From The Athletic: Ranking the Big Ten’s 18 head coaching jobs (Minnesota #15)

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pk2

pk2

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This seems like an article that should be posted in the middle of the off-season, instead of today. On the other hand, according to the author, “With Penn State seeking a new coach and potential changes looming at Wisconsin and Michigan State, it’s the perfect time to rank the Big Ten’s coaching jobs.” In any event, it’s intriguing.

They give reasons for their rankings. Here’s the blurb on our beloved rodents:

15. Minnesota​

Unlike Washington, Minnesota suffers as a football program in an urban market where it’s behind the state’s pro sports teams. Interest fluctuates between curious when the Gophers are winning to flatlining when they’re not. That’s a tough gig for any coach, and P.J. Fleck has navigated it well in his nine seasons. But he’s the program’s most consistent winner since the Vikings began play in 1961, which shows how difficult it is to build and maintain success.

Tier 1:
OSU
Oregon
USC
Michigan
PSU

Tier 2:
Washington
Nebraska
Iowa
Indiana
Wisconsin
MSU

Tier 3:
Illinois
Purdue
Northwestern
Minnesota

Tier 4:
UCLA
Maryland
Rutgers

It’s behind a paywall, but here’s the link, for those who have access:

www.nytimes.com

Ranking the Big Ten’s 18 head coaching jobs: Which schools are best set up for success?

When it comes to coaching jobs, the league's tiers haven’t changed much from what they were two decades ago.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
 
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Purdue and definately not Northwestern being better. They have like 10 fans show up to their games and are going to have an30k something stadium. Purdue atmosphere wasn’t anything great either.

I wouldn’t consider Indiana better than Illinois job. Bigger stadium and historically have been a lot more successful.
 

minnyrules11 said:
Purdue and definately not Northwestern being better. They have like 10 fans show up to their games and are going to have an30k something stadium. Purdue atmosphere wasn’t anything great either.

I wouldn’t consider Indiana better than Illinois job. Bigger stadium and historically have been a lot more successful.
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Indiana has not been historically more successful than Illinois, unless you heavily weight the last two seasons.
 


Not that far off in my opinion. Fan interest in this area is minimal. Obviously this board is an exception, but the general public has no idea how the Gophers are doing, total pro sports (especially Vikings and Wild) state.

Edit - I agree Purdue is too high.
 
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Not too much to quibble about the top IMO, but I’d put Minnesota and Illinois in their own tier and move down NW and Purdue as others have noted. Both face serious recruiting challenges and have small dedicated fan bases. BTW, Indiana would’ve likely been in the Minnesota/Illinois tier if it wasn’t for the purported NIL boost and recent program turnaround IMO.
 


Indiana has been good for a couple years so watch them suddenly climb all these dumb "rankings." I'm waiting for their Memorial Stadium suddenly climb the various click-hungry stadium rankings from well below Huntington Bank Stadium to well above it, all without moving one brick, seat, scoreboard, etc.
 











Why is Penn State seen as such a good job? I understand they won a championship 40 years ago, and made it to the playoff last year.

Pressure to be at the level of Ohio State without the capability to fund NIL to the same extent.
 

minnyrules11 said:
Every helmet school has large stadiums with the exception of Oregon who has Nike. Larger salaries for coaches etc.

Sorry Edit:
Click to expand...
I'm not saying that stadium size isn't at least a corollary to the ranking of a coaching job, but I think you're placing way too much emphasis on it. If I were a P4 coach in 2025 I wouldn't be thinking much about a stadium - I'd be thinking about 1. Salary; 2. NIL; 3. NIL; 4. NIL; 5. Salary; 6. Proximity to Recruiting hot bed; 7. NIL; 8. Fan expectations; 9. Salary; and 10. NIL. Probably training/housing/practice/nutrition facilities should be in there a couple of times as well but it seems like every school has addressed this piece of it in the last 20 years. Stadium size might be a predictor of how well funded these items will be but the number of seats in a stadium independently is meaningless. By all accounts Indiana now enjoys a healthy NIL budget. Meanwhile, UCLA plays in the 90,000 seat Rose Bowl.
 

The criteria for what makes a head coaching job attractive has changed in recent years and lists like these haven't really caught up to it. It used to be more about institution support, fan support and recruiting base. Now with portal and revenue sharing the recruiting base is far less important and it's more of which administrations and fan bases can translate into NIL compensation and take the burden off the coaches to manage that.
 

goonin_golden_gophers said:
Why is Penn State seen as such a good job? I understand they won a championship 40 years ago, and made it to the playoff last year.

Pressure to be at the level of Ohio State without the capability to fund NIL to the same extent.
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Because they have been a consistent winner for 40 years. Produced some of the best NFL talent, have a rabid fanbase, etc.
 

swede2 said:
I'm not saying that stadium size isn't at least a corollary to the ranking of a coaching job, but I think you're placing way too much emphasis on it. If I were a P4 coach in 2025 I wouldn't be thinking much about a stadium - I'd be thinking about 1. Salary; 2. NIL; 3. NIL; 4. NIL; 5. Salary; 6. Proximity to Recruiting hot bed; 7. NIL; 8. Fan expectations; 9. Salary; and 10. NIL. Probably training/housing/practice/nutrition facilities should be in there a couple of times as well but it seems like every school has addressed this piece of it in the last 20 years. Stadium size might be a predictor of how well funded these items will be but the number of seats in a stadium independently is meaningless. By all accounts Indiana now enjoys a healthy NIL budget. Meanwhile, UCLA plays in the 90,000 seat Rose Bowl.
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Agreed PJ is paid quite well now and so is Cignetti where Indiana has a pretty good NIL which I believe so does Vandy. I just don't believe Indiana is a group above Illinois or even Minnesota. Other than the last two years where Illinois (who has been good) Indiana has not played in a major bowl or playoffs. Only 14 bowl games, Illinois 21, Minnesota 25.

2023 tickets sales (rough estimates) for example Iowa who has a 70K seat stadium brought in about $23 million. Minnesota 13.3, Illinois and Indiana at about $10.3. Stadium size is not everything but think it is a factor if you bringing in significantly more revenue.

UCLA plays a half hour a way from because there is no room for an on campus stadium and the Rose Bowl is used for bigger post season games. Now the Bruins are trying to bolt for SoFi stadium. I agree that job stinks.

Perhaps the other poster is right this should be three tiers.
 

What factors weigh into ranking a head coaching position?

Here is me guess,

1. Prestige - this drives salary
2. Fan and administration support
3. NIL - this ties into fan support since most NILs are dominated by boosters. But you can’t get the big bucks without 1 and 2.
4. Facilities - gotta look impressive to get players to look at you, but the top 3 makes this less important.
5. Location - this is the least important of the first five and is overcome by #3 easily.
6. Academics - lol!!!
1A. FULL BANANA BABY!!!! CANT BE UNDERESTIMATED!!!!
 

pk2 said:
This seems like an article that should be posted in the middle of the off-season, instead of today. On the other hand, according to the author, “With Penn State seeking a new coach and potential changes looming at Wisconsin and Michigan State, it’s the perfect time to rank the Big Ten’s coaching jobs.” In any event, it’s intriguing.

They give reasons for their rankings. Here’s the blurb on our beloved rodents:

15. Minnesota​

Unlike Washington, Minnesota suffers as a football program in an urban market where it’s behind the state’s pro sports teams. Interest fluctuates between curious when the Gophers are winning to flatlining when they’re not. That’s a tough gig for any coach, and P.J. Fleck has navigated it well in his nine seasons. But he’s the program’s most consistent winner since the Vikings began play in 1961, which shows how difficult it is to build and maintain success.

Tier 1:
OSU
Oregon
USC
Michigan
PSU

Tier 2:
Washington
Nebraska
Iowa
Indiana
Wisconsin
MSU

Tier 3:
Illinois
Purdue
Northwestern
Minnesota

Tier 4:
UCLA
Maryland
Rutgers

It’s behind a paywall, but here’s the link, for those who have access:

www.nytimes.com

Ranking the Big Ten’s 18 head coaching jobs: Which schools are best set up for success?

When it comes to coaching jobs, the league's tiers haven’t changed much from what they were two decades ago.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
Click to expand...
"Minnesota suffers as a football program in an urban market where it’s behind the state’s pro sports teams. Interest fluctuates between curious when the Gophers are winning to flatlining when they’re not. That’s a tough gig for any coach, and P.J. Fleck has navigated it well in his nine seasons. But he’s the program’s most consistent winner since the Vikings began play in 1961, which shows how difficult it is to build and maintain success."

Bingo
 

FanSinceTheFifties said:
"Minnesota suffers as a football program in an urban market where it’s behind the state’s pro sports teams. Interest fluctuates between curious when the Gophers are winning to flatlining when they’re not. That’s a tough gig for any coach, and P.J. Fleck has navigated it well in his nine seasons. But he’s the program’s most consistent winner since the Vikings began play in 1961, which shows how difficult it is to build and maintain success."

Bingo
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Crazy how the Timberwolves made the playoffs the first time in 1996-97
A couple years later Clem gets busted and gophers haven’t been able to get it back going


Wild make the playoffs for the first time in 2002-03
Gophers last hockey national title is 2002-03

I am not saying any of this is causational but it’s definitely interesting to me
 


Purdue and NW too high. Maryland is too low. They have limitations but they also have a good amount of top end talent in the area. They have a big time 5 star local guy committed for 2026 and just signed six 4 star guys this past year (class ranked 25th nationally).
 

GophersInIowa said:
Maryland is too low. They have limitations but they also have a good amount of top end talent in the area. They have a big time 5 star local guy committed for 2026 and just signed six 4 star guys this past year (class ranked 25th nationally).
Click to expand...

And they have Kevin Plank. Founder and CEO of Under Armour, and Maryland grad.

Maryland gets exclusive UA designs for uniforms that are not offered to other teams under the UA umbrella, and their school can sell exclusive clothing to students and fans, where similar UA team stuff is not made available to other schools.

Frankly, I am surprised that they have not performed better, and that they have kept Locksley around.

 

Honestly, it's disgusting to me that the UMN administration cannot have the vision to see why it's problematic to be viewed as an "also ran" in football.
America cares about football, for better or worse.

We have one flagship school in the state, and they have never valued the power football brings to campus as much as they should.

Of course I value the fact that the U is a world class research institution - and (not a but), I don't think that generates the same real-dollar ROI in terms of admissions, visibility, and revenue that football can/should.

It's pretty disheartening at times. Invest in this team, for God's sake! Right now, new blue bloods are being minted in this new NIL era.
 

Mr. 131 said:
Honestly, it's disgusting to me that the UMN administration cannot have the vision to see why it's problematic to be viewed as an "also ran" in football.
America cares about football, for better or worse.

We have one flagship school in the state, and they have never valued the power football brings to campus as much as they should.

Of course I value the fact that the U is a world class research institution - and (not a but), I don't think that generates the same real-dollar ROI in terms of admissions, visibility, and revenue that football can/should.

It's pretty disheartening at times. Invest in this team, for God's sake! Right now, new blue bloods are being minted in this new NIL era.
Click to expand...
There are plenty of folks on this board who like to tie Athletics to academics and research. The average fan, the bandwagon fan, and the casual observer does not care at all about the academics and research. I would guess even most true fanatics care little about the academics. I've used the anecdote here of my business partner and spouse who, neither of them being Sconnie grads or even being from Wisconsin, ended up as Skunk season ticket holders. They had a great time going to Skunk games. Two of three kids ended up on campus in Madison so I suppose to that extent there was an interest in academics. But nothing about academics and research made them put on red sweatshirts and travel to madison 6 or 7 times each fall.
 

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