CBS Sports names the Top 25 worst head coach hires in college football since 2000

CBS Sports named the top 25 worst head coach hires in college football since 2000. So, over the last quarter century, these coaches made history. Just not for the right reasons.

Whether it was poor decisions by the administration, catastrophic moves by the head coaches themselves, these could’ve been doomed from the start. Some of these careers ended immediately after too!

Without further ado, let’s dive into CBS Sports’ list of coaches. We start with guys who actually never even coached a game!

T1. Mike Price, Alabama

Record: 0-0

Price, along with the next head coach on this list, didn’t even coach a game for Alabama. Coming over from Washington State, Price seemed like a bad fit from the jump.

He was eventually fired for inappropriate behavior at a charity golf tournament that involved strippers. A stark contrast to Nick Saban huh?

T1. Michael Haywood, Pittsburgh

Record: 0-0

Haywood didn’t coach a game for the Panthers either. At the time, he made a jump from Miami of Ohio to ACC football.

But, this didn’t last long as a few weeks later, Haywood was arrested and was hit with felony domestic violence charges. He was then replaced by Todd Graham, who just lasted one season as head coach at Pitt before going to Arizona State.

3. Ellis Johnson, Southern Miss

Record: 0-12

Johnson inherited a 12-2 team and promptly went 0-12 in his lone season as head coach of Southern Miss. Since his firing in 2012, the program only has six winning seasons, so perhaps the effects still linger.

Johnson’s moves included hiring a strength and conditioning coach that hadn’t worked in college football in 20 years. Just a huge swing and miss here.

4. Chad Morris, Arkansas

Record: 4-18

Morris was already 14-22 at SMU before getting hired at Arkansas in 2017. Safe to say, the Razorbacks missed on this head coach.

Morris never won an SEC game during his time in Fayetteville, going 0-14 in conference. One of the worst hires within the last 25 years.

5. Charlie Weis, Kansas

Record: 6-22

Weis didn’t work out as head coach at Notre Dame and his Kansas tenure, well, that wasn’t good either. He won just six games and went 1-18 in Big 12 play.

Over the course of two-and-a-half seasons, Weis emphasized a JUCO approach as a recruiter, which was a little baffling at the time. The Jayhawks were hamstrung in terms of winning for a decade until current coach Lance Leipold came along.

6. Ty Willingham, Washington

Record: 11-37

Willingham was another failed Notre Dame head coach that got another Power Four job (or Power Five at the time) and it just didn’t work out. He never posted a winning record while with the Huskies.

It all came together, poorly anyway, during his final season in 2008. Willingham went 0-12 and hasn’t coached college football since. Funny enough, he was a member of the College Football Playoff committee in 2014, during its initial year.

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7. Jeremy Pruitt, Tennessee

Record: 5-19

Pruitt’s tenure as head coach was a disaster considering the lack of wins and the scandals in the end. All of the wins from the 2019 and ‘20 were vacated, leaving him with just five during his time in Knoxville.

Pruitt received multi-year show-cause penalties for allegedly handing money to players in fast food bags. What an age we live in, right? Ultimately, Pruitt’s firing led to a fan revolt to not hire Greg Schiano, who ended up returning to Rutgers anyway, the firing of AD John Currie and just total chaos. Josh Heupel has steadied the ship since, but this was brutal.

8. Les Miles, Kansas

Record: 3-18

Just when Kansas thought the program could be resurrected by a national title winning head coach, they were wrong. At the time, Miles was out of college football for two years after his time at LSU.

Miles was let go after learning of an investigation into alleged inappropriate treatment of female students while at LSU. His Kansas tenure wasn’t great and never got off the ground as the game passed him by into a new era that we see today.

9. Ron Turner, FIU

Record: 10-30

Former AD Pete Garcia opted to fire Mario Cristobal despite two straight bowl games and hire Turner as head coach. Safe to say, that was the wrong choice.

Turner hadn’t coached in a decade and was fired four games into his fourth season with the program. The win-loss record says it all.

10. Derek Dooley, Tennessee

Record: 15-21

The son of Vince Dooley didn’t quite have the resume of an elite head coach. Derek Dolley went 17-20 at Louisiana Tech and made just one bowl game before getting the job at Tennessee.

In the end, he led the Vols to its first back-to-back losing season in a century and the program was certainly set back for a while. It was a hire that simply had no chance.