It's the offseason, and minus recruiting, the college football news cycle is pretty slow right now. In order to fill writing quotas, spark conversations, and get eyes on their pages, sites have brought out truck loads of rankings. There are articles on schedule rankings, quarterback rankings, mascot rankings, stadium rankings, and today? Coach rankings.
For the most part I like to ignore these types of post, which are usually written by someone south of the Mason-Dixon line who cares more about pacifying Florida State and Alabama fans than actually putting thought into their rankings. But this one was written by Tom Forelli, who for the most part is a pretty respectable writer, so I figured I would give it a gander.
Today's rankings are a thing of beauty. Rationale behind the choices are not explained, other than the writer's feelings, and like almost every other rating, it's mostly based off name recognition and past achievements. Steve Addazio comes in at 47th, which at first seems real low, and then seems ridiculously low when you look at some of the names ahead of him.
46. Pat Fitzgerald - Northwestern. Went 5-7 the last two seasons. Was a hot name like three years ago, but his team has fallen off a cliff as of late.
45. Randy Edsall - Maryland. You mean the coach that never figured out how to beat the vaunted Frank Spaziani, and has been mired in 6-6 hell for almost five straight season?
43. Dana Holgorsen - West Virginia. Has gone 18-20 in previous three seasons.
42. Dave Doeren - N.C. State. Let's let Fornelli explain it: "Doeren is only 11-14 in two years with the Wolfpack, but he won eight games last season and has two conference titles from his time at Northern Illinois." Oh.
39. Mike Leach - Washington State. Wait what? Leach has gone 12-25 in three years at Washington State but Fornelli has a caveat "but we still remember what he did with Texas Tech". We do? That was SIX YEARS AGO. You know who was a premier coach seven years ago? Jeff Jagodzinski. Would I put him in front of Addazio right now? Hell no.
36. Kirk Ferentz - Iowa. You mean the guy that has been rumored to be fired for the previous like six seasons, and is arguably one of the worst coaches in the B10?
I would have had Addazio in the low 30's at this point. Mind you, BC is a team that was 2-10 two years ago, and has made two straight bowl games. He has reinvented his team twice now, and is looking at his third rebuiId. Creating a program that is adaptable to talent is what coaching is all about. Could Mike Leach do that? No. He is still running the same offense in Washington State that he ran at Texas Tech, and the results speak for themselves. Addazio by no means is a perfect coach, but looking at these coaches ahead of him, he certainly would be an upgrade at any of those schools.