College Football 2018: Grading every new Power 5 coaching hire

Barring an unexpected move, the college football coaching carousel has come to a halt with nine changes among power-five programs.

The opportunity still exists for an unexpected coaching change spurred by an unexpected retirement, a disappointing bowl game, or a coach deciding to make the jump to the NFL. Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley and Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh have been mentioned in NFL coaching circles, and a couple of wildcards in the college ranks remain, so it’s possible that we haven’t seen the last of the coaching changes this offseason.

For now, though, the carousel has come to stop with every power-five job filled. In all, there have been nine head coaching changes among power-five programs so far.

We’ve seen surprise retirements from guys like Urban Meyer and Paul Johnson, a retirement that was probably past due in Bill Snyder, and some well-deserved and maybe one not-so well-deserved termination.

With most programs searching for innovative minds to take their programs to the next level, we also saw a couple of surprising retread hires, while another program spurned what looked like a third to make a far more sensible hire.

Some hires have been great, some have been hard to explain. Some fanbases are happy, some are not; such is the life of the coaching carousel every year. Some really good hires have been met with groans by fans of the team, while some strange decisions have been applauded.

For the most part, save for one really baffling decision, each program made sensible hires that make sense when you dig in.

Let’s take a look at the nine changes, and rank them from worst-to-best while doling out grades for each as well.