10 college football coaches who were better off as big fish in little ponds

3. Tom Herman

Tom Herman was one of the brightest offensive minds in the country before he got his first head coaching job at Houston, leading Ohio State to a few successful seasons in a row.

At Houston, he found immediate success, going 22-4 over two seasons and he won 13 games in his first year with a New Year's Six bowl win. Every major program in the country had eyes on him and he opted to take on one of the toughest jobs with the highest expectations: Texas.

While at Texas, he won 10 games in his second season, showing vast improvement from a 7-6 initial year. The following season, he went just 8-5 and then the Longhorns took another step back, winning seven games in 2020 with a mediocre 7-3 conference record. No, it wasn't a horrible record, but he was falling way short of expectations in Austin.

Herman finally took another job in 2023 after a two-season break and he went 4-8 at Florida Atlantic, but if his past success in the Group of Five is any indication of what we can expect, the Owls will make a big turnaround with him at the helm.

Maybe he'll have a Lane Kiffin-type career turnaround.