The leaves are falling and so are college football head coaches.
Ten, count ’em, ten head coaches have already been fired and we aren’t even in the ninth week of the season.
The knives are out, and tempers are boiling after LSU’s 31-24 loss Saturday at Vanderbilt in a matchup of ranked Southeastern Conference football teams.
The noise on the internet is that Brian Kelly, the Tigers’ fourth-year head coach, is a bum, never should’ve been hired and should be fired immediately. And those are the kind comments.
I understand LSU fans are upset. LSU was being touted by LSU coaches and players before the season as a serious contender for the national championship, and the Tigers have been underwhelming in putting together a 5-2 record. With No. 3 Texas A&M and fourth-ranked Alabama on the schedule as the next two opponents, the future doesn’t look bright.
In a time when we expect instant gratification in everything, many are calling for LSU to find the $50-plus million to buy out the remainder of Kelly’s $10 million per year contract.
Wait a minute, please. Take a few slow, deep breaths.
There’s something to be said for patience as opposed to impatience or contrariness. Patience can lead to stability, and stability can lead to confidence, and confidence can lead to success. Impatience can lead to hurried, irrational choices, which can lead to chaos, which can lead to failure.
Bear with me. I started in the sportswriting business five decades ago, and I remember it as a time of stability for successful head coaches at the time. Woody Hayes, until a sideline eruption with a player, coached 28 years at Ohio State. Bear Bryant coached 25 years at Alabama. Louisiana Sports Hall of Famer Eddie Robinson coached at Grambling for 55 years over two stints, starting in 1941 and ending in ’97. Vince Dooley coached 25 years at Georgia.
Frank Broyles coached 19 years at Arkansas. Charlie McClendon coached 18 years at LSU.
Here’s one to ponder: Frank Beamer coached 29 seasons at Virginia Tech, but that never would’ve happened in today’s impatient college football environment. Why? Because he had a rough go of things through his first six seasons, with records of 2-9, 3-8, 6-4, 6-5, 5-6 and 2-8-1.
No way he would’ve survived with that record today. Why do I say that? One of the coaches who have already been fired this season is Brent Pry, in his fourth season at Virginia Tech. He was fired after his team lost its first three games. His overall record at Virginia Tech was 13-25. Frank Beamer’s overall record at Virginia Tech through the first three games of his fourth season was 12-23.
Patience with Beamer paid off for Virginia Tech back then (his tenure was from 1987-2015) as he finished with a career record of 235-120-2, including multiple 10-win seasons, 23 straight bowl games and advancing to a national championship game with 13 victories in 2000.
It’s rare to find a head coach now who has spent as much as 25 years at one school, although Kirk Ferentz is in his 27th season at Iowa. At the NCAA Division III level, Geno DeMarco is in his 33rd and final season at Geneva College, located in Beaver Falls, Pa., home of Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Namath.
Also in Division III, former LCU foe Pete Fredenburg coached for 24 seasons at Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, Texas, before retiring after the ’21 season.
The longest active tenure among SEC coaches belongs to Kentucky’s Mark Stoops, who is in his 13th season with the Wildcats. He is the winningest coach in Kentucky’s football history and has survived a two-year probation from the spring of ’21 to March of ’22. He has 79 victories in his time at UK, but that includes a 10-win season in 2021 that was vacated as part of the probation due to a violation where at least 11 players were paid for work they did not perform.
One of those 10 coaches already fired this season is Billy Napier at Florida, the same guy many LSU fans were wishing would’ve been hired out of Louisiana-Lafayette by LSU after the 2021 season instead of Kelly.
Which is a reminder that you’ve got to be careful what you wish for. The urge to purge might not result in a surge.