25 best coaching jobs in college football

Frostberg

Frostberg

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[SIZE=14pt]According to 24/7 the below list is the 25 best coaching jobs in college football. My question is, why is Nebraska not on this list? I am not asking because I think we deserve to be on this list, I'm asking because I want to know where we are falling short. Is it because of the pay, or the fans, or the lack of success, or something else? Would love to hear what you all think. [/SIZE]

25 best coaching jobs in college football
  1. Alabama
  2. Ohio State
  3. Clemson
  4. Southern Cal
  5. Oklahoma
  6. Florida State
  7. Michigan
  8. Texas
  9. LSU
  10. Georgia
  11. Florida
  12. Notre Dame
  13. UCLA
  14. Penn State
  15. Texas A&M
  16. Auburn
  17. Michigan State
  18. Tennessee
  19. TCU
  20. Washington
  21. Stanford
  22. Oregon
  23. Virginia Tech
  24. Arkansas
  25. Miami (Fla.)
 
I think a job with no expectations is the best. Sign me up for UTEP or ECU or SMU...where you can make nice money and no one cares

 
Surprised to see Arkansas, TCU and MSU on the list. Sure they are near good population centers and recruiting hotbeds, but not that close for a team like Arkansas and on top of that you have to compete with multiple teams on this list for recruits in your immediate area. All 3 of these teams get the scraps after the Michigan's, Alabamas and Texas' of the world take the best players from their regions.

Personally I would replace those 3 teams with Ole Miss (understand they probably didn't make this list due to NCAA investigation/sanctions) Oklahoma State, and Wisconsin.

 
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Good question. The pressure to win at all of the listed schools is high. It's not like all those campuses are in warm weather locales or idyllic cities either. Whatever recruiting liabilities Nebraska has, we managed to overcome for a 40 year run of outstanding talent, high rankings and national prestige.

So I suppose it's more about perception and "what-have-you-done-for-me-lately?" Fair or not, I think the national perception is that Nebraska fans expect too much. And maybe we're not paying enough.

But the resources are generally exceptional, and the coach instantly becomes the most famous man in the entire state — either beloved or constantly hounded or both.

Wait. Maybe that's the problem.

 
247 did the top 65 jobs: Huskers came in at #30

30. NebraskaFan and internal support remain incredibly high, and the brand is still strong among those in the sport. But it has waned with recruits over the years. So the challenge at NU, as Mike Riley and his staff have encountered, is making it a national recruiting job.

“How can you make Lincoln, Nebraska — the Heartland — appealing to kids in L.A., kids in Miami?” one agent told us.

The Huskers’ 23rd-ranked class in 2017 featured three Nebraskans (of 20 commits). Nine other states were represented. Sources say that as much as satellite camps were debated to death last year, Nebraska is a program that is aided by them — and not in a Harbaugh-esque, showy way.

The Big Ten has not provided the title path that the school and its fans perhaps envisioned, but the Western Division still a palatable road for a prospective staff compared to the opposite side of the conference.

Nebraska isn’t the job that it was in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, clearly, but it still has appeal among coaches. It’s still iconic.
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Full rankings:

#65 - 56

#55 - 46

#45 - 36

#35 - 26

#25 - 16

#15 - 1

Top 10 for Group of 5

 
“How can you make Lincoln, Nebraska — the Heartland — appealing to kids in L.A., kids in Miami?” one agent told us.

By putting in the work and getting them to campus. Yeah, its a little harder, but once kids get to campus they have nothing but great things to say about Lincoln. Anyone who has never been to Lincoln say these sorts of things.

 
It's a fluff piece, and a lazy one at that.

The extent of their "top coaching jobs" research apparently involved looking at the top 25 finishes and the recruiting rankings for the last few years, shuffle them around a little and viola, here ya go.

I imagine our revolving door of coaching staffs and lack of results played greatly into this but you can't tell me Nebraska would not be a top 25, even top 15, coaching gig if we were winning games. I would think fan support and resources should be much higher factors for this list. If Saban or Meyer were the coach at Nebraska, we'd be in the top 5 or 10 on this list easy. And that's not me commenting in any way about Riley but rather about the yahoos that compiled this list.

 
Honestly Geography is the reason. We have the resources, we have the fan base, we have the tradition, we have the facilities, we have a recruiting-centric staff, we have the stadiun, we have the conference and we have the history.

We are just smack dab in the middle of the country which is worlds away for some kids and that also makes it a much harder to set up relationships. We have a small fenced in backyard to play in compared to the Disney Land of recruiting a school in California, Ohio, Florida or Texas has.

It's not impossible by any means. It's just a big hurdle.

 
As someone born and raised in Nebraska, who's since left and lived in Atlanta and Chicago, I definitely get the struggle/perspective of those who don't have us that highly.

I'm currently struggling to pay bills month to month, and don't have a ton of friends here, but am about to turn down a 40-50k/yr job back in Lincoln because I just really don't have any interest in being back there right now.

 
Nebraska currently doesn't even crack the top 40 for head coach's salary. We're barely above the likes of Maryland and Vanderbilt there. K-State? Pays more than Nebraska. Texas Tech? Pays more than Nebraska. TCU? Pays about $1.2 million more than Nebraska. Riley is making just barely more than what his successor at Oregon State is.

 
Toe said:
Nebraska currently doesn't even crack the top 40 for head coach's salary. We're barely above the likes of Maryland and Vanderbilt there. K-State? Pays more than Nebraska. Texas Tech? Pays more than Nebraska. TCU? Pays about $1.2 million more than Nebraska. Riley is making just barely more than what his successor at Oregon State is.
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I think that has a lot more to do with Riley than Nebraska. Nebraska has shown with Diaco that it is willing to pay for the right coach

 
^ Oh, I more or less agree with that, but I'm sure it factors into the rankings for articles like this.

 
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1995 Redux said:
Honestly Geography is the reason. We have the resources, we have the fan base, we have the tradition, we have the facilities, we have a recruiting-centric staff, we have the stadiun, we have the conference and we have the history.

We are just smack dab in the middle of the country which is worlds away for some kids and that also makes it a much harder to set up relationships. We have a small fenced in backyard to play in compared to the Disney Land of recruiting a school in California, Ohio, Florida or Texas has.

It's not impossible by any means. It's just a big hurdle.
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Oh I agree with this but I just think a ranking of top coaching jobs should be a lot more focused on fan support, resources and that paycheck amount. Recruiting definitely is a challenge here and that makes it difficult to have the kind of success that is self perpetuating. But I wouldn't think that should drag down the ranking of top coaching jobs. I mean what coach worth their salt doesn't enjoy a good challenge?

 
I think it is hard to exclude one of the all time winningest (top 3?) programs in history from any top 25 ranking of programs frankly. I suspect that if you were to take a poll of the top 100 college coaches, in terms of winning percentage in history, you would find that Nebraska IS a top ten coaching job.

Money may be an issue for some but it is just one factor. You have to look at all the considerations. Lincoln is a good city to live in as compared to many. Everyone has their own preferences but it certainly is NOT a negative factor and would exceed a number of those. Weather? Nebraska has nice weather for those who enjoy the four seasons. Florida is HOT about half the year as is Texas, LA, AB, MS, GA,, SC, AZ, some parts of CA, etc. Michigan has as rough a winter as MN almost so one can't say weather was a deciding factor.

In the end, I would suggest that this ranking is just the opinion of a handful of folks and does NOT reflect that of the overall college football body at large. Nebraska is STILL a top 20 if not top 15 job, in my view.

 
Just remember that from 1962 until 2004, Nebraska didn't conduct a single head coaching search, and its incredibly successful staff was comparatively underpaid the whole time.

We lived in a bit of a bubble and I don't think we understood the landscape or desirability of the job.

 
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