With the college football regular season over, it’s time to look back and evaluate the new power-five head coaches in 2018 and hand out final report cards.
The coaching carousel is off and running for this cycle, so now is the perfect time to look back at last season’s cycle and evaluate the coaches who took their first turn at their new programs.
There were 12 head coaching changes at the power-five level last offseason, with some big names switching teams, some first time head coaches, and some familiar faces returning to the college game.
Some of the expected home run hires turned out to be early duds, while some of the more lamented moves have seemingly worked out okay so far. None of them were seriously on the hot seat after just one season, but a second consecutive lackluster campaign could see the heat rise next offseason, culminating in a make-or-break third season in 2020 for some.
Fanbases and administrations are growing less and less patient with new coaches, expecting early returns to bring back relevancy to their programs. Athletic Directors have shorter leashes than ever now, too, which in turn leads to panic firings after small sample sizes because making one wrong move could have them on the unemployment line as well.
It’s important to not overreact to year one results, positively or negatively. Nick Saban’s first Alabama team went 7-6; Jim McElwain won 10 games in his first season at Florida. One bad year doesn’t always mean incompetence, while one good year doesn’t always breed long-term success.
With that in mind, let’s grade the new power-five head coaches based on their first year, while ranking them from worst-to-best.