What History Says About Firing Good Coaches to Find Great Ones

Every college football program’s dream is to find the head coach that will lead them to the Promised Land. Schembechler, Hayes, Bryant, Paterno, and even more recently Saban and Smart. The sample size isn’t great yet, but what Dan Lanning has done at Oregon is nothing short of amazing.

But finding coaches like those mentioned is a tall task. In today’s era of “win or else,” FBS programs are doing what almost seems ridiculous. They are firing good coaches in search of great ones. History says these schools ought to be careful. More often than not, they’re wrong. 

And then they turn into Nebraska.

Remember Frank Solich?

If you’re old enough, you may remember Tom Osborne and how dominant Nebraska football was. Osborne succeeded a guy named Bob Devaney, who laid the foundation for what would become one of the greatest college football programs of all time. 

Devaney won national titles in 1970 and 1971 before turning the program over to Osborne in 1973. Osborne would go on to win 14 conference titles and three national championships (1994, 1995, and 1997). Osborne never lost more than three games in a single season and his last four teams went a combined 49-2.

When Osborne retired after the 1997 season, his long-time assistant, Solich, took over as head coach. In his first four seasons, Solich and Nebraska went 42-9. In 2002, the Cornhuskers slipped to 7-7 overall. 

Solich would lead the Huskers back in 2003 as they went 9-3 in the regular season. After beating Colorado 31-22 on the road in the regular season finale, Nebraska abruptly fired Solich. Here’s what has happened since – 148-121. That’s a 55 percent winning percentage, hardly the mark of an elite football program.

Nebraska is still trying to fight its way out of the hole it created for itself. The Big Red aren’t the only ones.

Later Gator

Steve Spurrier won the Heisman Trophy in 1966 as the quarterback of the Florida football team. In 1990, he became the head coach of his alma mater. Spurrier led the Gators to a national championship in 1996. 

Like Osborne, Spurrier had great success at Florida. His worst seasons were 9-4 in 1992 and 1999. After the 2001 season, Spurrier decided to resign. He stepped away and the program struggled for a few years under Ron Zook (23-15 in three seasons.

In came Urban Meyer, who had an incredible six-year run. Meyer’s Gators won two national titles (2006, 2008) and produced another Heisman Trophy winner – QB Tim Tebow. Meyer had three 13-1 seasons in Gainesville and finished 65-15.

When Meyer resigned in 2010 after an 8-5 season, Florida struggled through the tenures of Will Muschamp and Jim McIlwain before landing on Meyer’s former assistant Dan Mullen. Mullen went 10-3 and 11-2 in his first two seasons, but 8-4 and 6-7 in the two subsequent seasons led to his firing.

We all know the results of that. Billy Napier was brought in, and he was one of this season’s midseason firings. Napier went 40-12 as the head coach at Louisiana. He was a good football coach…just not good enough and now the quest for the next “great” coach is underway.

The Big Cheese

Barry Alvarez turned Wisconsin football into a Big Ten power in the 1990s. The Badgers success continued under Bret Bielema and the short tenure of Gary Andersen. When Andersen left after the 2014 season to become the new head coach at Oregon State, Paul Chryst, a Madison native who played college football at Wisconsin took over as the new head coach.

Chryst had four double-digit win seasons in his first five years at Wisconsin. Then, after just five games in 2022, the Badgers fired Chryst after a 2-3 start. Chryst had won 70 percent of his games at Wisconsin in seven-plus seasons, but it wasn’t good enough.

The answer was supposed to be Luke Fickell, who went 7-6 in his first season and 5-7 last year. Currently, the Badgers are 2-5 and 0-4 in Big Ten play. Fickell’s offense is one of the worst in the country, averaging just 13.3 points (134th out of 136 teams). Be careful what you wish for.

More Recently

Most college football fans, even the avid ones, probably don’t follow Conference USA and, as a result, likely don’t know much about Middle Tennessee. The Blue Raiders actually were a pretty respectable football program under a guy by the name of Rick Stockstill. 

Middle Tennessee actually hasn’t been an FBS team all that long, moving up from FCS in 1999. Stockstill became the head coach in 2006. He promptly took the program to its first-ever bowl game in his first season. Stockstill would remain the program’s head coach for the next 18 seasons. 

Being a Group of 6 school, Middle Tennessee played a number of Power 4 opponents through the years. Stockstill made the Blue Raiders competitive. He only had one season with more than eight wins, but he only had one disaster of a season, going 2-10 in 2011. 

After a 4-8 season in 2023 – which came after back-to-back 7-6 and 8-5 seasons and two bowl wins – Middle Tennessee decided to move on. Enter former Vanderbilt head coach Derek Mason.

How’s it going? Mason’s first team went 3-9. This year, the Blue Raiders are off to a 1-6 (0-3 in CUSA) start. They are one of the worst offenses in the country (18.6 ppg, 125th) and they give up almost 30 points per game. 

Then, there’s the situation at North Carolina. The Tar Heels fired Mack Brown after the guy went 44-33 with a defense that couldn’t stop anyone. UNC decided to go all in on the legend, Bill Belichick, a guy who never coached a down of college football until this season. The Tar Heels are off to a 2-6 start and one of those wins was over an FCS team.

There are now nine FBS programs – seven of them Power 4 schools – looking for a new football coach. One of them is Penn State. We all know the story on James Franklin. He, of course, was fired by the university after three straight losses this season.

This is a guy who took his team to the national playoffs last season. The Nittany Lions won two games in the postseason too. Franklin’s last three teams prior to this season went 34-8. His worst season was the COVID year in 2020 when PSU went 4-5. 

Franklin won 70 percent of his games in Happy Valley yet his 4-21 record against Top 10 teams was “just not good enough.” Everyone raves about Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin. He’ll be a potential candidate for a few of these open jobs, but Kiffin’s record against Top 10 teams? 3-15. 

Even Lanning, who was mentioned earlier, hasn’t been great against top 10 opponents. Lanning is now 41-7 as Oregon’s head coach. That’s pretty impressive, but the fourth-year head coach is 2-3 against teams ranked in the Top 10. Is that “good” enough? Time will tell.