First-year head coaches will lead Oklahoma and Texas in the same season for the first time since Bud Wilkinson and Blair Cherry took over the Sooners and Longhorns, respectively, in 1947. Despite the new faces in Tom Herman and Lincoln Riley — and a third first-year coach in Matt Rhule at Baylor — the Big 12 still has the longest-tenured coaches in college football.
Prior to his sudden retirement last week, Bob Stoops was tied with Iowa's Kirk Ferentz — whom, ironically, he competed against for the Hawkeyes' job in 1998 — as the longest-tenured coaches in the FBS at 18 years. And prior to his sudden resignation last summer, Baylor's Art Briles, who began in 2008, wasn't far behind, ranking among the 20 longest-tenured coaches.
Even with departures of Stoops, Briles and to much lesser extent Charlie Strong, Big 12 coaches have, on average, been at their schools longer than any other conference. And the effects can be seen in Group of Five conferences, namely the American, where both Rhule (Temple) and Herman (Houston) came from. The third, Lincoln Riley, also came from the American but he was only an offensive coordinator at East Carolina.
However, the Big 12's six-year average — 2017 is counted as one year — is carried by two coaches with 31 combined seasons, Oklahoma State's Mike Gundy (13) and TCU's Gary Patterson (18). They are two of just six coaches (or 60 percent of the conference) entering their third year or more. The ratio is lower than seven other conferences, including the Pac-12, who leads the country with 84 percent (10 of 12) of coaches in their third year or more.
| Conference | Average | 3rd Year or More | 5th or More | 10th or More |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Big 12 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 2 |
| ACC | 5.2 | 10 | 7 | 3 |
| Pac-12 | 5.1 | 10 | 7 | 1 |
| Big Ten | 5 | 8 | 4 | 3 |
| SEC | 4.8 | 10 | 8 | 1 |
| Conference USA | 4.6 | 10 | 8 | 1 |
| Sun Belt | 4.3 | 8 | 4 | 0 |
| MAC | 4.2 | 8 | 4 | 1 |
| Mountain West | 4 | 8 | 4 | 1 |
| American | 2.5 | 3 | 1 | 1 |
Not only does the American has the lowest average tenure of any conference at 2.5 years, they also only have three coaches (25 percent) entering at least their third year, by far the lowest in the FBS.
Also of note, the Sun Belt is the only conference without a 10-year coach and only two conferences — the ACC and Big Ten — have three 10-year coaches.
