Beleaguered Coaches Finally Get Their Due
Patience, a principle too seldom exercised in the cut throat world of college football, is proving its worth in this enigmatic season.
A quick glance at the Bowl Championship Series rankings — which now feature LSU and Oregon in the top positions after Illinois stunned previous no. 1 Ohio State Saturday — lists several programs that might not be enjoying their current success had they listened to the whims of fans and alumni, and cut the cords on previously struggling coaches. Sitting at no. 3 in the BCS is the year's most surprising team, Kansas. The Jayhawks —who could still play their way into the national-championship game — are led by sixth-year coach Mark Mangino. His previous five seasons in Lawrence produced a 25–35 record, including a 1–8 mark against ranked teams and a 4–21 road record. The highwater mark of his tenure before this season was a 7–5 campaign in 2005 — a year the Jayhawks lost to eventual national champion Texas by a 66–14 count. There was scant little evidence that Mangino could build a football power, or even a Big 12 North contender, at his basketball-mad school.
Perhaps because football plays second fiddle at Kansas, Mangino was given time to completely rebuild a program that had some success in the mid-1990s under Glen Mason, before slipping badly under the direction of Mangino's predecessor, Terry Allen.
With 14 starters and 53 upper-class letter-winners returning (plus a schedule that skipped Texas and Oklahoma), this appeared to be the year that Mangino could get to eight or nine wins. But nobody expected this: a 10–0 start that includes road wins at Kansas State, Colorado (where Oklahoma suffered its only loss), Texas A&M, and now Oklahoma State.
Assuming the Jayhawks get past 3–8 Iowa State next week, they will face another surprising team, Missouri, to determine the Big 12 North title. The winner is likely to face Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship for the conference's automatic BCS berth. Because both Oklahoma and Missouri are highly rated (nos. 4 and 5, respectively, in the BCS) two wins should be enough to lift Kansas into the top two and toward an invitation to the national-championship game. Missouri, too, is being rewarded for sticking with head coach Gary Pinkel, whose first six seasons at Missouri produced a 37–35 record. Even last year, in his best season, Pinkel was under fire for finishing 8–5 after a 6–0 start.
It wasn't Pinkel's only late-season collapse. There were high expectations for his 2004 team. But the Tigers lost at Troy early in the season and later endured a five-game losing streak. The school stuck with Pinkel rather than electing to rebuild with a new coach, and this season is reaping the benefits of that decision. Missouri is 9–1, and saw its largest average home attendance since 1981. The Tigers' only loss came at Oklahoma in a game Missouri led at the start of the fourth quarter.
His team may not be at the top of the BCS standings, but Mississippi State's Sylvester Croom should likewise get a few votes for coach of the year honors — and that school should win plaudits for sticking with him after his first three seasons netted just nine wins.
After beating Alabama Saturday, Croom now has the Bulldogs bowl-eligible at 6–4. This season, which has also included wins at Auburn and Kentucky, is a remarkable turnaround for a program won
four conference games the past three seasons. Saturday's win (Croom's second straight over his alma mater) should earn the Bulldogs their first bowl invite since the 2000 season. Croom, who is the first African-American coach in the history of SEC football, was a finalist for the Alabama job in 2003, which went instead to Mike Shula. A year later, he finally got his head-coaching shot — but it came at Mississippi State, which is the Days Inn compared to Alabama's Four Seasons. Such restraint with coaching decisions is not always the norm. Notre Dame famously fired Tyrone Willingham after three seasons because athletic director Kevin White wasn't happy with the direction of the program. His decision was validated by the immediate success of Charlie Weis, who took the Irish to BCS games his first two seasons. The 19 wins were nice — but they covered up that Weis's teams were almost always out-classed by top competition.
Still, Weis is a recruiting machine, and he landed the top prep player in the nation, quarterback Jimmy Clausen, to soften the blow of 13 lost starters this season. Given the roster turnover and a much tougher schedule, few observers felt Notre Dame could approach the success of the last two seasons. But no one expected an unmitigated disaster of a campaign that currently stands at 1–9 and sets new records weekly for futility.
The irony is that Notre Dame's early exuberance with Weis — he was given a 10-year contract extension after nearly upsetting no. 1 USC in his sixth game — means the school has no choice but to be patient with him. Weis has eight years and $25 million remaining on his contract following this season. That figure is more than triple the largest buyout ever paid in college coaching history — $7 million to former Louisville basketball coach Denny Crum — according to CNBC sports business reporter Darren Rovell.
So even Notre Dame, which has no shortage of wealthy boosters, will stick with its head man, and perhaps it will be a blessing. Weis continues to land highly regarded recruiting classes, and as Kansas, Missouri, and Mississippi State have shown this season, patience can be a virtue — even at the highest levels of college football.
Mr. Levine is a writer for FootballOutsiders.com.
