College Football Coaches Who've Won More on Signing Day Than Saturday
College football might only be played in the fall and early winter, but fans can celebrate wins all year long thanks to the 24/7 recruiting cycle. Victories over rivals and conference foes can come in the offseason, especially during the frenzy known as national signing day.
However, the most important victories are still the ones that take place on the field—not on the recruiting trail. While recruiting is such a huge part of a head coach's success, he'll ultimately be judged by winning games with the players his staff brings to campus.
Unfortunately, some head coaches have had more success on signing days than Saturdays. They may sign star-studded recruiting classes year in and year out, but fans expect those high recruiting rankings to turn into teams that can compete for championships.
Here are seven current head coaches—sorry, Al Golden isn't eligible anymore—who have landed more wins in 247Sports' Composite Team Rankings than they've had on the field during their current tenures. Some have had inconsistent success. Others are still waiting for their first big breakthrough seasons with the high-profile talent they've assembled.
Which head coach do you believe has the biggest gap between his victories on signing days and Saturdays? Sound off on these seven and even nominate your own candidates in the comments below.
Auburn's Gus Malzahn
1 of 7
On Signing Day: Back-to-back Top 10 classes and No. 11 class in 2015
On Saturday: Since 2013 run to BCS title game, 5-7 in SEC play with one win in last seven games
Considering what he was able to do in his first season, Auburn's Gus Malzahn might be a surprising name to see on this list for some people. But after taking what was a 3-9 team in 2012 to an SEC title and a berth in the final BCS National Championship Game, Malzahn's talent-filled squads have failed to live up to the hype.
Malzahn's staff wrapped up a No. 8 recruiting class before his first full season on the Plains, and the Tigers jumped to No. 6 in 247Sports' Composite Rankings with their next signing day haul.
However, a preseason Top 10 Auburn team fell apart late last season, and the Tigers' slide has continued well into 2015 after another offseason of great recruiting and championship projections.
"The defense ranks last in the conference in total defense (430.6 yards per game), is awful on third downs (47.4 percent) and has struggled mightily. ... That shouldn't happen," Bleacher Report's Barrett Sallee wrote this week. "Not with the talent on Auburn's roster and the presence of first-year defensive coordinator Will Muschamp, who was supposed to be the magic potion that fixed the team's major lingering problem."
Although Auburn's recruiting classes have been some of the best in the country under Malzahn, his teams have regressed since his first-year run in 2013. There's no reason why a team with this much talent should be fighting just to make a bowl game this season.
Notre Dame's Brian Kelly
2 of 7
On Signing Day: Four Top 15 classes since 2010
On Saturday: Four seasons with at least four losses since 2010
Every powerhouse school places high expectations on its coaches, but the weight of such a legendary name such as Notre Dame puts even more pressure on Brian Kelly to succeed in South Bend, Indiana.
While Notre Dame doesn't completely dominate recruiting like fellow blue bloods Alabama and USC, Kelly and his staff don't have a hard time at all getting high-quality players to suit up for the Fighting Irish. Plenty of blue-chip recruits come to Notre Dame, as Kelly's lowest-rated class since his first full season as head coach ranked 18th nationally.
But with the obvious exception of their 2012 run to the BCS National Championship Game, the Fighting Irish haven't exactly delivered on those high expectations.
Notre Dame went 8-5 in three of Kelly's five full seasons with the program and went 9-4 in 2013—the only time outside of 2012 that the team has finished a campaign with a Top 25 ranking.
Fortunately for Kelly, he's in a much better situation this season than Malzahn is. His 2015 team, which he called his most talented since he arrived at Notre Dame, is in the Top 10 and has one loss to an excellent Clemson team away from home. If the Irish can finish strong, Kelly's name will fade from distinctions such as this one.
Ole Miss' Hugh Freeze
3 of 7
On Signing Day: No. 9 class in 2013, No. 15 class in 2014, No. 17 class in 2015
On Saturday: 14-14 in SEC play
Hugh Freeze inherited a mess when he took over at Ole Miss in 2012. While the Rebels were good recruiters under former head coach Houston Nutt, they slipped to back-to-back losing seasons in 2010 and 2011.
After getting Ole Miss back to a bowl game in his first season, Freeze went on to sign an astonishing 2013 recruiting class that ranked ninth nationally by 247's Composite Rankings. No. 1 overall recruit Robert Nkemdiche headlined a class that featured three other 5-stars: Laremy Tunsil, Laquon Treadwell and Tony Conner.
But through some injuries and rough losing streaks, Ole Miss hasn't quite been able to put it all together under Freeze since that legendary recruiting haul. While the Rebels had a run as the No. 1 team in the country last season, they dropped four of their last six games, including a 42-3 embarrassment at the hands of TCU at the Peach Bowl.
This season, Ole Miss looked set to get over the hump after a wild win at defending SEC champion Alabama. Then their playoff hopes took massive hits with a blowout loss at Florida and a defeat at the hands of Group of Five power Memphis away from home.
Freeze has improved his win total each season since arriving in Oxford, and there's still a chance he'll do it again in 2015. But Ole Miss hasn't quite reached the same elite level on the field as it has in the recruiting rankings.
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Tennessee's Butch Jones
4 of 7
On Signing Day: No. 7 class in 2014 and No. 4 class in 2015
On Saturday: 15-17 overall at Tennessee (6-14 SEC)
This was supposed to be the year Butch Jones and Tennessee got over their reputation as a recruiting power still searching for a signature season.
Now in his third season on Rocky Top, Butch Jones still has a losing record and more than twice as many losses as wins in the SEC. Like Freeze, Jones didn't exactly inherit a power, but his predecessors did their fair share in getting Top 20 recruiting classes into Knoxville.
Jones took Tennessee's recruiting to the next level after his first full season with the program. The Volunteers nailed down a No. 7 class in 2014 and broke into the coveted top five earlier this year—only finishing behind Alabama, USC and Florida State.
In the weaker SEC East, Tennessee entered 2015 as a strong contender for a division championship. Instead, the Volunteers blew two-touchdown leads in three of their first five games of the year. With a narrow loss to rival Alabama last weekend, Tennessee moved to 3-4 on the season and 1-3 in the SEC.
Top 10 recruiting classes don't immediately lead to 10-win seasons, but Tennessee's stockpiled talent was supposed to have paid off by now. In light of all the recruiting wins so far from Jones and his staff, this year's losses are much tougher to swallow.
Texas A&M's Kevin Sumlin
5 of 7
On Signing Day: Two No. 10 classes and a No. 5 class in last three years
On Saturday: 9-11 in SEC play since debut season
As you've probably noticed by now, the majority of the coaches on this list are from the SEC. In order to compete for the title, teams usually need to sign great recruiting classes—after all, the league's worst team consistently finishes inside the Top 50 nationally in recruiting.
Since joining the SEC from the Big 12 prior to the 2012 season—Kevin Sumlin's first season and a 11-2 campaign behind Heisman winner Johnny Manziel—Texas A&M has been a recruiting powerhouse. The Aggies have finished inside the Composite Rankings' Top 10 in each of the last three seasons, with one Top 5 visit in 2014.
"Now, Sumlin's landing some of the nation's top prospects seems an annual foregone conclusion—and the stars are adding up on the A&M roster," Brent Zwerneman of the Houston Chronicle wrote. "He's also one of the nation's highest-paid coaches at $5 million per year and acutely aware stars don't really matter in the final tally—victories do."
But as those stars have gone up, the wins have gone down for Sumlin. Texas A&M fell from second in the SEC West in 2012 to fourth in 2013 and fifth last season. This year, the Aggies are a mess offensively and have lost back-to-back division games. Those losses pushed Sumlin's SEC record since his incredible debut season below .500.
As Zwerneman notes, Sumlin's roster is made up almost entirely of his own recruits at this point in his tenure. The huge recruiting victories that made Sumlin such a hot commodity haven't turned him into a consistent winner on Saturdays.
UCLA's Jim Mora
6 of 7
On Signing Day: Three Top 20 classes and a No. 7 class in last four years
On Saturday: Three conference losses in each of his three full seasons
Under Jim Mora, UCLA has become a household name again. Mora is 3-0 against USC, and his staff has recorded some big victories over the rival Trojans on the recruiting trail.
"Mora and his staff have pulled in top-20 recruiting classes four straight times, including a consensus top-10 class in 2013 that produced some of this roster’s biggest defensive stars," Jack Wang of the Los Angeles Daily News wrote before the start of the 2015 season. "Yet the mountaintop has eluded them. For all the talk of conference titles and national championships, UCLA hasn’t won the Pac-12 South since 2012."
Although they are consistently the second-best West Coast team in terms of recruiting, the Bruins have lost exactly three Pac-12 games in each of its seasons under Mora. This year, UCLA's October slump produced back-to-back losses to Arizona State and Stanford.
UCLA continues to pull in excellent talent under Mora, but the Bruins have only reached the Pac-12 title game once in his tenure—and that was his first year. They've been to Holiday, Sun and Alamo Bowls instead of Rose Bowls.
Like several other head coaches on this list, Mora recruits extremely well, but his teams have yet to cross the threshold into consistent, late-season contention. Until the Bruins get over that, UCLA will continue to have a reputation for underachieving under Mora.
Virginia's Mike London
7 of 7
On Signing Day: Three straight Top 30 classes from 2011-2013, Top 50 in 2014 and 2015
On Saturday: 25-43 overall (12-31 ACC) at Virginia
Mike London and Virginia aren't at the level of the other big names in this article, but the Cavaliers make a strong case for having the biggest disproportion between victories in February and ones in the fall.
London's first three classes at Virginia ranked in the top 30 of 247's Composite Rankings, and his most recent ones still finished inside the Top 50. (His small, No. 32-ranked 2014 class included two 5-star recruits—Quin Blanding and Andrew Brown.)
Those aren't outrageous recruiting hauls, but they're quite good for an ACC program not named Clemson, Florida State, Miami or Virginia Tech. But the Cavaliers haven't turned those classes into winners by any means, as they've only been to a bowl game once under London.
"Virginia is one of those programs that perpetually promises more than it delivers, but there’s reason to believe that a good coach can build something respectable," Dan Wolken of USA Today wrote this week. "London has had his opportunities, but it’s simply not working."
With a 2-5 record so far in 2015, it's hard to imagine London will stay around for another year in Charlottesville. He's gotten better recruits over the years than the likes of Michigan State, TCU and Arizona, but Virginia hasn't even reached the most modest success with them.
All recruiting information courtesy of 247Sports.
Justin Ferguson is a college football writer at Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @JFergusonBR.
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