ESPN- Which jobs are the worst?
http://insider.espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/12367998/wake-forest-demon-deacons-earn-worst-job-power-5
Pretty insulting towards Minnesota (and also horribly misinformed RE: the stadium's actual location), but I don't know why I should have expected anything better from ESPN. Whatever...
If every college football job opened today, which would be the hardest to fill?
A half-dozen college football reporters and analysts sat around a big picnic table inside an Oxford, Mississippi, restaurant. It was Halloween night, and Will Muschamp was on the verge of being fired at Florida. That led to a spirited conversation about just how good the Florida job was, circa November 2014.
Where did it stack up with others? What made it good? Where had it fallen behind peers in the SEC and nationally?
Our debate, as you well know, was not unique. It has manifested itself in myriad places. Just sub Florida for any number of schools and replace our dinner table with tailgate tents, barstools, offices, churches, etc., etc.
That conversation stuck with me: Why not create a ranking system of every Power 5 job? I enlisted four ESPN colleagues -- Chris Low, Brett McMurphy, Adam Rittenberg and Mark Schlabach -- to help poll coaches and industry sources and provide their insight.
The central question: If every Power 5 job came open tomorrow, which would be the most desirable? Which would be least appealing? And where does your team fall?
Though each person weighs things differently -- that's why it's such a subjective, hot-button topic for debate -- the criteria is roughly the same. It includes factors such as location, administrative stability, support from that administration, facilities, recruiting base, path to conference titles/playoff, sense of tradition, fervor of the fan base, too much fervor from the fan base ...
We hope and believe we have provided an intelligent and accurate overview of the Power 5 jobs in college football, from worst to best.
Tier 10: The worst
Put bluntly, these are the worst jobs in major college football. But hey, they're still major college football jobs.
65. Wake Forest
Wake was nearly a consensus No. 65, and that's not a good thing. It's not in a terribly difficult league, and yet the academically stringent private school colloquially known as "Work Forest" is all but invisible -- to recruits and the general public -- in its state and region, let alone nationally. Put it this way: When we asked a room of several assistant coaches which program they thought would be last in our polling, they didn't respond with Wake -- because they had forgotten that Wake was a Power 5 school. Really, history just might show that Jim Grobe, who was 77-82 in 13 seasons and took the Deacons to five bowl games (including the BCS's Orange Bowl in '06), was more of a miracle worker than anyone truly recognized at the time.
64. Iowa State
After playing a game in Ames last season, a coach texted me. He'd never been there before and simply could not believe how stark and isolated the landscape was. The legends were all true, he said. And that was prior to winter's icy grip on the Corn Belt. So a coach fights more than just perception with this job. There's a certain reality to your Iowa-bound island. How do you convince yourself to go there, and then somehow get high school prospects to follow? It's one of the toughest sales pitches in the sport. In the 2015 recruiting class, Iowa State did sign four players from Texas and Florida, plus three more from Georgia and two from California. But where do you think ISU is on the college pecking order in those talent-rich states? Not high. The Cyclones have signed one ESPN 300 prospect in the history of the rankings. It all puts a big-time onus on development and mining jucos. Even then, it is incredibly difficult in the Big 12 to compete with the Texas and Oklahoma schools.
63. Kansas
General apathy, coaches say, is why Kansas sinks this low. The fan base turns its attention to hoops midway through the season, unlike every other school in the Big 12. At best, football is a supplement to whatever's happening inside Phog. At worst (otherwise known as the recent norm) it's forgotten by Halloween. The administration is vowing a renewed commitment to resources and support -- but we'll see how much first-time coach David Beaty really does receive. Beaty's hire, at least, was a departure from a retread such as Charlie Weis or a set-up-to-fail up-and-comer such as Turner Gill. It showed some inspiration and a desire to find someone who really does want to be at KU. (Beaty was a former Jayhawks assistant, and 2014 interim coach Clint Bowen was retained as DC.) Despite its placement in these rankings, there's some hope in Lawrence. Kansas City, about a half-hour away, isn't a recruiting hotbed, but there are some players there. And being near a major metro area is a plus that many of the programs in these bottom tiers cannot boast.
62. Washington State
Pullman has natural beauty that Ames does not, but it has the same isolation -- and then some -- especially when considering the vastness of the Pac-12. Getting from Seattle to the Palouse is laborious. Los Angeles feels worlds away, and it might as well be. Yet Wazzu has to lean hard on California-based recruits, breaking into a crowded state with a widely unfamiliar product and faraway location. Those who have worked there talk about how scenic it is -- and also how desolate it really can feel. If you're going out to eat, they say, you're likely driving across the state line to Moscow, Idaho. There's nothing wrong with Moscow, Idaho, but it tells you how little there is in Pullman, Washington. There is some record of success, when Mike Price twice took the Cougars to the Rose Bowl, but the league has significantly grown and deepened in the decade-plus since the school's 2002 appearance in Pasadena. It's a challenge that Mike Leach, who managed well in Lubbock, Texas, is finding to be a struggle.
Tier 9: The next-worst
Not mired in a pit of despair, but looking over the edge of the cliff. A number of "academic" institutions -- and the associated hurdles -- included here.
61. Purdue
It's looking more and more like Joe Tiller was an even bigger outlier than Grobe. That's thematic among these bottom-dwellers: A coach is able to establish success for a nice stretch, but it proves unsustainable once he's gone. Tiller had nine winning seasons in 12 years, including the 2000 Big Ten title and Rose Bowl bid. The Boilermakers have had four losing seasons in the six years since Tiller retired. Third-year coach Darrell Hazell has labored, unsuccessfully so far, to energize West Lafayette about its college team. (His 1-11 and 3-9 seasons haven't helped matters.) It's an hour from Indy and 90 minutes from Chicago, but it feels farther from both. It's still an engineering school in a blue-collar Indiana town. Texas was once a popular Purdue pipeline (it's the state from which the Boilers plucked Drew Brees). When that dried up, so did the program's success. It needs to either get back into Texas or find a new promised land of future Boilers.
59. (tie) Indiana
Purdue and Indiana often get lumped together, so it's probably not all that surprising to see them adjacent to one another. What might be surprising, however, is that Purdue -- because of Tiller's run -- isn't listed ahead of IU. The Hoosiers, spanning six coaches, have had just one winning season since 1995 (7-6 in 2007). So any coach taking the job had better include regular résumé-updating as part of his duties, because it's difficult to stay more than a handful of seasons at that clip. Kevin Wilson's teams have won four, five and four games the past three seasons, and that actually isn't horrific in recent lore -- which is why he'll get at least a fifth season. (The AD has been supportive, so a new coach would appreciate that.) Bloomington is a cool college town, but there isn't a whole lot to suggest football is going to rival basketball there anytime soon. And that's even considering some pretty lean times in the past decade or so for the school's hoops team.
59. (tie) Vanderbilt
Nashville is the best city in the SEC. And the school isn't shoved off in some suburban corner of town; it's less than a mile from the heart of everything, and West End is a bustling area of activity. Additionally, Vanderbilt is the best academic institution in the SEC, not that that doesn't come with football hurdles, as we've seen and will see with elite-level schools for education. All that said, the program is so, so far behind when it comes to its brethren. It took James Franklin's recent one-part televangelist, one-part ShamWow guy act to even take Vandy to the precipice of success (two nine-win seasons). Once he left, 1980s-era doormat Vanderbilt reappeared. It begs the question: Does Franklin's 24-15 record in three seasons signal the high-water mark, as good as good can get, for a program that has struggled to dogpaddle in its conference? Not unlike Wake Forest, it's a great university miscast in a league with more athletic-minded members -- and that's just that much truer in the SEC than the ACC. Of course, those leagues do not mind keeping around the private schools to boost a certain academic image.
58. Duke
Thanks to David Cutcliffe's lobbying of the school's administration to get serious about football spending, Duke has made some strides in the past few years. (A relatively new indoor facility is an illustration.) But imagining a post-Cut world, if the job came open tomorrow, Duke also has the appearance of a school that would sink right back where it was before him. Duke is essentially Wake on HGH. It's fighting many of those same battles, admissions most notably. One difference is that its basketball team has made it athletically visible. Cutcliffe has demonstrated precisely the model of how you have to win there: by playing smarter than the opponent and by developing under-the-radar kids. Unfortunately, that isn't a terribly successful model for sustainability -- even in the so-so ACC -- when FSU is unloading a dump truck of new five-stars every year.
57. Syracuse
As one coach said: "The weather is miserable, and that dome ..." Yes, that dome. The Carrier Dome hasn't exactly aged like a fine Bordeaux, we'll say. The facility, and the school's upstate New York isolation, has made for a somewhat ragged fit in its new conference. It strains the accuracy of the name "Atlantic Coast Conference," really. The state might touch the water, but Syracuse says neither Atlantic nor Coastal. "We all know why they're here," the coach said, referring to the ACC's desire to maintain its basketball reputation. The school and city are currently trying to figure out options for the dome, whether to renovate or build something new. Either way, it's much-needed for the program's profile. I recall school officials talking last summer about how difficult it had been to get higher-end teams in the ACC (and Notre Dame) to actually play in Syracuse; better opponents want a neutral-site game in the Meadowlands, they said. As for the weather, well, there isn't much that can be done about that one. At least the football season is over before the gray of dirty snow season hits.
55. (tie) Boston College
If you're scoring at home, BC makes it four ACC schools in the bottom 10. That isn't a healthy batting average. It hearkens back to what that coach said about a lingering focus on hoops at Syracuse -- despite the fact that the money and people's attention are generally far more captivated by college football, especially entering this playoff era. When Steve Addazio took the job, you had a pretty good idea it was going to work well because he understood the challenges. He got that being in Boston was cool, but that it wasn't a huge asset in the college football world. He understood that a smaller, private, Catholic school was a different kind of fit in the ACC. Because of that, he knew the types of players to target, and he knew his gritty style ("Be a Dude," as they say there) would need to be implemented. So if the job were to come open, Addazio is providing the blueprint. The success has been modest, but it is seemingly pretty sustainable because no one is being overly ambitious. BC is punching in its weight class. That doesn't make the ceiling all that high for a school -- don't expect regular playoff runs anytime soon -- but it also prevents a great deal of sliding backward.
55. (tie) Colorado
Of those in the bottom two or three tiers, Colorado has the best shot to rise. As opposed to a number of programs in this range, location -- the foothills of the Rockies and yet a half-hour from a major metro area -- is a signature attribute for the Buffs. And Boulder is a top-notch college town. It's the Athens, Georgia, of the West. There's a lot to sell, which is important because even with Denver nearby, the CU staff has to go outside the state for its best prospects. As for football: When Bill McCartney left in the mid-1990s, resources and support evolved into huge sticking points. There was just no money for football, or athletics. But that is beginning to shift. The administration, maligned by past CU coaches, has made serious headway with its renovations of Folsom Field and the team's practice facilities. Mike MacIntyre's 6-18 record in two seasons has been less than spectacular, but if he's given an opportunity to see the rebuild through, there are reasons for optimism.
54. Northwestern
There's no doubt that Chicago is the biggest thing Northwestern has going for it. It has a beautiful, lakefront campus with a lot going on just to the south. The stringent admissions standards, however, work to negate some of the geographical advantage. It's not as if the Wildcats are loading up each class with a bunch of Chicagoland studs. In fact, in the past three classes, exactly a third of the signees are from the metro area. Texas products have been more plentiful during that same timeframe, actually. On a bigger-picture scale, one coach in the league went so far as to call Chicago overrated for recruiting. It's over-recruited, he said. And the best players are likely not headed to Northwestern, even if they could get in. That coach was also critical of the game-day environment, calling it the worst in the league. There's a reason decades of its football history were veiled in obscurity until the mid-1990s. It's possible to win there, but nearly impossible to sustain success. Pat Fitzgerald and others have been able to get some solid players on campus, but as we've seen the past couple of years, depth is sorely lacking when injuries do occur.
Tier 8: The marginalized
Some less-than-ideal locations and programs outgunned in their respective leagues sum up this tier. (But really, why is Virginia way down here?)
53. Rutgers
This is one of the more challenging programs to evaluate in this section. The move to the Big Ten, latching on to a Power 5 league, was big in terms of the program's potential. Inheriting the New York media market is something that excited Big Ten's brass, but everyone knows New York isn't paying all that much attention to college football (especially Rutgers football). It's delusional to think otherwise. A who's who cast appears every December for hall of fame and Heisman week, and Manhattan is none the wiser. On the plus side, Rutgers can draw from what might be the most underrated major recruiting state in the entire country. "Jersey has always been there," one ACC coach told me recently, "but more [coaches] seem to discover it every year. It's getting crowded." But if those recruits want to stay home, Rutgers has evolved into a viable option. The AD sometimes seems to have foot-in-mouth disease, but the administration has been relatively supportive -- enough for the Knights to be at least competitive in an increasingly difficult Big Ten East.
52. Kansas State
Real talk: Bill Snyder's two-term run at K-State is the most unlikely, amazing coaching job of our lifetimes. While following him would scare the bejeezus out of most coaches, Snyder has shown how to maximize potential in the Little Apple. The overachieving Wildcats have regularly hit their heads on the ceiling, only to establish a new one. Mining the talent-rich Kansas jucos is one area in which Snyder and his staff have done especially well. But can that really be mimicked? Or is Snyder just so uncannily good at evaluating those players? After all, going that route can definitely be a trick-or-treat venture. If the job were to come open, though, it would not be as desirable as some of the teams ranked around it. Snyder has just made the impossible look possible -- even easy, at times -- for a long time in Manhattan, Kansas, of all places. Side note: How many more Locketts are there? That family has been good for business at K-State.
51. Virginia
This isn't a sleeping giant job, necessarily, but Virginia should be better than hovering around No. 50. Going back to George Welsh's long stay, which began in 1982, the Cavaliers have been nothing more than a seven- or eight-win team -- with occasional dips and rises here and there. Mike London's tenuous tenure, with one winning season in five years, marks a downturn from its run of being above average but nothing special. But shouldn't the expectation be higher than that? Charlottesville is a thriving college town, and UVA has a beautiful campus. Virginia, as a whole, is a so-so state for recruiting, but the Tidewater area typically churns out several high-end prospects a year. For example: Of the five ESPN 300 players the Cavs have signed in the past four classes, all are from the Virginia Beach area. The Hoos just need more of them. Relative to where we have it ranked, this is an underrated job in a wide-open division. You can win games at Virginia.
50. Oregon State
Gary Andersen left Wisconsin because of clashes with administration there, but it said something about Oregon State's history and trajectory that he felt comfortable swapping Madison for Corvallis. Around the same time he was hired, OSU announced a $42 million project to renovate and expand its football facility. So there's some level of commitment present. But let's be honest: There had better be, or OSU would risk being laughed off the state's map because of what Nike money does for its rival. Oregon State finds more peace in Oregon's shadow than a lot of programs would, but you know it's still quite the burden to bear. Then the Beavers have to go head-to-head in the same division and league with the Ducks. That's tough. Both Eugene and Corvallis are fairly isolated cities south of Portland, but if a kid is choosing between them, it makes Oregon State a tough sell.
48. (tie) Minnesota
The school, from all accounts, did an excellent job with its new stadium -- though it's a mystery to anyone in the southern and western parts of America why you'd build an outdoor stadium in St. Paul, Minnesota. (Dilly Bar Dan doesn't seem to mind.) While the venue is great for fans and public appearance, the rest of the football facilities are well behind the times and overdue for a renovation. Being in the Twin Cities is a positive, but it's not a talent-rich area for recruiting. Luring players from Texas or the South requires a heart-to-heart about how to dress in subzero temperatures. In a lot of ways, coaches see this as a job that is constantly chasing neighbor and rival Wisconsin -- and always falling short. The Gophers have won Paul Bunyan's Axe just twice since 1994.
48. (tie) Illinois
Going back to the Northwestern conversation, some coaches do find Chicago to be overrun with more college assistants than college prospects. Illinois is at least the state's flagship school, and it has a far better chance of getting players in than Northwestern. Champaign also is in regional proximity to St. Louis, Indianapolis, Memphis and Louisville. There are pockets from which to pull recruits, in other words. And yet here are the past three class rankings, according to RecruitingNation: 64th, 66th, 47th. Like Virginia, Illinois should be doing better than that. The facilities are not top-shelf, but they're not really a detractor, either. The city isn't the best in the Big Ten, but it's far from the worst. It's a midlevel program that has struggled to even live up to that, with a couple of BCS bowl appearances notwithstanding.
