WHAT IS THE NUMBER OF NEW HEAD COACHES FOR COLLEGE FOOTBALL HIRING?.

Pete Fiutak on X | CFN on XCollege Football News on FacebookI don’t know Jonathan Smith.He’s supposedly a good guy, and hopefully he becomes the new Mark Dantonio for a Michigan State program that would love nothing more than to be settled at head coach for the next decade.I know Jeff Lebby well enough to spell it Leddy every single time I type it – including just now. Hopefully he becomes a superstar at Mississippi State and turns it into an SEC superpower.Hopefully Mike Elko is the one to finally make Texas A&M as good as all of its promise and potential.Hopefully Kalen DeBoer keeps this Alabama machine rolling.Hopefully all the new college football head coaching hires win lots and lots of games, do wonders for their respective schools, make the fan bases happy, have stadiums/streets/babies named after them, and …Hopefully the buyouts are only in the low seven figures instead of eight.

Nothing against Smith, or Elko, or DeBoer, or Lebby, or Leddy – boo hoo; their great-great-grandkids are set for life – but a bulk of the new hires aren’t going to work.Maybe they will. Maybe one becomes the next Dabo or Kirby.The odds are far better, though, that they become the next Holgorsen, or Arnett, or … Kalen DeBoer, and it works so well that the coach goes off to something bigger.It’s really, really, really, really, REALLY hard to be a winning college football head coach, and it’s even harder to keep him around if he’s succeeding enough to be wanted by the bigger jobs.This is why if you have one who wins a whole bunch – speaking to you, Penn State and Ohio State fans – you thank your personal gods that you have a guy who can bring Ws, and realize that it isn’t normal.As grouchy as many are right now, ask USC fans what life was like before Lincoln Riley showed up. Ask Texas fans how hard it is to win at a big-time spot. Ask Florida’s fans how easy it is to win at a superpower program.Hopefully you’ve done various wellness checks on your Nebraska loved ones over the last few seasons. So how should we define a coaching hire that “works” or succeeds – at least enough to make most reasonable fans happy?To be loose about it, at the higher levels – and not at a traditional now-Power Four doormat program – the coach should 1) last at least three seasons, and 2) win six out of every ten games. That doesn’t seem like too much to ask for, right?60% keeps the heat off. 60% gets you to a restaurant-quality bowl. 60% means there are enough wins to bring hope for the near future. Dip below that, and usually a head coach – especially at a big spot – is a three-game losing streak away from uh-oh. Of course, some programs have a hard time winning big on a regular basis, much less get to a 60% winning clip. It’s hard to say that the latest Greg Schiano (40.4%) run at Rutgers isn’t “working” after he got the program to a bowl game. Missouri sure is happy with Eliah Drinkwitz (57.1%) right now.However, three seasons, 60% wins. That might seem like a low bar – especially for the big programs – but it’s harder to hit than you might think.Let’s start here. How many college football head coaches have been at the same school for more than five years – so, started in 2019? With Chip Kelly now gone at UCLA, Nick Saban retiring, and Jim Harbaugh a Charger, to go along with several other openings, we’re at 34. 34 out of 134 coaches have lived up to the stability-myth that every athletic department keeps striving for.Now, out of those 34, how many have won 60% or more of their games? Again, that shouldn’t be a tough mark to hit. Win 7ish games a year. Not 13-0, not 11-2.14.A mere 14 college football head coaches have won 60% or more of their games at the same spot for at least five seasons, and two of the really shouldn’t count because one (Keeler) had just one year at the FBS level and another (Bohannon) is just getting up to the FBS now.Ryan Day, Ohio State 87.5 Kirby Smart, Georgia 85.5%Dabo Swinney, Clemson 79.8% KC Keeler, Sam Houston 71% Brian Bohannon, Kennesaw State 70.3%James Franklin, Penn State 69.3%Mike Gundy, Oklahoma State 67.8%Kyle Whittingham, Utah 67.2%Jason Candle, Toledo 65%Kirk Ferentz, Iowa 62.2%Chris Klieman, Kansas State 61.9%Troy Calhoun, Air Force 61.3%Tyson Helton, WKU 60.6%That means 20 head coaches have hung on to their gigs for more than five years, even though they’re losing more than at least four out of every ten games. Just nine of them won half their games, but can’t get to 60%.Yeah, most of these hires “worked” but they aren’t at 60%.Kalani Sitake, BYU 59.8%Mack Brown, North Carolina 58.5%Dave Doeren, NC State 58.3%Jim McElwain, Central Michigan 57%Pat Narduzzi, Pitt 56.5%Jeff Monken, Army 56% Mark Stoops, Kentucky 52.9%Matt Campbell, Iowa State 52.5% Neal Brown, West Virginia 51.7% And ten coaches are still around after five years, even though they haven’t won half of their games, but there’s a reason. These are eight Group of Five programs happy to have a big hit every once in a while, and a Cal gig that would probably be open right now if not for a late run in a 6-6 regular season, and a Maryland job that’s turning around.Shawn Elliott, Georgia State 48.2%.Chuck Martin, Miami University 47.5%Mike Locksley, Maryland 46.8%Justin Wilcox, Cal 45.6%Chris Creighton, Eastern Michigan 43.37%Thomas Hammock, Northern Illinois 42.1%Mike Houston, East Carolina 41.4%Scot Loeffler, Bowling Green 36.4%Mike Neu, Ball State 39.8%Mike Bloomgren, Rice 32.4%What does it all mean?1) Out of 134 college football programs, a mere 23 have been at the same spot for three years or more AND … 2) Succeeded at a 60% winning clip. Even rougher, out of the 23 head coaches who have been at the same spot and succeeded at a reasonable level … 3) Day, Ferentz, Franklin, Gundy, Heupel, Kiffin, Klieman, Malzahn, Norvell, Sarkisian, Smart, Swinney, Whittingham. That’s it for the 60% win Power Five coaches. Just 13.So if you have a head coach who’s winning regularly, relax. You’ve got one.If your school just hired a new head man, don’t expect anything right away, give it three years, and hope by then he won half of his games or more.And then be prepared to do this all over again very, very soon.