It’s that time of year again — and this offseason, we’ve got plenty of other changes in the college football landscape, most notably the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff.
As reigning national champ Michigan turns the page on the Jim Harbaugh era, teams like Oregon and Ohio State remain lurking after big-name transfer portal and assistant coaching additions. Other powerhouses like Texas, LSU, Tennessee, Florida State, Oklahoma and Ole Miss are all worthy of top 10 consideration, while dark horses this fall could be names like Louisville, Penn State, Utah, and Notre Dame.
It’ll be fascinating as usual to watch it all unfold, and here’s my ranking of all the head coaching changes this winter.
1) Kalen DeBoer, Alabama
- Age: 49
- Hometown: Milbank, South Dakota
- Alma Mater: Sioux Falls
- Previous Job: Head Coach, Washington
If you can possibly believe it, DeBoer has a higher winning percentage than Nick Saban, the guy he’s replacing.
OK, Saban is an impossible act to follow (six national championships, stacked recruiting classes, countless NFL draft picks, etc.). And DeBoer went 67-3 at tiny University of Sioux Falls (his alma mater) in the late 2000s.
But make no mistake, DeBoer’s elite offenses and combined 37-9 record at Fresno State (2020-21) and Washington (2022-23) tell the tale. He can recruit and develop, he hires great assistant coaches and he has a reputation as a positive locker room presence who can make multiple moving parts work seamlessly, as evidenced by his outstanding usage of transfer portal players at Washington as they ascended back to the College Football Playoff in 2023. DeBoer has never coached in the SEC, but it hardly matters; he just wins. And Saban would certainly give his frown of approval for that.
2) Willie Fritz, Houston
- Age: 63
- Hometown: Shawnee Mission, Kansas
- Alma Mater: Pittsburg State
- Previous Job: Head Coach, Tulane
It was originally believed that the size of Dana Holgorsen’s buyout and the expectedly bumpy transition from the AAC to the Big 12 would grant him a mulligan, but nope. The Cougars finished 4-8 in their first Big 12 season and decided to bring in proven winner Willie Fritz to get them over the hump.
Fritz had been rumored for Power Five jobs for so long, as he was rumored to be a finalist at Georgia Tech last offseason. He got Tulane to back-to-back double-digit win seasons, going 23-4 during that span, and before that, he won 17 games in two seasons at Georgia Southern. And before that, he went 40-15 with three FCS playoff berths in four seasons at Sam Houston, giving him credibility in the Texas recruiting market.
Houston is a fine job: it has plenty of recent success and a fairly young stadium surrounded by fertile recruiting grounds, but the administration needs to level up in terms of money and resources in order to win consistently in the Big 12. Fritz will help them develop a unique identity that they can sustain in recruiting, and he’ll have more flexibility with the portal than he did at Tulane, whose private school academics made that difficult. This is certainly a high-profile hire and Fritz will be expected to win quickly.
3) Sherrone Moore, Michigan
- Age: 37
- Hometown: Derby, Kansas
- Alma Mater: Oklahoma
- Previous Job: Offensive Coordinator/Offensive Line Coach, Michigan
No pressure here. None whatsoever.
After Jim Harbaugh went back to the NFL following a national championship at his alma mater in 2023, Moore was the natural choice to take over. He already went 4-0 as the acting head coach last year while Harbaugh served an NCAA suspension related to the ongoing investigation into alleged sign-stealing committed by former Wolverines off-field staffer Connor Stalions.
Moore is luckier than most head coaches, as he’ll have all of the spring semester to keep his players focused before the summer transfer portal window opens, so there’s optimism that he can keep the Wolverines in national contention. He’ll have an impossible act to follow, but Moore has the respect of the players and represents continuity.
4) Jeff Lebby, Mississippi State
- Age: 39
- Hometown: McGregor, Texas
- Alma Mater: Oklahoma
- Previous Job: Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks Coach, Oklahoma
Zac Arnett didn’t even last the full 2023 season after taking over in less than ideal circumstances in December 2022 following the tragic death of coach Mike Leach. Arnett made wholesale changes to the offensive staff in the offseason, so the new scheme changes (plus a rash of injuries) made the offense crater in 2023 as the Bulldogs missed out on a bowl.
Oklahoma offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby walks into Starkville with a reputation for explosive offenses, so Mississippi State should be able to compete more consistently again in the SEC, although it’s not getting any easier, with Lebby’s former Sooners and the Texas Longhorns joining the conference in 2024. Lebby’s assistant salary pool is larger than Arnett’s, proving that new athletic director Zac Selmon (another former Sooner) is willing to spend more to make sure the Bulldogs can return to their winning ways in the nation’s toughest conference.
5) Jedd Fisch, Washington
- Age: 47
- Hometown: Livingston, New Jersey
- Alma Mater: Florida
- Previous Job: Head Coach, Arizona
Fisch has all of a sudden become the hottest names in the coaching profession after his masterful three-year turnaround job at Arizona, where he went from 1-11 to 5-7 to 10-3. He earned massive kudos for his recruiting and his staff assembly, and his extensive NFL experience works in his favor – although Fisch did not play football himself as an undergrad, he has the distinction of working alongside some of the biggest names in the coaching business, including Bill Belichick, Jim Harbaugh and Pete Carroll.
Although there was arguably still more work to be done at Arizona as they entered the Big 12 in 2024, Washington gave Fisch a $7 million-plus offer to relocate to Seattle, and he couldn’t refuse. The Huskies will still need to maintain the same standard they had under ex-coach Kalen DeBoer in order to continue to be playoff contenders, however. There’s also still uncertainty about if UW can really recruit head-to-head with other Big Ten juggernauts.
6) Curt Cignetti, Indiana
- Age: 62
- Hometown: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Alma Mater: West Virginia
- Previous Job: Head Coach, James Madison
Who doesn’t love this hire? If anyone can approach the Hoosiers’ challenges in the Big Ten (there’s many), it’s Cignetti, the guy who’s never had a losing season and who led James Madison from the FCS to the Sun Belt the past two seasons, winning 19 out of 23 games in the process. It was inevitable that he would move on to a bigger program eventually, but Indiana is a curious choice.
You can win here – ESPN College GameDay legend Lee Corso once coached in Bloomington – but it’s challenging to win consistently and the Hoosiers have been snakebitten recently, both by the portal, a lack of internal development, and talented coordinators moving on to better opportunities elsewhere. The one downside is Cignetti’s age (62), but he should be able to transform the Hoosiers’ roster with time.
7) Mike Elko, Texas A&M
- Age: 46
- Hometown: South Brunswick, New Jersey
- Alma Mater: Penn
- Previous Job: Head Coach, Duke
Former Texas A&M athletic director Ross Bjork said it best – the Aggies weren’t paying Jimbo Fisher to go 8-4 every season, and the Aggie football program had become a car stuck in neutral. Despite insanely well-regarded recruiting classes, Fisher’s complex pro-style offense proved to be his undoing, and despite a great career as a quarterback whisperer, too many talented prospects at the position either transferred out of College Station or just didn’t develop.
Mike Elko returns to town after a very surprising two-year run at Duke (16-9), where he gave the program a jolt of energy, especially on defense. He also knows the terrain at A&M, having worked under Fisher as an assistant from 2018-21. He won’t be the flashy name that Aggie fans craved – apparently, they were close to luring Kentucky’s Mark Stoops – but Elko has the opportunity to finally get the Aggies over the hump in the SEC.
8) Jon Sumrall, Tulane
- Age: 41
- Hometown: Huntsville, Alabama
- Alma Mater: Kentucky
- Previous Job: Head Coach, Troy
Sumrall’s name began surging, and rightfully so, after Troy came out of nowhere to win 23 combined games in the past two seasons, as well as back-to-back Sun Belt Conference championships. Tulane poached Sumrall after Willie Fritz finally left for Houston, and Sumrall, a former Kentucky linebacker, will be able to imprint his defensive identity on the Green Wave.
As easy as Fritz made it look on occasion, Tulane remains a tough job and winning consistently is hard here. But the on-field success has allowed Tulane to have more credibility with in-state recruiting, and Fritz left the roster in very good shape. Don’t bet against Sumrall continuing to crank out winning seasons, this time in New Orleans.
9) Manny Diaz, Duke
- Age: 49
- Hometown: Miami, Florida
- Alma Mater: Florida State
- Previous Job: Defensive Coordinator/Linebackers Coach, Penn State
Diaz was cut loose from his hometown Miami Hurricanes in 2021, but rehabbed his reputation after two outstanding years as Penn State’s defensive coordinator, producing a top 10 unit nationally this past fall. Now he’ll get another chance in the ACC at Duke, a program that saw Mike Elko pack his bags and return to Texas A&M after only two seasons.
Duke will always be a basketball school, but the administration has been willing to spend more on football in recent years, including the recent Wallace Wade Stadium renovation. Diaz can recruit well, but Duke is vulnerable to losing players via the portal. Can he keep the good times rolling for a Blue Devils squad that has little margin for error?
10) Fran Brown, Syracuse
- Age: 40
- Hometown: Camden, New Jersey
- Alma Mater: Western Carolina
- Previous Job: Defensive Backs Coach, Georgia
After eight seasons, the Dino Babers regime had run out of gas, and the Orange’s lack of depth exposed their inability to close out close games or to take advantage of hot Septembers or Octobers, only to fall apart down the stretch in the past two Novembers.
To Babers’ credit, he tried to change up schemes and adapt his recruiting–and he’ll always have that thrilling 2018 season–but he lost too many players to better transfer opportunities and finished with a 41-55 record in eight seasons. Syracuse is not an easy place to win – there’s a lack of local high school talent and the school is closer to Ottawa than it is to New York City. It’s the definition of a developmental program, and that’s increasingly hard to manage in modern college football.
Fran Brown looms as a sneaky-good hire for the Orange; not only does he have a national championship pedigree as a former Georgia assistant under Kirby Smart, but he’s experienced in the Northeast, having coached multiple seasons at Temple under Matt Rhule and Rutgers under Greg Schiano. Still just 40, Brown can buy himself some time at Syracuse if he banks some early wins on the recruiting trail, and the early returns in the transfer portal have been promising.
11) Sean Lewis, San Diego State
- Age: 37
- Hometown: Oak Lawn, Illinois
- Alma Mater: Wisconsin
- Previous Job: Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks Coach, Colorado
It was evident on October 21st that Brady Hoke was on the way out, as his San Diego State Aztecs dropped a game 6-0 at home against a Nevada team holding a nation-worst 16-game losing streak. That horrendous result epitomized what SDSU had become: anemic, inept offense, no clear identity on defense, and a lack of player development. The season wound up being the worst at Montezuma Mesa since 2009 and it was clear that Hoke was on the hot seat.
Eventually, Hoke saved athletic director J.D. Wicker the trouble, and the 65-year-old coach announced his retirement on November 13th.
Enter Colorado offensive coordinator Sean Lewis. He’s known for a fast-paced offense that can surely help put butts in seats at SDSU. He also turned Kent State into consistent contenders in the MAC (a historically impossible task) during his run there from 2018-22.
Although he lost his playcalling duties midseason while he was the OC at Colorado in 2023, Lewis has lots of respect in coaching circles and runs a quarterback-friendly scheme. If he can adapt to the rigors of West Coast recruiting, Lewis can find a path to Mountain West success.
SDSU has a world-class basketball team that reached the Final Four in 2023, and they were rumored Pac-12 expansion candidates before the conference imploded this past year. Make no mistake: there will be pressure at SDSU to win immediately, but first things first: reboot the offense and re-energize a fanbase that’s grown apathetic about Aztec football.
12) Brent Brennan, Arizona
- Age: 50
- Hometown: Redwood City, California
- Alma Mater: UCLA
- Previous Job: Head Coach, San José State
As the late Yogi Berra would say, “Deja vu all over again.”
Brennan interviewed at Arizona during the 2021 coaching search that turned up Fisch, who bolted for Washington in January after leading the Wildcats to a remarkable turnaround in three years. The Arizona football program had become a complete afterthought on campus, the administration had fired a washed-up Kevin Sumlin, and now Fisch was tasked to lead the turnaround.
Known for being a high-energy, CEO-type coach, Fisch flexed his recruiting muscles, reeling in the Pac-12 Conference’s best class in 2022 despite coming off a pitiful 1-11 debut. The Wildcats jumped up to 5-7 and 2022 and then 10-3 in 2023, including a big Alamo Bowl win over Oklahoma and an invitation to move to the Big 12 after the Pac-12 died on the vine. Then Fisch moved even further west and set up shop at CFP runner-up Washington, who’s transitioning into the Big Ten in 2024.
Brennan had a nice turnaround job of his own at San José State from 2017-23, earning three bowl trips at a success-starved program still attempting to find its way in the Mountain West. Importantly, he hung into assistant coaches, including coordinators, when bigger opportunities reared their heads. He also has a proven track record as a recruiter in the Southwest and Pacific Northwest. This wasn’t a sexy hire, but such hires rarely are.
13) Major Applewhite, South Alabama
- Age: 45
- Hometown: Baton Rouge, Louisiana
- Alma Mater: Texas
- Previous Job: Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks Coach, South Alabama
Applewhite was promoted from within after previous South Alabama head coach Kane Wommack left for a position on Kalen DeBoer’s new staff at Alabama in January. Applewhite has previous head coaching experience (15-10 in two seasons at Houston) and he engineered an explosive offense for the Jaguars, as they went 22-16 under Wommack the past three seasons.
Applewhite’s offensive mind and nearby recruiting connections should give him credibility with recruits, and the Jags have an (almost) brand-new stadium to show off. He was a member of Nick Saban’s inaugural staff at Alabama in 2007 and was also a Texas QB in the late 90s for Mack Brown.
There’s a proven path to success here now for this young program that’s only been in existence since 2009. The Sun Belt could also be in transition in 2024 as other powerhouse programs (Troy, James Madison, etc) have new coaches of their own, so the Jags could at least have the element of surprise on their hands.
14) Jeff Choate, Nevada
- Age: 53
- Hometown: St. Maries, Idaho
- Alma Mater: Montana Western
- Previous Job: Co-Defensive Coordinator/Linebackers Coach, Texas
Choate is an interesting hire for a Wolf Pack program that rapidly lost its way in two woeful years under Ken Wilson, who went 4-20. Choate is starting from scratch, sure, but he’s been an acclaimed assistant under coaches like Chris Petersen (2006-11 at Boise State, 2014-15 at Washington) and, most recently, Steve Sarkisian at Texas (‘21-’23).
In between that, Choate boasted a 28-22 record at Montana State from 2016-19, including two FCS playoff berths. So it’s not unrealistic to assume that he can get Nevada back to its winning ways given his familiarity in the region. He’s a solid recruiter and has developed a reputation as a special teams guru, holding that role at schools like Washington, Florida, Boise State and Utah State. Bottom line: Wolf Pack fans can expect another rough year, but Choate was a hot name in Mountain West circles for a reason.
15) Trent Bray, Oregon State
- Age: 41
- Hometown: Flagstaff, Arizona
- Alma Mater: Oregon State
- Previous Job: Defensive Coordinator/Linebackers Coach, Oregon State
You’d be hard-pressed to find a program that finds itself in an unluckier position than Oregon State. Although the Beavers were ranked most of the year and finished 8-4, they were blown out by rival Oregon in Eugene as the Pac-12 crumbled around them thanks to conference realignment. The only two remaining Pac-12 schools – OSU and Washington State – are both in isolated locations and are historically difficult to win at due to recruiting issues.
Loyal alum Jonathan Smith rebuilt the program from scratch, but it’s blatantly obvious that, with OSU’s conference future up in the air, Smith thought the wise decision would be to pack up and leave for greener pastures – in this case, another Power 5 rebuilding project at Michigan State.
There’s clearly talent in Corvallis, plus a newly-renovated Reser Stadium, but the athletic department is heavily in debt. Therefore, promoting defensive coordinator Trent Bray, another Beaver alum, from within was both a logical decision and a smart one as the Beavers venture into uncharted territory in 2024.
16) Tony Sanchez, New Mexico State
- Age: 50
- Hometown: Fairfield, California
- Alma Mater: New Mexico State
- Previous Job: Wide Receivers Coach, New Mexico State
Long-suffering NMSU Aggie fans were delirious the past two seasons, as veteran head coach Jerry Kill, known as the “fix-it guy,” delivered 17 wins and back-to-back bowl berths for a rock-bottom Aggie program that had hadn’t won double-digit games since JFK was in the White House. Kill called it a career after a New Mexico Bowl loss to Fresno State in December, citing burnout, overall health and energy, disagreement with the current state of college football. With recruiting at stake, athletic director Mario Moccia promoted Sanchez from within.
Sanchez has had a unique journey. He’s an NMSU alum who’s lived his entire career in the Southwest, and like Kill, has a reputation as a rebuilder of programs–high school programs. He also went an astonishing 85-5 at Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas, winning six Nevada state championships.
Sanchez later went 20-40 as the head coach at UNLV from 2015-2019, but he helped build the Feritta Football Complex and was part of the negotiations that allowed Rebel football to have split access to Allegiant Stadium with the Las Vegas Raiders. He was part of Kill’s inaugural staff at NMSU in 2022 after they both worked under Gary Patterson at TCU the year prior, and Sanchez has admitted that he’s learned a lot from both coaches about building successful teams.
Getting elite players poached by Power Five teams via the portal is a very real danger for NMSU, but the same reality exists for all Conference USA schools, and let’s not forget that the Aggies were a couple of quarters away from a conference title in their first year in the league last season. The margin for error is razor-thin, but continuity should work in NMSU’s favor here. New facilities promised to be built under Kill’s watch are still going through, and Sanchez has promised to be aggressive in recruiting. Las Cruces is suddenly home to one of the most interesting programs in the FBS – can Sanchez keep the good vibes going?
17) Ken Niumatalolo, San José State
- Age: 58
- Hometown: Lāʻie, Hawai’i
- Alma Mater: Hawai’i
- Previous Job: Director of Leadership/Interim Tight Ends Coach, UCLA
This one is intriguing. Niumatalolo is the winningest coach in Navy football history, assembling a record of 109-83 in 15 seasons and embracing a physical brand of football on both sides.
While he won’t be running the triple-option offense at SJSU like he did at the academy, Niumatalolo makes sense for a program that knows it’s among the have-nots in the FBS and needs to maintain a stronger brand heading forward. Niumatalolo is well-regarded as a player’s coach and he’s used to overachieving. He should be able to recruit well, but he’s hardly young (58) and will need to navigate the portal successfully in particular. The Spartans should remain competitive in the Mountain West, but the margin for error is slim.
18) Bronco Mendenhall, New Mexico
- Age: 57
- Hometown: Alpine, Utah
- Alma Mater: Oregon State
- Previous Job: Head Coach, Virginia (2016-21)
After a two-year hiatus, Mendenhall is back in business at a new location. It’s ancient history now, but Mendenhall first rose to prominence from 1998-2001 when he was New Mexico’s defensive coordinator under Rocky Long, recruiting future legend Brian Urlacher and developing a then-unique 3-3-5 defensive scheme. From there, Mendenhall moved into BYU, where he became a national name, then he spearheaded another impressive turnaround at Virginia from 2016-21.
Altogether, Mendenhall boasts a 135-81 career record and is well-versed in the unique challenges of recruiting to Albuquerque, although it’s a hard job that’s gotten harder – UNM went 11-32 under Lobo alum Danny Gonzales from 2020-23, and they haven’t been bowling since Bob Davie was head coach in 2016.
19) Gerad Parker, Troy
- Age: 42
- Hometown: Huntington, West Virginia
- Alma Mater: Kentucky
- Previous Job: Offensive Coordinator/Tight Ends Coach, Notre Dame
Two out of three of Troy’s most recent head coaches, Neal Brown and Jon Sumrall, have since moved onto greener pastures, and after Sumrall led the Trojans to back-to-back Sun Belt championship game berths and 23 wins in two seasons, he moved west to the Big Easy to tackle the Tulane job.
Parker has a lengthy resume of quality gigs at Power Five schools: West Virginia, Duke, Purdue and Penn State, just to name a few, and was most recently the OC at Notre Dame under head coach Marcus Freeman. An ace recruiter and a well-known wide receiver whisperer, Parker has a solid reputation and Troy offers him a good job to cut his teeth on, although staying at the top of the Sun Belt is difficult historically. The one blemish on Parker’s record? A February 2017 DUI arrest that resulted in him losing a potential gig as the receivers coach at East Carolina.
20) Bob Chesney, James Madison
- Age: 46
- Hometown: Kulpmont, Pennsylvania
- Alma Mater: Dickinson College
- Previous Job: Head Coach, Holy Cross
After leading James Madison to a 20-4 record in the past two seasons, Curt Cignetti packed his bags for the Big Ten, taking over the Indiana job in early December.
Chesney might not be a household name, but his four consecutive Patriot League titles and undefeated 2022 regular season at Holy Cross were enough to turn heads at the FCS level. With quality recruiting connections on the East Coast, he could definitely be a solid choice to keep JMU’s train rolling.
The Dukes qualified for a bowl game in 2023 for the first time, but, at 11-1, they were ineligible for a College Football Playoff ranking or a New Year’s Six bowl since they were in their second year transitioning from the FCS to the FBS. This drew nationwide attention and even sparked a brief lawsuit against the NCAA.
Chesney won’t need to worry about that, as the Dukes are through the transition phase now and are still hoping to dominate the Sun Belt in 2024, regardless of who’s behind the head coach’s desk. But in a league where 12 out of 14 football members were bowl eligible this year, who can say who will be champion in 2024?
21) Jay Sawvel, Wyoming
- Age: 52
- Hometown: Barnesville, Ohio
- Alma Mater: Mount Union
- Previous Job: Defensive Coordinator/Safeties Coach, Wyoming
It had been rumored for awhile that Craig Bohl would step down after an accomplished decade at Wyoming in which he got the Cowboys to six bowl games and recruited the program’s best-ever NFL product, quarterback Josh Allen. Bohl decided to make it as clean of a transition as possible, coaching through the 2023 Arizona Bowl before stepping down and promoting the 52-year-old Sawvel from within.
Sawvel’s D has been dominant in Laramie, consistently lifting Wyoming to success. Sawvel came from the D-III powerhouse Mount Union, cutting his teeth under veteran head coach Jerry Kill at Southern Illinois, Northern Illinois and Minnesota. Before he moved onto Wyoming, he had a solid two-year stint in the Power Five as the defensive coordinator at Wake Forest.
Sawvel’s not a flashy hire, but a good developmental hire for Wyoming, a blue-collar program that has to fight to get recruits on campus. If he can maintain the standard that Bohl set, Sawvel will keep the defense-minded Cowboys relevant in the Mountain West.
22) Spencer Danielson, Boise State
- Age: 35
- Hometown: Solana Beach, California
- Alma Mater: Azusa Pacific
- Previous Job: Defensive Coordinator/Inside Linebackers Coach/Interim Head Coach, Boise State
It seemed like a genius idea at the time.
Andy Avalos was a Boise State alum and a former all-conference linebacker who worked as an assistant there before becoming a national name as Oregon’s defensive coordinator in 2019-20. After Bryan Harsin moved on, Avalos returned to the Treasure Valley, energizing a passionate Boise State fanbase that another one of their own was returning.
Despite solid recruiting, there was no consistency, and the Broncos started slow in non-conference play, dropping games to teams like Washington (2023), Oregon State (2022) and Oklahoma State (2021) that they would normally have a chance at upsetting. Avalos bought himself some time with a midseason dismissal of offensive coordinator Tim Plough after a 2-2 start in 2022, but that did little to help the Broncos develop an identity.
Avalos’s dismissal after less than three seasons underscores the lack of patience that so many programs have developed in the College Football Playoff era – and speaking of which, the good news is that the Boise State job offers an outside shot to the CFP as an at-large bid now that the playoff has expanded in 2024.
It made sense to elevate Danielson from within after the Broncos ran the table following Avalos’s firing, including a 44-20 win in the Mountain West Championship Game over an upstart UNLV program.
BSU has everything it needs to succeed: a great stadium, a rabid fanbase, a national profile and the ability to spend money in name, image & likeness (NIL) opportunities for student-athletes. They can still stake a claim as the best overall Group of Five team in America, with 25 straight winning seasons to boot.
But can they dominate the Mountain West again? Danielson gets the first crack at it, and at only 35 years old, could grow into the role. The lone reason of concern is sheer inexperience – Danielson has been on staff at Boise State since 2017, but before that, his CV included only four seasons as an assistant at his alma mater, the Division II Azusa Pacific Cougars, who shut down their program in 2020.
23) Pete Lembo, Buffalo
- Age: 53
- Hometown: Staten Island, New York
- Alma Mater: Georgetown
- Previous Job: Assistant Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator, South Carolina
Lembo has had a unique journey back to head coaching, as he’ll return to the MAC after previously being a head coach at Ball State. In the 2000s, Lembo was a hot name in the FCS after going 44-14 at Lehigh (2001-05) 35-22 at Elon (2006-10), and that helped him land the Ball State gig in 2011. Lembo started off strong, earning back to back bowl bids in 2012-13, but a combined 8-16 record the next two seasons sealed his fate.
Then Lembo reinvented himself as a special teams wizard, holding that coordinator title for eight seasons with four different schools. At his most recent stop, South Carolina, Lembo’s special teams units were frequently among the nation’s best.
It might not be a flashy hire, but at Buffalo, Lembo won’t be under pressure to win immediately – the Bulls mostly treaded water under Maurice Linguist, who went 14-23 in three seasons before he moved onto the defensive coordinator gig at Alabama several weeks ago.
24) Bryant Vincent, Louisiana-Monroe
- Age: 48
- Hometown: Glasgow, Kentucky
- Alma Mater: West Alabama
- Previous Job: Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks Coach, New Mexico
Vincent emerged as a head coaching contender in the past two seasons thanks to two different tasks in two different, challenging situations. In 2022, he unexpectedly found himself as the interim head coach at UAB after Bill Clark stepped down due to health issues. He went 7-6, got the Blazers to a bowl game, and running back Dewayne McBride was one of the nation’s best rushers. Despite players on the roster giving him a vote of confidence, UAB administration spurned Vincent, electing to hire ex-NFL QB Trent Dilfer as the Blazers’ next full-time coach in a surprise move.
Vincent landed in Albuquerque, where he helped jumpstart a stagnant New Mexico offense in 2023 using grad transfer Dylan Hopkins, his former quarterback at UAB. While the Lobos went 4-8 and head coach Danny Gonzales got fired regardless, Vincent’s offense jumped the national rankings by over 100 spots and earned him kudos from people in the know.
It’s obvious what the blueprint is here. Vincent runs a run-first offense mixed with play-action passing, and if he can recruit high schools better than his predecessor Terry Bowden (dismissed after three losing seasons), he might turn out as a solid hire, even in a very competitive conference. Despite being located in talent-rich Louisiana, ULM has only one bowl game (2012) and no Sun Belt titles to its credit since joining the FBS in 1994.
25) Scotty Walden, UTEP
- Age: 34
- Hometown: Cleburne, Texas
- Alma Mater: Sul Ross State
- Previous Job: Head Coach, Austin Peay
Walden, at only 34 years old, won 26 games in four seasons in the FCS at Austin Peay, posting a winning record every year and developing a reputation as a high-energy coach with a productive offensive scheme.
A graduate of Division II Sul Ross State – 220 remote miles away from equally remote El Paso – Walden can recruit in West Texas, but his lack of FBS experience works against him. Although he was an interim head coach at Southern Miss in 2020 following Jay Hopson’s resignation, Walden went only 1-3 down the stretch and has a grand total of only four seasons as an FBS assistant (all at Southern Miss).
It’s a gamble, but UTEP athletic director Jim Senter wanted someone young and energetic after the Dana Dimel experiment failed. A veteran coach from the Bill Snyder coaching tree, Dimel rebuilt a program that was devoid of talent starting in 2018, but didn’t break through to the postseason until 2021 and never got there again, leaving El Paso with a record of 20-49.
Letters from Las Cruces 