The season's barely halfway over, and seven programs are already in the market for their next head coaches. We'll update this ranking as more join in.
Say you're soon to be looking for a head coaching job in college football. You want an FBS job. You want a job at the best available program, where you'll have the resources to win consistently for a long time. Where would you go?
The answer depends in part on your geography and on your system, of course. Whether you're from the Southeast or California or elsewhere will impact things, as will whether you believe you're a fit for an academic power or an NFL Draft factory.
But, all those things being equal, how do you rank all the currently available jobs? Which would you have your agent call first? Three of us have more or less agreed on consensus rankings of all the spots now open, and we'll update it over time as more become available.
There are only seven right now, and No. 1 and No. 7 are both pretty obvious, so how about the middle five?
1. USC
Former coach: Steve Sarkisian
Bud: My No. 1 is USC, and I'm not sure we even need to debate it. Conservatively, USC is a top-five job, and following Lane Kiffin and Sark is relatively easy. Plus, that roster is one or two recruiting classes away from being as good as any in the country.
2. South Carolina
Former coach: Steve Spurrier
Bud: South Carolina paid Spurrier $1.5 million more per year than Miami paid Al Golden and $1.9 million more than Maryland paid Randy Edsall. While a coach might be able to win bigger at Miami, that gap is simply too much to overcome. But if the money is even, I'm switching.
Bill: You could obviously make a case for Miami at No. 2 because we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you can win titles there. And the advantages of recruiting within that base are obvious. But Spurrier won just enough at South Carolina, and came just close enough to winning more (while going 33-6 from 2011-13, the Cocks lost three games by a total of seven points) to suggest that there isn't much of a ceiling. Add that to the money argument, and you end up ranking South Carolina ahead of Miami.
3. Miami
Former coach: Al Golden
Steven: All right Bud, I spent a weekend with Luther Campbell last month, and he made his case for why Miami football can and should rise again. So you tell me why it isn't a good job for a top-flight head coaching candidate like Tom Herman or Justin Fuente.
Bud: If Miami can make the money close to South Carolina, it will be my No. 2. Good luck convincing your spouse that accepting $1.5 million less per year is the right move. That's the most important issue here. There's little evidence the program has money. The school is certainly rich, but the athletic department seems like a different story.
Steven: Someone will take the chance. Miami still has the most upside of any open job east of USC.
-- Excerpted from a longer discussion on Miami's unique challenges
4. Maryland
Former coach: Randy Edsall
Bill: The biggest question is the difference between potential and production. We hear a lot about the potential of this job, the Under Armour money, the recruiting base, BTN money, etc.
But while UA and BTN are new developments, the recruiting base isn't. And you're still looking at a program that has had a couple of short bursts (1976-78, 1982-85, 2001-03) and little else. If I'm considering that job, I need pretty good answers regarding why no one since Jim Tatum has succeeded long term and why things are different now.
5. UCF
Former coach: George O'Leary
Steven: For a young coach, Central Florida has a better upside than some power programs (Illinois, for example). You can recruit Florida athletes to a Florida FBS school that has a new-ish stadium, strong financial support and a rapidly expanding university with America's largest undergraduate base.
Consider that O'Leary (paid $1.7 million annually, about the same as Tim Beckman at Illinois) won a Fiesta Bowl at UCF; now apply the new AAC blueprint of young, aggressive hires to talent-rich areas like Houston and Memphis. The Knights could be a perennial mid-major power.
Bud: UCF over Illinois. The money is similar, and the talent around the program is much better.
Bill: I think I would still vote Illinois over UCF, but I'm okay being overruled.
6. Illinois
Former coach: Tim Beckman
Steven: Illinois is a quintessential Big Ten have-not. That means it's got to solve the impossible riddle of recruiting talent to a cold-weather town without having a national brand or the available resources. But hey, it's still a job close to a major media market with plenty of exposure, and the conference TV coffers are only getting fatter.
Bill: Everything I said about Maryland rings true for Illinois, too. The Fighting Illini have BTN money and are near Chicago and St. Louis. They're a sleeping giant!
A sleeping giant that has finished in the AP top 20 four times in 51 years. That's comatose. A great hire could do great things in Champaign. A good hire will probably go 8-5 a couple of times and eventually get fired.
7. North Texas
Former coach: Dan McCarney
Steven: There's no rationale for an FBS program in the DFW Metroplex to be this bad, ever. UNT offers great facilities relative to its Conference USA rivals because it's in Texas, where you're building not just to lure recruits, but to stay a step ahead of the high schools they're coming from. Dan McCarney was the fourth-highest paid HC in the C-USA, so the money's there. You're also sitting an interstate exit away from a pile of talent that's deep even after Power 5 programs get theirs.
UNT needs to shake off the PTSD of the Todd Dodge era and go back to Texas. Don't hire a high school coach outright, but copy the Chad Morris SMU blueprint and get a current college assistant who's well connected with local preps.
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