The season is just around the corner and before we start heavily digging into the 2017 Fighting Irish let’s first review all of the new head coaches across the country.

Group of 5

Cincinnati, Luke Fickell

The soon-to-be 44-year old heads down the 71 after spending 20 out of the last 23 seasons at Ohio State as a player and coach. The 4-year reign of Tommy Tuberville took the Bearcats in a poor direction winning just 6 out of their last 17 games. The Brian Kelly/Butch Jones eras suddenly feel like a long time ago.

Connecticut, Randy Edsall

As expected, Edsall’s 4.5 years at Maryland (10-24 in the ACC) were terrible. UConn had the gall to fire Bob Diaco and turned to Edsall for a second tenure in Storrs. He went 74-70 with the Huskies the first time around.

Florida Atlantic, Lane Kiffin

Lane Kiffin is still just 42 and this is his 4th head coaching gig (Raiders, Tennessee, USC) and this one is the hard fall down the ranks. The former FAU coach was Charlie Partridge who you couldn’t pick out of a lineup and he went 9-27 for 3 seasons.

Florida International, Butch Davis

He’s back after a 6-year absence in the head coaching ranks. Although he has a penchant for doing less with more, FIU was briefly a hot program in 2010-11 before making some really dumb coaching decisions.

Fresno State, Jeff Tedford

His former job opened up this off-season (see below) but he’ll be spending time a few hours to the southwest in California after taking a 4-year break from being a head coach. The tenure of recently fired Tim DeRutyer had some of the biggest peaks and valleys you’ll ever see culminating in a cratering 1-11 last year.

Georgia State, Shawn Elliott

First-time full-time head coach (he was Spurrier’s interim coach) who spent the last 7 years with the Gamecocks of South Carolina. Former Notre Dame wideout coach Trent Miles spent almost 4 full seasons here and besides a nice 2015 really struggled.

Houston, Major Applewhite

The former Longhorn sat out coaching in 2014 after taking a severance package when Charlie Strong was hired. The last two seasons he was Houston’s OC and became the head coach after Herman left for Texas. Full circle! Applewhite took over for the bowl game and got beat handily by San Diego State. Not a great sign?

Nevada, Jay Norvell

Brian Polian was fired and came immediately back to Notre Dame, opening things up for Norvell’s 4th team in 4 seasons after stints at Oklahoma, Texas, and Arizona State. This will be his first head coaching gig at a sneaky old 54-years of age.

San Jose State, Brent Brennan

A long-time wide receiver coach for Cal-Poly, SJSU, and Oregon State he now returns to Silicon Valley for his first head coaching job. Former coach Ron Caragher had a mediocre 4 seasons with the Spartans especially during a down period in the Mountain West conference.

Temple, Geoff Collins

We covered Collins in our Temple preview a few months ago as he’ll open his tenure in Notre Dame Stadium in a matter of weeks. He comes to Philadelphia after a pair of 2-year DC stints at Mississippi State and Florida.

USF, Charlie Strong

Swiftly fired after 3 poor seasons at Texas we saw Charlie land quickly on his feet with a decent job in the AAC. Willie Taggart caught fire and made the USF job a little more high profile.

Western Kentucky, Mike Sanford, Jr.

Our friend is on to his first head coaching gig at the ripe age of 35 years old. Expectations are high in Bowling Green after a 23-5 record over the last two years. Good luck, Mike!

Western Michigan, Tim Lester

Lester was a record-setting quarterback for the Broncos in the late 90’s and came back briefly as an assistant in the mid-2000’s. The last couple years he was an assistant with Syracuse and Purdue and now gets the honor of following up the best season in school history!

Power 5

Baylor, Matt Rhule

It’s been quite the meteoric rise for Rhule who spent 10 out of the last 11 years at Temple, the last 4 as the head coach. He finishes his career with the Owls on a school-record 20-7 run and parlays that into an interesting job with one of the best Big 12 programs of the last 10 years.

California, Justin Wilcox

The Bears are doing a 180 after being a traditionally offensive minded school in modern times they’ve hired a successful defensive coordinator in Justin Wilcox to run the show. He’s been the DC at some big schools (Boise State, Tennessee, Washington, USC, Wisconsin) which is impressive for his age of 40 years old.

Indiana, Tom Allen

Kevin Wilson was finishing up his sneaky long 6th season in Bloomington last fall when he was abruptly fired in early December, later coming out due to player treatment issues. Indiana stunned the country anointing Tom Allen (hired as DC just 11 months prior) as the new head coach.

LSU, Ed Orgeron

Les Miles was almost fired (kinda fired?) after the 2015 season but rose from the dead. He was canned after 4 games last year and LSU went with the somewhat controversial route of making Ed Orgeron the permanent head coach after an interim 6-2 finish to 2016. This is his second permanent head coaching position after a really, really bad stint (3-21, although this was the height of SEC power) at Ole Miss.

Minnesota, P.J. Fleck

The Fleckster cashed in a school-record 13-1 record at Western Michigan not with a high profile job but a somewhat curious move to the northern Midwest. Minnesota has been going through some weird times with the retirement of Jerry Kill and interim-turned-full-turned-fired head coach Tracy Claeys who got 19 games with the Gophers. Fleck brought his Row the Boat and a bunch of recruits with him to Minneapolis.

Oklahoma, Lincoln Riley

The latest new head coach (not even 6 weeks ago!) has some very large shoes to fill after Bob Stoops stepped away from the game suddenly. Riley, who had been the Sooners OC for the past 2 seasons, played at Texas Tech and was an assistant there for 7 seasons.

Oregon, Willie Taggart

Going from nearly fired in October 2015 while at USF to the king of Nike’s money at Oregon was one hell of an off-season move for Taggart. This is his 8th season as head coach and third program overall. A reminder that Mark Helfrich went from the National Title game to finish 2014 all the way to 4-8 last year in his best Larry Coker impression.

Purdue, Jeff Brohm

Brohm had been simmering as a former player and assistant at Louisville before slowly making his way up the ranks and landing the Western Kentucky job. Three years and 30 wins later he’s off to Purdue. The Boilers haven’t won 8 games since 2007 and haven’t won 9 games since 2003.

Texas, Tom Herman

It’s been a fun 5 year ride for Herman from Iowa State OC to Ohio State OC and Houston head coach. Following a super quick 22-4 run with the Cougars he’s now under one of the brightest spotlights in the country.

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Superlatives

Classic Buy Low Category: Justin Wilcox

Injecting some defense at Cal is an intriguing concept. Plus, this stock is pretty damn low (Bears are going on a decade without a great season even for their standards) and with a new Under Armour deal I’m feeling some synergy with their next door neighbor Golden State Warriors. Through some cross-sport osmosis maybe some good things are going to happen.

Don’t Buy Too Much Category: Lincoln Riley

The bombshell retirement was so close to the season–and the Sooners should still be quite good–that there shouldn’t be big problems for 2017. A couple years down the road, we’ll see. Beware!

Let It Breathe Category: Willie Taggart

Oregon is likely going through a larger re-boot than most realize and without super great recruiting to rebuild quickly. Plus, Stanford and Washington look very strong and with coaches who could stick around for many years (unless Petersen wants to come to Notre Dame!!). This could be a terrible hire but maybe in year three things could start to turn around in a big way.

Best Fit Category: Jeff Brohm

Big, super fun offense and chucking the ball all over the place. Modern Purdue is getting back to its roots.

Worst Fit Category: Tom Allen

Props to Allen for improving Indiana’s defense so much last year. But, one year on campus, a weird firing of a coach who was DKGT (Doing Kinda Good Things), and the school never would’ve fired if not for a scandal. They won’t actually fire Allen after one year, though. He signed a 6-year contract!

Worst Re-Boot Category: Randy Edsall

We sometimes think lower programs can find success and just keep growing. A school like UConn is finding out that ceiling is very real. Edsall has little fire in his belly and is now dealing with a nepotism and ethics issue to start his tenure!

Fired First Category: Jay Norvell

He’s never shown signs of being a good head coach and his contract is dirt cheap (less than $2.5 million total for 5 years) which is going to make him as expendable as anyone on this list. And, Reno has that odd mix of being just good enough in the modern era to think they should be a little better than they really should be.