Which New Head Coaches Face Most Pressure to Nail First Recruiting Classes?

The furious sprint that started in the month of January toward national signing day is almost over, and in just a short time thousands of players will be putting pen to paper for their college choices.

While every head coach wants to nail down a top-notch group out of the Class of 2016, those who are taking over new programs face a different kind of pressure. They don’t have the luxury of time to recruit their kind of players, and many also have to deal with the fact that they’re changing offensive or defensive systems.

For some, one great first signing class could lay the foundation for a successful tenure. For others, a bunch of misses as they scramble to cobble together a group of high school players could mean their tenure is over before it began.

Here are eight head coaches who face the most pressure to nail their first recruiting classes.

Kalani Sitake, BYU

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Like many others on this list, Sitake is a first-time head coach who has had to make the transition from having a narrower focus when it comes to recruiting to seeing the whole picture.

It helps tremendously that he is coaching at a place he knows well as an alum and in an area where he spent nearly a decade as an assistant. Also, the Cougars do draw upon a narrower pool of recruits than other schools, which helps in some respects for Sitake but can also make it tough to nail down evaluations.

Then there’s the roster management that must occur by default each and every year, starting with this year’s crop of recruits. With various players coming and going from their two-year missions, it can sometimes be difficult to truly get a sense of how the roster will look until fall camp really gets underway.

Sometimes things work out (see Mangum, Tanner) but it’s another thing on Sitake’s plate that other head coaches don’t have to deal with as much. While Sitake does inherit a solid team coming off a good year, he’ll have to lock down a number of contributors with this recruiting class, because the 2016 schedule he faces is likely the toughest in the country (featuring six Power Five teams, plus Toledo, Boise State and Cincinnati).

Kirby Smart, Georgia

Like Sitake, Smart returns to his alma mater as a first-time head coach. The biggest difference between them, however, might be the simple fact that expectations are sky high in Athens.

After all, Mark Richt was shown the door after going 9-3 last season and despite signing a pair of top-eight classes in the 247Sports Team Rankings the past two years. In short, the bar is very, very high for Georgia, which puts a lot of pressure on Smart.

The good news is that the biggest pieces of the 2016 class are already on campus: 5-star QB Jacob Eason and 5-star TE Isaac Nauta. Landing those two were big signs that Smart and his staff could hold their own despite some serious challengers.

The Bulldogs will be considered one of the favorites to win the SEC East again in 2016 and a top-notch first effort from Smart on the recruiting trail and strong finish on Wednesday could help make a division title a reality.

Mike Norvell, Memphis

Norvell is a sharp young coach who faces a big challenge in his first head coaching job on two fronts.

First off, the fact that the Tigers have won 19 games the past two seasons after being one of the worst FBS programs in the country results in a very high bar for the team’s new head coach. The Tigers don’t just have to maintain a high level of play in the transition from Justin Fuente to Norvell but also have to do so in one of the most competitive conferences in the country in the AAC.

Add in the fact that several key pieces from Memphis’ recent run will be lost to graduation or the NFL (especially QB Paxton Lynch), and the pressure will be on to bring in a class that is both deep and filled with some early contributors.

Norvell has already brought in several JUCO recruits to help fill the gaps, including landing former Tennessee quarterback Riley Ferguson.

Barry Odom, Missouri

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Odom has landed his dream job, but things haven’t exactly been smooth sailing in Columbia since he took over.

The recent Maty Mauk incident drew plenty of negative headlines, and the school is still dealing with the issues caused by the recent protests (in which the football team had a prominent role). Having to recruit in that kind of climate is difficult for any head coach, much less a first-time one in the extremely tough SEC.

The other big thing that puts pressure on Odom is the fact that he’s a defensive-minded coach who needs to fix the Tigers offense…badly.

Only six of the team’s commitments are on that side of the ball as of Feb. 2, which that might cause Odom to make a false start before his career gets going if he can’t close on a high note with some offensive reinforcements.

Dino Babers, Syracuse

Babers was hired to bring Baylor’s prolific style of offense to the Carrier Dome, which means finding players who will fit in perfectly with what he wants to do on that side of the ball.

Upstate New York isn’t exactly fertile recruiting ground for athletes who make plays in space, but Babers has done a good job expanding the recruiting base to key areas around the country. The ACC is a big step up from the MAC when it comes to recruiting, but it seems as though the Orange staff has come in with a good plan and have followed through on it.

It might take a season or two for the fast-paced offense to really take hold at Syracuse, but if it does, finding some big-time playmakers in the 2016 class will be a big reason why.

Scott Frost, UCF

Like Babers, Frost was brought in to juice an offense that seemed to go sideways more often last season than it went forward.

He’ll have a big advantage of not being able to go far to find fast athletes and will be able to sell the fact that he will run the Oregon version of the spread in a state full of college teams running more pro-style offenses.

Still, it’s undeniable that Frost is going to have to dig the Knights out of a big hole, given how bad they were last season and how competitive their conference is. That means finding players who can play right away as freshmen.

Clay Helton, USC

Jae C. Hong/Associated Press

The past five recruiting class ranks for USC are, according to 247Sports composite team rankings: No. 2, No. 10, No. 13, No. 9, No. 3. That's despite turmoil at the head coaching spot and some brutal NCAA sanctions.

In short, few schools recruit as well as the Trojans do, and the result is a very, very high level that Helton must reach with his first recruiting class.

What is strange about USC this season is that there is such little buzz about the team heading into Wednesday’s festivities. It figures to be a smaller class than most, but it’s a bit abnormal to see the class sitting third in the Pac-12 and not in on as many 5-stars as past years.

The head coach at USC always has plenty of pressure put on him, and that is the case on signing day as much as it is on the first day of the season.

Bronco Mendenhall, Virginia

Mendenhall was one of the most left-field hires of the offseason, which puts a little pressure on him to land a quality class as he attempts to remake the Cavaliers.

The fact of the matter is that he seems like such a fish out of water after spending so much time at BYU. Sure, the Cougars recruited nationally under Mendenhall, but things are a bit different when you need to focus more regionally at Virginia.

Further complicating things is that most of the BYU staff went east with its head coach, so there might not be a ton of strong local ties present for this first recruiting class.

Given how competitive the ACC has become on the recruiting trail, Mendenhall has his work cut out for him trying to make a dent in such a short time period with his first class.

Bryan Fischer is a national college football writer for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter at @BryanDFischer.