Of the 130 active FBS programs, 129 have hired a head coach this millennium. Which programs not named Iowa made the best hires?
For this exercise (which proved to be more impossibly difficult than ranking the 25 best college basketball hires since 2000), I weighed, among other things, the program's history, state of the program when the coach was hired, expectations, and, of course, the success of the coach.
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I started with a list of 51 hires—not including Art Briles and Urban Meyer (twice), who were omitted because I don't know how to evaluate their careers—and locked in the national championship coaches. If your name isn't Urban Meyer and you won a national championship, you were a top-25 hire of this millennium.
Coaches are eligible for multiple selections, though only one coach, Nick Saban, made the list twice. Others, including Chris Petersen, Dan Mullen, and P.J. Fleck, were considered for multiple selections. And no hire from the last three cycles (2018, 2019, and 2020) made the top 25, though, again, several were considered, including Mike Norvell and Mullen. Norvell was the only 2020 hire on the preliminary list of 49 coaches.
The 25 best college football head coach hires since 2000:
25. Gene Chizik
Auburn (2009)
If you remove 2010, Gene Chizik went 19-19 in three seasons as Auburn head coach. If you remove 2010, Auburn's national championship drought is nearing 30 years.
24. Ken Niumatalolo
Navy (2007)
Ken Niumatalolo didn't build Navy from a downtrodden program into a nationally relevant and revered program. That was his predecessor, Paul Johnson, whose 2002 hire narrowly missed the top 25, though Niumatalolo has led Navy through the best stretch of service-academy football in the last 60 years.
23. Mark Dantonio
Michigan State (2007)
A strong candidate to join Art Briles and Urban Meyer on the sidelines, Mark Dantonio is a conundrum. On the field, he built a consistent Big Ten and playoff contender, going 65-16 from 2010-15. Off the field, he was a key subject in several sexual assault allegations.
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22. Chris Creighton
Eastern Michigan (2014)
In 2016, after months of calls to disband the Eastern Michigan program, third-year head coach Chris Creighton led the Eagles to seven wins and a bowl game, their first seven-win season in 27 years and first postseason appearance in 29 years.
Creighton is winning—25 wins in the last four years after 24 wins in the nine years prior to his arrival—at one of the nation's toughest jobs and might be the biggest reason Eastern Michigan still has a football program.
21. Kyle Whittingham
Utah (2005)
Like Ken Niumatalolo (and several more coaches on this list), Kyle Whittingham built on the success of his predecessor, Urban Meyer. That doesn't cheapen his own success.
Even with Meyer's 22 wins from 2003-04, Whittingham inherited a program with three total 10-win seasons. He has five such seasons, along with three Pac-12 division titles.
20. Bronco Mendenhall
BYU (2005)
BYU football won big in the 1980s and '90s but was struggling when Bronco Mendenhall was promoted from defensive coordinator to replace Gary Crowton in 2005; the Cougars had 14 total wins from 2002-04 and were irrelevant in the Mountain West.
Mendenhall went 11-2 in his second year, the first four straight 10-win seasons, and delivered back-to-back conference titles before the Cougars' departure in 2011.
19. Mike Gundy
Oklahoma State (2005)
Mike Gundy has struggled to get over the 10-win hump since Oklahoma State's 2011 loss to Iowa State. Not long before he took over his alma mater, Oklahoma State struggled to get over the five-win hump.
In his 15 seasons, Gundy has built a well-oiled machine and returned Oklahoma State to national relevance and occasional Big 12 contention.
18. Dan Mullen
Mississippi State (2009)
Did Mississippi State make a difficult hire in landing a highly regarded longtime Urban Meyer assistant in 2009? No, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a fantastic hire. Mullen quickly eradicated the stench of Sylvester Croom's tenure by winning nine games in 2010 and 69 games over his nine years.
17. Brian Kelly
Notre Dame (2010)
The most difficult question in this exercise: Could another coach have done what Brian Kelly has done at Notre Dame?
I don't know, nor do you, but it's a fair question: How many other coaches could've had five 10-win seasons, one national championship appearance, and one playoff appearance in 10 years at one of the best jobs in college football?
Clearly, I think other coaches could've had similar success in South Bend or Kelly would be higher on this list.
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16. Gary Patterson
TCU (2001)
Dennis Franchione laid the foundation but Gary Patterson built the empire.
TCU football was bad for a long time before Franchione won 10 games in 2000, the Horned Frogs' final season in the WAC before joining Conference USA. Patterson was promoted upon Franchione's departure and led three flawless conference transitions.
15. Jim Harbaugh
Stanford (2007)
Stanford went 1-11 in 2006 and was 16-40 in the five years prior to Jim Harbaugh's arrival from Division-II San Diego in 2007. He did the unthinkable…over…and over…and over…and over at Stanford.
He shocked USC, recruited elite talent, increased their win total in each of his four seasons, and set the program's single-season win record with a 12-1 mark in 2007.
14. Les Miles
LSU (2005)
Les Miles is Brian Kelly with a national championship. Unlike Kelly, Miles didn't adapt to survive and was fired after 114 wins, two conference championships, and one national championship in 12 years. Like Chizik at Auburn, he's often remembered more for what he didn't do than what he did do.
13. Mark Richt
Georgia (2001)
Mark Richt is forever the "yeah…but he didn't win a national championship" coach. And that's fair, but don't let it discount a spectacular 14-year for Georgia football. For the first time ever, the Bulldogs were consistent, winning at least eight games in 13 of his 14 years, including at least 10 wins in nine years.
12. Matt Rhule
Baylor (2017)
In hiring Matt Rhule to replace a disgraced born-and-bred Texan, Baylor hired a 41-year-old New York native with zero ties to the program. Rhule spent the previous decade at Temple and had never coached in or anywhere near Texas.
It proved to be one of the best and most important hires in college football history.
11. Lincoln Riley
Oklahoma (2017)
One of the few coaches capable of entering the Dabo-Saban conversation, Lincoln Riley went from East Carolina assistant to Oklahoma head coach in 30 months.
For now, the sample size keeps Riley outside the top 10, though if three playoff appearances in three years are any indication, Riley could be one of the best hires of all time.
10. Jim Tressel
Ohio State (2009)
Ohio State football has always been Ohio State football, though Ohio State football didn't feel as much like Ohio State football at the tail end of John Cooper's 13-year run.
They won just six games in 1999—their second .500 season in the last three decades—and eight in 2000 before Tressel arrived from Youngstown State and made Ohio State football more like Ohio State football.
9. Jimbo Fisher
Florida State (2010)
Bobby Bowden is a coaching legend, one of the best of all time. However, Bobby Bowden coached a ton of mediocre Florida State teams during his final years. When Jimbo Fisher took over in 2010, the Seminoles hadn't been in national championship contention for years and had a modest 47 wins since 2004.
It took Jimbo four years to win the program's third national championship, and while he left the program in dire shape, he still won 83 games and three conference titles in eight years.
8. David Shaw
Stanford (2011)
Prior to last year's injury-filled four-win dud, David Shaw was 82-26 in eight years at Stanford.
Stanford.
He averaged more than eight wins over nearly a decade at Stanford.
Stanford.
Jim Harbaugh's rebuild was remarkable and pushed Shaw in the right direction. And if Shaw sustained success for even a few years after Harbaugh's departure, he would've made this list. But he's had Stanford near the top of college football for a decade.
7. Ed Orgeron
LSU (2016)
Is Ed Orgeron a top-10 hire? I don't know.
I do know that Ed Orgeron created the best team in college football history, so who cares?
6. Nick Saban
LSU (2000)
LSU sucked when Nick Saban arrived in 2000. They didn't suck when Nick Saban departed in 2004. In between, the Tigers won 48 games, three SEC titles, and one national championship.
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5. David Cutcliffe
Duke (2008)
Duke's win totals from 1995-2007: Three, zero, two, four, three, zero, zero, two, four, two, one, zero, and one. Twenty-two wins in 13 years, 1,023 days between wins, and seven seasons with at least 10 losses.
In year one, David Cutcliffe matched their win total from the previous four years combined. In year two, he led Duke to five wins for the first time in 15 years. And in year six, he won 10 games, the program's first-ever 10-win season. And after year eight, Duke had 27 wins over a three-year period, or five more wins than the 13 years prior to Cutcliffe's arrival.
4. Bill Clark
UAB (2014)
Bill Clark arrived at UAB in January 2014 and led the Blazers to bowl eligibility for the first time in 10 years with a win over Southern Miss on Nov. 29, 2014. Three days later, Clark's program was eliminated.
After two years of fighting and rebuilding the program, Clark led UAB to eight wins in 2017, 11 wins in 2018, and nine wins last year. The Alabama native spent two and a half years rebuilding the program, and upon returning to competition in 2017, he had a better team.
3. Pete Carroll
USC (2001)
USC was long removed from the prosperous times under John Robinson when Pete Carroll was hired in 2001. They wandered through the late 1990s and imploded in 2000 after rising to No. 8 in the AP top 25.
Carroll didn't need time; he won 11 games in 2002, the first of seven straight years with at least 11 wins, during which USC won four conference titles and one national championship.
2. Dabo Swinney
Clemson (2009)
Dabo Swinney was the wrong guy, screamed critics when Clemson promoted Swinney after Tommy Bowden's dismissal in 2008. Swinney was the wrong guy, critics screamed when he stumbled six wins in 2010, his second full season. And trustees wanted him fired.
One hundred and thirty wins, six ACC championships, and two national championships later, those trustees can thank the patience of then-president Jim Barker and then-athletics director Terry Don Phillips.
1. Nick Saban
Alabama (2007)
G.O.A.T.
