Ranking Pac-10 football coaches
July 25, 2008
By Jake Sudderth
As football season nears the Tyrone Willingham watch is on. Willingham took over a waning program in a competitive conference. He has led Washington to an 11-25 record and a paltry 6 conference wins in 3 years. Willingham is always mentioned as a coach in trouble when commentators around the nation assess the current state of big time college football.
Willingham proponents argue that the coach deserves 5 years to ensure that his players (those he recruited and managed personally) have time to mature and play the Willingham way. They also point to talented quarterback Jake Locker and maintain that the future of Washington's program is bright.
However, improvement in sports is relative and competition is often the barometer. When assessing the current Willingham legacy and his potential for future success the evidence is not in his favor. He has the second worst career record among current Pac-10 coaches, only Arizona's Mike Stoops is worse, and he is the 3rd highest paid, making him a major disappointment if he fails at Washington.
Below we rank the Pac-10 coaches in order of perceived talent.
1. Pete Carroll, USC
Carroll is the best paid coach in the conference but his deal is not known precisely because he works for a private institution that is not required to release such data to the media. The best guess is that he earns just under $3 million a year and his record while at USC has been exceptional. Carroll has also had the good fortune of competing against some weak coaches at UCLA and working in a city that lacks pro football making his profile even higher. His talent gathering is exceptional and many Pac-10 competitors probably hope he takes a job in the pro football in the future so he stops embarrassing them.
2. Arizona State's Dennis Erickson
Erickson is the fifth highest paid coach in the conference and his is clearly the best deal on the market. His resume is tremendous and his only real negative is that he has a penchant for accepting new positions at inopportune times. After his latest move from Moscow, Idaho to the Valley of the Sun it appears the mobile Erickson, who has 158 career college wins and pro football experience, is unlikely to go anywhere else soon. With 12 seasons of 9 or more wins to his credit Arizona State should be competitive in the tough Pac-10 during his tenure. Erickson does not "rebuild." He just wins and does so quickly.
3. California's Jeff Tedford
If California suffers through another conference collapse this year; Tedford's location on this list will drop significantly. Critics will wonder why his recruiting and flash is not matched by results. He and former boss, Oregon's Mike Bellotti, have nearly the same winning percentage and they both sport high-flying offenses and sophisticated passing games. Tedford receives a slight edge here because he took over a terrible program and Bellotti became head coach after former coach Rich Brooks spent years building a winning attitude in Eugene. Having major donors like Nike's Philip Knight in your corner does not hurt either.
4. Oregon's Mike Bellotti
This is also a big year for Bellotti. He was not popular with numerous fans in Eugene who felt he was simply mediocre until his 2005 and 2007 teams won big on the field. He also has experienced difficulty beating Oregon State. However, his teams are usually competitive and really play well at home. Bellotti's recruiting has also improved. He now picks up blue-chip talent across the Far West, something that required years of building. Just five years ago programs with more storied histories (Washington for example) easily out recruited Oregon every year. Times have changed.
5. UCLA's Rick Neuheisel
While unpopular in Boulder, Seattle, Eugene, and various other stops on the college football highway, Neuheisel has a solid record. At Washington he was 33-16 and 23-9 in conference and he figured out how to consistently beat other schools in the Pacific Northwest, a feat his two successors have not been able to match. Neuheisel has plenty of experience at Colorado, Washington, and in the NFL to be a successful coach at UCLA. The California talent pool is strong and his strong crew of assistant coaches should help him finally deliver some competition to USC and Pete Carroll. Neuheisel usually makes big splashes. Expect his team to do something spectacular this year or next. Eventually, Washington fans are going to have to accept that Slick Rick did not leave the football program bare. Coaches that followed have done an awful job and university leadership in the wake of the NCAA betting scandal was lacking.
6. Oregon State's Mike Riley
Riley is a bargain. His annual compensation is half of what some coaches in the conference make and he wins bowl games (4-0). The former Corvallis prep star coached at Oregon State for two years before Dennis Erickson arrived and put Corvallis on the football map. I do not buy that Erickson took Riley's foundation (3-8 one year and 5-6 the next) and reaped the benefits. I think Erickson turned the school into a winner. After returning after coaching in San Diego for three years (14-34) and serving as an assistant in New Orleans for a year Riley reaped the benefits of following Erickson. His record during his second stint is 39-24 but he has never quite made it to the top of the conference during an era of USC dominance. However, if Riley continues winning he will move up this list.
7. Stanford's Jim Harbaugh
Harbaugh should frighten some of his Pac-10 brethren. His record (which includes a stint at San Diego State) is 33-14 and he fielded an awful Stanford team last year that managed to defeat USC and somehow win 3 additional games. He is like Neuheisel because he speaks his mind and manages to offend former allies. He even managed to anger people at his Alma matter, Michigan, by poking fun at the academic programs available to football players. Harbaugh is a positive thinking freak and if he can cultivate enough true believers in Palo Alto Stanford could make some noise in the near future.
8. Washington's Tyrone Willingham
If Willingham fails at Washington he will not be able to point to a lack of support. His sorrowful conference record (6-20) and his ability to drive players out of the program is legendary. Yet, Washington President Mark Emmert has resisted firing him. Willingham's future appears to ride on the success of his offense which is good for him because quarterback Jake Locker is playing in a conference that lacks experienced quarterbacks this year. Willingham has an abysmal bowl record (1-5) but Washington fans would be ecstatic just to qualify for a bowl this year. Things have changed on Montlake. Empty seats abound.
9. Mike Stoops, Arizona
Stoops is hard to figure. He recruits well, his brother (the coach at Oklahoma) wins, and his teams always seem ready to have a breakout season. In fact, sometimes they do not even wake up until late in the season. Patience in Tucson is very thin and Stoops is in danger of losing his job. But, like Willingham, he returns a veteran quarterback, Willie Tuitama, and his record is better at Arizona (17-29, 12-22 in conference) than Willingham's. The latter would have to win 6 conference games this year to match Stoop's 4-year total. Willingham is ranked higher because of his overall record (76-76-1) and because of his previous success (32-25 in conference) at Stanford.
Unranked:
10. Paul Wulff, Washington State
My first inclination was to rank Wulff 8th because of his solid record and in-conference success at Eastern Washington. However, he has not coached a conference game yet and he lacks depth at WSU. If Wulff can build something solid in Pullman he will move up this list quickly. He appears to be a positive thinking guru like Harbaugh. Perhaps they can get together and shout at each other the night before their team's face-off.
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