Best Head Coach-Quarterback Tandems in College Football for 2015
A good-sized amount of preseason predictions for any given team can boil down to a two-part question—who is your head coach, and what does your quarterback situation look like?
No matter what system a program runs or which conference it calls home, the head coach and the quarterback are usually its two most-important figures. The connection between the two is important, and great tandems can become synonymous with a successful season.
Sure, teams need much more than just head coaching and quarterback play to win games and compete for championships, but the leadership from these roles is essential.
Here's a look at the best head coach-quarterback tandems in college football heading into the 2015 season. These duos were chosen and ranked by their respective wins, experience and potential for the upcoming year—and the more success the two have had together, the better their place in this countdown.
The offseason is winding down, so the time to debate preseason lists is drawing to a close. Give your take on the best duo in college football and name those tandems who deserve some more love in the comments below.
Honorable Mention
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BYU: Bronco Mendenhall and Taysom Hill
When healthy, Hill has proved to be one of the nation's best and most exciting dual-threat quarterbacks. And even though the Cougars have posted three straight 8-5 seasons with Hill and Mendenhall, the latter has never had a losing season in his 10 years with the program.
Cincinnati: Tommy Tuberville and Gunner Kiel
The veteran Tuberville is entering his 20th season of head coaching this fall, and his Bearcats have won nine games in each of his first two campaigns in Cincinnati. The AAC favorites are led by former 5-star recruit Kiel, who threw for 3,254 yards and 31 touchdowns last season.
Navy: Ken Niumatalolo and Keenan Reynolds
Navy has captured the Commander-in-Chief's trophy in four of its seven seasons under Niumatalolo, who has only had one bad year with the Midshipmen. Barring injury, Reynolds will most likely break the all-time record for rushing touchdowns in a career—a testament to his excellence at spearheading Navy's option attack.
Penn State: James Franklin and Christian Hackenberg
This combination possibly has the most potential on this list of honorable-mention candidates. Franklin had stunning back-to-back nine-win seasons at SEC doormat Vanderbilt before leaving to take the Penn State job, and Hackenberg should increase his already-high NFL draft stock behind a stronger offensive line in 2015.
Texas A&M: Kevin Sumlin and Kyle Allen
Sumlin isn't as hot of a candidate as he used to be, but the offensive guru has led the likes of Case Keenum and Johnny Manziel to eye-popping numbers during his head coaching career. While Allen had an up-and-down time as the Aggies' starter in 2014, the sophomore is in a proven system that has plenty of talented targets for the upcoming season.
10. Baylor: Art Briles and Seth Russell
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Art Briles' warp-speed offense at Baylor has led the country in both points and yardage in back-to-back seasons—a truly incredible feat, considering the amount of high-powered attacks in modern college football. Briles will break in a new starting quarterback this season in Seth Russell, who already has won the full faith of his head coach.
"It takes a guy who's really talented and really confident [to run Baylor's offense]," Briles told Chris Low of ESPN.com earlier this year. "Seth has both of those qualities. Plus, he's got a little bit of a fearless quality that I also like."
Briles has turned Baylor from the laughingstock of the Big 12 to the back-to-back league champions as he heads into his eighth season in Waco. His offensive system continues to light up scoreboards and opposing defenses, and now he has a complete national-title contender on his hands.
Russell will be the new face of Briles' scheme, and he brings an athletic quality the Bears didn't quite have with former starter Bryce Petty. The junior quarterback threw for eight touchdowns and just one interception behind Petty last season, but now he has to deliver as the No. 1 man for the No. 1 offense.
9. Auburn: Gus Malzahn and Jeremy Johnson
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Gus Malzahn has had some excellent college quarterbacks during his meteoric rise as a coach, and Auburn's offensive guru is now handing the reins of his attack to one of the most-hyped signal-callers in school history in Jeremy Johnson.
Malzahn parlayed his success running his hurry-up, no-huddle spread offense as a coordinator into a head coaching job at Arkansas State in 2012. After a 9-3, Sun Belt-winning season with the Red Wolves, Malzahn went back to Auburn to replace former boss Gene Chizik and promptly went to the BCS National Championship Game after an unbelievable 2013 season.
Johnson started one game in Auburn's 2013 national-title run in place of Nick Marshall, and he opened the 2014 season with an impressive start against Arkansas in place of a suspended Marshall. Now a junior, the 6'5", 240-pound Johnson has completed 73.2 percent of his career passes and averaged 11 yards per attempt in his limited work.
The potential of Johnson running Malzahn's offense has played a huge part in Auburn receiving high praise and predictions this preseason, even after a disappointing 8-5 record in 2014. Like Briles and Russell, the only thing holding this tandem back is Johnson's lack of experience as a full-time starting quarterback.
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8. Stanford: David Shaw and Kevin Hogan
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Stanford's step backward last season did some damage to the perception of the program heading into 2015, but don't overlook the head coach-quarterback duo down on the Farm.
Last season was David Shaw's first as a head coach that didn't have at least 11 wins. Jim Harbaugh's former offensive coordinator continued the now-Michigan head coach's new tradition of power football at Stanford and won back-to-back Pac-12 titles in 2012 and 2013.
In Shaw's first title-winning season as a head coach, he let Kevin Hogan take over the offense for the final five games of his redshirt freshman season. The Cardinal went 5-0 with a Rose Bowl victory with Hogan, and he led Stanford to another conference crown before last season's offensive downturn—one in which he still completed 67 percent of his passes.
Sure, last season was disappointing for Stanford, but Shaw and Hogan have eight returning offensive starters around them this fall. This duo has already had great success in the past and could do it again in 2015.
7. Arizona: Rich Rodriguez and Anu Solomon
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Rich Rodriguez made his big breakthrough at Arizona last season as the Wildcats won an extremely tough Pac-12 South and finished with 10 victories. And now, for the first time in his tenure in Tucson, he has a returning starter at quarterback—sophomore Anu Solomon.
"He was a little bigger [in the spring], a little faster, little stronger," Rodriguez said at Pac-12 media days, per Kevin Gemmell of ESPN.com. "He had a better knowledge of the offense. I thought he did really well last year in his first year as a starter. I think the other part of it is we know what his strengths and weaknesses are at crunch time as well."
Rodriguez, who had a 60-26 record at West Virginia before a disastrous stint at Michigan, continues to put out excellent offenses with his spread-option scheme. Solomon had more than 4,000 all-purpose yards and scored 30 touchdowns as the key man of that system last season.
Now with a full season together under their belts and several offensive playmakers still on campus, Rodriguez and Solomon should compete for a repeat this fall against the Los Angeles schools and rival Arizona State.
6. Clemson: Dabo Swinney and Deshaun Watson
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Two big "ifs" hold this duo back a bit in these rankings—the quarterback's health and Clemson's offensive success without star coordinator Chad Morris—but the combination of Dabo Swinney and Deshaun Watson is still one of the best in the entire country.
In the six full seasons under Swinney, Clemson has won nine games in all but one season, and it has posted at least 10 victories in four straight years. Swinney has a 61-26 record as the Tigers' head coach with three division titles, two Orange Bowl appearances and an ACC title to his name.
Injuries cost Watson what could've been a record-breaking true freshman campaign. He completed 67.9 percent of his passes and had an efficiency rating that was seven points higher than the one by Heisman winner Marcus Mariota. His play in five starts last season played a huge role in the ACC media picking him to win the conference's player of the year award and Clemson to end Florida State's run of league titles.
While Swinney and Watson's combination has question marks this year, especially after Morris left to take the head coaching job at SMU, the Clemson hype train is still barreling through the preseason. This duo has the chance to do big things in 2015.
5. USC: Steve Sarkisian and Cody Kessler
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The Steve Sarkisian-Cody Kessler pairing is only entering its second season, but it showed glimpses of greatness on a team that will be deeper in 2015. The spotlight shines brightest at USC on the head coach and quarterback, and these Trojans could bring the program back to title contention this season.
Sarkisian, a former USC coordinator and quarterback coach, inherited a Washington program that went 0-12 in the season before his arrival and led it to four winning records in five years. Now the head coach of the Trojans, Sarkisian broke through his "Seven-Win Steve" (or "Seven-Win Sark, depending on what you prefer as a rival fan) stigma and posted a 9-4 season in 2014.
His quarterback, Kessler, is entering his third season in charge of the USC offense and is coming off an incredibly efficient 2014 campaign. He had the third-best completion percentage among FBS starting quarterbacks and a 39-5 touchdown-to-interception ratio for the Trojans.
Sarkisian inherited an excellent pro-style quarterback at USC who could compete for the Heisman Trophy with a College Football Playoff run this fall. All eyes are on this dynamic duo as the Trojans look to put their past few seasons of chaos completely behind them.
4. Mississippi State: Dan Mullen and Dak Prescott
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Everything started to click for Mississippi State last season, which spent several weeks at No. 1 in the country for the first time in program history. And while many expect a drop-off for the Bulldogs this season, the presence of head coach Dan Mullen and quarterback Dak Prescott should still strike some fear into opponents.
Losing records were basically the norm for Mississippi State in the 2000s, but Mullen has led the Bulldogs to five straight winning seasons in Starkville. Mullen, Urban Meyer's former offensive coordinator and quarterback coach at Florida, brought consistency and explosiveness to Mississippi State.
That offensive explosiveness reached new heights last season with Prescott, who finished fifth nationally in total offense with 4,435 yards and 41 touchdowns. The bruising dual-threat quarterback is a strong Heisman contender heading into the 2015 season, even though a repeat of last year's 10-win campaign looks unlikely.
Mississippi State continues to be a dangerous team in the stacked SEC West with the combination of Mullen and Prescott. It could ruin some seasons—and have a big one of its own—as it looks to go bowling yet again.
3. TCU: Gary Patterson and Trevone Boykin
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Several of the top coaches on this list are offensive minds who have personally engineered ways to tap into their star quarterbacks' full potential. But defensive-minded TCU head coach Gary Patterson made one of the best decisions of his career by hiring a pair of spread-attack assistants to transform the offense.
The move paid off in a huge way for quarterback Trevone Boykin, who was the face of a Horned Frogs team that went from 4-8 in 2013 to 12-1 in 2014. Boykin, who once played wide receiver at TCU, lit up defenses with 4,608 all-purpose yards and 41 touchdowns last season.
Patterson has a bigger influence on the defenses that will keep opposing teams behind the Boykin-led attack's pace this season. Now entering his 15th season as the Horned Frogs' head coach, Patterson's patented 4-2-5 defense was a huge success during TCU's mid-major days and has led the Big 12 in average yards per game in two of its three years in the conference.
With an experienced leader in Patterson and the preseason favorite to win the Heisman Trophy—according to Odds Shark—TCU is a legitimate national-championship contender in 2015.
2. Michigan State: Mark Dantonio and Connor Cook
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In terms of experience, few in college football come close to the tandem of Michigan State head coach Mark Dantonio and quarterback Connor Cook. And the ninth-year Spartans head man and fifth-year signal-caller have won quite a few ball games together.
"I think we've got a great opportunity for him," Dantonio told Bill Bender of Sporting News earlier this year. "He's a championship-type quarterback ... He's got five years in the same concepts, same confines of what we do. Same system. That allows you to get better and better."
In the two seasons Cook has started at quarterback, Sparty has posted an impressive 24-3 record. Dantonio has won at least 11 games in four of his last five seasons, and he's recorded four straight bowl wins over Georgia, TCU, Stanford and Baylor.
Together with a team that returns 14 starters from last season, Dantonio and Cook have a great opportunity to lead Michigan State to a College Football Playoff run in 2015. With the same level of elite consistency—and a possible upset victory over the defending champions in November—this duo could bring home the hardware.
1. Ohio State: Urban Meyer and J.T. Barrett/Cardale Jones
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While every other school in the top 10 already has a clear-cut starter at quarterback, Urban Meyer is still trying to sort out his situation at the position in Columbus. But no matter who starts between J.T. Barrett and Cardale Jones this season, the Buckeyes still have the best head coach-quarterback tandem in college football.
Meyer has an incredible career record of 142-26 as a head coach with three national titles and five Power-Five conference championships to his name. His high-scoring offensive scheme has produced some successful college quarterbacks, including Alex Smith, Chris Leak, Tim Tebow, Braxton Miller and the duo currently battling for Ohio State's No. 1 job.
Both Barrett and Jones used their respective dual-threat capabilities to lead the Buckeyes to a national championship last season. Barrett ranked No. 2 in pass efficiency last season as a freshman, while the powerful Jones came off the bench to record three straight postseason wins over Wisconsin, Alabama and Oregon.
Although Ohio State has plenty of quality depth across the board for 2015, the Buckeyes are the near-unanimous No. 1 team in college football mostly because of the talent—and championship rings—they have at the two most important roles for a program.
All stats courtesy of CFBStats.com.
Justin Ferguson is a college football writer at Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @JFergusonBR.
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