This Week in Coaching: Week 0 debuts, Nick Saban's raise, coach beef, ex-head coaches coming to TVs this fall
Welcome to This Week in Coaching, a weekly roundup column that will recap all the latest news in the college football coaching universe.
We’re talking contracts, hirings and firings, and maybe a little beef (see: Shane Beamer’s response to Mark Stoops)?
I’ll also set the table each Saturday, starting with Week 0 to kickoff the 2022 season where four new head coaches are making their debuts at new programs this weekend.
Timmy Chang at Hawaii
Ken Wilson at Nevada
Jerry Kill at New Mexico State
Jim Mora at UConn
In a matchup featuring two of the more downtrodden programs in the country, Wilson, who is a first-time head coach and Kill, the former Minnesota head coach, will actually meet head-to-head Saturday.
Meanwhile, Mora is back on the sidelines for the first time since 2017, as the former UCLA coach has willingly accepted the thankless job of trying to return the Huskies to even a modicum of respectability.
Then there’s Chang, who returns to his alma mater where the Rainbow Warriors are desperate for any direction and hope after the disastrous two-year tenure under Todd Graham. Chang is the NCAA’s all-time leading passer with more than 17,000 yards and 117 touchdowns, and the 40-year-old former quarterback got the Hawaii head coaching job at the behest of his former Rainbow Warriors coach June Jones. Hawaii opens the season against Vanderbilt this weekend, where it is more than a touchdown underdog at home on the Big Island.
The coach under the most pressure in Week 0 isn’t a fresh face, though. With a buyout set to drop significantly in less than six weeks, Nebraska’s Scott Frost needs a win over Northwestern in Ireland to start 2022 on the right footing.
THE KING STAYS KING
Nick Saban is the GOAT for a litany of reasons, and it’s not just his seven national titles or producing the only four Heisman Trophy winners in Alabama history.
Saban has the greatest *wink, wink* deal in sports, where every time another head coach gets paid, the Crimson Tide head coach seemingly gets an auto-trigger raise.
Call it the Nick Saban One Penny More Corollary.
So when Kirby Smart, Ryan Day, Lincoln Riley, Mel Tucker and Brian Kelly all inked recent record-setting contacts in the last year, Saban was somewhere smiling eating another Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pie.
This week, the 70-year-old head coach received his fifth contract extension (and raise) at Alabama, agreeing to a new 8-year deal worth $93.6 million.
Saban previously received bumps in 2021, 2017, 2014, 2012 and 2009. He is once again the highest-paid coach in America, with a 2022 salary of $10.7 million.
Even after a “rebuilding year,” the King stays King.
DID YOU KNOW?
Mike Norvell is winless in September at Florida State.
The third-year Seminoles’ head coach is 0-5 in the first month of the season, with losses to Notre Dame, FCS Jacksonville State and Georgia Tech among the defeats.
The Seminoles also lost to Miami in September in 2020, but Norvell missed the game after testing positive for COVID-19, so the loss isn’t on his historical ledger.
FSU doesn’t want to fire Norvell this fall, but the former Memphis coach needs to show progress to ensure he remains in Tallahassee in 2023.
The ‘Noles open the season this weekend against Duquesne (5 p.m., ACC Network), but for Norvell to snap his recent September swoons, the Seminoles will need to either upset LSU next Saturday in New Orleans or win tossup games against Louisville (on the road) and Boston College.
COMING TO TVs THIS FALL: THE REHABILITATION LAWFIRM OF MEYER, MULLEN AND HERMAN
Urban Meyer and a pair of his former national champion offensive coordinators are hoping a year away from the field will help better position them for a future return to the sidelines.
Meyer, as well as former Florida coach Dan Mullen and Texas head coach Tom Herman will all serve as college football TV analysts on three different networks for the 2022 season.
Meyer, who was fired as the Jacksonville Jaguars head coach last year, returns to FOX as part of Big Noon Saturday. Mullen, who was good in his brief debut on TV during the SEC Championship Game last season, landed at ESPN, where he will serve as a studio analyst. Herman, who was fired by the Longhorns after the 2022 season, was an off-the-field analyst for the Chicago Bears last season and is now part of the CBS Sports Network.
While Meyer’s future in college football remains murky, both Mullen and Herman are notable names to keep in mind when the coaching carousel picks back in a few months.
A SPICELESS BEEF?
After the Nick Saban vs. Jimbo Fisher back-and-forth earlier this offseason, it looked like we might have another SEC head coaching beef this week.
For those who missed it, in an SEC Media Days interview with Marty and McGee that only surfaced recently, Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops said, “I talked years ago about climate versus culture. It’s easy to change a climate. You just change the uniforms, talk a little game, dance around and put on some stupid sunglasses and you can change a climate.”
Due to the timing, many believed Stoops was taking a shot South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer, who recorded a viral TikTok video dancing to Soulja Boy with sunglasses and a backward hat to promote the Gamecocks’ appearance for media days.
Stoops said the comments were a self-deprecating joke about his early time in Lexington. Beamer also downplayed any potential issue, but he made sure to toss a little shade Stoops’ way by using his own “stay in his lane” quote from his Kentucky-on-Kentucky kerfuffle with basketball coach John Calipari.
“I know when the basketball coach at Kentucky made the comment that he did about the (Kentucky) football program, Mark said that he stays in his lane. So, I can’t imagine that he would have gotten out of his lane to direct a shot at me,” Beamer said.
That’s a pretty smooth rebuttal in a mostly spiceless beef.
QUOTABLE
“Everything else at the Ohio State is top five, and why shouldn’t the defense be?”
— Buckeyes new defensive coordinator Jim Knowles
I love the confidence from the former Oklahoma State defensive coordinator, but Knowles might be setting himself up for an Old Takes Exposed moment.
The Buckeyes ranked 43rd in yards per play in 2021. They return some nice pieces up front, but the secondary is still a question mark and we don’t know if Knowles can immediately improve the team’s pass rush.
Ohio State will be better on defense this fall, but Top 5 nationally?
Knowles is a helluva defensive coach, as evidenced by his work with a Cowboys roster that didn’t have nearly the talent at his disposal at Ohio State. But Knowles has just one Top 5 defense on his resume ever (2021), and it took him four seasons in Stillwater to build that unit.