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What makes a good college football coaching job? What makes a bad one?
It’s a topic that prompts endless debate whenever it comes up. Nothing seems to get fans as fired up as seeing their favorite school not ranked highly enough in hypothetical job rankings. The whole thing is silly, but with the coaching carousel about to crank up soon, it’s about that time where we all debate whether USC or LSU is the better job.
The Athletic got into the action early this week with a series looking at the coaching carousel that included a story about the hardest jobs in college football. Three SEC schools ranked highly on that ignominious list, with Vanderbilt unsurprisingly leading the way. The Athletic’s survey deemed Vanderbilt the hardest Power 5 job and third-hardest overall behind Connecticut and Massachusetts. Vanderbilt is pouring money into improving its facilities, a much-needed development, but it will always stick out in the ultra-competitive SEC.
Vanderbilt wasn’t the only SEC school to make the list. The next two hardest SEC jobs, according to The Athletic, might surprise some folks. Auburn and Tennessee, two programs that have won national championships in the last 30 years, ranked in the top 10 of hardest Power 5 jobs. One Group of 5 assistant assessed it in the story as, “The Tennessee and Auburn people are friggin’ vicious.” Auburn and Tennessee have reputations for having overly involved influential boosters who try to make unilateral decisions for the program as illustrated in stories like this one from Auburn’s most recent coaching search.
Auburn and Tennessee received two first-place votes for hardest job, one less than Alabama. “I tend to think the jobs with the highest and most unreasonable expectations are the hardest, which means I think a place like Alabama is a really hard job,” one longtime administrator told The Athletic.
It’s a common refrain also assigned to Auburn and Tennessee over the years. There’s significant job pressure at every big-time job, though, as fans and university leaders expect a return on their hefty investments. It gets dangerous when a school’s fanbase’s expectations don’t match up with reality, usually from a lack of awareness that the college football landscape has changed and just because Nebraska was awesome in the 1990s doesn’t mean it will be in 2021.
When assessing whether a job is good or not, there are a few common determining factors referenced. How good is the recruiting base within a four-hour radius? How big is the fanbase and is it willing to invest in the program? How nice are the facilities?
Quite possibly, the most important factor, though, is alignment. When I’ve talked to coaches, agents, search firm consultants and ADs about it in the past, alignment is a critical factor consistently mentioned. What does that mean? It means there is institutional support from top-to-bottom to help the football program achieve its goals. It means all the key people are rowing in the same direction. It means when something is deemed as an essential investment, it gets made.
When I recently talked to former Georgia head coach Mark Richt he explained it’s one of the biggest advantages Alabama has over many of its peers. Nick Saban doesn’t get everything he wants, but it sure feels like it to other coaches. When Saban tells his bosses or the program’s boosters he needs something, it typically gets done, and it’s a significant point of the equation. He doesn’t have to beg to get raises for his top assistants.
“Alabama’s all in from the governor on down,” Richt told me. “They understand the importance of Alabama football, and so does the president of the university, so does the AD, and so do the boosters and everybody else. It takes money to hire all these extra coaches and try to keep your coaches.”
Again, it isn’t the only factor when considering whether a job is good or not. You can win big with institutional issues, same as how you can struggle even though everyone is working hard to succeed. But with that perspective in mind, here is one take on how the SEC jobs rank from 14 to 1. These lists are all subjective as many factors can be weighed, but I’ve focused on prioritizing institutional alignment and what job gives a coach the best shot at winning big.
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Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea sings the school’s alma mater with the players after a loss to East Tennessee State on Sept. 4, 2021, at Vanderbilt Stadium in Nashville, Tenn.AP Photo/Mark Humphrey
14) Vanderbilt (16-36 record last five years): The school is trying to elevate the program, but it is tough sledding. From strict academic standards to lackluster fan support compared to many other SEC programs, this is the clear most challenging job in the conference.
13) Missouri (29-25 record): Outside of Vanderbilt, Missouri is the weirdest fit in the SEC. Gary Pinkel showed you can win at a solid clip at Missouri, but it’ll only get harder for the Tigers once Texas and Oklahoma join the conference.
12) Mississippi State (30-32 record): We’ve seen this school can be a national contender when Dan Mullen and Dak Prescott had the Bulldogs ranked No. 1 at one point in 2014. But it’s not an easy job competing in the SEC West and playing in a state better suited to support one SEC school rather than two.
11) South Carolina (25-29 record): There is plenty of fan support at South Carolina, but the Gamecocks haven’t been truly relevant since 2013 and have to deal with in-state power Clemson soaking up a lot of the attention. If we did tiers instead of rankings, it’d be in the same one as the two schools ranked above it.
10) Kentucky (36-20 record): Yes, Kentucky will always be a basketball school, but it is a perfect example of how institutional alignment can play a significant role. University president Eli Capilouto, AD Mitch Barnhart and football coach Mark Stoops have shown this season what can be accomplished at Kentucky when everyone is on the same page.
9) Ole Miss (24-27 record): Ole Miss has a lot of the same concerns as Mississippi State, but is viewed within the industry as the better of the two Mississippi SEC jobs. There has been plenty of upheaval at Ole Miss over the last decade, but there is enough institutional support to be successful.
Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman instructs his team during an NCAA college football game against Texas A&M in Arlington, Texas, Saturday, Sept. 25, 2021. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)AP
8) Arkansas (15-37 record): The big pluses to the Arkansas job are it’s the only SEC school in the state, there are quite a few very wealthy boosters willing to invest in the program and there’s a lot of fan support no matter the program’s record. The recruiting base isn’t as good as other SEC schools, which holds it back here, but Sam Pittman has shown that it can be nationally relevant when Arkansas has the right fit.
RELATED: Could Arkansas’ smart hire of Sam Pittman start a trend?
7) Tennessee (24-29 record): Tennessee has been wandering in the wilderness for more than a decade now, going from failed coaching hire to failed coaching hire trying to recapture the magic of the 1990s. There is terrific fan support here and you can recruit the talent needed to win big, but the school hasn’t been able to attract top-tier talent to this job in recent hires, which shows how this job’s reputation has slipped.
6) Auburn (37-20 record): The good: The fan support, facilities and access to top recruits give any coach a chance to be a national contender. The bad: Alignment has been hard to come by at Auburn, to put it mildly, and there is intense pressure to be better than Alabama. There’s no question you can win big at Auburn, however, and it makes it an upper-echelon job.
5) Texas A&M (37-18 record): The school has lots of well-heeled boosters willing to invest big in the program, making this job very attractive. You have an excellent recruiting base though you might always play second-fiddle in-state to Texas. This is a job where you can win a national championship.
4) Florida (37-18 record): Florida has it all -- great recruiting base, great fan support and great tradition. This job can be trickier than some of the ones above it given the in-state competition against Florida State and Miami, though that hasn’t been a big issue in recent years. This is a top 10 job nationally.
3) Georgia (50-9 record): As rival fans love to point out, Georgia hasn’t won a national title since 1980. The school has access to the most fertile recruiting area in the country and has recently started making more financial investments like a new football practice facility with an $80 million price tag. Georgia’s reluctance to engage in the facilities and coaching salaries arm race may have held it back some in the past, but those days are over. This is an incredible job.
2) LSU (42-15 record): The last three LSU head coaches won a national championship here. The fact Ed Orgeron one was one of them given his coaching struggles elsewhere might be one of the best selling points of how good this job is. This is the kind of job that big names coaches would fight each other to get.
1) Alabama (56-5 record): The sport’s two greatest coaches ever, Nick Saban and Bear Bryant, both did most of their winning here. The fan and institutional support is off the charts and gives anyone in the job here a great chance to win big. It’s the best job in the country when it comes to alignment and ability to win.
What you need to read to get caught up:
As part of that coaching series, The Athletic has a great story on Tennessee’s wild 2017 coaching search. It’ll be tough for a school to make a bigger mess of a search than Tennessee did that year.
Sticking with Tennessee, Adam Sparks did a nice job retelling what happened when Lane Kiffin left after only one season.
ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg has a thorough overview of what could come in this year’s coaching carousel. He touches on jobs like LSU, Miami and USC.
More from AL.com:
The last man to pull off as surprising an upset over Alabama as we saw last Saturday was watching the game like the rest of us. Read former South Carolina quarterback Stephen Garcia’s thoughts on Zach Calzada and his memories of a win over the Tide.
Mike Rodak looks at offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien’s decision to coach from the booth in light of Alabama’s offensive struggles last weekend.
My Sunday SEC column says it is up to Alabama now to either prove Texas A&M was a blip or instead a revelation this team is too flawed to win big.
John Talty is the senior sports editor and SEC Insider for Alabama Media Group. You can follow him on Twitter @JTalty. Want more SEC stories like this straight to your inbox? Sign up for the Inside College Football with John Talty newsletter here.