It's behind The Athletic's paywall, so this is a freebie. And I'm doing so to remind The Athletic is BY FAR the best sports website out there, and maybe the cheapest
They have been doing a weeklong series of stories on College Football Coaching Carousel. The story on the hiring of Nick Saban was tremendous. They've also done the best, worst and most surprising football hires of each Power 5 conference since 2000. Here's the Big 12:
This Big 12 coaching carousel exercise goes back to 2000. Who was the league’s best coaching hire since then? What about the worst? Who hasn’t been a Big 12 head coach but should be? The Athletic’s Sam Khan Jr., Max Olson and Chris Vannini gathered to discuss.
ADVERTISEMENT
Vannini: Matt Campbell, Iowa State. It can’t be emphasized enough just how unprecedented Campbell’s sustained success has been in Ames. When Iowa State finished with an 8-1 Big 12 record in 2020, it was first time since 1912 that the Cyclones had the best record in their conference. Campbell accounts for five of the 21 seasons with at least seven wins in school history. He has the highest win percentage of any ISU coach since at least 1928, and he’s 11 wins away from tying the school record. He’s the only coach in program history to beat every conference mate at home and on the road. In a conference with a good history of hiring coaches, Campbell’s run relative to a school’s history is remarkable.
Is Mike Gundy the right call as the Big 12’s best hire since 2000? (Nathan J Fish / USA Today Network)
Olson: I recognize that promoting from within is not near as challenging as executing a successful coaching search, and that should be an important factor in this answer. Still, I arrived at the same conclusion as Sam: You can make the strongest case for Gundy. It’s tough to build a winner in college football, and it’s a whole lot tougher to sustain success. Oklahoma State is one of just three FBS programs that has played in 16 consecutive bowl games and had 16 consecutive winning seasons, which really says it all. No other coach in program history had more than three Top 25 finishes. Gundy has 10. Among the many Big 12 coaches who’ve had a transformative impact on their schools during this 20-year period, it’s hard to beat Gundy.
Khan: When Max and I ranked the all-time Big 12 hires last year, the bottom of the list was basically distinguishing which Kansas hire was the worst. There were plenty to choose from, including Weis, Miles and Turner Gill. But I agree with Chris: It’s Weis. The junior college transfer emphasis was sparked in large part by the fact that Weis ran off 29 players in his first year. When asked ahead of his second season how he was able to recruit players despite a poor record, he said he told recruits: “Have you looked at that pile of crap out there? Have you taken a look at that? So if you don’t think you can play here, where do you think you can play? It’s a pretty simple approach. And that’s not a sales pitch. That’s practical. You’ve seen it, right? Unfortunately, so have I.”
Olson: For me, it’s Kansas hiring Miles. That was a bizarre tenure from start to finish. Miles had been out of the business for two years when athletic director Jeff Long convinced him to give up his burgeoning acting career and lead the program. The coach who took over Kansas in 2019 was not the same coach who won a national title at LSU in 2007. It was an irresponsible hire that was doomed to fail, and the Jayhawks lost 18 of 21 games during his two-season stint.
Vannini: Dana Holgorsen, West Virginia. This is technically a Big East hire, but I’m going to count it, and this is mostly about the nature of Holgorsen’s hire. After eight years as a Texas Tech assistant and two as Houston’s offensive coordinator, Holgorsen was hired at West Virginia as offensive coordinator and head coach-in-waiting in 2011, with announced plans to replace Bill Stewart as head coach the next season. This was back when coach-in-waiting was en vogue, and nearly all of them didn’t work out. The relationship between Holgorsen and Stewart got very messy very quickly, and Stewart was forced to resign before the season, with Holgorsen taking over.
Khan: Texas Tech hiring Tommy Tuberville seemed like a strange fit from the start. Tuberville was out of coaching when Tech hired him and spent 14 years coaching SEC ball before that. He had a solid track record, going 85-40 at Auburn, including a 13-0 season in 2004, but he had never coached in the Big 12 and spent only one year coaching in the state of Texas before taking the Tech job (Tuberville was Texas A&M’s defensive coordinator in 1994). He lasted just three seasons and went 20-17 before he left recruits at a dinner to take the Cincinnati job.
Tom Herman looked like a perfect fit for the Longhorns … at first. But UT moved to replace him with Steve Sarkisian in January 2021. (Kirby Lee / USA Today)
Vannini: Herman took Houston to a Peach Bowl win and signed a five-star player with the Cougars, and he was the hot name in the 2016-17 hiring cycle. Herman spurned LSU to take the Texas job with much fanfare. It wasn’t a disastrous tenure by any means — a 32-18 record, three Top 25 finishes and four bowl wins, including a Sugar Bowl over Georgia. But he went 1-4 against Oklahoma, 1-3 against TCU, 0-2 against Maryland and 2-2 against Iowa State. He lost too many games he couldn’t lose, and it felt like Texas was stuck a level below the elite, playing in only one Big 12 championship game.
Olson: No debate from me. By the end of Herman’s second year, it seemed like Texas was heading in the right direction in a lot of ways. Kliff Kingsbury’s tenure at Texas Tech is another one that comes to mind. He was able to build top-five scoring offenses around Patrick Mahomes in 2015 and 2016. Bottom-five scoring defenses made it impossible for the Red Raiders to win big in those years. I still believed Kingsbury could get it turned from there as the defense improved, but he just couldn’t win enough Big 12 games to buy himself more time.
Khan: None of the successful Big 12 hires have really surprised me, but how quickly Rhule and Kansas’ Lance Leipold got their situations turned around did. Seeing what Rhule did at Temple convinced me he was a good coach, and though he wasn’t familiar with Texas, I thought that experience would serve him well in rebuilding Baylor. It did, but I didn’t expect the Bears to play for the Big 12 title and win 11 games in Year 3. Leipold’s track record as a builder speaks for itself, but Kansas has been in such dire straits for so long that I figured it would take much longer, especially considering how late in the 2021 cycle Leipold took the job. But here we are, in Year 2, with Kansas needing just one win to get to a bowl and still very much in the Big 12 race.
Olson: I agree on Rhule. Another hire that comes to mind is Kansas State bringing Bill Snyder out of retirement after the 2008 season. The program had endured four losing seasons in five years. It wasn’t surprising that Snyder knew how to turn things around, but winning 10 games within three years and a Big 12 title within four was truly remarkable, as was the sustained success of eight consecutive bowl games. Devoting another decade to the program and winning at that level in his 70s? A second act doesn’t get more impressive.
Vannini: Todd Graham. He was a Texas high school coach for more than a decade, building Allen into a powerhouse, and he was a college head coach at five different stops. Only one of those years came in Texas (Rice in 2006). He also coached at Tulsa, Pitt, Arizona State and Hawaii. His career success is mixed, and the end of his tenure at Hawaii will make it hard for him to get another head coaching job, but it’s a surprise he never found himself as a Big 12 head coach.
Khan: Bill Bedenbaugh. Oklahoma’s offensive line coach has been in the conference for 16-plus years as an assistant, has worked under former Big 12 head coaches Stoops, Lincoln Riley, Mike Leach and Holgorsen, and is well-versed in the air raid offense, once a staple of the conference. He’s been a Broyles Award finalist, his offensive line has won the Joe Moore Award and he’s been named one of the nation’s top recruiters multiple times. Maybe it’s because schools don’t often seek out offensive line coaches for head coaching positions, but Bedenbaugh’s resume is solid.
Editor’s note: This story is part of the 2022 edition of the Secrets of the Coaching Carousel series exploring unique aspects of college football coaching changes and more.
(Top photo of Patrick Mahomes and Kliff Kingsbury: John Weast / Getty Images)
They have been doing a weeklong series of stories on College Football Coaching Carousel. The story on the hiring of Nick Saban was tremendous. They've also done the best, worst and most surprising football hires of each Power 5 conference since 2000. Here's the Big 12:
This Big 12 coaching carousel exercise goes back to 2000. Who was the league’s best coaching hire since then? What about the worst? Who hasn’t been a Big 12 head coach but should be? The Athletic’s Sam Khan Jr., Max Olson and Chris Vannini gathered to discuss.
Who was the best hire in the Big 12 since 2000?
Khan: Mike Gundy at Oklahoma State. Although it was Les Miles who changed the trajectory of Cowboys football — the program had 11 losing seasons in 12 years before Miles was hired in 2001 and went 28-21 in his four years — Gundy elevated the program even higher and has become a model of consistency. He’s 154-69 in his 18-year tenure, with OSU winning the Big 12 in 2011 and claiming two Fiesta Bowls. Gundy has taken the Pokes to a bowl every year since 2006. They have won at least eight games 12 times since 2008 and at least 10 games seven times in that span. The program is well-positioned to lead the future Big 12 when Oklahoma and Texas depart, though Oklahoma State is already playing at that level, making the Big 12 title game in 2021 and looking like a serious contender to win the league this season.ADVERTISEMENT
Vannini: Matt Campbell, Iowa State. It can’t be emphasized enough just how unprecedented Campbell’s sustained success has been in Ames. When Iowa State finished with an 8-1 Big 12 record in 2020, it was first time since 1912 that the Cyclones had the best record in their conference. Campbell accounts for five of the 21 seasons with at least seven wins in school history. He has the highest win percentage of any ISU coach since at least 1928, and he’s 11 wins away from tying the school record. He’s the only coach in program history to beat every conference mate at home and on the road. In a conference with a good history of hiring coaches, Campbell’s run relative to a school’s history is remarkable.
Is Mike Gundy the right call as the Big 12’s best hire since 2000? (Nathan J Fish / USA Today Network)
Olson: I recognize that promoting from within is not near as challenging as executing a successful coaching search, and that should be an important factor in this answer. Still, I arrived at the same conclusion as Sam: You can make the strongest case for Gundy. It’s tough to build a winner in college football, and it’s a whole lot tougher to sustain success. Oklahoma State is one of just three FBS programs that has played in 16 consecutive bowl games and had 16 consecutive winning seasons, which really says it all. No other coach in program history had more than three Top 25 finishes. Gundy has 10. Among the many Big 12 coaches who’ve had a transformative impact on their schools during this 20-year period, it’s hard to beat Gundy.
What was the worst hire?
Vannini: Charlie Weis, Kansas. We all know Kansas football has struggled for a long time and for most of its history, but Weis’ tenure set the program back so much further. He went 6-22 in less than two seasons and 1-18 in Big 12 play. His emphasis on junior college recruiting destroyed any sense of roster balance, and when those players graduated or left for other reasons, the next head coach, David Beaty, took over an impossible situation. For years, the Jayhawks couldn’t get close to the 85 allotted scholarships due to recruiting class sizes, and they had no shot at being competitive. Oh, and Weis took home more than $5 million in buyout money. Just a disastrous hire in every sense.Khan: When Max and I ranked the all-time Big 12 hires last year, the bottom of the list was basically distinguishing which Kansas hire was the worst. There were plenty to choose from, including Weis, Miles and Turner Gill. But I agree with Chris: It’s Weis. The junior college transfer emphasis was sparked in large part by the fact that Weis ran off 29 players in his first year. When asked ahead of his second season how he was able to recruit players despite a poor record, he said he told recruits: “Have you looked at that pile of crap out there? Have you taken a look at that? So if you don’t think you can play here, where do you think you can play? It’s a pretty simple approach. And that’s not a sales pitch. That’s practical. You’ve seen it, right? Unfortunately, so have I.”
Olson: For me, it’s Kansas hiring Miles. That was a bizarre tenure from start to finish. Miles had been out of the business for two years when athletic director Jeff Long convinced him to give up his burgeoning acting career and lead the program. The coach who took over Kansas in 2019 was not the same coach who won a national title at LSU in 2007. It was an irresponsible hire that was doomed to fail, and the Jayhawks lost 18 of 21 games during his two-season stint.
Most surprising hire?
Olson: We’ve already written plenty about how Nebraska ended up hiring Bill Callahan in 2004, so let me throw another one out there. Did I think on the morning of Jan. 2, 2021, that Texas was about to replace Tom Herman with Steve Sarkisian? No way. The news that Herman was out, weeks after AD Chris Del Conte said he’d return for another year, was surprising enough. Finding out minutes later that Texas already had its next coach lined up and that it was Sarkisian, whose name hadn’t been rumored for the job at all, was seriously stunning. Of course, there was another layer of surprise underneath it all: The people making those decisions were eyeing a move to the SEC. So yeah, all in all, that one was pretty unexpected.Vannini: Dana Holgorsen, West Virginia. This is technically a Big East hire, but I’m going to count it, and this is mostly about the nature of Holgorsen’s hire. After eight years as a Texas Tech assistant and two as Houston’s offensive coordinator, Holgorsen was hired at West Virginia as offensive coordinator and head coach-in-waiting in 2011, with announced plans to replace Bill Stewart as head coach the next season. This was back when coach-in-waiting was en vogue, and nearly all of them didn’t work out. The relationship between Holgorsen and Stewart got very messy very quickly, and Stewart was forced to resign before the season, with Holgorsen taking over.
Khan: Texas Tech hiring Tommy Tuberville seemed like a strange fit from the start. Tuberville was out of coaching when Tech hired him and spent 14 years coaching SEC ball before that. He had a solid track record, going 85-40 at Auburn, including a 13-0 season in 2004, but he had never coached in the Big 12 and spent only one year coaching in the state of Texas before taking the Tech job (Tuberville was Texas A&M’s defensive coordinator in 1994). He lasted just three seasons and went 20-17 before he left recruits at a dinner to take the Cincinnati job.
Hire you are most surprised didn’t work out?
Khan: I could have been convinced to bet large sums of money in November 2016 that Tom Herman would take Texas to the College Football Playoff by the end of his tenure. It seemed like a home run. He had history there, spending time as a graduate assistant under Mack Brown. He spent most of his career either working in or recruiting players from the state of Texas. He won a national title as an offensive coordinator at Ohio State and he went 22-4 at Houston, with teams that played hard, with an edge and shined against Top 25 competition. Adding Texas’ brand and resources felt like a no-brainer recipe for success, but the program couldn’t maintain the momentum it built off the 2018 Sugar Bowl win. The 2019 recruiting class, which ranked third when it signed, turned out to be a disaster. And losing some key recruits late in his tenure, as well as the “Eyes of Texas” controversy, certainly didn’t help matters.
Tom Herman looked like a perfect fit for the Longhorns … at first. But UT moved to replace him with Steve Sarkisian in January 2021. (Kirby Lee / USA Today)
Vannini: Herman took Houston to a Peach Bowl win and signed a five-star player with the Cougars, and he was the hot name in the 2016-17 hiring cycle. Herman spurned LSU to take the Texas job with much fanfare. It wasn’t a disastrous tenure by any means — a 32-18 record, three Top 25 finishes and four bowl wins, including a Sugar Bowl over Georgia. But he went 1-4 against Oklahoma, 1-3 against TCU, 0-2 against Maryland and 2-2 against Iowa State. He lost too many games he couldn’t lose, and it felt like Texas was stuck a level below the elite, playing in only one Big 12 championship game.
Olson: No debate from me. By the end of Herman’s second year, it seemed like Texas was heading in the right direction in a lot of ways. Kliff Kingsbury’s tenure at Texas Tech is another one that comes to mind. He was able to build top-five scoring offenses around Patrick Mahomes in 2015 and 2016. Bottom-five scoring defenses made it impossible for the Red Raiders to win big in those years. I still believed Kingsbury could get it turned from there as the defense improved, but he just couldn’t win enough Big 12 games to buy himself more time.
Hire you are most surprised did work out?
Vannini: Matt Rhule, Baylor. Coming out of the sexual assault scandal under Art Briles, Baylor hired Rhule, a New Yorker who was leading the Temple program in Philadelphia. There were no Texas ties. It was a completely odd fit from a cultural standpoint, and it was a surprise Rhule would take over a program in such disarray and facing potential NCAA penalties — a seven-year contract emphasized the difficulty of the situation. But Rhule immediately jumped into the Texas high school ranks, hiring several coaches to his staff and embracing the association, something every college coach in the state must do. Within three years, Rhule took Baylor from 11 losses to 11 wins. Even after taking an NFL job with the Carolina Panthers, he showed up to the Texas High School Coaches Association gathering at the AFCA convention. A Yankee came to Texas and became one of its own. Can’t say I saw that coming.Khan: None of the successful Big 12 hires have really surprised me, but how quickly Rhule and Kansas’ Lance Leipold got their situations turned around did. Seeing what Rhule did at Temple convinced me he was a good coach, and though he wasn’t familiar with Texas, I thought that experience would serve him well in rebuilding Baylor. It did, but I didn’t expect the Bears to play for the Big 12 title and win 11 games in Year 3. Leipold’s track record as a builder speaks for itself, but Kansas has been in such dire straits for so long that I figured it would take much longer, especially considering how late in the 2021 cycle Leipold took the job. But here we are, in Year 2, with Kansas needing just one win to get to a bowl and still very much in the Big 12 race.
Olson: I agree on Rhule. Another hire that comes to mind is Kansas State bringing Bill Snyder out of retirement after the 2008 season. The program had endured four losing seasons in five years. It wasn’t surprising that Snyder knew how to turn things around, but winning 10 games within three years and a Big 12 title within four was truly remarkable, as was the sustained success of eight consecutive bowl games. Devoting another decade to the program and winning at that level in his 70s? A second act doesn’t get more impressive.
Coach you are surprised has never been a Big 12 head coach
Olson: I always thought Nick Saban would end up being the head coach of Texas. Nah, just kidding. A year ago, my answer to this would’ve been Sonny Dykes. Now that he’s off the list, perhaps it’s Tulane’s Willie Fritz? I could see him coaching in the Big 12 someday, especially if one of the more Midwestern jobs were to open up again. Here’s another one who’s interesting to think about: If Bob Stoops hadn’t fired Josh Heupel and sent his career off on a different path, does the Oklahoma assistant eventually land his first head coaching job in the Big 12? I don’t think that hypothetical is all that wild.Vannini: Todd Graham. He was a Texas high school coach for more than a decade, building Allen into a powerhouse, and he was a college head coach at five different stops. Only one of those years came in Texas (Rice in 2006). He also coached at Tulsa, Pitt, Arizona State and Hawaii. His career success is mixed, and the end of his tenure at Hawaii will make it hard for him to get another head coaching job, but it’s a surprise he never found himself as a Big 12 head coach.
Khan: Bill Bedenbaugh. Oklahoma’s offensive line coach has been in the conference for 16-plus years as an assistant, has worked under former Big 12 head coaches Stoops, Lincoln Riley, Mike Leach and Holgorsen, and is well-versed in the air raid offense, once a staple of the conference. He’s been a Broyles Award finalist, his offensive line has won the Joe Moore Award and he’s been named one of the nation’s top recruiters multiple times. Maybe it’s because schools don’t often seek out offensive line coaches for head coaching positions, but Bedenbaugh’s resume is solid.
Editor’s note: This story is part of the 2022 edition of the Secrets of the Coaching Carousel series exploring unique aspects of college football coaching changes and more.
(Top photo of Patrick Mahomes and Kliff Kingsbury: John Weast / Getty Images)
