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Athlon Ranking All 130 College Football Coaching Jobs for 2019

Disagree. I think WSU is top half of the conference and easily 20 spots better nationally.
 
What hurts WSU is Pullman’s livability. It’s just so damn isolated from everything. Most people, all things being equal, would rather live in a more proximally located city.
 
Texas Tech strikes me as too high but not by that much. When you look at their program from 1985 to 2015, they only had 5 losing seasons total. They weren't great but they were dependably good. In the 70's, they won for the most part and had a 10-2 season and an 11-1 season. It's only since they dumped Leach that they've struggled to win consistently and even then, they are having winning seasons about half the time. So, I don't know that I'd complain about them.

If you want to beef on a school's ranking, look at Maryland at #38. Four straight losing seasons and only one coach in 30 years with a winning record overall. How is that a good football job?
 
As far as their take on WSU, our lack of consistent success puts us in the blind spot of the author. Until Leach, WSU hasn't had consistent success since Hollingberry was running the show. Our inability to reload before Leach made us a perennial underdog. Price had finally gotten things figured out when he screwed things up by leaving in 2002. That reset us back to being that team that hoped to be good once every 3 to 4 years.

What the author fails to see because of that bias is that WSU has had reasonably good success with most of our coaches since the 80's. Walden, Erickson, Price, Doba and Leach all had WSU in the position to win a conference title during their tenures. Most failed, but they were in the running. Wulff was our only coach in that spun that really sucked the whole time. Even Walden had his moments. A lot of schools can't say that.
 
Pay off campus? ... suspect from same folks that ahem “compensated” the likes of Billy
Joe & others ...
 
BiggsCoug said:
Like the dump that is Seattle??? I’ll pass.
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No one is saying in Seattle, but being located closer to a place like Seattle would be more preferable to the vast majority of people out there.

Just as an example: Clemson as a town is smaller than Pullman, but benefits greatly from being much closer to Atlanta and Nashville than Pullman is to Seattle.
 
wazzucougs96 said:
No one is saying in Seattle, but being located closer to a place like Seattle would be more preferable to the vast majority of people out there.

Just as an example: Clemson as a town is smaller than Pullman, but benefits greatly from being much closer to Atlanta and Nashville than Pullman is to Seattle.
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I think down South people are more comfortable in a small rural town. A lot of recruits from small rural towns down South.

The West Coast talent is largely urban. The culture shock is greater here.

Clemson does a great job of selling software (people) and hardware (facilities).
 
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CougPatrol said:
Seattle sucks, and they face similar challenges holding onto people; particularly pro sports athletes. The NW is no longer livable.
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What makes Seattle no longer "livable" especially for pro athletes?
 
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I think this ranking is pretty messed up.

1st of all the best place to Coach has to be Hawaii. You are paid half a million bucks to live in Hawaii. There are tons of Polynesian kids to recruit and you get off the island basically half the season for away games. Nobody expects you to win so if you do better than average you can hang around forever there. Hawaii also has low property taxes. Amazing food, surfing, beautiful scenery in the off season. That has to be the top job just because of its ridiculous outlier position.

2nd best place to Coach has to be Texas because they don’t have income tax. Austin is a happening city. You get paid massive amounts to Coach in one of the most fertile recruiting areas with a gigantic budget a gigantic stadium. That’s number 2.

3rd has to be USC which is the same as Texas but you get Hollywood royalty all around you and get to go to movie premieres Disneyland all that stuff.

UCLA is probably up there as well just like USC.

Then I would say Duke, Wake Forrest, North Carolina. Great recruiting beautiful part of the country. Nobody expects much from you.

Then San Diego State. See above.

FAU would be nice too, but Hurricanes.

Coaching is a job, and the way I see it is the best places are those that offer a high quality of life in combination with coaching.

Pullman would be on there if you like small towns and quiet country living. Nebraska as well.

Really it’s about where you live.

Yes Alabama and Georgia are big SEC schools with big stadiums and big salaries, but Tuscaloosa and Athens suck.
South Bend is trash too. Nobody I know says oooh I want to live in the rust belt!

Vanderbilt would be cool. Nashville is a great city and nobody expects you to win.

I think the places with the best QoL / lowest expectations are the most attractive and yeah some glamour schools like Texas,USC, UCLA are in there, but if we are talking a place to live and work a lot of the smaller schools (including WSU) should be much much higher.
 
Cougatron said:
I think this ranking is pretty messed up.

1st of all the best place to Coach has to be Hawaii. You are paid half a million bucks to live in Hawaii. There are tons of Polynesian kids to recruit and you get off the island basically half the season for away games. Nobody expects you to win so if you do better than average you can hang around forever there. Hawaii also has low property taxes. Amazing food, surfing, beautiful scenery in the off season. That has to be the top job just because of its ridiculous outlier position.

2nd best place to Coach has to be Texas because they don’t have income tax. Austin is a happening city. You get paid massive amounts to Coach in one of the most fertile recruiting areas with a gigantic budget a gigantic stadium. That’s number 2.

3rd has to be USC which is the same as Texas but you get Hollywood royalty all around you and get to go to movie premieres Disneyland all that stuff.

UCLA is probably up there as well just like USC.

Then I would say Duke, Wake Forrest, North Carolina. Great recruiting beautiful part of the country. Nobody expects much from you.

Then San Diego State. See above.

FAU would be nice too, but Hurricanes.

Coaching is a job, and the way I see it is the best places are those that offer a high quality of life in combination with coaching.

Pullman would be on there if you like small towns and quiet country living. Nebraska as well.

Really it’s about where you live.

Yes Alabama and Georgia are big SEC schools with big stadiums and big salaries, but Tuscaloosa and Athens suck.
South Bend is trash too. Nobody I know says oooh I want to live in the rust belt!

Vanderbilt would be cool. Nashville is a great city and nobody expects you to win.

I think the places with the best QoL / lowest expectations are the most attractive and yeah some glamour schools like Texas,USC, UCLA are in there, but if we are talking a place to live and work a lot of the smaller schools (including WSU) should be much much higher.
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Why in the hell would a high expectation guy such as yourself pick a job with low expectations?

Coaches I have come to know and even read about don't have near that mindset. They are driven to win.
 
CougPatrol said:
Seattle sucks, and they face similar challenges holding onto people; particularly pro sports athletes. The NW is no longer livable.
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"Nobody Goes There Anymore, It’s Too Crowded"
Thoughts and prayers to you if you haven't managed to escape my beloved NW yet.
 
Anybody who puts together a "best of" or "highest ranking" list is biased. It is inherent in the job, and deciding which criteria are most important is only one area for the bias to become apparent.

Good salespeople (and recruiters) understand that the most important thing to have when promoting what ever you are selling (school, conference, city, alum group, what ever) is the ability to differentiate yourself from the competition. Without that, you are just selling "me, too", and that can only go so far.

Are there differentiable things a coach could use in promoting USC, Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, etc.? Sure! There are also some clear differentiators to use in selling WSU. Will those differentiators appeal to everyone? Of course not. But using recruiting as an example, you only need 25 kids per year out of what....1,500? Play up how you are different, not how you are the same, and you will find your 25. Sure, it is work for the staff to identify the kids for whom your differentiators have appeal. I didn't say that recruiting did not require work, and it is probably fair to say that the smaller and more focused your differentiators, the more overall up front work it is for the staff. But I've made a living at selling differentiable services to a niche market. And I'll assure you that Mike Leach understands what I have been saying, and is a good practitioner of the strategy.

My big difference with the list is not Texas Tech's position; it sort of makes sense. They are certainly differentiatable. With that logic, Stanford is actually too low on the list, because they are a poster child for having differentiables that can be sold. Instead, my gripe is with all the "me, too" schools on the list at relatively higher positions (Oklahoma State, for example), particularly the ones with mediocre track records....and the presumably premium schools where premium performance is a dream. UCLA, for example.

Fortunately, we are living proof that coaching matters and we have something good to sell.
 
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CougEd said:
Why in the hell would a high expectation guy such as yourself pick a job with low expectations?

Coaches I have come to know and even read about don't have near that mindset. They are driven to win.
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Because I understand the collegiate sports landscape.

A low expectation place with a high QoL is ideal if you are a good coach because of Tenure.

With high expectations/ high pressure comes high turnover unless you are someone like Nick Saban or Urban Meyer.

Mark Richt won tons at Georgia and he was axed.
Rich Rod didn’t get much of a shot at Michigan.
USC / Texas have been a revolving door
Florida as well.

A lot of fan bases have zero idea what it takes to build a program. They are just dumb fans and the boosters are even worse because they want to play schmooze games and want control/meddle.

Why subject yourself to that stress if you don’t have to.

Look at Bill Snyder. He took over a horrible program at Kansas State and they worship the guy even named a highway after him and the stadium in Manhattan.

Beamer at Virginia Tech.

Bowden at Florida State.

You see it with Leach/Texas Tech and now with us at WSU.

If you are a good coach and you stay for a significant amount of time the people love you.

But look at what happened to Gene Chizik at Auburn. The guy won a national title at Auburn and he was canned in 4 years. The guy won their first undisputed national title and they gave him only 4 years.

So Leach with his steady consistent success at undervalued places will not only have a longer tenure as a HC but also make more money on the long haul.

It’s the difference between an entrepreneurial, opportunist, builder mindset and just chasing dollars.

To me Hawaii is the most enticing for the reasons I mentioned and also there is opportunity.

Let’s say I coached at Hawaii for 20 years making 500k.

That’s only 10 million bucks right? But if I bought real estate/build multi-unit properties in lucrative Hawaii areas I could make tons of cash. A 4 plex that I AirBnB for 1k per week for each unit is 208k in revenue per year. If I spend 500k to build 1 I could take half my 5 million bucks and build 10 of them.

That would be 2 million a year in revenue. If I put a shopping small strip that has Hawaiian ice shack/seafood restaurant/bar/ surf/souvenir shop/Hawaiian BBQ/Convenient Store strip right next to those units I am also siphoning cash off the people staying at my Air BnB properties.

People always want to go to Hawaii and that’s an opportunity to make plenty of cash while coaching and getting tenure, and I get to live in paradise while doing it? Sold.

Would my kids want to grow up exploring volcanos, surfing and spear fishing, snorkeling and scuba diving their whole childhood... or hang out in Tuscaloosa. I think that’s a pretty easy answer.
 
Cougatron said:
Because I understand the collegiate sports landscape.

A low expectation place with a high QoL is ideal if you are a good coach because of Tenure.

With high expectations/ high pressure comes high turnover unless you are someone like Nick Saban or Urban Meyer.

Mark Richt won tons at Georgia and he was axed.
Rich Rod didn’t get much of a shot at Michigan.
USC / Texas have been a revolving door
Florida as well.

A lot of fan bases have zero idea what it takes to build a program. They are just dumb fans and the boosters are even worse because they want to play schmooze games and want control/meddle.

Why subject yourself to that stress if you don’t have to.

Look at Bill Snyder. He took over a horrible program at Kansas State and they worship the guy even named a highway after him and the stadium in Manhattan.

Beamer at Virginia Tech.

Bowden at Florida State.

You see it with Leach/Texas Tech and now with us at WSU.

If you are a good coach and you stay for a significant amount of time the people love you.

But look at what happened to Gene Chizik at Auburn. The guy won a national title at Auburn and he was canned in 4 years. The guy won their first undisputed national title and they gave him only 4 years.

So Leach with his steady consistent success at undervalued places will not only have a longer tenure as a HC but also make more money on the long haul.

It’s the difference between an entrepreneurial, opportunist, builder mindset and just chasing dollars.

To me Hawaii is the most enticing for the reasons I mentioned and also there is opportunity.

Let’s say I coached at Hawaii for 20 years making 500k.

That’s only 10 million bucks right? But if I bought real estate/build multi-unit properties in lucrative Hawaii areas I could make tons of cash. A 4 plex that I AirBnB for 1k per week for each unit is 208k in revenue per year. If I spend 500k to build 1 I could take half my 5 million bucks and build 10 of them.

That would be 2 million a year in revenue. If I put a shopping small strip that has Hawaiian ice shack/seafood restaurant/bar/ surf/souvenir shop/Hawaiian BBQ/Convenient Store strip right next to those units I am also siphoning cash off the people staying at my Air BnB properties.

People always want to go to Hawaii and that’s an opportunity to make plenty of cash while coaching and getting tenure, and I get to live in paradise while doing it? Sold.

Would my kids want to grow up exploring volcanos, surfing and spear fishing, snorkeling and scuba diving their whole childhood... or hang out in Tuscaloosa. I think that’s a pretty easy answer.
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Have you ever met a coach that says I don’t want to win a conference and national championship? Do you really believe coaches who don’t see their kids from August 1 through November 30th cause they are working 18 hours a day care if their kids can go explore volcanos?

Why don’t you live in Hawaii if you think it is such an ideal for a coach to do so?
 
CougEd said:
What makes Seattle no longer "livable" especially for pro athletes?
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Cost of living, weather, substantially longer flights and extended travel compared to living virtually anywhere else in the lower 48, disgustingly filthy downtown area that's getting worse by the month.

Lou Pinella and Ken Griffey Jr. both mentioned this on their way out of town, and as a New England transplant and traveling sales rep, I've experienced it myself. When you live in Seattle, your road trips are longer, you're separated by thousands of miles from your family roots, the weather sucks 8 months/year, etc. If you coach or play in the Midwest, SW, Atlantic, or SE, your life in infinitely easier. I've been in medical sales most of my career, and as a result, my early career had sales territories that included WA, OR, ID, AK, MT. The same reps doing the same job in other regions had maybe 1-2 additional states outside of their home geographies. They covered the same number of physician/hospital accounts, and they had the luxury of driving everywhere. Me, I'm on a plane. I fly to Billings, rent a car, and drive throughout MT before flying home. My pay is the same as the other reps, but I did 120 nights/year.

Don't get me wrong, the job economy is great here for us commoners, but that's not what we're talking about. For pro athletes and college coaches, it's substantially harder and more expensive to be based in Seattle.
 
CougEd said:
What makes Seattle no longer "livable" especially for pro athletes?
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Have you been to Seattle recently? It's a cesspool. Not even a nice place to visit anymore. Truly disgusting downtown.
 
CougEd said:
Have you ever met a coach that says I don’t want to win a conference and national championship? Do you really believe coaches who don’t see their kids from August 1 through November 30th cause they are working 18 hours a day care if their kids can go explore volcanos?

Why don’t you live in Hawaii if you think it is such an ideal for a coach to do so?
Click to expand...

If they care about their families having a great life experience Hawaii dominates.

Who says you can’t win a conference championship at Hawaii. They won 2 with June Jones (who I think was an idiot for leaving Hawaii) and were in the 2008 Sugar Bowl....against Georgia.

So you can go to places others do in the apex of the sport you just have to work a little harder.

Why I don’t move to Hawaii? My job won’t let me. That’s why a job that pays you six figures (possibly seven if you built the program up) to live there is ridiculously attractive.
 
I'm not sure if I'm going to buy into the idea that professional athletes would find it difficult to live in Seattle because of the cost of living. Let's say that a professional athlete wants to stay in an apartment. He ain't gonna live in a run of the mill place but let's say that he wants to live in a luxury apartment. I did a quick search and the top end apartments run between $8,000 and $15,000 per month or somewhere between $100k and $200k per year. I looked up Houston and they run about 1/2 as much or between $50k and $100k per year. An athlete pulling down millions per year is spending 10 times as much money on his lifestyle as their apartment. They aren't going to go broke because of the apartment and they ain't gonna pick Houston because of an apartment. And by the way, every building that runs the high amount also has apartments that go for a about $25k per year in the same building.....so it's all about how much room do they need? Also, places like San Francisco are double the cost of Seattle.

When thinking of houses, hell yeah they are expensive, but when's the last time you heard that the Seattle housing market prices were dropping? As long as they don't get stupid and buy a $10 million place, they can sell their houses and make money doing it.

So....sorry, I'm not buying into the idea that athletes want to avoid Seattle because of the money.
 
The article and it's rankings are about the perceived ability of coaches to have/build winning programs. Not cost of living, livability, nearby lakes (Pullman wins) or anything else.

Now a similar ranking that includes various other categories including some of these and arrives at a combined score would be more interesting and insightful.
 
Clearly P-Town needs more homeless, piles of human excrement, and hypo needles to get cred.
 
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Flatlandcoug said:
I'm not sure if I'm going to buy into the idea that professional athletes would find it difficult to live in Seattle because of the cost of living. Let's say that a professional athlete wants to stay in an apartment. He ain't gonna live in a run of the mill place but let's say that he wants to live in a luxury apartment. I did a quick search and the top end apartments run between $8,000 and $15,000 per month or somewhere between $100k and $200k per year. I looked up Houston and they run about 1/2 as much or between $50k and $100k per year. An athlete pulling down millions per year is spending 10 times as much money on his lifestyle as their apartment. They aren't going to go broke because of the apartment and they ain't gonna pick Houston because of an apartment. And by the way, every building that runs the high amount also has apartments that go for a about $25k per year in the same building.....so it's all about how much room do they need? Also, places like San Francisco are double the cost of Seattle.

When thinking of houses, hell yeah they are expensive, but when's the last time you heard that the Seattle housing market prices were dropping? As long as they don't get stupid and buy a $10 million place, they can sell their houses and make money doing it.

So....sorry, I'm not buying into the idea that athletes want to avoid Seattle because of the money.
Click to expand...

Considering that Washington is one of the few states without a state income tax, professional athletes have no issue with Seattle.
 
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The ranking is probably about right, but it shows how one coach that decides to stay put and has success can change the perception of a college. What if Joe Paterno had coached for 40 years at Purdue instead of Penn State? Pretty sure Penn State wouldn't have been 14th. Likewise, what if Bear Bryant coached at Vanderbilt his whole career, or if Kansas stole away the Nebraska coaching staff. There are many schools within conferences that in reality are basically the same, but the perception is radically different because of one coach's success. When it comes to sleeping giants, Colorado could really check all of the boxes, and actually did reach the highest levels of the sport for a sustained period, but couldn't keep it going.
 
COCoug said:
The ranking is probably about right, but it shows how one coach that decides to stay put and has success can change the perception of a college. What if Joe Paterno had coached for 40 years at Purdue instead of Penn State? Pretty sure Penn State wouldn't have been 14th. Likewise, what if Bear Bryant coached at Vanderbilt his whole career, or if Kansas stole away the Nebraska coaching staff. There are many schools within conferences that in reality are basically the same, but the perception is radically different because of one coach's success. When it comes to sleeping giants, Colorado could really check all of the boxes, and actually did reach the highest levels of the sport for a sustained period, but couldn't keep it going.
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Some programs chose to fund and support in an era when others werent. They literally had a 50-100 year run at being better than their league peers. Now that schools see the $ that can be made and the exposure to their school, they are pushing in their chips.

You dont get to screw up and still win. SC doesnt still win league titles with bad head coaches. Miami isnt able to win titles with crap facilities. Nebraska isnt able to show up in Texas and pull kids away. Baylor, Tech, Houston, TCU, Oklahoma State have all taken kids away from Nebraska that usually wouldve gone there.

You just cant have any flaws any more and still win 8+ games per year. The transfer portal is gonna make things interesting.
 
BiggsCoug said:
Some programs chose to fund and support in an era when others werent. They literally had a 50-100 year run at being better than their league peers. Now that schools see the $ that can be made and the exposure to their school, they are pushing in their chips.

You dont get to screw up and still win. SC doesnt still win league titles with bad head coaches. Miami isnt able to win titles with crap facilities. Nebraska isnt able to show up in Texas and pull kids away. Baylor, Tech, Houston, TCU, Oklahoma State have all taken kids away from Nebraska that usually wouldve gone there.

You just cant have any flaws any more and still win 8+ games per year. The transfer portal is gonna make things interesting.
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Who do you think will be in the final four this year? Take the field or Alabama?
 
Ed, I would take the field rather than any one team, whether that team is Alabama, Clemson or somebody else.

Even the very best, most deep teams would be clearly not as good if they lost 1 or 2 of their best players. Teams like Alabama and Clemson certainly have quality depth. They would not fall off a cliff with one key injury. But they would be less than they would be with all their top players, and when you get to a national championship, 1 or 2 key players can easily be the difference. So for injury-related reasons alone, I'll take the field.

And frankly, on any given day I think the top 4-5 teams in the country could each beat the other if the breaks go right.
 
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