programs, and he's answered them by going 152-99 in his 21 years in the profession.
He took over the Golden Gophers program in 2011 and promptly won three games—same as the year before. But that three wins turned into six in 2012 and eight wins in each of the last two seasons.
Before Kill, Minnesota was stuck with the likes of Indiana in the bottom of the Big Ten barrel, and now his teams have gone to three straight bowl games.
He's a players coach with physical squads on both sides of the ball, and what he's done for the Gophers is nothing short of remarkable. Can he continue the climb?
4. James Franklin, Penn State
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It's difficult to gauge the coaching prowess of James Franklin, but taking a look at the situations he's been in helps the evaluation.
He's only been a head coach for four seasons, the first three of which were at Vanderbilt, a school with little to no reputation in football. He went 24-15 in those three seasons, including a pair of nine-win campaigns and had the Commodores on the rise before Penn State came calling.
The Nittany Lions were in the middle of heavy NCAA sanctions when Franklin arrived. But the bowl ban disappeared over the summer, and Franklin led the program to a 7-6 record and a victory in the Pinstripe Bowl.
Now, recruiting is on the rise and—with Penn State's history on the gridiron—the sky is the limit, and Franklin has a very good chance of getting there.
3. Jim Harbaugh, Michigan
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Jim Harbaugh hasn't coached a game at Michigan, and there are some of you rolling your eyes at his lofty spot in the power rankings.
I'd wager there are a few Michigan fans thinking he should be higher, as well.
What Harbaugh did with San Francisco in the NFL is impressive but is low on the list of reasons for his No. 3 spot. What he did at Stanford and San Diego at the college level holds significant weight. He went 29-6 with the Toreros before taking over a Stanford program that was coming off a one-win season in 2006.
That one win turned into four, which turned into five, then to eight and finally, to 12 wins and an Orange Bowl victory over Virginia Tech.
Stanford has continued to build off what Harbaugh started, and it's one of the most impressive rebuilding jobs in modern day college football.
He'll have a similar task at Michigan, except the talent will be better and the resources greater. It won't be long before we're calling Harbaugh a top-five coach in the sport, because he's almost there already.
2. Mark Dantonio, Michigan State
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Mark Dantonio spent three seasons as the head coach of Cincinnati before taking over at Michigan State. He went 18-17 with the Bearcats but has since gone 75-31 with the Spartans.
The Spartans have reached a bowl game in every year of Dantonio's tenure. They've won at least 11 games in four of the past five seasons and are coming off Rose and Cotton bowl victories in back-to-back years.
Needless to say, the program is at an all-time high and led by a man at the peak of his game.
Dantonio's Spartans suffered just two losses in 2014, and they came against the national-title participants, Oregon and Ohio State. His record speaks for itself, and the only thing left to accomplish is a national championship, which could be just around the corner.
1. Urban Meyer, Ohio State
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If you find yourself arguing with the top spot on this list, you should either take off your maize-and-blue glasses or just accept you are indeed wrong.
Urban Meyer is fast becoming a legend in the college football coaching world, and a win in tonight's national championship game against Oregon would put him in the conversation with Nick Saban for best coach in the game.
His coaching years began at Bowling Green, where he went 17-6 before being hired by Utah. With the Utes, Meyer went 22-2, including a perfect 12-0 season in 2004 capped off by a Fiesta Bowl victory. He was then hired at Florida, where he went 65-15 in six seasons, which included two Outback Bowl victories, a win in the Sugar Bowl and a pair of national titles.
After taking a year off, he returned to coach Ohio State, and the Buckeyes are a mind-boggling 37-3 with him at the helm.
They haven't lost a single game in regular-season conference play, and talent continues to pour in. Given the youth on both sides of the ball and the fact that Ohio State is already in the national championship, we could be watching a coach on his way to being one of if not the greatest ever.
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