On Nov. 19, 2017, UCLA fired head coach Jim Mora, a Los Angeles native and one 10 FBS head coaches in 2017 who hailed from the state of California. Ten days later, Oregon State hired Washington offensive coordinator Jonathan Smith, an Oregon State alum and native of Pasadena, Calif., as head coach, pushing The Golden State's representation among FBS head coach back into the double digits and within shouting distance of Texas (13).
The 130 active FBS head coaches hail from two countries (BYU's Kalani Sitake is from Tonga), 39 states and 120 cities.
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Twenty-six states have multiple coaches. Seven have at least three, 10 have at least five and only two (California and Texas) have at least 10. Nearly 25 percent of all head coaches are from California, Texas and Ohio (nine).
Nine cities have multiple coaches, led by Madison, Wis., whose trio of Paul Chryst (Wisconsin), Rod Carey (Northern Illinois) and Jay Norvell (Nevada) make it the only city with more than two head coaches. Last year, Madison tied with Dallas for the most-represented city, but Rice fired Dallas native David Bailiff and hired Tallahassee, Fla., native Mike Bloomgren.
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Twenty-one coaches are working at schools in the same state as their hometown. Florida State's Willie Taggart (Bradenton, Fla.) and now-permanent Ole Miss head coach Matt Luke (Gulfport, Miss.) joined that group this year. Only three coaches are working at schools in their hometown: Blake Anderson (Arkansas State), Bryan Harsin (Boise State) and Chryst.
Here's an interactive map with the hometowns for each FBS head coach:
