When Hiring New Coaches, College Football Programs Must Know Where They Stand
For the most part, moving on from one head coach is easy. It's finding the next guy that can prove to be difficult.
Minnesota knows firsthand what that's like. As a result, the university essentially "delayed" its coaching search. While no two coaching situations/searches are the same, many schools can learn from what Minnesota did.
First, the backstory: Two weeks ago, Gophers head coach Jerry Kill retired from coaching due to health concerns. Minnesota loved Kill. Kill loved Minnesota, and he loved coaching. "I know someone will ask, 'Coach, what are you going to do?'" Kill said in an emotional press conference. "I don't know. I ain't done anything else. That's the scary part."
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
Minnesota appointed assistant coach Tracy Claeys as the interim coach. On Wednesday, the university removed the interim tag from Claeys' title and gave him a three-year contract that will reportedly pay him in the neighborhood of $1.5 million a year, according to Joe Christensen of the Star-Tribune. In the past two games, the Gophers have lost to Michigan and Ohio State by a combined 17 points.
"Given the improvement of this program, both academically and athletically, and Coach Claeys' integral leadership role, we have great confidence that he is the right coach to lead this program and our student-athletes," interim athletics director Beth Goetz said in a statement.
Whether promoting Claeys, a 21-year assistant for Kill, was the right call for Minnesota won't be known right away. But given the climate of the 2015 coaching carousel, the Gophers did the logical thing. The university is without a permanent AD and in the middle of upgrading its facilities. Where exactly it ranks among open Football Bowl Subdivision jobs depends on the list, but it's generally considered on the lower end of the order.
Claeys is well-liked and has experience coaching Minnesota on an interim basis. When Kill missed seven games in 2013 to treat his epilepsy, Claeys led the Gophers to a 4-3 record. However, Minnesota made a smart business decision here. A three-year contract provides the program with a sense of continuity, but doesn't bind the parties to an unnecessary, long-term deal. Three years from now, Minnesota should have a better idea if Claeys is the guy they want moving forward, or if it wants to go in a new direction.
By then, the school will also have new football facilities at or near completion. How Minnesota will be viewed in the potential job market will be far different.
USA Today's Dan Wolken summed up Minnesota's situation:
Therein lies the lesson to programs thinking of making a coaching change: Know where you are in the pecking order, what you can realistically get and where it can take you. USC is one of the few exceptions. That's a premier job that can land—or at least inquire about—anyone it wants. The tier below is far more muddled together.
Before Claeys was promoted, there were 10 open FBS jobs. And we're not even in December yet, when the coaching silly season usually begins. The number of available jobs is only going to increase and shift in the coming months. As a result, Chris Vannini of CoachingSearch.com believes many programs on the fence about their head coach will stay put rather than risk a change:
Two recent examples of this are at Colorado and Purdue, which confirmed Mike MacIntyre and Darrell Hazell, respectively, will be back in 2016.
Anyone who has watched Colorado football knows the Buffs have made tremendous improvements under MacIntyre, but the results simply haven't reflected that. Closing in on the end of his third season in Boulder, the Buffs are 10-24 under MacIntyre.
The results are worse in the same span for Hazell at Purdue. The Boilermakers are 6-27 under the third-year coach. However, if Purdue was to fire Hazell, who could it get? Almost every Power Five job is better. Illinois, which is in the same division as the Boilermakers, is better. Perhaps not by much, but better all the same.
For these programs, there's a tough balance of choosing not to accept failure while understanding the job market. Barring a dramatic 180, Colorado and Purdue have opted to play it safe.
That wasn't the case with Maryland and Miami, which have already fired Randy Edsall and Al Golden, respectively. Both programs have "sleeping giant" potential—Miami more so than Maryland—but major drawbacks which could prevent the the type of splash hire they want.
Maryland has at least one thing going for it: money, from the Big Ten and Under Armour. However, playing in the Big Ten East is an annual nightmare. Even the best coaches would struggle to have a winning record against Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State every year.
Miami is fascinating because it wasn't that long ago the Hurricanes were on top of college football. But financial limitations, a lack of an on-campus stadium, poor home-game attendance and a recruiting ground that, while rich, is harvested by almost everyone in the sport makes the job less appealing than you'd initially think.
Reports of whom Miami is targeting range everywhere from Alabama assistants Lane Kiffin and Mario Cristobal to former Hurricanes coach Butch Davis. There are also the Charlie Strong rumors, which seem ridiculous. Whether Strong "fits" at Texas and will be given enough time to complete his rebuild can't be answered today, but the fact is he'd be taking a pay cut to leave Austin.
In short, Miami couldn't lure away a coach that may not make a bowl game this year. Even if it wanted to.
Another pair of schools, South Carolina and Virginia Tech, are replacing legends Steve Spurrier and Frank Beamer, respectively. The Gamecocks specifically are in a similar situation as Minnesota with interim coach Shawn Elliott, who is coaching for his own promotion.
"It gives us a chance to hire an interim coach, gives him a chance to make his mark for these next six games," Spurrier said at his resignation press conference last month, per Robby Kalland of CBS Sports.
On one hand, South Carolina can look within its own state to find an interim coach success story. Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney has taken the Tigers to a No. 1 ranking in the College Football Playoff Top 25 and to heights that could eventually resemble the Danny Ford days.
On the other hand, the SEC East is a competitive landscape for coaches. Florida has made what appears to be a top-notch hire with Jim McElwain. When the Georgia job becomes available, whenever that may be, it will be considered one of the top jobs in college football. Thus, this is a hire South Carolina absolutely has to get right and it should look as far as possible to land that hire.
2015 has been a season for coaching changes the likes of which we haven't seen in a long time. An always-cutthroat business figures to be even more ruthless this year. Every program wants the splash hire, but not everyone will get it. With an abundance of open jobs, great coaches (and better agents) will work desperate athletic departments for every penny they can. Some might leverage that to better contracts with their current gigs.
That's the boom-bust life cycle of a coaching search. It comes and goes quickly. Some programs are willing to risk it with the hopes of landing that signature hire, even if only for a few years. USC, in theory, should have no problem finding a capable coach (whether the Trojans hire the right guy is a different story). Others, like Minnesota, are able to look out the window and know that storm is something of which they want no part.
Ben Kercheval is a lead writer for college football. All quotes cited unless obtained firsthand.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
