Making the case for college football's wildest coaching carousel, where 2023-24 fits in

The coaching carousel this offseason has been a wild one, with a seemingly historic shuffling of college head coaches across the country since the end of the regular season. But is it the craziest coaching carousel we’ve seen to date?

On3’s Andy Staples answered just that on his Thursday show when a viewer, Nathan, asked him to compare this offseason to others regarding head coaching turnover. As Staples broke down how the post-2023 offseason stacks up against the competition.

“So I think this one is incredibly weird Nathan one because you have Nick Saban retiring and Jim Harbaugh leaving for the NFL,” Staples said. “But also because of the other stuff that’s going on in college football that has caused a couple different chain reaction things. Like having Jeff Hafley leave Boston College to be the Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator, that hasn’t happened.”

There’s no doubt this offseason has been highlighted by chain reactions, with Saban’s retirement leading to Kalen DeBoer leaving Washington for Alabama and Jed Fisch leaving Arizona to become the Huskies head coach. Plus Hafley’s move to the NFL resulting in Bill O’Brien leaving his brief tenure as Ohio State‘s offensive coordinator to become the head man at BC and Chip Kelly leaving his head coaching gig at UCLA to become the Buckeyes offensive coordinator.

Texas A&M also notably hired Mike Elko, Jonathan Smith became Michigan State‘s head coach, and Jeff Lebby secured his first head coaching gig with Mississippi State. But the 2021 offseason had a pair of monumental moves that Staples believes could rival this offseason.

“So LSU opens when Ed Orgeron gets fired, that set things off. USC opens when Clay Helton gets fired. That sets the table. Lincoln Riley went to USC and Brian Kelly went to LSU on the same day, think about that. Lincoln Riley left Oklahoma to go to USC, Brian Kelly left Notre Dame to go to LSU,” Staples said. “Like the idea of anyone leaving either one of those schools for another college job was unthinkable prior to that day. It totally changed our perception of what jobs are in college football.”

That offseason Florida also fired Dan Mullen, Washington fired Jimmy Lake, and the Oregon and TCU head coaching jobs opened following the exit of Mario Cristobal for Miami and Garry Patterson retiring.

But the 2017 season was also followed with some big time moves as well.

“That was a weird coaching search year, the Jimbo Fisher move to Texas A&M was obviously earthshaking. Florida State then hires Willie Taggart who had only been at Oregon for a year, and so Oregon’s thrown into chaos. Scott Frost is hired from UCF to go to Nebraska, that’s the slam dunk hire of the year, he ends up getting fired a few years later,” Staples explained. “That one was nuts.”

Jim McElwain was also fired from Florida, Jim Mora was fired from UCLA, and Bret Bielema was fired from Arkansas. But the most recent offseason and all the other aforementioned offseasons pale in comparison to the turn of the century according to Staples. Crowning the post-2000 offseason as the craziest the college football landscape has ever seen.

“So after the 2000 season, there was a coaching carousel that I think if had been in the social media era it would’ve been considered one of the wildest ones ever because of so many teams opening up,” Staples said. “But also now that we have the benefit of hindsight, there were so many hires that were complete slam dunks in this one. It set the table for the next decade of college football basically.”

Staples statement is hard to deny, with Ohio State hiring Jim Tressel, USC hiring Pete Carroll, Georgia hiring Mark Richt, and Miami hiring Larry Coker who would lead the Hurricanes to a 2001 National Championship win.

Those are just the headliners, as West Virginia hired Rich Rodriguez, Oklahoma State hired Les Miles, and Missouri hired Gary Pinkel. Not to mention TCU hiring Gary Patterson from within and Bowling Green giving Urban Meyer the first head coaching cob of his career.

“So that post-2000 going into 2001 coaching carousel was the wildest I think if we’d have had the same level of coverage that we have now I think we would look at that very differently,” Staples said.

The 2000 carousel may currently hold the crown as craziest, but time is on its side, as it will be interesting to see what the 2023-2024 coaching cycle looks like a couple of decades from now as well in comparison.