Ranking the 5 Best Coaching Trees in College Football
What defines a great coach? The common answers are usually a combination of win percentage plus the number of championships (division, conference or national) won. You could toss in the number of players a coach has sent to the NFL as well.
One area that usually gets overlooked when talking about great coaches is the coaching tree. Part of being a top-tier coach is finding and hiring other top-tier coaches, because they will go on to become head coaches themselves.
With that in mind, we rank the top five coaching trees in college football today. Each tree begins with an active head coach, so you won't see Bo Schembechler or Hayden Fry named specifically. However, you'll find some of the coaching trees begin with direct disciples and are essentially the same.
Also, the bigger, the better. There are active coaching trees broken off from older ones, but in general, we try to take an all-encompassing approach. For example: Urban Meyer and Bob Stoops have developed their own coaching trees, but they are part of bigger ones from Bob Davie and Bill Snyder, respectively. We try to keep that in mind when creating our rankings.
Honorable Mentions
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Here are the coaches who just missed the cut. However, keep an eye on these coaching trees as time moves along. You might be surprised at how good of a job they're doing at hiring assistants.
Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy
Mike Gundy, in general, is underrated. Oklahoma State's most successful years lately have come in the Big 12's round-robin schedule. Gundy has also hired several offensive coordinators who have gone on to become successful head coaches, including Larry Fedora (North Carolina), Todd Monken (Southern Miss) and Dana Holgorsen (West Virginia).
Arizona State coach Todd Graham
Todd Graham has settled in at Arizona State and done an excellent job, but over the years, he's developed some great assistants as well. Among those to take other jobs after serving under Graham include Mike Norvell (Memphis), Chad Morris (SMU), Gus Malzahn (Auburn) and David Beaty (Kansas).
Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh
In the grand timeline of things, Jim Harbaugh hasn't been a head coach for too long. Still, a number of his assistants have gone on to thrive as head coaches. David Shaw, who succeeded Harbaugh at Stanford, is the best example.
Willie Taggart has done a nice job turning around South Florida. Derek Mason only coached with Harbaugh for a year at Stanford, but he has Vanderbilt's defense playing well as he tries to rebuild the Commodores.
5. Les Miles Coaching Tree
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Branches: Mike Gundy (Oklahoma State), Jimbo Fisher (Florida State).
The Les Miles coaching tree is sort of like that Charlie Brown Christmas tree: There aren't a lot of branches, but it's a nice little tree. Somehow, this analogy makes perfect sense to me.
Anyway, Miles has two top-tier former assistants who have gone on to do great things. Gundy was Miles' offensive coordinator at Oklahoma State and succeeded him when Miles took the LSU job. Gundy has done a tremendous job, leading the Cowboys to a Big 12 championship in 2011. (In a twist of possible fate, Oklahoma State would have faced LSU in the BCS national championship that year had the Pokes not lost to Iowa State.)
Similarly, Fisher, who is also a member of the Nick Saban and Bobby Bowden family coaching trees, has done great things with Florida State by leading the Seminoles to a national championship. From the Miles tree you get the Gundy tree, which we've already touched on, and Kentucky coach Mark Stoops.
4. Nick Saban Coaching Tree
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Branches: Kirby Smart (Georgia), Jim McElwain (Florida), Will Muschamp (South Carolina), Mark Dantonio (Michigan State), Jimbo Fisher (Florida State).
It's the year 2025, and the entire SEC is coached by former Saban assistants. This is something you can visualize and, though you try to fight it, it's not as terribly far-fetched as it seems.
With Smart going back home to Georgia, three SEC coaches have direct ties to Saban's tree. Only Dantonio does not fit that description; and, to be fair, Dantonio is just as much a disciple of the Jim Tressel tree as he is Saban's, if not more so. Similarly, Fisher has close ties to the Bowden family.
In any case, you can't argue with what Dantonio has done with the Spartans. He'll face Saban in one College Football Playoff semifinal Thursday and has defeated Meyer (more on his tree later) twice in the last three years.
McElwain won the SEC East with Florida in his first year in Gainesville and has the Gators on the right track. Muschamp's time as a head coach has been less successful, but he gets his second chance succeeding Steve Spurrier at South Carolina.
As for Smart, he'll stick with the Tide through the playoff before taking over for Mark Richt at Georgia. Earlier this month, Saban said Smart was "as good an assistant coach and as loyal an assistant coach as I've ever had on my staff," per Jon Solomon of CBSSports.com.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
3. Hal Mumme Coaching Tree
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Branches: Mike Leach (Washington State), Sonny Dykes (Cal), Dana Holgorsen (West Virginia).
Hal Mumme is an active coach at the NAIA program Belhaven. Still, his Air Raid offense has far-reaching variations across college football. From Washington State's aerial attack (the Cougars threw the ball 57 times a game in 2015) to Holgorsen's more power run-based version, coaches have molded the Air Raid over the years. Few offenses and coaching trees have been so tightly connected as the Mumme-Air Raid, which makes it so unique.
The other thing about the Mumme coaching tree is how far the branches extend. Kliff Kingsbury (Texas Tech), Kevin Sumlin (Texas A&M), Art Briles (Baylor) and Dino Babers (Syracuse) are all extensions of what was once the Mumme coaching staff.
Practically all the branches of the Mumme tree have gone on to have at least some success as head coaches. The Air Raid tree remains one of the most influential ones of its kind in college football.
2. Bob Davie Coaching Tree
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Branches: Urban Meyer (Ohio State), Steve Addazio (Boston College), Dan Mullen (Mississippi State), Charlie Strong (Texas).
Davie's tree is a little tricky because it's so closely tied to Meyer. But, if we're sticking to our guns and going to the root of things, Davie gets the nod. His former staff at Notre Dame between 1997 and 2001 produced a lot of outstanding head coaches—Meyer included. The irony is the Irish never reached the pinnacle they hoped for under Davie.
Still, Meyer, Addazio, Strong and even Mullen, who was a graduate assistant at the time, were all part of Davie's tree in South Bend at one point or another.
Without a doubt, Meyer has carried on the Davie tree with the most success. Mullen, Strong and Addazio went on to be head coaches after serving as assistants at Florida. Tom Herman is now the coach at Houston after being Meyer's offensive coordinator at Ohio State. Kyle Whittingham succeeded Meyer at Utah. Furthermore, the extended branches include Gary Andersen (Oregon State) and Doc Holliday (Marshall).
But it can all be traced back to Davie—who is doing a nice job at New Mexico, by the way. Meyer gets credit for his own tree, but it all started with Davie in South Bend.
1. Bill Snyder Coaching Tree
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Branches: Bob Stoops (Oklahoma), Bret Bielema (Arkansas), Dan McCarney (Ex-North Texas), Mark Mangino, Jim Leavitt.
Longtime Iowa coach Hayden Fry is really the man who started it all. If you want a glimpse into the greatest coaching staff of all time, check out the 1983 Hawkeyes coaching staff. That very staff molded much of the Big Ten and Big 12. And, as Brian Bennett of ESPN.com noted, it had a strong presence in the 2015 College Football Playoff race.
Snyder carried that proverbial baton from Fry at Kansas State. The immediate branches of the Snyder tree are dwindling. Stoops and Bielema are the best active extensions of the Snyder tree. North Texas let go of McCarney midseason, and he is also a member of the Meyer tree. Mangino and Leavitt are not active head coaches (at the moment), but they had success at Kansas and South Florida, respectively.
Still, the influence from the Fry/Snyder tree is tremendous. Whether the number of active coaches is small or large, several coaching staffs sprung from this root. The furthest branches of the Snyder tree are alive and well. Stoops has built his own section by hiring guys like Leach (Washington State), Sumlin (Texas A&M), Kevin Wilson (Indiana) and Bo Pelini (Youngstown State). The Stoops tree is so fascinating, as it intertwines the Snyder tree and the Mumme tree.
The point is, if you start at the top of the Snyder tree, the list of names you can rattle off is practically endless. It's so far-reaching, more so than any other staff in college football today.
Ben Kercheval is a lead writer for college football. All quotes cited unless obtained firsthand. All stats courtesy of CFBStats.com.
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