Sporting News ranks nation's best coaches... Hoke #24
I get really annoyed when I see people put SIAP, so I won't do that. All I will say is that i used the search function and only found the Big 10 rankings.
So I was listening to the radio on the way in to work this morning and I heard the locals blubbering about Saban being the #1 best coach in America. So I found the article and saw that Hoke comes in at #24.
Other noteworthies/travesties:
Urbs #3
Les Miles #4
Bret Bielema #12
Mork #13
Mack Brown #16
Brian Kelly #18
RR #39
They missed April Fools by over a month.
Mack Brown seems low to me.
I was actually thinking the opposite. Mack is a fantastic recruiter. Was great at UNC and certainly has the resources at UT. But look at his teams in recent years. He has numerous off the field problems with his players (lack of control) and his big time assistants have been leaving.
Being a solid head coach is as much being in control of the situation as giving the appearance of control. Mack has neither.
But I think getting that school to where it's been for the past several years means Dantonio is deserving of a top-25 ranking. Saban couldn't do it at MSU.
I agree that Dantonio definitely deserves to be on this. But Saban also had a much tougher B1G to go up against. PSU and OSU were pretty damn good in the mid-to-late 90s. Michigan was good in the late 90s. Wisconsin and N'W were better than they had been in a long time as well. Much deeper conference. Not taking anything away from Dantonio, but he's had an easier road. Only OSU and Wisconsin have been consistently good while he's been there. Michigan has been farther down than they've been since most of us have been alive. PSU is not what they once were and the rest of the conference is very meh. I think it's getting better though and we should find out the real strength of the coaches in the B1G in the coming years.
More significantly, Saban was working with major scholarship reductions his first four seasons at MSU. 1999 was the first year they had a full allotment of scholarships and he went 10-2.
As for Dantonio performing at a high level for "several years," that depends on how you're defining "several." MSU went 6-7 in 2009.
It's not in the OP's post [Ed. it is - just listed by "Mork". I'm off for some more coffee now!], but Smilin' Mark Dantonio comes in at 13 on their list. Here's their take (not my take, for the record) on Dantonio, with the last line playing perfectly into the Hipster Dantonio meme:
13. Mark Dantonio, Michigan State Age: 56 2011 record: 11-3, 7-2 Big Ten At Michigan State (5 years): 44-22 FBS career (8 years): 62-39 Dantonio’s 11-2 season in 2010—during which he was confronted by a frightening health crisis—represents one of the great coaching performances of the 2000s. His 2011 Spartans, who likewise won 11 games, were even better. Brady Hoke’s Michigan program may have more upside, but Dantonio is the best coach in the state right now. “He has brought consistency to a historically inconsistent program,” said former three-time FBS head coach Gerry DiNardo, who’s now an analyst for the Big Ten Network. “He’s one of the best coaches in college football today. He may be the most overlooked coach in the country.”
Am I the only one who finds it funny that they turned to Gerry DiNardo, of all people, to comment on good coaching?
Just made me throw up in my mouth. This list will change dramatically in five years.
these rankings suck. Everyone knows Coach Hoke is #1
Call me arrogant but I think Sparty's success can partially credited to the B1G and M being down over the last 3 years under RR. They cleaned up on the recruiting trail which is obviously changing.
I agree that the B1G and M being down has been a major factor in Sparty's success, but I don't think it helped his recruiting that much. He did do much better in Michigan during RR's tenure, but we haveto face the fact that Mork has won a lot of ballgames with recruiting classes that we would consider poor. Oh well, the ship is righted and I strongly suspect Coach Hoke will occupy a top 5 position in this sort of ranking soon enough.
How the hell is Kelly above Hoke?
...but then we'd have to acknowledge that some of our success might owe something to State "re-building" for all of the 20th century save the Johnson administration.
SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEET.
Hoke's number 1. Fuck a list.
How?
Les Miles comes in at #4? The Sporting News must have missed the NC game.
Or maybe they saw the national championship game and saw that he was coaching in it? Only one coach wins the national championship every year.
he should be #2?
This list is dumb, but I remain unable to get OUTRAGED over a silly ranking list by a 3rd rate sports website.
Well, this will work itself out in due time. Urban Meyer is still riding his success from previous stops (which is obviously incredibly impressive) and whether or not he can maintain that at OSU is yet to be seen. And yeah, Hoke has only been at M for a year, but turning around a program to get 11 wins including a BCS bowl victory should probably slot him higher than 24th.
Obligatory: BRIAN KELLY WHAT THE FUCK? I don't undertand that at all.
People are talkin about Dantonio, who I think is fairly ranked, but completely overlooking Brian Kelly at 18. He certainly had great coaching in his blunder against Brady Hoke /s
And has he accomplished anything positive at Notre Dame? Maybe going all Grunka-Lunka on his players, but he didn't sing while doing it so I award him no points. He belongs nowhere near the top 40.
It's completely impossible to rank coaches in any reasonable way. Still a nice way to get some offseason page hits, though.
If you knew what I did for a living, you would see the humor in that statement.
There aren't enough data for this kind of analysis and there are all kinds of misleading biases baked into what we can observe.
That's ok... it was only his first season with us... no where to go but UP.
(PS: Agree with the Brian Kelly WTF???)
Obviously BK's ranking is completely due to his career pre-ND, because he's pretty much shit the bed since he's been there. So in that same reasoning, why isn't RichRod ranked where BK is? He had a lot more pre-M success than BK had pre-ND.
Agreed, the article says his "pre ND resume" is too good to overlook. But Elmo would have made the top 25 if he was the ND coach. They always make lists like this because of their fan base. I wonder where Weis would have been on this list five years ago? I bet top 25.
Kelly is a terrible coach and an even worse person. He had some success in the MAC and at Cinci but he has clearly managed to keep with the ND tradition of taking top talent to mediocre places.
Don't forget he let a kid go up on a lift in extreme winds and get killed. BK shouldn't even be there after that.
I agree. Maybe it's giving a lot of weight to his successes at CMU and Cincy, but ND is spinning its tires at best these days.
I laughed at this, mostly because you said 'Mork' and I knew who you meant. Thanks.
Having Mack Brown that low is a damn shame. There is no possible explanation you could give me to justify putting the likes of Steve Spurrier, Mork, Bill Snyder, or Bronco Mendenhall in front of him.
That whole list is a joke
I'll try though.
He coaches for the flagship program in the most talent rich state in the country (where, unlike the state of Florida, the competition is weak). Because of this, he gets top-3 recruiting classes almost every year. Some of this recruiting success has to do with him, but most of it does not.
Mack Brown has obviously had success since he's been there, but not nearly as much as his recruiting would suggest. Plus, he's had some downright bad years as well. He's a good coach, but many other schools have done more with less than Mack has at UT.
I see what you're saying, and I've actually used that argument with some Texas friends about how he's a tad overrated and an underachiever. But if the argument is, "Oh he has great classes, but has only won a National Championship; nevermind 10 straight years of Top Ten finishes, 9 straight 10+ win seasons" that's a pretty lame argument. And his worst year there was 5-7, which is better than you can say for Spurrier or Snyder (and especially Mork). I don't think he should be Top 5, or even ahead of Stoops, but Brown is Top Ten at least
The whole list is inconsistent, from the writing (under the FBS records for Gary Patterson and Frank Beamer, they list "same" since they've coached at one school. But on Franklin for Vandy they list 6-7, and then list 6-7 again on FBS career record /minornitpicking), to their reasoning (they rank Mack Brown low for having a few off recent seasons, but put Spurrier up high based off of Florida stuff he did 10 years ago, and have Brian Kelley up there "because there's too much good in his history"
Also, Brown has performed much better at Texas than his predecessors in the '80s and '90s did. At UNC, too, he had them regularly in the top 10, which they haven't come close to since.
Mack Brown's performance at UNC was remarkable as they hadn't had the type of success Brown had prior or after his tenure.
People claim Brown's overrated because he is a great recruiter and has better players than most other teams. Well, recruiting is part of the job description. Being a successful recruiter should not count against a coach.
Bo Schembechler was a great recruiter as well, and this was a source of much of his success, rather than his game planning and play calling. Unlike Brown, Bo never won the national championship. Nevertheless, Bo is still one of the all time greats.
Yeah Fucking right.. Sporting News wiffed on this one.. Bielema could win a BCS game it would be a miracle..He makes terrible calls in big games( MSU). Brian Kelly is an asshole who is very overrated. Read the post on ND.. He will be fired this yr.. Mark my words..Hoke is easily top 10.. Urbs can suckit also.. Might win games but he is not a good mentor
Lists are pure content-free linkbait, but if we're playing along there are some real laughers.
- Richt at 14 - wasn't he about to get fired before winning 10 games against an easy schedule?
- Kelly at 18 - obvs.
- Kiffin at 20 - he has coached for only three years, only one of which could be considered successful.
- Franklin at 25 - even with the Vandy caveat, you can be a top 25 coach without ever coaching a winning team?
Les Miles-I get that he's won, and continues to compete at the highest level. I would agrue that is almost entirely due to the ease of recruiting monsters in LA. I'll give him a great ranking for recruiting, but I can't see him in the top 5 for football coaching minds.
Mack Brown-I love the guy, but in my opinion, he constantly falls short of expectations, considering his monster recruiting classes almost exclusively in his backyard.
Lane Kiffin-I almost vomited when I saw his name ahead of Hoke. I don't have much to say, except, there is no way.
James Franklin-For the life of me, I can't figure out how he's at 25, right next to Hoke. 1 year coaching with a 6-7 record....yeah it's the SEC, but come on, I'd put Fitzgerald there before him.
Les Miles-I get that he's won, and continues to compete at the highest level. I would agrue that is almost entirely due to the ease of recruiting monsters in LA.Is it easy? For a good 30 years (c. 1970-2000), LSU didn't win anything. Only under Saban and Miles have they won big.
This list is pretty rough. Kiffin at #20, not yet with his bizzaro past. Kelly at #18, huh. Spurrier at #8, must be a lifetime acheivement award.
Hoke should be higher, and will after next year.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing, but based on what criteria? M hasn't had the top recruiting classes under Hoke (though this year could be close) and it doesn't have the most wins. On what basis would you decide this?
It's almost as if lists on sports websites are transparent attempts to gin up meaningless controversy and therefore page views...
I love how Bill O'Brien breaks in at #62 and hasn't coached a game yet.
- Chuck Long - b/c he was a QB who could chuck long hur hur tired joke dur
- Les Miles - sure, to be grammatically correct, his name would have to be Fewer Miles, but still - how many coaches have sentence names? My sister had a sentence name before she got married, by the way.
- Larry Fedora - because dudes in fedoras are cool. Now to find a head coach named "Fez". Because fezes are cool, too.
- Frank Spaziani - because it conjures images of a guy freakin' out, man
- Randy Edsall - underappreciated at the time, but now a classic. The car, I mean.
- Jerry Kill - he should be a malfunctioning robot with laser eyes
- Bronco Mendenhall - because who seriously names their kid Bronco? Also, his kids are named Cutter, Breaker, and Raeder. Dood...
- Ken Niumatalolo - say that 5 times real fast. Didn't think so.
- Jimbo Fisher - wonder if his real name is Jimbo or Corky...
- Rocky Long - I knew a guy named Rocky, but it was short for Rockefeller.
- Joker Philips - would've been top 10, but sounds like he's just trying too hard.
- Gary Pinkel - I don't know why, but I always chuckle at his name.
- Sonny Dykes - is he a good ol' boy? Coaches LaTech? Yup, he is.
- Mario Cristobal - I don't know, he just sounds cool.
- Doc Holliday - I also loved the movie Tombstone, huckleberry.
- Dabo Swinney - I refuse to believe this is a real name. Someone just made it up.
- Art Briles - am I the only one who thinks of Brillo Cream here?
- Doug Marrone - long lost sibling of Jenna Maroney
- Bill Cubit - That's a Biblical (measurement) name!
- Chip Kelly - he's clearly doing everything he can to make people take him seriously, despite the name.
- Hugh Freeze - I'm just worried one day he'll go insane and try to take out Batman.
- Frank Beamer - although I doubt he drives one. Too obvious.
- Butch Jones - obvsly
- Norm Chow - it's an asian thing...
- David Bailiff - he should coach at msu or nd (zing!)
Honorable mention - Charlie Weis - he''l always be Tuna to me...