Jim Harbaugh and the Longest Tenured Coaches in College Football
In the aftermath of Pat Fitzgerald's firing, I was curious about the high turnover in college football today and where Harbaugh's Michigan tenure fit in it. Jim Harbaugh was hired before the 2015 season, and there are only 10 other Power Five head coaches who have been at their current school as long.
1. Can you name them?
3. Seven other current Power 5 coaches have more wins at their current school. Who are they?
2. Harbaugh is also in the top 10 in current Power 5 coaches in career DI FBS wins. Can you name the other nine?
Kirk.
Kirk Ferentz is #1 by tenure, #2 by wins at current school, and #3 by career DI FBS wins.
And last in First Downs generated.
And absolutely first in nepotism.
Ferentz' tenure at Iowa is amazing to me--I moved to Iowa City in '94 (never imagined staying this long but met an Iowa girl...had a family...here we stay) and watched the Hayden Fry era slowly grind to a halt. The locals all wanted Bob Bowlsby (AD) to hire Bob Stoops (former Hawkeye DB, in '98 the DC under Steve Spurrier at UF) but Stoops went to OU and Bowlsby hired Ferentz.
Stoops won the Nat'l Championship in his second year ('00), acquired the nickname Big Game Bob, and eventually won 10 Big 12 championships and led them back to the top echelon of College Football before he retired in '16. Meanwhile Ferentz started out winning 1 and 3 games in his first 2 seasons but then in '02 won the Big 10 and made the Orange Bowl. Over the years Ferentz has slowly but surely overtaken Fry in career wins at Iowa including the occasional break through season and berth in a top tier bowl game.
Longevity often leads to eventual (relative) success and this has certainly been true in Ferentz' case. And who knows how long he'll be here? No end in sight and if any D1 head football coach has a real lifetime contract it's him.
Meanwhile...while Ferentz is certainly respected by most all Iowa fans, and make no mistake about it, they know how difficult a place this is to achieve sustained success, I suspect many would still go back in time and choose Stoops instead. With no guarantee that he would be as successful as Ferentz, let alone as successful as he was at OU.
And one final thought: amongst non-elite D1 football programs, if you asked ADs and fans if they would choose a solid but boring coach (unnamed) who produced a record like Ferentz' at Iowa, I think they'd take it in a heartbeat.
Kirk's old mantra.... Punting is Winning
Off the top of my head for longevity…
Ferentz
Saban
Whittingham
Dabo
Longevity
Ferentz - #1 (1999)
Whittingham - #3 (2005)
Saban - #4 (2007)
Dabo - #5 (2009)
Wins at current school:
Saban - #1 (187)
Ferentz - #2 (186)
Whittingham - #4 (154)
Dabo - #5 (143)
Gundy has to be the missing one?
Yes
Gundy hired in 2005 (#2) and 156 wins at current school (#3)
gahhhh how's i miss him. He's been there since he was 40!
Cuz you aren't a 40 year old man.
Franklin? I feel like he a Jim started around the same time.
Franklin hired in 2014 (#9) and 78 wins at PSU (#7). Barely edged out Harbaugh who has 74 wins at Michigan (#8) and hired in 2015 (T-#10). Franklin has one fewer career DI FBS wins than Harbaugh so did not make the cut for the third list.
Idk about other coaches but Jim's time here will end at some point and I hope that we've learned that not having a succession plan can lead to a decade of disaster.
In this time of transition to NIL and more open markets, we can't afford to slide back into a 4-8 win team or we will be stuck there forever.
I know it's been raised that Sherrone Moore doesn't have the experience to compete at the P5 level as a HC, I think his OL resume speaks for itself, and Sam Webb, among other Michigan insiders, consider him to be a potential heir apparent.
Hopefully we're locking down a plan and not just hoping Harbaugh doesn't leave/retire.
What’s crazy is Harbaugh is only like 2-3 years younger than Carr when he retired, but I always envision Carr as an old grandfather even when he was here. Maybe it was because he was the coach when I was a kid, but he always looked older than his actual age.
Dang, same. I always pictured Carr as a miserly old general until that anecdote in Sports Illustrated a while back when he jumped out and scared some players wearing a gruesome Halloween mask.
That is bonkers
id rather he go somewhere for 3-4 years and then come back successful.
While a succession plan sounds great for a corporation or the death of a monarch, is it really some panacea of future success in coaching, given that it often elevates someone with little to no proven ability as a head coach? Off the top of my head I can think of the following succession plans that were dogshit; Frank Solich at Nebraska, Gary Gibbs at Oklahoma, Larry Coker at Miami, Mike DuBose at Alabama, Jim Lambright at Washington, every Pete Carroll disciple at USC. Now, there are some that have worked, Jimbo Fisher at FSU, Bert at Wisky, 3rd Base in Columbus, Lincoln Riley. My point just being that it doesn't necessarily seem like serious succession planning leads to a better result than making a deep assessment of your program and interviewing many candidates when the time arrives. It's probably is wise to pay some firm to do that assessment every year, and have a list of the top 10 targets ready.
It's telling that all the succesful coaches you listed are names I'm familar with and are of the current age of football, and all the names you listed as bad - I have never heard of.
C"mon....that was hilarious
Frank Solich wasn't that bad. Nebraska just had ridiculous expectations at that point. Solich went: 9-4, 12-1, 10-2, 11-2, 7-7, 9-3.
Didn't Coker win a national Championship with Miami? I know he wasn't good towards the end of his tenure and got fired for a reason but winning a Championship has to speak for something.
Coker won with the program Butch Davis built. Despite winning a NC, it was just the beginning of Miami's slow erosion.
I liken Coker's national title to Switzer's Super Bowl win. Both coaches took over loaded teams and it was more 'don't screw it up' vs 'do something to help us win it all'. To both coaches credit, they didn't screw it up.
Miami was one of the best teams in 2000. They went 11-1 and beat Florida St , who played in the BCS title game. They returned a lot of players heading into the 2001 season.
Even the ones that you mentioned “working” ended up not working out so well in the long run.
Jimbo - won it all but then his program cratered and he fled to A&M.
Bert - was doing OK but then bolted for Arkansas.
Day - 1-2 in the Game.
Lincoln Riley - bolted to USC.
Larry Coker was 60-15 and was fired after one 7 win season. He was fine. As was Frank Solich at Nebraska. Both teams completely tanked after they left.
No one seems to want to talk about it, but there’s a very good chance this will be Harbaugh’s last season at Michigan. I haven’t read anything about him signing a big extension which would make leaving unlikely, and that was no doubt his choice. He stayed this year because this will be his best team and best chance to win it all. After taking that shot, I think he heads to the NFL if a team offers him a job.
Yes, I feel exactly the same way. Roster doesn't get much better than what we have.
Playoff era is coming. For Jim, this is a great season to win it all and call it dusted.
eAT ME.
While I don't disagree with you, I know that Harbaugh is able to get a contract with no buyout, so I'm not sure the contract thing is much of an indicator. Also, it's no guarantee that the right NFL job lines up for Harbaugh in any given year, with a team and place he wants to coach and an owner who wants to hire him.
1) Ferentz, FRAMES, Saban, Dabo...Chip Kelly? Tom Allen? struggle bus, I cannot
2) Smart has to be one of these. Ferentz, Saban, maybe Frames. Def Dabo. Not sure who else.
3) Chip Kelly, Brian Kelly, Frames, Ferentz, Saban, Smart, Dabo, Lincoln Riley, Luke Fickell, Bret Bielema
Fun game! thanks for posting
1) Chip Kelly surprisingly does not make any of the lists even career DI FBS wins. No on Tom Allen
2) Smart is the one coach who has more wins at Georgia (81) for #6 at current school in a shorter tenure than Harbaugh. Hired in 2016 so does not make the tenure list or career DI FBS wins list.
3) Brian Kelly #5 (156) and Bielema #9 (110). Lincoln Riley and Fickell have fewer career DI FBS wins than Harbaugh's 103 wins.
Jimbo and Mack Brown would be on the total wins list, I assume.
Who's the coach at NC State? They seem to always be 8-4 so the coach could have longevity over Harbaugh at current school, possibly wins as well.
Wins at current school --- Troy Calhoun (AFA) and Rick Stockstill (MTSU) have to be on the list, if simply because of longevity.
Edit: oops, they aren't Power 5. But they still have a lot of FBS wins.
One weird one for Michigan fans is Rich Rodriguez at now DI FBS Jacksonville State who does rank highly for FBS wins as well.
Troy Calhoun, Jeff Tedford, Rodriguez, Rick Stockstill, and Brady Hoke were the highest ranking coaches outside the Power 5 for career DI FBS wins. Two of them former Michigan head coaches.
Tenure: Dabo, Saban, Not fitzgerald, Ferentz, Tom something at Indiana?
Pretty amazing that we feel harbs is just coming into his own now and has things humming and only a handful of guys have been where they are longer. Everyone turns over .. over and over.. worse than the NFL it appears
easy:
RichRod
Hoke
Tuck Coming
John Cooper
Ryan Day
these Harry potter titles are getting weirder and weirder
For #1 off the top of my head I had:
Saban, Franklin, Debo, Wittingham, Ferentz
Reading through the thread Gundy was a "duh" one that I missed.
I haven't seen Mark Stoops mentioned yet...thats my contribution though..I'm stumped on the rest
Before reading further, I guessed for longer tenures:
- Ferentz
- Dabo
- Saban
- Whittingham
- Narduzzi (I think he was 2014?)
- BYU coach
- Gundy
- Franklin
Update: Looks like I was wrong in Narduzzi (hired same year as JH) and BYU coach was the year after JH.
Dave Clawson
Mark Stoops
(looking it up) Campbell has been at Iowa State since 2016.
I'm not looking at the responses and trying to name the 10:
For Sures: Saban, Ferentz, Dabo, Whittingham
Pretty Sures: Franklin, Gundy, Narduzzi
Maybes: I HAVE NO IDEA!!! WHO ARE THE OTHER 3?
Tenure:
Big 10: Ferentz, Franklin
SEC: Saban, Stoops
ACC: Dabo, Narduzzi, Clawson, Doeren
Pac-12: Whittingham
Big 12: Gundy
Tenure:
- Saban
- Dabo
- Ferentz
- Franklin
- Clawson (Wake)
- Whittingham (Utah)
- Gundy
I feel decently confident in those. Beyond them, I'd have to guess: Allen (IU), Fleck, Addazio? (BC). I don't think Kirby has been with Georgia that long.