Broadly speaking, a college football program needs two things to succeed: a recruiting base and money to pay for coaches and facilities. The programs of the ACC have the former, but not as much as other power conferences in the latter. Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina are replete with blue chip talent.
The ACC won the coaching carousel by being open to new ideas
Compared to the Big Ten and SEC, ACC programs collectively have less money with which to lure coaches. They did not let that disadvantage get in the way during hiring season.
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However, ACC teams aren’t especially good at revenue generation. For instance, when the Wall Street Journal created values for college football programs, there wasn’t a single team from the league in the top 20. Florida State led the pack at No. 21, behind nine programs from the SEC and six from the Big Ten. In addition to having smaller, less intense fan bases (and we are speaking generally; there are exceptions, such as the ACC’s playoff entrant this year), the ACC suffers from a sub-optimal TV deal and the absence of a dedicated network.
So one would expect ACC programs to operate at a disadvantage in hiring season, especially in comparison to their richer rivals in the Big Ten and the SEC. Instead, the opposite happened.
The ACC teams hiring new coaches did significantly better jobs bringing in head coaching talent.
Virginia Tech started the party with perhaps the best of any hire in this cycle, bringing in Justin Fuente from Memphis to revitalize the Hokies’ moribund offense, while still retaining the brains of the prior regime, defensive coordinator Bud Foster. Virginia Tech can expect immediate improvement.
Miami lured former Georgia head coach Mark Richt with a lucrative offer. It’s not every day that an athletic director can hire a program alum who has a .739 winning percentage and experience recruiting the state, but Blake James had the chance and executed.
Virginia came out of nowhere to hire Bronco Mendenhall, who brings a .702 winning percentage and a reputation for being an excellent defensive coach to Charlottesville. Mendenhall’s teams ran attractive, modern offenses at BYU, which will be a massive upgrade from the Steve Fairchild swill that fans of the Hoos have been forced to consume for years.
And Syracuse completed the cycle by landing arguably the best coaching prospect from the MAC since Urban Meyer: Dino Babers. Babers has produced a top-20 team this year according to F/+. In fact, according to SRS, Babers’ team this season is the best in Bowling Green’s history by a substantial margin -- better than either of the Falcons teams Meyer coached.
Moreover, Babers runs a version of the Art Briles offense that has allowed Baylor to overcome a talent deficit and become one of the best teams in the Big 12 on a consistent basis. His scheme is ideal for a program like Syracuse that lacks an above-average recruiting base.
The failure of Big Ten teams to hire Babers is borderline administrative malpractice.
Big Ten teams hire all manner of MAC coaches, whether unremarkable (Jerry Kill) or downright overmatched (Tim Beckman, Darrell Hazell, and [indirectly] Brady Hoke). The conference had four openings to be filled by programs that ought to be flush with cash because of the Big Ten Network.
Moreover, like most middle class programs, Illinois, Minnesota, Rutgers and Maryland are likely to face talent deficits against the recruiting blue bloods of the league: Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and now Michigan State. Thus, the prospect of running a Briles offense should be especially appealing, as it could create the same talent-leveling effect that it has demonstrated in the Big 12. Those teams are not going to beat rivals with better recruiting bases by adopting the same strategies; they'll only win by doing something different.
Instead, Illinois and Minnesota took the path of least resistance by promoting from within, despite neither Tracy Claeys nor Bill Cubit having any market value outside of their programs.* Rutgers and Maryland hired the defensive coordinators of Ohio State and Michigan, the “we don’t have any interesting ideas” move of last resort, like buying gift certificates as Christmas presents. “Hey, let’s hire assistants from two of the aristocrats in the conference and let’s make sure to do it on the side of the ball that is more talent-dependent.”
* - Yes, Illinois and Minnesota have interim athletic directors. So did Michigan last year when it hired Jim Harbaugh. How does it help the future athletic directors of those programs to hire short-term coaches who will almost certainly struggle to recruit? What roster is Bill Cubit’s successor going to inherit after Illinois gave him the full-time job on a two-year deal? To a marginally lesser extent, the same question can be asked about the three-year deal given to Tracy Claeys.
Speaking of uninteresting defensive coordinator hires ... the SEC East!
Despite a disappointing season for the SEC East because of a collection of bad offenses, three teams in that division decided to double down on what has not been working.
Georgia and South Carolina both hired former Nick Saban defensive coordinators, one of whom has already failed as a head coach and the other who does not have a resume comparable to the coaches hired by the ACC programs. Mizzou promoted its defensive coordinator, which is a defensible move in light of how good the Tigers’ defense has been in recent years, but still leaves the question as to whether Mizzou will get better on offense.
The ACC’s hiring teams showed the teams in that league to be open to new ideas, whereas the Big Ten’s and SEC’s did not. All four of the ACC hires come from outside the conference, which will mean an infusion of new ideas. Fuente, Richt and Babers will bring new offenses; Mendenhall will bring a new defense. In contrast, none of the seven head coaches hired by Big Ten and SEC teams come from outside of those leagues, which creates the possibility that those leagues will grow stale without new concepts.
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