In the FBS coaching carousel, level-ups are going up. Will it last? Fortuna’s Cover 4

We return this week with encouraging news on the hiring front, along with happenings across the conference landscape. Let’s dig in.

1. Small-school coaches are finally getting some breaks

Four years ago, four different FBS programs turned to the FCS level to find their next head coaches. In the three ensuing cycles, no one from the FCS moved up to an FBS head coaching job.

That changed this winter, with Colorado, Stanford and Texas State going to the FCS to find the next leaders of their programs. Perhaps as importantly, FCS coaches, along with other smaller-school coaches, have been getting more shots at assistant jobs at the highest college level. Oklahoma State looked to Division II Gannon University in Erie, Pa., to find its next defensive coordinator. Nebraska hired a Texas high school coach to be its next tight ends coach. Northwestern and Wisconsin made multiple hires from the FCS and Division II levels, too.

Throw in Trent Dilfer going from Lipscomb (Tenn.) Academy to UAB — not your typical anonymous high school coach making it big, but a huge jump nonetheless — and it appears as though smaller-school coaches are finally having something of a moment, with plenty of movement still to come.

“I think we’ve come to the conclusion at this point that just hiring to win a press conference ultimately has you trying to win a press conference again in four years,” said a coaching agent who requested anonymity to speak on other jobs. “There are a lot of components to being a head coach of a football program, and a lot of them have nothing to do with football, but you still need to do that football portion well to win.

“You’ve got all these administrative duties, all these political things you’ve got to do, but you still have to win the football games. So it takes somebody that’s got all those talents, and I think you’re able to do that at a smaller school and make your mistakes and get those reps and handle those things so that not everything is a f—ing freakout when your AD tells you that you have to do something. You learn to prioritize and allocate your resources so that you’re not freaking out.”

The influx of fresh names eliminates stagnation and potentially provides opportunities for more coaches who are grinding away at the lower levels.

A decade ago, Mike Gundy turned to the PSAC to hire an up-and-coming offensive coordinator from Shippensburg named Mike Yurcich, a former Division II quarterback who had spent all but one year of his career at the NAIA or D-II level. Yurcich spent six years at Oklahoma State, helping the Cowboys to four 10-win seasons. His career has progressed since, from Ohio State to Texas to Penn State, where he just called the plays in a Rose Bowl win.

When Yurcich was hired in 2013, the Cowboys paid him $400,000 per year. He had been making just $52,500 at Shippensburg. At Texas, Yurcich had a salary of $1.7 million per year.

Fast forward 10 years later, and Gundy has again turned to the PSAC, this time for a defensive coordinator, hiring Bryan Nardo from Gannon. Although Nardo’s old salary and new salary remain unknown (Gannon is a private school), it is safe to say that Division II compensation packages have not exactly escalated at the same rate as their FBS counterparts. (For reference, previous Cowboys DC Derek Mason made $1.1 million last year, although he was a much more established name.)

By making the leap to the Power 5, Yurcich landed a paycheck seven times what he was making in Division II. Could Nardo be multiplying his salary tenfold next season? It wouldn’t be a surprise.

Though the circumstances are different, Deion Sanders’ leap is even bigger from a financial standpoint, as Coach Prime made $300,000 annually at Jackson State and will be making north of $5 million per year at Colorado. That might not be life-changing money to a marketable Pro Football Hall of Famer, but as Sanders has said dating back to his Jackson State days, it is life-changing for others he works with.

Sanders brought along five assistant coaches from Jackson State, four of whom have spent the majority of their coaching careers out of the FBS spotlight.

“At some of these smaller schools you have a really difficult task,” the agent said. “You have to teach guys that don’t know how to get into a stance to get into a stance. You have to actually coach. At bigger schools, if the players aren’t doing it right, you can essentially put them on waivers.”

Stanford and Texas State went the FCS route in hiring Troy Taylor from Sacramento State and G.J. Kinne from Incarnate Word, respectively.

In the Big Ten, Pat Fitzgerald fired three coaches at Northwestern after a one-win season. He had fired one assistant in the previous 15 years. He turned to the FCS finalists for two of his new hires, hiring North Dakota State defensive coordinator David Braun and South Dakota State defensive line coach Christian Smith to the same roles with the Wildcats, while adding Armon Binns from Youngstown State as receivers coach. (SDSU beat NDSU in the FCS title game.)

Luke Fickell moved similarly in building out his first staff at Wisconsin, hiring Grand Valley State head coach Matt Mitchell from the D-II ranks to be his special teams coordinator and outside linebackers coach, and adding Devon Spalding from Youngstown State to coach running backs. And Matt Rhule reached back into his Texas connections upon taking the Nebraska job, hiring Arlington Martin High head coach Bob Wager as his tight ends coach.

“One hire that stood out to me is Army getting the OC from D-II Nebraska-Kearney (Drew Thatcher),” the agent said. “They did a good job and identified and dug through stuff. Somebody’s watching these games. That’s hard sometimes. The job is so involved that I think some of the guys at the lower level have to do it all. Because of that you get a different perspective than a guy that’s sat with a polo shirt working at a computer that gets bumped up from seat to seat whenever someone leaves.

“You have to endure these things. I’m happy for that development, but it’s donors and ADs having to overcome this really stupid thing of, ‘Hey, I don’t know who his name is.’ Well it’s not like you don’t know his name because he’s not good. It’s that you don’t know enough people. So that to me is a big change in this.”

Seeing Ryan Grubb’s name involved with high-profile offensive coordinator searches at Texas A&M and Alabama likely helped smaller-school coaches’ cause, too. Grubb, the Washington OC, is a former Division III player who spent the first decade of his career working at the high school, Division II and FCS levels.

Northern Illinois made a noteworthy hire Tuesday, too, when it added former Division III UW-Eau Claire head coach Wesley Beschorner as its running backs coach and passing game coordinator.

As for the four FCS coaches hired four years ago, Tom Arth (Chattanooga to Akron) and Will Healy (Austin Peay to Charlotte) have since been fired. Mike Houston (JMU to East Carolina), meanwhile, just led the Pirates to their first consecutive winning seasons since joining the American Athletic Conference, while Chris Klieman (North Dakota State to Kansas State) just won the Big 12.

The risk-reward factor is prevalent everywhere; nine other coaches from that 2018-19 coaching cycle have since been fired. And just two other coaches from that round — Ryan Day and Thomas Hammock — have won conference titles and remain at the schools that hired them in 2018-19.

Said another coaching agent, “ADs are now realizing that winning the press conference can raise you a little bit of money, but winning games can raise you a lot of money.”

2. Meetings, meetings everywhere

The Pac-12 CEO group met Monday at Arizona State. The departing Pac-12 members, UCLA and USC, have been hosting Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren and a conference contingent this week in Los Angeles as they discuss assimilation into the league. SEC leaders are meeting this week in New Orleans. ACC leaders are meeting next week in Charlotte. And Big 12 leaders are scheduled to meet late this week. Notre Dame trustees are meeting this week, too, as long as we’re keeping count.

These are all standard, regularly scheduled meetings, although the pressing topics — the Pac-12’s looming TV deal, the status of Oklahoma and Texas, the Big Ten’s commissioner search — are surely being discussed.

On that last point, the Big Ten began forming its internal search committee last week. The conference also announced that it had retained TurnkeyZRG for the search, a departure from the search that landed Warren, which was led by Korn Ferry.

TurnkeyZRG will now have had four consecutive Power 5 commissioner searches: the ACC (Jim Phillips), the Pac-12 (George Kliavkoff), the Big 12 (Brett Yormark) and the Big Ten, in addition to the recent NCAA president search (Charlie Baker).

If the Big Ten ADs had their choice, they would go with a more traditional college candidate, especially after the three-and-out tenure of Warren. But ADs aren’t the groups making these decisions; presidents and chancellors are. And it’s anyone’s guess what they will look for, given the massive turnover at that level in the Big Ten since Warren was hired.

TurnKeyZRG went outside-the-box with two of its recent commissioner hires, but it went with Phillips, then the Northwestern AD, for the ACC search. The past three Power 5 commissioner searches have ranged from two to six months, although the six-month search was the ACC’s in 2020, which was undoubtedly complicated by other world matters at that point in time.

It’s a safe bet to expect the Big Ten’s search to wrap up sometime in the spring.

3. ACC, Big 12 release schedules

The unveiling of conference schedules usually turns into an exercise of “who got hosed,” as opponents are already lined up and the public is merely waiting to see where the pieces of the puzzle fall into place.

The ACC released its schedule with a TV special on its own network Monday night, and two schools in particular stood out for having tougher roads than others. Wake Forest will follow its open date with this eight-games-in-eight-weeks stretch: at Clemson, at Virginia Tech, Pitt, Florida State, at Duke, NC State, at Notre Dame, at Syracuse. Clemson doesn’t get it much easier, closing with this: at Miami, at NC State, Notre Dame, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, at South Carolina. The defending ACC champs at least get their open date after six games, which is ideal. Opening on Labor Day for the second consecutive year will be no picnic, though, as Clemson travels to resurgent Duke.

One thing in common with Wake and Clemson? Both get Notre Dame late in the season. And the Irish, incredibly enough, will not face any ACC teams in 2023 that are coming off an open date.

In the Big 12, all eyes during Tuesday’s schedule release were on the newcomers and the soon-to-be-departed.

Cincinnati’s first Big 12 conference game comes on Sept. 23 at home against Oklahoma, which also faces UCF (let’s call it the Dillon Gabriel Bowl) and goes to BYU. Texas gets just two of the Big 12’s four new schools, as the Longhorns go to Houston and host BYU.

4. NFL hiring season is just different

It never ceases to amaze me just how transparent the NFL is when it comes to coaching interviews. A great example came Tuesday, when the Buccaneers announced that they had interviewed Todd Monken for their OC opening.

Can you imagine if colleges operated this way? The recruiting implications alone would be hilarious. (And speaking of recruiting, the February signing date now seems as much about introducing new assistants or giving staff updates as it is about high school signees.)

In any event, the prospect of Monken leaving Georgia would make for quite the opening in the SEC, given that Alabama has vacancies at both coordinator jobs at the moment.

Here’s a question to ponder, in case both are open at the same time: Which job is better? Calling the plays for the two-time reigning national champs, or running an offense for Nick Saban?

There are still two NFL head coach openings, too, after Denver and Houston made their picks Tuesday.

Stay tuned.

(Photo: Darren Yamashita / USA Today)