It has been a crazy year for the college football coaching carousel, with 27 teams looking for new coaches. That included a number of big-name programs, like USC, Georgia and Miami. In all, 13 power programs (plus BYU) were searching for new coaches, and all of them have found replacements.
Grading 2016’s biggest college football coaching hires
We *think* the carousel is done spinning for the year, so let’s run through the most important new head coaches to know.
Some established names moved in this year’s carousel. Frank Beamer and Steve Spurrier retired. Georgia fired coach Mark Richt, who landed at his alma mater, Miami. And BYU staple Bronco Mendenhall left for Virginia.
As we discuss above, the star of this year’s carousel was the ACC. While the SEC hired Nick Saban assistants and the Big Ten and USC hired interims, the ACC went out and grabbed established head coaches with records of winning.
Here’s a look at every change this year:
| School | Old Coach | New Coach |
| Ball State | Pete Lembo | Mike Neu |
| Bowling Green | Dino Babers | Mike Jinks |
| BYU | Bronco Mendenhall | Kalani Sitake |
| East Carolina | Ruffin McNeill | Scottie Montgomery |
| Georgia | Mark Richt | Kirby Smart |
| Georgia Southern | Willie Fritz | Tyson Summers |
| Hawaii | Norm Chow | Nick Rolovich |
| Illinois | Tim Beckman | Bill Cubit |
| Iowa State | Paul Rhoads | Matt Campbell |
| Maryland | Randy Edsall | D.J. Durkin |
| Memphis | Justin Fuente | Mike Norvell |
| Miami | Al Golden | Mark Richt |
| Minnesota | Jerry Kill | Tracy Claeys |
| Missouri | Gary Pinkel | Barry Odom |
| North Texas | Dan McCarney | Seth Littrell |
| Rutgers | Kyle Flood | Chris Ash |
| South Carolina | Steve Spurrier | Will Muschamp |
| Syracuse | Scott Shafer | Dino Babers |
| Texas State | Dennis Franchione | Everett Withers |
| Toledo | Matt Campbell | Jason Candle |
| Tulane | Curtis Johnson | Willie Fritz |
| UCF | George O'Leary | Scott Frost |
| ULM | Todd Berry | Matt Viator |
| USC | Steve Sarkisian | Clay Helton |
| UTSA | Larry Coker | Frank Wilson |
| Virginia | Mike London | Bronco Mendenhall |
| Virginia Tech | Frank Beamer | Justin Fuente |
See More:
