College Football Morning: Halftime on the Coaching Carousel

Catching up on coaching movement before the ride restarts.

The coaching carousel isn’t finished. I don’t think any FBS head coaching jobs are currently open, but Miami and Rutgers need defensive coordinators, and NFL churn plus post-playoff movement will fire things up again soon.

So, at this natural break, let’s go through what’s gone down. Here’s every FBS head coaching hire, the collateral effects, a few FCS gigs, and some noteworthy coordinator moves:

Bill Belichick to UNC

When his father does retire, UNC doesn’t have to make Steve Belichick its head coach. It might want to, but if it doesn’t, it doesn’t have to do it. If the “head coach in waiting” tag is even real (I don’t think I’ve seen it confirmed), we can assume there’s a buyout attached. Basically, it’d just make hiring anyone else more expensive.

With that oddity out of the way: I think Bill Belichick will do ok at UNC?

The arguments in favor of the hire are 1) that Belichick knows how to coach football better than anyone in the world and 2) that Belichick’s NFL connections will make him a dynamite recruiter, someone who can credibly promise to develop players to NFL readiness and to sell NFL GM’s on those players when the time comes.

It’s true that Bill Belichick knows how to coach football. He’s the greatest coach of his generation. He might be the greatest coach in history. There are differences, though, between coaching NFL players in the 2000’s and 2010’s and coaching college players today. Concerningly, Belichick never won a playoff game in his last five years in the NFL. The last four of these seasons were the start of the post-Brady era, but the simplest explanation of Belichick’s late-career struggles wasn’t Brady moving on. It was that the game had gotten away from him, and/or that Belichick was struggling to organize and motivate a new generation of athletes. This might be wrong. It might have been something more complicated going on. But Occam’s razor says that Belichick left the NFL as a somewhat ineffective coach.

Schematically, this isn’t concerning when it comes to his expectations at UNC. Even if the NFL did get out of Belichick’s reach, that doesn’t mean the same will be true at the college level of the sport. The second piece, though? The idea that Belichick wasn’t connecting with 22-year-olds? That’s a bad sign.

The recruiting side is much more suspect. Even setting aside the connection question and focusing on the NFL arguments: Has Belichick developed college athletes into NFL talents? How much is networking really worth within the NFL Draft? Maybe Belichick will prove to be a great recruiter. He’ll certainly bring name power to high schoolers’ living rooms. But if Belichick does succeed on the recruiting trail, it’s likelier to come from an invigorated NIL effort at UNC than from Belichick out-charming Kenny Dillingham.

Overall, it can definitely work. You could obviously do far worse than hiring Bill Belichick to lead your football team. But it’s hard to see Belichick breaking through in Chapel Hill. He might win the ACC, but that’s because the ACC is there for the taking. A national title isn’t a reasonable possibility, especially since it’s hard to imagine the guy coaching for many more years. UNC is a sleeping giant, but it’s an unserious place these days. This hire was splashy, but it was characteristically off-the-mark for the Bubba Cunningham era.

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Ryan Walters: New Washington Defensive Coordinator

Taking over for Steve Belichick at Washington is Ryan Walters, the former Purdue head coach who previously served as defensive coordinator at Missouri and Illinois.

Walters showed at Purdue that he wasn’t cut out to be a Big Ten head coach. He showed at Illinois, though, that he’s more than equipped to be a successful defensive coordinator in the Big Ten Conference. This is sneakily one of the best hires of the cycle so far. Jedd Fisch found someone who knows Big Ten offenses inside and out and—though this Purdue team was abysmal—has some track record of succeeding against them from his time in Champaign.

Is Walters a better DC than the guy he’s replacing? I don’t know that he is or isn’t. But it’s possible Fisch stumbled into an opportunity here.

Barry Odom to Purdue

With Walters fired, Purdue’s turned to Barry Odom, former head coach at Missouri, defensive coordinator at a handful of places, and most recently head coach at UNLV.

Odom’s Missouri tenure was frustrating. He went an even 25–25. There were good reasons Mizzou moved on. At UNLV, his tenure was sensational. UNLV won a combined twenty games this season and last. The Rebels hadn’t won ten times in a season since the 70’s, when they played in Division II. There was no large influx of talent to UNLV, and the Matthew Sluka scandal deepened perceptions that UNLV doesn’t have any money to spend. Nevertheless, in what was probably the best mid-major conference this year, UNLV was the second-best team.

Odom’s only 48 years old. His first head coaching job came at one of the hardest places to win within the SEC. It would make sense for him to still be growing as a professional. It won’t be easy to win at Purdue, but as Indiana showed, you can catch a pretty good schedule if you’re a small brand in the Big Ten.

Dan Mullen to UNLV

Taking over for Odom in Las Vegas is ESPN’s Dan Mullen, who returns to the head coaching ranks after a three-year absence.

Mullen’s success at Mississippi State is rather legendary in Starkville. Mullen didn’t do poorly at Florida on the whole, but things certainly got weird there. He brings a lot of credibility to UNLV, but as we just talked about, UNLV is a difficult job. Like Odom, Mullen is younger than you might think. He’s only 52.

Rich Rodriguez to West Virginia

As a paid actor once said on behalf of Lincoln Motor Company, “Sometimes you have to go back…”

Rich Rodriguez had a little bit of success at Arizona. He did well at Jacksonville State. He’s no longer the revolutionary he was during his first stint in Morgantown, but for an athletic department struggling to find its footing in the current era of college sports, you could do worse than playing to the base.

Charles Kelly to Jacksonville State

Replacing Rodriguez in Alabama is Charles Kelly, most recently the co-defensive coordinator and safeties coach at Auburn. I know next to nothing about Kelly (he’ll be a trivia question someday—Deion Sanders’s first DC at Colorado), but it’s hard to argue with Jacksonville State hiring a guy who spent 18 of the last 19 years in the SEC and ACC.

Scott Frost to UCF

Why not?

Frost’s Nebraska teams weren’t as bad as they’re remembered. They lost a ton of one-score games, to the point where it almost seemed like Frost got the yips. It’s easy to see a change of scenery working, especially when the new scene is actually an old one, one where he took one of the worst FBS programs and wrote a storybook season.

Gus Malzahn: New Florida State Offensive Coordinator

Opening the door for Frost in Orlando was Gus Malzahn, a guy whose UCF tenure was surprisingly unsuccessful. Malzahn average 8.5 wins per season at Auburn. Auburn hasn’t posted a winning record since they sent him packing. Maybe this is a red flag for Frost, signifying a real lack of resources at UCF? More likely, Malzahn was good at coaching a team with Auburn’s talent and not as good at coaching a team like UCF. That doesn’t mean UCF is devoid of talent. It might just mean that Malzahn needs top-end talent to succeed.

He should have pretty good talent at Florida State. Not quite what he had at Auburn, but at least close to the top within the ACC. He only has to do one thing now, too, and if Mike Norvell uses him well, Malzahn’s experience could make him useful counsel in the heat of many an off-field moment.

Alex Grinch: New UCF Defensive Coordinator

Sticking with the UCF sphere, Alex Grinch is back into a defensive coordinator role. The man who led Oklahoma’s defense from 2019 through 2021 and USC’s in 2022 and 2023 is a full-on defensive coordinator once more, following a year as the co-DC and safeties coach in Madison.

I don’t know about this. The reputation on Grinch is that he’s a good defensive backs coach, but as a defensive coordinator, his defenses have always stunk. The closest thing to one that didn’t, USC’s in 2022, was playing a much weaker Pac-12 than what Grinch faced in 2023, and most of what passed for success for 2022 USC was probably turnover luck.

Weird choice by Frost. But Frost knows football better than I do.

Jake Dickert to Wake Forest

Why did Dickert leave Washington State for Wake Forest? Rumor has it, it’s because Kirk Schulz (WSU’s president) told Dickert he was planning to cut the Cougars’ scholarship allotment from 85 to 79. Rumor also has it that Washington State’s Board of Regents told Schulz the football program needed more money, and that Schulz…kind of refused to find it? The money eventually showed up, and I don’t know that any scholarship cut is coming. But Dickert evidently had enough, even with Schulz’s retirement (thankfully) coming this summer.

On Wake Forest’s side, I think this is a pretty good hire? The ACC outranks the New Pac-12, but Wake Forest is probably the worst job in the ACC unless something dramatically changes when it comes to booster support. There just aren’t any institutional advantages in Winston-Salem. At least Boston College had Doug Flutie.

The fact Wake most likely couldn’t have gotten Dickert without Schulz’s characteristic bumbling is meaningful. This is probably better than the best Wake Forest could have asked to do. They’ll miss the semi-retiring Dave Clawson—he really was perfect for that university—and Dickert might not be a roaring success, but Dickert gives them a chance to be competitive.

Jimmy Rogers to Washington State

Taking over for Dickert in Pullman is Jimmy Rogers, former head coach at South Dakota State. Rogers is said to be beloved by his players, and he gets a lot of credit for SDSU’s ascent, having been an assistant head coach under John Stiegelmeier when the Jackrabbits rose to FCS dominance.

It’s true that Rogers did a good job in Brookings. I like the idea of transporting SDSU’s whole staff to Pullman, which is nearly what’s happening. But Rogers inherited an ideal situation after Stiegelmeier’s retirement. SDSU was the king of the FCS, and with Matt Entz’s NDSU tenure sliding off the rails, there wasn’t a clear challenger. This year, multiple teams chased SDSU down when by rights, the Jacks should have beaten every opponent they played, including Oklahoma State. That’s a concerning sign, as is the fact that what works with and against FCS athletes only sometimes works with and against Group of Five athletes.

Dan Jackson to South Dakota State

To finish this chain, Dan Jackson returns home to SDSU, where he played linebacker in the mid-2000’s and served as an assistant from 2012 through 2019. He’s got a lot of work to do, and the MVFC can eat teams alive, but the guy who’s since coached at NIU, Vanderbilt, and Idaho (he was the DC at Idaho for one year) seems like the best type of candidate SDSU could have found. SDSU probably won’t compete for national titles again anytime soon, but they could conceivably get back there in the long run.

Ben Arbuckle: New Offensive Coordinator at Oklahoma

Would John Mateer have left Washington State were Schulz not threatening the football program with spending cuts? We’ll never know. But he’s at Oklahoma now, and so is his coordinator and QB coach, Ben Arbuckle.

I like John Mateer a lot.

I’m not sure he’s good enough to justify this level of courtship.

Maybe Oklahoma would have hired Arbuckle independently of Mateer, but I think the fear, if you’re an Oklahoma fan, is that Brent Venables is putting a lot of eggs into one basket here.

Dana Holgorsen: New Full-Time Offensive Coordinator at Nebraska

Elevated from an interim role, Holgorsen will run the offense in Lincoln next year. You could do a lot worse.

Chip Lindsey: New Offensive Coordinator at Michigan

Who is the new OC in Ann Arbor? Chip Lindsey, most recently the offensive coordinator and QB coach at UNC under Mack Brown.

Lindsey arrived in Chapel Hill as Sam Howell left, so he coached Drake Maye and Jacolby Criswell. He’ll be tasked with developing Bryce Underwood, the incoming freshman who’s drawn comparisons to Cam Newton. You’d think Underwood’s presence would have given Sherrone Moore the pick of the litter for this job, something which indirectly reflects well on Lindsey. Michigan football has a famously strange culture right now, though, and a lot of potential distractions swirling around them as various investigations drag on. They closed the year playing good ball, and Lindsey should step into a great role. But seeing how they played at the beginning of this season is a good reminder that nothing is assured at that place.

Tino Sunseri: New Offensive Coordinator at UCLA
Mike Shanahan: New Offensive Coordinator at Indiana

Indiana’s made strides, but from the looks of it, it’s not immune yet from intra-Big Ten poaching, with UCLA coming calling and Tino Sunseri answering, making a parallel move. In response, Curt Cignetti promotes from within, elevating Mike Shanahan (different Shanahan family). Worth watching.

Dowell Loggains to Appalachian State

Following a big year for South Carolina, offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains is up to Boone, taking over as the head coach at App State. It wasn’t really South Carolina’s offense who did the heavy lifting in Columbia this year, and Loggains’s time as QB coach for the Bears and Jets doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. Still, Loggains has seen a lot of football teams operate, and South Carolina’s offense was perfectly respectable, which deserves credit given some of the defenses they faced.

Mike Shula: New Offensive Coordinator at South Carolina

Moving into the offensive coordinator position in Loggains’s wake is Mike Shula, most famous for being Don Shula’s son and second-most famous for coaching Alabama before Nick Saban saved Tuscaloosa. After Alabama, Shula spent 17 years as an assistant in the NFL before joining Shane Beamer as an offensive assistant this fall.

Zach Kittley to Florida Atlantic

Texas Tech was all over the place this year, but their offense was consistently good, and Zach Kittley—who coached Bailey Zappe at Houston Baptist and then Western Kentucky—thereby finds his way to FAU. Coaching a Florida school in the AAC isn’t a bad situation. There’s access to talent, and the conference tends to get the most respect of the mid-major leagues, opening the door to programs upwardly advancing.

Mack Leftwich: New Offensive Coordinator at Texas Tech

Taking over for Kittley in Lubbock is Mack Leftwich, who’s been G.J. Kinne’s right-hand man at Incarnate Word and Texas State. It’s been hard to separate Kinne’s work from Leftwich’s. Keep an eye on both.

(Different Leftwich family from Byron’s, by the way. Mack Leftwich is white.)

Blake Harrell: Now Full-Time at East Carolina

This is particularly old, but after starting 4–0 as an interim, ECU made Harrell the permanent head coach before the last game of the regular season. Successful audition.

Tre Lamb to Tulsa

Tre Lamb’s 35 years old and, over a combined five seasons at Gardner–Webb and East Tennessee State, sports a career winning record. That’s no small feat given Gardner–Webb’s stature and given where ETSU sat in the SoCon when Lamb arrived. The guy even won a playoff game at Gardner–Webb in 2022.

Theoretically, Tulsa should have a few resources, and while it’s not like Lamb is the biggest rising star in the coaching ranks, they might have plucked a good one before the bigger guys got him.

Will Healy to East Tennessee State

Down the line, Will Healy makes the move back to head coaching, having spent two years in the wilderness after a mostly unsuccessful stint at Charlotte. There was a stretch in the 2010’s where Austin Peay went 1–45 over a four-year period. Healy took over at Peay before the last of those seasons. In his second year, the Governors finished 8–4.

Things didn’t go great for Healy after that, especially once he got to Charlotte two years after the 8–4 campaign. He’s still in his 30’s, though, so it’s easy to see why ETSU would think it worthwhile to give him another shot.

Tim Albin to Charlotte

Speaking of Charlotte, they nabbed Tim Albin from Ohio, which came as something of a surprise. Albin had been on staff at Ohio forever, and after taking over as head coach in 2021, he quickly got the program to ten-win territory, where it’s stayed now for three straight years. Between this and yesterday’s NIU news (the Huskies are going to join the Mountain West in football), not a great time for the MAC.

Brian Smith Promoted at Ohio

To replace Albin, Ohio is again promoting from within. Smith, the offensive coordinator this year after joining Albin’s staff in 2022, gets his first career head coaching role, having worked his way up from a student assistant job at Hawaii, where he also played.

Scott Abell to Rice

Scott Abell’s an interesting character, one who coached high school ball in Virginia in the 90’s and 2000’s after his minor league baseball career didn’t pan out. In 2008, he got the offensive coordinator position at Division III Washington and Lee. After six seasons as the head coach there, he moved up to Davidson, where he won two Pioneer League titles and also earned the league’s automatic bid in 2022 (thanks to St. Thomas’s Division I transition). The idea behind the hire is that Abell knows how to coach at an academically focused school. I’m not sure that’s what every Rice fan wants to hear, but if it works, it’s better than making academic sacrifices.

Saj Thakkar to Davidson

Backfilling Abell is another interesting character, Saj Thakkar, thought to be the first Division I head coach of Indian descent. 33 years old, Thakkar played quarterback and wide receiver for Fitchburg State, then worked his way up as an assistant at Fitchburg, Maritime, Harvard, and Bentley University, where he earned his first head coaching job and led the Falcons to a combined 14–6 record across two seasons.

K.C. Keeler to Temple

Lot of turnover in the AAC. With this one, Temple went down to Texas and brought back one of the Philly area’s own. K.C. Keeler played linebacker at Delaware in the 70’s and 80’s, eventually finding his way back to the Blue Hens as the head coach for eleven seasons. (He’s the guy who coached Joe Flacco.) Keeler was fired at Delaware in 2012, but his career resurrection at Sam Houston was triumphant. A Covid season national title, plus a transition to the FBS that’s gone better than expected.

Keeler’s 65, and Temple’s been in decline since Matt Rhule took the Baylor job. (Long time ago now.) The logic here is sound, though, and it’s a bit of a homecoming for the Lehigh County native.

Phil Longo to Sam Houston

Replacing Keeler is former Wisconsin offensive coordinator Phil Longo, the one who was supposed to bring the air raid to Madison. The Badgers fired Longo in November. That doesn’t mean what he does won’t work in Texas. Before Wisconsin, he had success at Mississippi and UNC. (He was the one who coached Sam Howell.) Coordinators transitioning to head coaching roles are always a gamble, but the reasoning here is sound.

Willie Simmons to FIU

Simmons got out of head coaching following last year’s Celebration Bowl victory at Florida A&M, one that came just one season after that (university-side, not sports-side) administrative mistake made so many players ineligible that FAMU nearly had to forfeit against UNC. After one year coaching running backs at Duke, Simmons is back in a head coaching role, and he’s back in Florida, too. All signs point to this being a great hire for the Panthers.

Bronco Mendenhall to Utah State

Bronco Mendenhall’s back in the state of Utah, with the longtime BYU head coach seemingly the man to lead Utah State into 2026’s New Pac-12. This is another that makes a lot of sense. Mendenhall knows the state of Utah well, and he had New Mexico taking big steps forward in his lone season there this fall.

Jason Eck to New Mexico

Taking over for Mendenhall is Jason Eck, a former offensive line coach under Stiegelmeier at South Dakota State who led Idaho to three straight big seasons following a depressing start to its FCS era. Idaho and New Mexico are as far apart geographically as Minnesota and LSU, but there are similarities in those interior western state schools. New Mexico shouldn’t be as dysfunctional as it’s been.

Thomas Ford to Idaho

Completing the chain, Idaho’s brought in Oregon State running backs coach Thomas Ford, who held the same position at Idaho in 2022 and 2023. They know him well, and it would appear they like what they see.

Matt Entz to Fresno State

We’ve criticized Entz’s NDSU performance more than perhaps anybody else, and we want to be clear about why that is: It’s not that Entz’s teams performed badly. It’s that Entz took over an astonishingly dominant program and allowed it to return to the FCS pack. We thought it would be a good thing for NDSU when he left for the USC defensive assistant role. We feel pretty good about how that take has aged. Still, he might do a good job at Fresno State. Fresno State is much worse than NDSU was when Entz took over, but Fresno State also has far, far, far more room to grow. Entz inherited an amazing situation in Fargo, but there was nothing he could have done to improve the Bison program. It was maxing out.

Tony Gibson to Marshall

Who did Marshall like so much that they ran Sun Belt champion Charles Huff out of town? Tony Gibson, recent defensive coordinator at NC State. It seems like there’s more to the story, but we haven’t heard much of it. By appearances, Marshall looks foolish and Huff looks good, but again, we haven’t heard much.

Charles Huff to Southern Miss

Huff landed on his feet, moving within the Sun Belt to Southern Miss, who has to feel pretty good about landing the guy who just won their league.

Joe Harasymiak to UMass

UMass is on the move into the MAC, and Rutgers’s old defensive coordinator will lead them there. Harasymiak built a strong program in three seasons at Maine in the late 2010’s. Maine could easily be viewed as a hopeless situation, much like the one Harasymiak finds in Amherst.

Matt Drinkall to Central Michigan

I’d love to see a study on which position groups’ former coaches make the best head coaches when they’re promoted to that level. I will say, though, that it makes sense for a MAC school to target an offensive line coach like Army’s after a year like Army had. Drinkall was also a fairly successful head coach before, back at NAIA Kansas Wesleyan last decade.

Mike Uremovich to Ball State

In Muncie, Mike Uremovich arrives from Indianapolis, where he led Butler to three straight winning seasons after the Pioneer League program spent four straight years below .500.

Kevin Lynch to Butler

Backfilling Uremovich is Kevin Lynch, whose dad coached Butler, Ball State, Indiana, and even DePauw. The younger Lynch arrives from…Ball State. Offensive coordinator there the last five years. One-for-one trade.

Jerry Mack to Kennesaw State

One of the weirder firings of the cycle was that of Brian Bohannon, who led Kennesaw State from non-existence to FCS relevance and eventual FBS membership. Replacing him is Jerry Mack, who won a Celebration Bowl at North Carolina Central before moving into assistant roles at Rice and in the NFL.

Eric Schmidt to North Dakota

Bubba Schweigert had some high highs at North Dakota, but he never got over the hump, and at 62 years old, he’ll now transition into a role within the athletic department. Replacing him is Eric Schmidt, a former linebacker in Grand Forks who coordinated special teams for Washington before spending last season as the defensive coordinator for San Diego State.

Todd Stepsis to Northern Iowa

Another MVFC retirement—Mark Farley stepped down after 24 years—leads to Todd Stepsis heading up to Cedar Falls from Des Moines, where he took Drake to its first eight-win seasons in over a decade.

Joe Woodley to Drake

In turn, Drake hires Joe Woodley from NAIA champion Grand View, just three and a half miles across town. Woodley posted a 72–5 record as Grand View’s head coach. He never lost a regular season game.

Brennan Marion to Sacramento State

Sacramento State has some grand designs, with NIL pledges abounding and pressure within the community to try to move to the FBS. Attempting to lead them back to national competitiveness at the FCS level is now Brennan Marion, Barry Odom’s offensive coordinator at UNLV.

Michael Vick to Norfolk State
Desean Jackson to Delaware State

Finally, a pair of big football names head to the MEAC. The MEAC needs something if the conference is going to survive, and Delaware State seems particularly vulnerable as an athletic department, at least from a 10,000-foot view.

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This post was also published at www.thebarkingcrow.com, where you can always find all of Joe Stunardi, Stuart McGrath, and NIT Stu’s work.