Ranking The New Coaches

MeanGreen61 · December 9, 2005

Ranking the new coaches

Ranking 2005's 23 new coaches after their first season:

Charlie Weis, Notre Dame: Restored hope to the hopeless. Gave sight to the blind. Oops, wait. That's Touchdown Jesus.

Weis came close to The Big Guy, though, waking up the echoes and turning Notre Dame into a national contender again. Already, he is the country's best offensive play caller and one of the best game planners.

Les Miles, LSU: Should get coach of the year just for guiding the program through a couple of hurricanes. To get the Tigers into the SEC title game was amazing.

Steve Spurrier, South Carolina: We thought he'd go 5-6 -- at best. Spur Dog is a ahead of the curve with the Cocks in a bowl game in his first year. Look out SEC East.

Urban Meyer, Florida: Don't run this guy out of town, Gator fans. Meyer beat the school's three biggest rivals but lost to South Carolina.

That's progress. Meyer is great at adjusting on the fly. Eight victories in his first season in Gainesville with Zook's players and all those injuries are amazing.

Shane Montgomery, Miami (Ohio): Finished 7-4, tied for MAC East title and destroyed eventual MAC champ Akron.

Kyle Whittingham, Utah: Whittingham was in a no-win situation. A Heisman finalist was leaving. Expectations were through the roof after an undefeated 2004.

After a shaky start, Whittingham kept it together by winning three of the last four, including a win over BYU.

Terry Hoeppner, Indiana: The Hoosiers faded down the stretch but Indiana started 4-2 and beat Kentucky. Better times are ahead.

Bronco Mendenhall, BYU: The Cougars started scoring again, which is weird. Mendenhall is a defensive guy.

Bill Cubit, Western Michigan When Cubit's son Ryan was knocked out, quarterback Tim Hiller came in and became MAC freshman of the year.

Dave Wannstedt, Pittsburgh: Wanny did not restore the roar to the Panthers. An 0-3, including a loss to Ohio, degenerated into a 1-4 start that included a loss to Rutgers.

With a bowl bid on the line, Pittsburgh didn't show up in the finale, losing by 32 at West Virginia.

Frank Solich, Ohio: A nationally televised upset of Pittsburgh gave the Bobcats hope. A messy DUI put Solich's job in jeopardy.

Ed Orgeron, Mississippi: By any measure, Coach O's 3-8 debut was a disappointment. Orgeron needs to find a quarterback and develop some toughness in the lines -- his specialty.

Mark Snyder, Marshall: The news is not good for what used to be the most powerful mid-major. Tied for last in Conference USA East. Three of the seven losses for Snyder were by five points or less.

Skip Holtz, East Carolina: If his name wasn't Holtz, would we care? The Pirates won their last two to finish 5-6.

Brent Guy, Utah State: Life as a head coach (for Guy) and life in the WAC (for Utah State) started with a 3-8 thud. Guy was 3-1 against four other coaches on this list.

Tyrone Willingham, Washington: Barely competitive in Ty's first season. Only one win (Arizona) over a BCS conference team. U-Dub is at an all-time low.

Fortunately for Willingham, it was a lot worse at other places. Read on ...

Walt Harris, Stanford: How does a team go from losing to Cal-Davis to leading Notre Dame with 1:49 left? Harris gets low marks just for confusing us.

Mike Gundy, Oklahoma State: A rookie head coach in the Big 12. Not a good combination. Okie State gave up a combined 153 points to the teams Gundy will have to beat to win the Big 12 South -- Texas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma.

Dick Tomey, San Jose State: Tomey doesn't want to retire and the school doesn't want to drop football, how can we criticize 3-8?

Mike Sanford, UNLV: The spread option produced only 18.8 points. The Rebels (2-9) finished last in the Mountain West.

Ron Zook, Illinois: At least you can't blame Ron Turner anymore. The Illini gave up a school-record 435 points.

Hal Mumme, New Mexico State: A disgraced athletic director (Boston McKinley) hired a disgraced coach. Oh-for-12 was the logical result.

Greg Robinson, Syracuse: Sometimes you make life choices that are horrifically wrong. For Robinson, a career assistant until a 1-10 debut at The Cuse, there's always the NFL.