Sporting News: CUSA Football Coach Rankings

[jdennis82]

Saw this tweeted by Eric Capper but haven't seen it posted here. Enjoy...

No one does bizarre like Conference USA. From the top of the list to the bottom, the stories of how coaches arrived at their jobs are strange at best.

Larry Coker won a national title at Miami, and couldn’t get hired anywhere until UTSA came calling. Skip Holtz had success everywhere he coached, then bottomed out at USF and caught on with LaTech.

Then, of course, there is Ron Turner — merely a longtime respected NFL assistant who decided to take a flier on the FIU job. Crazy, all of it. And that’s just the beginning.

http://www.sportingnews.com/ncaa-football/story/2014-04-20/conference-usa-coach-rankings-larry-coker-skip-holtz-doc-holliday-david-bailiff?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Coach Mac is such an asset to this program. We're seeing the benefits on the field, in the classroom, in the media, and on the staff (with NT becoming an attractive place for assistants to develop and further their careers).

[GrayEagle]

The future of CUSA football is in their coaches. A respected coach such as McCarney, Coker and Holtz is worth the money. I had doubts about Bailiff and Stockstill but they are doing a nice job. Everyone else is pretty much potential. Solid coaches who have yet to excel as a college head coach. An established head coach usually can put together a very good staff and good coordinators and position coaches can really accelerate a program's rise.

The second key is talent. Good coaches attract good talent but so can good recruiters. The AAC drained the talent level of CUSA by taking the best teams but there is still plenty of talent out there to be developed by good coaches. The key word here is develop because if the proposed changes go into effect the established talent will go to the P5 schools and the future all-americans will look to coaching staffs that can mold and motivate them into reaching their potential.

To regain respect CUSA needs to quickly build three or four programs into perennial Top 50 teams. I would hope that one of them is Rice since they have a noted academic reputation. I think that Southern Mississippi, Louisiana Tech, North Texas and UTSA are strong candidates...Southern Miss and La Tech because they've had good success in the past and North Texas and UTSA because they have good, older coaches who may very well stay at those universities until they retire, regardless of success.

Every team in CUSA needs to play their part by not being a "weak sister". Ideally, we don't need any team ranked below 100 in any year. That lends itself to good competition, attendance and reputation. An annual bottom feeder pulls down the conference.

[Mean Green 93-98]

By and large, they did a good job on this ranking, and provided good rationale. My ranking:

1. Larry Coker. National championship. What he has done at UTSA in such a short time is nothing short of remarkable. And the fact that he beat Coach Mac in the third year of their program's existence gives him the edge over Coach Mac, if the other factors don't.

2. Coach Mac.

3. Rick Stocksill. Every time I think he has started to lose his touch, he comes back with another great year.

4. David Bailiff. He has pretty much kept going what Todd Graham started, which is significant when you consider how bad it had gotten at the end of the Hatfield era. Plus, Bailiff is much classier than Todd Graham--I will always appreciate his tender restraint in not running up the score to 100 against us back in Dodge's 2nd (I think) year.

5. Bobby Wilder. What he has done at ODU is very comparable to what Coker has done at UTSA.

6. Doc Holliday. I have some doubts about his game day coaching ability, but he has made Marshall perhaps the class of C-USA.

7. Skip Holtz. I agree that he has done some impressive things in the past, but he has really looked lost since leaving ECU.

8. Charlie Partridge. Good recruiter, and he's already started proving that in his short time at FAU. We'll have to see how he is as a game day head coach.

9. Todd Monken. Southern Miss is awful, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt based on what he inherited.

10. (Tie) Jeff Brohm and the new UAB guy. I know nothing about them as coaches. But they have to be better than the last two.

12. Sean Kugler. Good NFL assistant. Bad college football HC.

13. Ron Turner. Good NFL OC. TERRIBLE college football HC in every facet.

Edited April 29, 2014 by Mean Green 93-98

[Ben Gooding]

The future of CUSA football is in their coaches. A respected coach such as McCarney, Coker and Holtz is worth the money. I had doubts about Bailiff and Stockstill but they are doing a nice job. Everyone else is pretty much potential. Solid coaches who have yet to excel as a college head coach. An established head coach usually can put together a very good staff and good coordinators and position coaches can really accelerate a program's rise.

The second key is talent. Good coaches attract good talent but so can good recruiters. The AAC drained the talent level of CUSA by taking the best teams but there is still plenty of talent out there to be developed by good coaches. The key word here is develop because if the proposed changes go into effect the established talent will go to the P5 schools and the future all-americans will look to coaching staffs that can mold and motivate them into reaching their potential.

To regain respect CUSA needs to quickly build three or four programs into perennial Top 50 teams. I would hope that one of them is Rice since they have a noted academic reputation. I think that Southern Mississippi, Louisiana Tech, North Texas and UTSA are strong candidates...Southern Miss and La Tech because they've had good success in the past and North Texas and UTSA because they have good, older coaches who may very well stay at those universities until they retire, regardless of success.

Every team in CUSA needs to play their part by not being a "weak sister". Ideally, we don't need any team ranked below 100 in any year. That lends itself to good competition, attendance and reputation. An annual bottom feeder pulls down the conference.

Solid, knowledgable post.

[jdennis82]

By and large, they did a good job on this ranking, and provided good rationale. My ranking:

6. Doc Holliday. I have some doubts about his game day coaching ability, but he has made Marshall perhaps the class of C-USA.

7. Skip Holtz. I agree that he has done some impressive things in the past, but he has really looked lost since leaving ECU.

I agree with your assessment completely. Wanted to highlight these two..

Doc Holliday - As Gray Eagle noted, CUSA needs some headline grabbing programs and Holliday is at the helm of the most likely this year. With a hugely successful year, the Thundering Herd can find themselves getting national notoriety to the degree Northern Illinois and Jordan Lynch were last year. Since they're not on our schedule until they come to Denton for the CUSA championship game, I'm hoping they have a monster year.

Skip Holtz - I thought he was overrated by this ranking because of your point. Seems it's largely name recognition and reputation still remaining from his East Carolina days. Because so much of staff crossed paths (either in passing as either party were coming/going or by working together there) with him at USF, I'm sure they'd have a unique perspective on him and his program management.

[UNT90]

Just a feeling, but I think you will see Partridge make a huge jump on that list after this upcoming season.