Jul 14th, 2010
Dennis Erickson is the only Pac-10 coach with a national championship on his head coaching resume -- Photo Getty Images
The short-attention-span generation has fallen in love with lists, and we don’t want to be labeled as old-fashioned (even though we own a stack of LPs) or out of date (It’s 1967, right?) or obsolete (bring back rotary phones, I say).
So with the start of preseason college football camps fast approaching, we offer our little appraisal of the Pac-10 coaches
There is no manual for the criteria to use to rank coaches (although we may write one). You can find some rationale to claim greatness for nearly every coach in Division I-A.
It’s like the NCAA Tournament basketball selection committee. We get the sense committee members select teams based on a whim, then look down the endless list of criteria until they find one to justify the choice when the media ask.
Being able to excite the players with a pregame speech is not a criterion on our list, but this one immortalized Knute Rockne. Imagine Jeff Tedford hitting his players with this speech before a game:
No matter what criteria are used, however, only one name deserves to be on top in the Pac-10. Two through nine are open for debate. Not the No. 1 spot. Or the No. 10 spot, for that matter.
So we present our choices in reverse order, along with their approximate yearly salaries, just so you can see how grossly overpaid they are:
10. Paul Wulff, Washington State ($600,000) – Winning consistently in Pullman is a bordering on impossible, and Wulff took over a program that was lower than a sports writer’s IQ (see, we can be self-deprecating). But there is no justification for a two-year record of 2-22 against Division I-A opposition, with both wins coming in overtime.
9. Lane Kiffin, USC ($4 million, or somewhere around there) – We admit Kiffin could turn out to be the best of the bunch, but let’s just look at the accomplishments. He went 7-6 at Tennessee, and they don’t build stadiums that seat 109,000 people for 7-6. Two more 7-6 seasons would have landed Kiffin in unemployment. Which is what Kiffin was after going 5-15 as head coach of the Raiders. A career head-coaching record of 12-21 does not put you at the head of the class even if it’s a class of sports writers.
8. Chip Kelly, Oregon ($1.5 million) – We can hear the cries all the way from New Hampshire: “Are you crazy? We want a refund on our JakesTakeOnSprts subscription. How in the name of Knute Rockne can a guy whose team went to the Rose Bowl in his first season and was named Pac-10 coach of the year be ranked No. 8?” Well, we admit there is room for debate on this one. But we have an unwritten tenet (we can write it down, if you like) that a single season tells you little about a head coach’s ability. The Gary Crowton story is a cautionary tale. In his first year at BYU, the Cougars started 12-0 and were ranked No. 9, and Crowton was hailed as a genius (admission requirements to the genius realm have been lowered significantly over the past 30 years). BYU proceeded to lose its final two games that season, went 5-7, 4-8 and 5-6 the next three and Crowton was fired. Kelly took over a program that had been built by Mike Bellotti, and all the pieces were in place. Inertia helped Kelly as much as anything. If Kelly does it again in 2010 and 2011, we’ll change our tune. For now, we see potential for decline.
7. Dennis Erickson, Arizona State ($1.5 million) – We can hear the folks in Miami: “So you had to confirm your stupidity by putting Erickson this low, right? Don’t you know he led Miami to two national championship and coached an Oregon State team to a Fiesta Bowl victory?” Well, yeah, we knew all that stuff, but we also noticed that Erickson took over programs just when they were peaking, and they often began a slow decline after he had been there awhile. We can’t claim all his success was based on timing, but the Arizona State situation is a worthy example. The personnel and schedule lined perfectly in Erickson’s first season, when the Sun Devils went 10-3. They’ve gone 5-7 and 4-8 the past two years, and we expects more signs of downward mobility in 2010.
6. Rick Neuheisel, UCLA ($1.27 million) – Our appraisal here is similar to that of Erickson. Neuheisel did great his first two seasons at Colorado when the program was already national caliber, but the Buffaloes began to decline in his final two years. At Washington, which had a tradition of success when he arrived, Neuheisel again did well at the start before things started to deteriorate. He’s 6-12 in Pac-10 play in two seasons at UCLA, which used to be a conference powerhouse.
5. Steve Sarkisian, Washington (1.8 million) – We admit we are defying our own tenet (see Chip Kelly) by placing Sarkisian at No. 5. So sue us. He took over a program that was nearly as low as Washington State’s and brought it to respectability in his first season. We expect to see further progress this season. This pick is based more on a hunch that evidence, and we may be eating crow if the Huskies sink to the bottom again when Jake Locker departs.
4. Mike Stoops, Arizona ($1.26 million) – Putting a coach who was nearly fired two years ago ahead of Erickson, Kelly and Neuheisel may seem ridiculous. Maybe it is. But we look at the Wildcats’ progression under Stoops. The Wildcats went 2-6 in the conference his first two years, 4-5 the next two, 5-4 in year No. 5 and 6-3 in 2009. Even someone who flunked algebra three times can detect the trend here. This season will go a long way toward forming our opinion of Stoops, especially since he will be working with two new coordinators.
3. Jim Harbaugh, Stanford ($1.4 million, but that’s just a guess) -- Ranking Harbaugh this high may be premature, but the program has made remarkable strides in his three seasons. Harbaugh is a different animal, and sometimes it’s hard to figure out what he’s doing or thinking or saying, but you need a rare beast to win at Stanford. He complains about officials the way a guy sitting in front of the tube might, and he had no problem tweaking the nose of the untweakable Pete Carroll. (What’s your deal?) We expect him to recognize and recruit topflight quarterbacks as long as he stays at Stanford, although that may not be long.
2. Jeff Tedford, Cal ($2.8 million) – Three years ago there would be no complaint about putting Tedford this high. In fact, he might have challenged our No. 1 man. The last few years have not been so hot by Tedford standards, though, causing a few whispers about Tedford’s job security. They are whispers born out of ignorance, however. The Bears went 8-5 in 2009 and Tedford got ripped. If Cal had gone 8-5 10 years ago, Bears fans would be freaking out that Tedford might go elsewhere. Nothing less than a Rose Bowl berth will satisfy Cal alumni now, which indicates what Tedford has built. The Bears have played in bowl games the last seven years in row. Before Tedford’s arrival they had played in only five bowls since their Rose Bowl appearance following the 1958 season.
1. Mike Riley, Oregon State ($1.2 million) – Without question the biggest bargain in college football coaching, Riley has done more with less than anyone in the conference and perhaps anyone in the country. It’s hard to describe to people under 25 just how hopeless Oregon State football was before Riley came along. He laid the groundwork for the Beavers team Erickson took to the Fiesta Bowl, and every Riley team seems to exceed expectations. The past four seasons, the Beavers have finished second, second, third and third in the Pac-10, and they ended up just one game out of first place in those two third-place seasons. Oregon State always ranks near the bottom of the conference in recruiting rankings, and Corvallis is not exactly the destination of choice for future pros or coaches interested in fame. But Riley stays in his hometown despite plenty of opportunities to take higher profile jobs. Plus, he may be the most honest, straightforward, down-to-earth coach in the country. Aside from all that, he’s a bum.
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