2020 college football coaches and rankings on the HG

By Jake Wimberly

Coaching - just the name alone means so much to our culture and how we interact inside our communities. Coaching can be more than X’s and O’s, or the right call in a baseball game or set in basketball. In our societies, coaching can be second fathers and mothers, teachers, mentors and more.

In the college football circles, coaching has evolved over the years. Back in the day, coaches wore bike shorts, high hats, talked loudly and their roles were somewhat different than today.

Make no mistake about it though, coaches were just as important then, as they are now. However, today’s coach is cut from a different cloth; today’s coach has taken on a CEO type lead, a facilitator and an ultimate decision maker. A fund raiser, a politician and the ultimate face of a football program.

Here at the Hourglass - we hold the head coach accountable for the entire program. While assistant coaches come and go - the head coach is the one who finds the new assistants that work and makes sure his program is running at maximum “juice”, so to speak.

Coaching is a key part of our metric and building a team model - we consider of course wins and losses, but also take into account top 25 wins, and top 25 losses to a degree in building every coaches three year ranking.

Some publications when ranking coaches will use the entire career of a coach and I can understand accomplishments and a ranking of that order. However, when we build these models we do not. We use a three year maximum resume, because most coaches are not today, who they were three years ago and will not be who they become three years from now.

Every year our coaching scale moves, based on the entire body of coaching numbers combined. For instance in the Power Five this year, an average coach is defined around a value of “6.3”. Don’t worry to much on how that value is calculated, but if you see a coach around 6.3 and their name, we consider them average. Much above that is above average and below is considered below average.

Average coaches this year in the Power Five look like Justin Fuente at Virginia Tech, or Clay Helton at USC. If you go back and look at their last three years, you would definitely call their bodies of work “average”.

Stanford’s David Shaw was in our top 15 coaches just a few years ago, but has slipped the last two years and now we consider his move to just above average.

While many may disagree, Chip Kelly’s return to college has been anything but a good time and we now have him just below average on our scale. Nick Saban for ever was number one, but has now lost ground and Dabo Swinney is our number one coach. It truly is a sliding scale, the way we look at coaches, but nonetheless a coach is more important now than ever in deciding the fate of a football program.

Just look at the “strike outs”, that happened in Starkville with Joe Moorhead or Arkansas with Chad Morris. Or the success stories brewing in North Carolina with Mack Brown or Oklahoma with Linocln Riley.

Below are our rankings for the Power Five coaches and then the Group of Five who have some big time movers and shakers coming through their ranks.

Every team preview in the coming weeks will show how the respective teams coach matches up with the field.

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POWER FIVE COACHING RANKINGS

# Team Coach HGMS

1 Clemson Dabo Swinney 37

2 Alabama Nick Saban 34

3 Oklahoma Lincoln Riley 31

4 Georgia Kirby Smart 29

5 Notre Dame Brian Kelly 25

6 Penn State James Franklin 20

7 Wisconsin Paul Chryst 19

8 Michigan Jim Harbaugh 19

9 Ohio State Ryan Day 18

10 LSU Ed Orgeron 16

11 Auburn Gus Malzahn 14

12 Florida Dan Mullen 12

13 Utah Kyle Wittingham 12

14 Oregon Mario Cristobal 12

15 Texas A&M Jimbo Fisher 11

16 Oklahoma State Mike Gundy 10

17 Texas Tom Herman 10

18 Iowa Kirk Ferentz 10

19 Miss. State Mike Leach 10

20 Kentucky Mark Stoops 9

21 Minnesota P.J. Fleck 8

22 Ole Miss Lane Kiffin 7

23 Virginia Bronco Mendenhall 7

24 Stanford David Shaw 7

25 Virginia Tech Justin Fuente 6

26 USC Clay Helton 6

27 Arizona State Herm Edwards 6

28 Kansas State Chris Klieman 5

29 Florida State Mike Norvell 5

30 Louisville Scott Satterfield 4

31 Wake Forest Dave Clawson 4

32 Washington State Nick Rolovich 4

33 TCU Gary Patterson 3

34 Baylor Dave Aranda 3

35 Tennessee Jeremy Pruitt 3

36 North Carolina Mac Brown 3

37 Pittsburgh Pat Narduzzi 3

38 UCLA Chip Kelly 3

39 California Justin Wilcox 3

40 BYU Kalani Sitake 2

41 Kansas Les Miles 2

42 Iowa State Matt Campbell 2

43 Michigan State Mel Tucker * 2

44 Rutgers Greg Schiano 2

45 Missouri Eliah Drinkwitz 2

46 Arkansas Sam Pittman 2

47 NC State Dave Doeren 2

48 Boston College Jeff Hafley 2

49 Washington Jimmy Lake 2

50 Colorado Karl Dorrel 2

51 Syracuse Dino Babers 1

52 Arizona Kevin Sumlin 1

53 Northwestern Pat Fitzgerald -1

54 Miami Manny Diaz -1

55 Duke David Cutcliffe -1

56 West Virginia Neal Brown -2

57 Texas Tech Matt Wells -3

58 Purdue Jeff Brohm -3

59 Indiana Tom Allen -3

60 Georgia Tech Geoff Collins -3

61 Oregon State Jonathan Smith -3

62 Maryland Mike Locksley -4

63 Nebraska Scott Frost -4

64 Illinois Lovie Smith -4

65 South Carolina Will Muschamp -5

66 Vanderbilt Derek Mason -9

GROUP OF FIVE COACHES

# Team Coach HGMS

1 Boise State Bryan Harsin 24

2 UCF Josh Heupel 16

3 UAB Bill Clark 13

4 Cincinnati Luke Fickell 13

5 Liberty Hugh Freeze 12

6 Army Jeff Monken 11

7 LA Tech Skip Holtz 10

8 Ohio Frank Solich 10

9 Marshall Doc Holliday 9

10 LA-Lafayette Billy Napier 9

11 Buffalo Lance Leipold 9

12 Arkansas State Blake Anderson 8

13 Toledo Jason Candle 8

14 Wyoming Craig Bohl 6

15 Georgia Southern Chad Lunsford 6

16 SMU Sonny Dykes 6

17 San Diego State Brady Hoke 5

18 Air Force Troy Calhoun 5

19 Hawaii Todd Graham 5

20 FIU Butch Davis 5

21 Southern Miss Jay Hopson 5

22 Navy Ken Niumatalolo 5

23 Colorado State Steve Addazio 4

24 Florida Atlantic Willie Taggart 4

25 North Texas Seth Littrell 4

26 Western Kentucky Tyson Helton 4

27 Tulane Willie Fritz 4

28 Fresno State Kalen DeBoer 3

29 UNLV Marcus Arroyo 3

30 Charlotte Will Healy 3

31 UTSA Jeff Traylor 3

32 App State Shawn Clark 3

33 Central Michigan Jim McElwain 3

34 Memphis Ryan Silverfield 3

35 South Florida Jeff Scott 3

36 Temple Rod Carey 3

37 New Mexico Danny Gonzales 2

38 Old Dominion Rick Rahne 2

39 Western Michigan Tim Lester 2

40 Eastern Michigan Chris Creighton 2

41 Utah State Gary Anderson 1

42 Miami Ohio Chuck Martin 1

43 Nevada Jay Norvell -1

44 MTSU Rick Stockstill -1

45 Troy Chip Lindsey -1

46 Costal Carolina Jamey Chadwell -1

47 Texas State Jake Spavital -1

48 Georgia State Shawn Elliott -1

49 Northern Ill. Thomas Hammock -1

50 Kent State Sean Lewis -1

51 Houston Dana Holgerson -1

52 East Carolina Mike Houston -2

53 Massachusetts Walt Bell -2

54 Bowling Green Scott Loflier -3

55 LA-Monroe Matt Viator -4

56 Tulsa Philip Montgomery -4

57 Akron Tom Arth -5

58 South Alabama Steve Campbell -7

59 UTEP Dan Dimel -9

60 Rice Mike Bloomgren -9

61 San Jose State Brent Brennan -10

62 Ball State Mike Neu -11

NOTE: all photos courtesy of 247sports.com