Season's Off The Rails, So Let's Go Deep On Coaches

A way-too-long dive on some of the most popular names in Nebraska's head coach search

Photo courtesy Nebraska Athletics

Game breakdowns are on a brief hiatus as I was out of town for a week and a half and didn’t want to lug my desktop across the country and/or spend my vacation days watching hours of film on a 3-5 team playing with backup quarterbacks. 

But this break gives us a great chance to talk about the most pressing question for the program right now: WHO WE HIRING???

Picking a college football coach is notoriously fickle, unpredictable, and doesn’t bear tangible results for years. Tons of hires that look like home runs at the time flop immediately, while picks that were panned by the media wildly outperform their expectations. At this point, it feels more and more like hiring a college football coach is that "What’s the most you’ve ever lost on a coin toss” scene in No Country For Old Men.

Despite the randomness, though, I think there are some factors for prospective coaches that are more indicative of future success than others:

• Building a program from the ground up: It’s a lot harder (and a lot more indicative of your ability) to turn around a bad situation than it is to keep a good one you inherited from the previous coach going. Developing something new vs. cut and paste.

• Experience/length of tenure: Hitting on a couple impact players or getting a run of good luck can make a coach’s record over a one- or two-year stretch look better than their actual work. Someone who demonstrates success/ability over many years/recruiting classes is a lot better bet for continued success. 

• Willingness to adapt/delegate: Football is constantly evolving, and schemes that take the sport by storm are usually solved or integrated by everyone else within a few years. I’m giving more points to coaches who have been able to demostrate continued success by being willing to adopt multiple schemes or identities — and also to coaches who have shown they can sublimate their egos into trusting new assistants/coordinators for the good of the program.

I’ve compiled most of the prominent names mentioned with the Nebraska opening and given brief summaries of their histories, offensive and defensive schemes, reasons why they might or might not take the job, and reasons why they might or might not be successful. I’ve also listed their average SP+ finish and average recruiting finish per the 247Sports composite rankings over the last four years, as well as the difference between the two. This number (i.e., “How much better did your team play than the talent you attracted”) seems like a good shorthand way of statistically evaluating a coach’s performance. I’ve also chosen to focus more on SP+ data over just raw win-loss record, as it’s a better indicator of how a team has played on the field and adjusts for schedule quality and luck. It’s a lot easier to have a good win-loss record in the Big 12 or AAC than it is to have one in the Big Ten or SEC in 2022, and win-loss record is also heavily skewed by close game luck, so using SP+ is a great way to equalize those and compare coaches.

I’ve listed the hires from there in a handful of tiers based on the criteria: Slam Dunks, Good Hires With Some Questions, OK Hires With Lots of Questions, Red Flags, and Please Don’t Do This. I tried to compile all of the most common candidates I had seen tied to NU from reliable reporters, but I’m sure I missed some names.

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“SLAM DUNKS” TIER:

Photo courtesy Iowa State Athletics

Matt Campbell, Iowa State

Record: 35-15 at Toledo; 45-39 at Iowa State

Average SP+ Finish Since 2018: 23.00 | Average Recruiting Finish Since 2018: 52.00 | Difference: 29.0

Overview: Campbell, one of the hottest names for major jobs on the coaching carousel in the last few years, has been nothing short of the best coach in Iowa State’s history, turning its woebegone program into a legitimate Big 12 threat. He’s finished above .500 in wins in all but his first year; the Cyclones had just eight winning records in their history prior to his arrival. Before ISU, Campbell cut his teeth in the MAC, first as the offensive live coach and run game coordinator at Bowling Green and then as the offensive coordinator and head coach at Toledo. As the youngest head coach in the country when he took over the Rockets at 32 in 2012, Campbell’s .700 winning percentage is third in that program’s history, with one of the coaches ahead of him being Nick Saban. 

Campbell is a master culture builder, fielding teams that are tough, physical and don’t beat themselves. He has also shown an established knack for finding under-the-radar players in recruiting and developing it into NFL-caliber talent, something that will surely be crucial for any version of a Nebraska rebound.

Campbell entered the coaching search as the Vegas favorite to get the job, but, in what was expected to be a rebuilding year, ISU has dropped five straight games after a 3-0 start, causing some of the shine to come off Campbell for both ISU and Husker fans. But looking a little more closely, four of the five losses have been by one score (which are not sticky year-to-year and regress to the mean, no matter what Nebraska fans might believe), and the Cyclones are still an imminently respectable 42nd in SP+ with a top 15 defense, in what was supposed to be a down year.

Offensive Scheme: Campbell has typically employed some version of a power-run spread offense but has shown a willingness to be flexible depending on his personnel; he averaged an almost 60/40 run-pass split in his final three years at Toledo when he had Kareem Hunt but let Brock Purdy launch 475 pass attempts in 2019 at ISU. His offenses generally tend to be more zone-run than gap-run and he heavily utilizes a lot of the modern offensive “easy buttons”: ISU was 9th nationally in play action percentage in 2020, 2nd in use of pre-snap motion, and 10th in RPO usage. Tight ends were also heavily involved as both moveable chess pieces in the running game and short and intermediate threats in the passing game, and ISU used heavy sets frequently. Campbell also has a knack for finding and developing running backs; he turned both Hunt at Toledo and David Montgomery, Kene Nwangwu, and Breece Hall at Iowa State into NFL draft picks. 

Campbell — who comes from an offensive background as a former OC and offensive line coach — has a long relationship with coordinator Tom Manning, who has been on his staff since the Toledo days aside from a brief NFL stint. The pair have produced the three best offenses by total yardage or scoring in ISU’s history each of the last three years.

Defensive Scheme: Campbell and coordinator Jon Heacock employed a pretty traditional 4-3 defense at Toledo and in their first season at Iowa State, before a string of five straight losses — one that included allowing 44 points to Iowa — over the 2016 and 2017 seasons caused the pair to throw out their playbook and start from scratch. What emerged was a modern 3-3-5, three-high-safety defense designed to stop the Big 12’s Air Raid offenses, one that has since been widely stolen across college football and by some of its biggest programs. The Heacock defense uses only three true down linemen and two corners, with the other six players being interchangeable linebacker/safety hybrid bodies who can disguise their responsibilities pre-snap and play a variety of roles (run defense/blitzing/coverage) post snap. This was a bet made that it would be easier for Iowa State to recruit these hybrid players than it would be impact defensive linemen or corners, which has proven true there and would also likely prove true at Nebraska. 

The Cyclones under Heacock rarely blitzed (125th in blitz rate nationally in 2020) and almost never played man coverage (Cover 1 on just 5% of their snaps, third from last nationally), preferring instead to roll from the three-high-safety into a version of Tampa 2 (2nd nationally in Cover 2 usage) or Cover 3 or 4.

Reasons Why They Would/Wouldn’t Take the Job: Campbell appears to have neared his ceiling at Iowa State, and Nebraska would offer dramatically better program funding, facilities, and NIL opportunities, along with a higher recruiting ceiling. He may also want to navigate his way out of the defunct Big 12 and into the Big Ten, which looks increasingly like one of the two remaining launchpads to a national title. He may feel he can land a better job than NU — not a totally unwarranted thought — but the “poor play” of this season may have tarnished him in the minds of some of the elite school ADs. He’s turned down bigger jobs than Nebraska in recent years, but he was rumored to have been willing to accept the USC job last offseason, which may be a sign he is now ready to move on.

Reasons For Success/Failure: Campbell and the next coach are the two best combinations of proven success and age on this list. Athletic director Trev Alberts has said he wants the next coach to turn Nebraska into the “premier development program in the Midwest” — it would be hard to find a better development-focused coach than the guy who turned ISU into a top-15 team over multiple recruiting cycles. He has a clear plan for and understanding of getting the most out of programs, while also showing a willingness to be flexible with his offensive and defensive schemes to best suit his personnel and resources; delegate responsibility to manage the whole program; and embrace modern and flexible football principles.

Photo courtesy Cincinnati Athletics

Luke Fickell, Cincinnati

Record: 6-7 at Ohio State (interim); 54-17 Cincinnati 

Average SP+ Finish Since 2018: 24.25 | Average Recruiting Finish Since 2018: 50.75 | Difference: 26.50

Overview: Fickell is an Ohio lifer, playing at Ohio State; working as an assistant at Akron; returning to the Buckeyes as a defensive line coach, defensive coordinator, and interim coach; and getting his first full-time job with Cincinnati. He’s been one of the most successful coaches in the country with the Bearcats — after an initial 4-8 season, he’s won 11, 11, 9, and 13 games, which includes an undefeated regular season and College Football Playoff appearance last year. He’s defense focused, fielding top 10 national defenses by SP+ each of the last two years and sending a bevy of talent on that side of the ball to the NFL. 

Offensive Scheme: Fickell prioritizes defense and ball control, but Cincinnati also fielded a pair of top 25 offensive units the last two years, led by quarterback Desmond Ridder, running back Jerome Ford, and receiver Alec Pierce, all picks in the 2022 NFL draft. The Bearcats have run a multiple, modern pro-style offense under Fickell, which has incorporated everything from traditional I-formation power football plays to the Air Raid, spread shotgun and pistol looks, and some quarterback run game. It’s as close to a modern “NFL” offense as you’re going to see in college football, one that puts a lot on its quarterbacks and asks them to make full-field reads. Statistically, the offense was about 50/50 run/pass splits, with what appeared to be about an even number of zone and power runs and an even mix of heavy and spread personnel.

Defensive Scheme: Cincinnati’s defense in Fickell’s tenure is also something I would classify as “multiple,” though it does have the hallmarks of typically running some version of an odd front, utilizing heavy man coverage, and shifting the look just before the snap to generate confusion and create pressure without blitzing. The thing that really stands out with the Bearcats defense, though, is its aggressiveness — especially in coverage. They force a ton of pass breakups and interceptions. Fickell has a real skill at identifying and developing DBs.

Reasons Why They Would/Wouldn’t Take The Job: Though Cincinnati is one of the more financially loaded G5 teams and the program will likely be one of the higher-ceiling programs in the new Big 12, Nebraska’s resources would still vastly overshadow the Bearcats’, and the stability/ceiling of the Big Ten (not to mention his familiarity with it) would likely be appealing to Fickell. But he also can probably do a lot better than the Huskers and would be a shoo-in for the Ohio State job if it were to ever open.

Reasons For Success/Failure: Fickell and Campbell are the two most unimpeachable options on this list: Young coaches who walked into bad, talent-poor situations and turned them around through long-term, proven skill in player scouting and development and culture building. Fickell hasn’t proven it at the P5 level as Campbell has, and Cincinnati is probably the easiest job in its current conference, but he also has a near decade of experience at Ohio State, so he’s familiar with what it takes to win at a high level in the Big Ten.

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“GOOD HIRES WITH SOME QUESTIONS” TIER:

Photo courtesy Kansas Athletics

Lance Leipold, Kansas

Record: 109-6 at Wisconsin-Whitewater; 37-33 at Buffalo; 7-13 at Kansas

Average SP+ Finish Since 2018: 81.00 | Average Recruiting Finish Since 2018: 109.25 | Difference: 28.25

Overview: Leipold is overseeing the turnaround at the Big 12’s other bottom dweller, and while the record may not be impressive on the surface level (his average finish in SP+ is being pulled down by a 123rd in his first season at KU), he’s taken a program that was 121st in SP+ upon his arrival to 52nd in essentially 1.5 offseasons. Before arriving in Lawrence, Leipold broke .500 during a six-year stay at Buffalo, typically regarded as one of the 10 most difficult FBS jobs. That was after he went on a “NCAA 14 Dynasty on Freshman Difficulty”-esque run with Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater, losing six total games over eight seasons — including a 30-game undefeated streak in 2013 and 2014 — and winning six national championships. He also spent 20 years as an assistant at Wisconsin, UNO, Doane, and Nebraska (under Frank Solich).

Offensive Scheme: Like Campbell, Leipold has utilized some version of a run-heavy scheme but has also shown a desire to be balanced when he’s had the players. At Kansas this season, Leipold and coordinator Andy Kotelnicki have essentially cut and pasted the Coastal Carolina gun triple option attack that Nebraska ran last year into the KU playbook (which has worked much better in the Big 12 than it did in the Big Ten). In his time at Buffalo, the Bulls were a heavy outside zone team and were the second most efficient team at the play in the country behind only Ohio State. In his final year with Buffalo (2020), the Bulls ranked second-to-last nationally in number of pure passing plays called (pass plays not featuring play action), but in 2018, Buffalo starting QB Tyree Jackson led the MAC in passing with 3,155 yards. 

Defensive Scheme: Leipold has used a basic, balanced 4-3 defense that utilized man and zone coverages evenly and blitzed little at both Buffalo and Kansas. Cover 4 was the primary coverage used, but Cover 3 and Cover 1 were also used at a pretty decent rate. The defense at KU has been … not good but has forced turnovers.

Reasons Why They Would/Wouldn’t Take The Job: Nebraska would again provide a higher ceiling than Kansas through better facilities, recruiting, money, NIL, and conference affiliation. While it may be a better job, Leipold has said repeatedly through speculation that he and his wife viewed Kansas as their “last stop” in his coaching career. While coaches lie about their intentions all the time and money can sway, it seems like a genuine sentiment.

Reasons For Success/Failure: A lot of the reasons for success would be the same as for Campbell and Fickell: the culture building, the player development, the history of success. The thing keeping him out of the upper tier would be age; he’s already 58. He would be coach for, at max, 10 years? Even if his tenure were to go well, you’d still have to nail another coaching hire in the near future. Considering it’s both incredibly hard to hire one good coach, having to do it twice is a little scary. I don’t mean for that to be exclusionary though: Nebraska is not at a point right now to complain about getting a stretch of good coaching for any length of time. Leipold has also been less aggressive than Campbell and Fickell on fourth downs and makes some puzzling clock and game management decisions from (ancedotally) what I’ve seen of the Jayhawks.

Photo courtesy Baylor Athletics

Dave Aranda, Baylor

Average SP+ Finish Since 2020: 39.00 | Average Recruiting Finish Since 2020: 43.5 | Difference: 4.50

Overview: This is Aranda’s first head coaching job after he spent 6 years as an incredibly successful Power 5 defensive coordinator at Wisconsin and LSU, during which he fielded a top 12 defenses in yardage all but one season. Aranda got off to a slow start with Baylor, winning just two games during the pandemic season in 2020. But he rebounded in a big way last year, winning the Big 12 and Sugar Bowl behind one of the country’s best defenses.

Offensive Scheme: After his initial offense finished 122nd in yards per play and 91st in SP+, Aranda changed coordinators, ditching Larry Fedora for outside zone savant Jeff Grimes from BYU. What resulted was a modern, creative outside zone-based offense that ran for over 3,000 yards on the season and was deadly off of play action but had a limited 3-step passing game when the offense got behind the chains. Grimes is getting significant head coaching buzz for his turnaround, so he likely wouldn’t be coming with Aranda if he were hired.

Defensive Scheme: Aranda was known for running a base 3-4 personnel but has switched to playing more of the 3-3-5 odd fronts inspired by Iowa State now that he’s in the Big 12. ISU is known more for running a “Tite” front — with its defensive ends shaded slightly inside the offensive tackles — while Aranda has run a “505” front, with the ends lined directly head up on the offensive tackles. Aranda also was known for his heavy man coverage usage at LSU, running Cover 1 on 42% of the snaps in his last season there, but switched to much more zone coverage (primarily Cover 2) with Baylor, likely because he has less cornerback talent available to him with the Bears. 

Reasons Why They Would/Wouldn’t Take The Job: Aranda might want to get out of the sinking Big 12 and into a more stable conference that he has experience in. Nebraska also has a facilities advantage on Baylor. But Baylor has money — not as much as NU but a lot — and being in the recruiting hotbed of Texas is really valuable and nice for coaches. I think Nebraska is a *slightly* better job than BU at this point, but I don’t know if it’s going to be enough of a better job to make him leave a good situation or one he’s happy in.

Reasons For Success/Failure: Aranda has proven to be a gifted and flexible defensive mind and someone whose teams and units play smart and physically, something that would be appreciated at Nebraska after the last few Nebraska coaching tenures. His willingness to bail on a subpar offensive play caller after one season to embrace a more modern scheme is a credit; it shows he is willing to both make hard decisions and cop to his previous mistakes without ego. But Aranda is a lot less proven than everyone mentioned on this list so far. He inherited a good situation and personnel at Baylor, especially on defense from previous coordinator Phil Snow. While he should get credit for keeping the success going, that’s also not the same as building it from scratch. In some ways, he’s sort of the defense version of Scott Frost: a longtime well-respected coordinator who walks into a good situation in an easier conference and is immediately successful, without having had the chance to prove it over a longer stretch of time. Just because that formula didn’t work with Frost has no bearing on whether it would work with Aranda, but I do think it indicates he is a riskier pick than anyone else previously mentioned.

Photo courtesy Coastal Carolina Athletics

Jamey Chadwell, Coastal Carolina

Record: 20-14 at North Greenville University, 3-7 at Delta State, 35-14 at Charleston Southern, 38-20 at Coastal Carolina

Average SP+ Finish Since 2019: 54.33 | Average Recruiting Finish Since 2019: 101.66 | Difference: 47.33

Overview: Chadwell has been viewed by some as a “flash in the pan” for his success at Coastal Carolina, but he has a much longer history of turning around programs at lower levels than people have been giving him credit for. The Tennessee native has spent all of his football career in the South or the Carolinas, playing quarterback for East Tennessee State and working as an assistant there and at Charleston Southern before beginning his head coaching career at Division II North Greenville University in South Carolina. After a shaky Year 1 with Greenville, he won nine games and made a bowl in his second season and won 11 games and reached the D2 Playoff quarterfinals in his third. He parlayed that into another Division II job at Delta State in Mississippi, but bounced after one year for Charleston Southern in the FCS, where he had previously worked as an offensive coordinator. Chadwell inherited a good situation with the Buccaneers and compiled an impressive record.

After four years there, former TD Ameritrade CEO, Nebraska assistant under Bo Pelini and Omaha Nighthawks head coach Joe Moglia pulled him to Coastal Carolina in 2017 to be the offensive coordinator in the season in which the Chanticleers moved up from the FCS level to the FBS. Chadwell later that year became the interim coach when Moglia had health problems, ceded the head job back to Moglia in 2018, and then became the head coach again in 2019 when Moglia stepped down. After a meh 5-7 first year under Chadwell, Coastal Carolina exploded under Chadwell (sensing a theme??) going 30-4 over the past three seasons.

Offensive Scheme: Chadwell’s claim to fame is inventing a modern and creative triple option offense primarily operated out of the shotgun that heavily features motion and tempo. Nebraska’s coaches — which met with the Coastal staff after the 2020 season — cribbed a lot of the triple option and other run-game concepts during the 2021 season. While “triple option” makes everyone think “running the ball 90 times a game” the CCU offense is actually at its best passing the ball and does it frequently, with an advance play action menu that is also getting stolen widely through college football, as the heavy threat of their option runs and motion usage makes defenses vulnerable to being gashed through the air. The offense also incorporates modern staples like RPOs, so it’s not just some 1970 flexbone relic. Chadwell has also great eye for signing underrated offensive talent and developing it, with low-ranked recruiting prospects Isaiah Likely (unranked tight end) and Grayson McCall (two-star quarterback) either having already been drafted by the NFL or on their way to being drafted. 

Defensive Scheme: The Chanticleers have run a pretty unremarkable 3-4 under coordinator Chad Staggs, who has been attached to Chadwell for a while. The Coastal defense has been pretty average but has still punched above its talent weight.

Reasons Why They Would/Wouldn’t Take The Job: As always, Nebraska represents a much higher ceiling in pay, recruiting, facilities, and NIL. Chadwell can probably get any number of good jobs after his success at Coastal, but he’s has spent most of his career in the South and has no ties to NU other than Moglia, so you wonder if there’s any connection that would pull him here or if he’s rather wait it out for a big job in the South. Possibly Georgia Tech?

Reasons For Success/Failure: Having no connection to the Midwest, Chadwell taking the NU job would mean establishing brand new recruiting networks for himself in new territory. He’s also a bit more unproven at the FBS level than these other guys and has no Power 5 experience, which sets off some alarm bells. Still, he’s one of the hottest offensive minds in the sport right now, and bringing back the option to Nebraska would be fun. He also the coach with the best ratio on this list from the performance/recruiting stat at the top.

Photo courtesy Utah Athletics

Kyle Whittingham, Utah

Record: 151-72 at Utah

Average SP+ Finish Since 2018: 16.75 | Average Recruiting Finish Since 2018: 33.50 | Difference: 16.75

Overview: Whittingham has been the most successful coach in Utah history and is the second-longest tenured coach in the FBS. He started his coaching career serving as an assistant at BYU (where he was an all-conference linebacker in the early 80s), Eastern Utah and Idaho State before heading back to Salt Lake City for the same role in 1994. In 1995, he was named the Utes’ defensive coordinator, a position he held through 2004 under multiple head coaches. Following Urban Meyer’s departure for Florida, Whittingham was named the interim coach for the 2004 Fiesta Bowl and head coach afterward. All he’s done since is shoot the program into a level of success it hadn’t previously seen. Aside from a brief dip in 2012 and 2013 with a pair of 5-7 seasons as Utah went up in competition as it moved from the Mountain West to the Pac-12, Utah has made a bowl in all 17 of Whittingham’s full seasons as coach, winning eight or more games in 12 of those. He’s won 10 or more games 6 times. He’s also helped Utah punch above its weight as a recruiter, consistently signing top-30 classes. He is one of the best football coaches in the country, full stop.

Offensive Scheme: Whittingham has caught flack throughout his career for having a conservative offense and a poor passing game, but controlling the pace of play and protecting the (typically elite) defense is paramount — much like an Iowa or a Wisconsin in the Big Ten. There have been a few scheme iterations, but he typically favors a run-heavy pro-style attack that has little interest in passing unless it has to. While the results have been pretty bad on offense — only one of his offenses finished above average in the Pac-12 from 2014 to 2020 — Utah under Whittingham actually has sent quite a bit of talent at offensive skill positions to the NFL.

Defensive Scheme: Whittingham is one of the last holdouts to still be running an old-school 4-3 defense with three linebackers on the field — little nickel personnel used here. Utah under Whittingham doesn’t run man coverage, using Cover 2 and Cover 3 at top-five national rates in 2020. He also doesn’t like to blitz, finishing 100th in blitz rate. But the hallmark here is physicality — Utah will kick your ass in the run game, and it’s coverage is tight, aggressive and beats the hell out of receivers. If you want a comp for the defense, think Iowa.

Reasons Why They Would/Wouldn’t Take The Job: Nebraska’s resources would offer him a late chance to try to win big at a higher level before he ends his career, and the Pac-12 appears headed for relegation status. But he has a really good thing going at Utah and has turned down entreaties for Husker-caliber programs before, and the West Coast lifer — he’s been at Utah for 29 years —may not want to have to move to the Midwest in his 60s. Though Mike Riley did, so you never know!

Reasons For Success/Failure: He’s an incredible coach and program builder with nearly two decades of proof of concept. I would have some recruiting questions, as he’s primarily been a West Coast/Texas recruiter who would need to create inroads to the Midwest at NU or hire a staff who did. But you aren’t as successful as he’s been without being a damn good coach who can adapt and wear different hats. Much like Leipold, the only reasons he’s not in the first tier are age (he’s 62) and that I don’t really think he would take the Nebraska job at this stage in his career.

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“OK HIRES WITH LOTS OF QUESTIONS” TIER

Photo courtesy Carolina Panthers

Matt Rhule, (formerly of the) Carolina Panthers

Record: 28-23 at Temple, 19-20 at Baylor, 11-27 with the NFL’s Panthers

Average SP+ Finish 2016-2019: 47.25 | Average Recruiting Finish 2016-2019: 40.00 | Difference: -7.25

Overview: Rhule has a wild and varied background than I don’t think anyone is invested enough in me detailing; he’s worked in as disparate of jobs as defensive line coach and offensive coordinator and in as disparate of places as Buffalo and UCLA. He got his big break as offensive coordinator of Temple, after which he left for a short stay as an NFL offensive line coach, before returning to the Owls as their head coach in 2013. After two bad seasons in Philadelphia, the Owls went 20-7 over his last two years, which culminated in 2016 with the school’s first conference title since 1967.

He turned down several overtures from other schools after his third season but made the jump to the Big 12 after his fourth season by taking the open job at Baylor. The Bears program had been decimated by a scandal the year prior, in which former coach Art Briles and his staff had suppressed reports of rapes and sexual misconduct by players to keep them on the field. Rhule went full clean slate upon arrival, firing all the assistants and support staff in the program. That showed in a 1-11 first year in which the Bears only beat KU, but the turnaround happened quickly after: Baylor jumped to seven wins in his second season and 11 in his third, nearly winning the Big 12 and making the 2019 College Football Playoff.

Rhule had turned down an NFL job offer from the Jets after his second season in Waco but jumped after his third to the Carolina Panthers. What followed was one of the worst and most ridiculed two-and-a-half-year tenures in recent NFL memory, taking a decent Panthers organization and going 5-11 in 2020 and 5-12 in 2021 and 1-4 before his firing last month. 

Offensive and Defensive Scheme: Rhule is the most “No Plan, Just Vibes” coach I’ve ever seen. He has no apparent preference in how to play offensive or defensive football and has little to do with the week-to-week functioning of the units. He’s the “CEO coach” model to the max, with his value coming in organization, culture building, and recruiting. He relies on his coordinators to do nearly all of the actual on-field football work. His best hire in that department has been defensive coordinator Phil Snow at Temple, who he brought with him to Baylor and the Panthers. Snow was the driver of the success at Baylor, fielding a top 8 defense nationally in the near-CFP season and delivering some good units with the Panthers. Snow — who is also likely coming with Rhule wherever he is hired — is another 3-3-5 defense convert who wants to create havoc with tackles for loss and sacks through confusing coverages and zone blitzes. Rhule ran a pro-style power scheme with Temple before switching to a more shotgun-oriented, 11-personnel zone running scheme at Baylor with coordinator Jeff Nixon (the father of former Nebraska receiver Will Nixon). When he went to the NFL, he poached spread, pass-heavy Joe Brady (the architect of the Joe Burrow-Ja’Marr Chase LSU passing game) but fired Brady in the middle of his second season when Brady’s offense struggled with Sam Darnold at quarterback (after Rhule ran competent starter Teddy Bridgewater out of town). He replaced Brady with Ben McAdoo, who is famous for being the picture in the dictionary when you look up “Oatmeal Plain Offensive Playcaller.”

Reasons Why They Would/Wouldn’t Take The Job: Rhule got canned about a month ago, so he’s looking for a job. Nebraska would offer him a pretty high-level entry point to get back in the college game, where he’s had proven success. But he also might be a strong candidate for the open Auburn job, or he might decide he wants a year off from coaching.

Reasons For Success/Failure: Being a successful NFL coach is a very different assignment than being a successful college coach, so I don’t think his Panthers failure is proof he’s a fraud. But I do think some of the decision making — canning Brady, the QB carousel, hiring a generic NFL OC after it blew up — has followed bad process, which can’t happen if you want to embrace the CEO coach role. I also think some of his college success was a bit of a mirage — “Hiring Phil Snow” was the reason for a lot of his success at both Temple and Baylor, and when you rely on having to hire good coordinators you’re always going to be at the mercy of that fickle process. Whiff on attracting good assistant coaching talent, and you’re toast. But while the “leader of men” stuff does make me roll my eyes, he still deserves a ton of credit as a culture builder and talent evaluator. His track record of fixing the terrible situation at Baylor and showing a willingness to adapt and be flexible shouldn’t be discounted. I think he’d probably do a good job and be well liked at Nebraska, but I’d prefer to hire someone with a more stable, translatable year-to-year football identity who doesn’t need to consistently nail assistant hires, which is why he’s in this tier.

Photo courtesy Alabama Athletics

Bill O’Brien, Alabama Offensive Coordinator

Average SP+ Finish 2012-2013: 37.00 | Average Recruiting Finish 2012-2013: 40.5 | Difference: 3.5

Overview: O’Brien is currently working as the offensive coordinator at the “NICK SABAN REHABILITATION SCHOOL FOR WAYWARD COACHES” at Alabama, rebuilding his reputation after an NFL stint with the Texans. While it ended poorly after he got control of the front office and made a bunch of questionable personnel decisions — namely trading DeAndre Hopkins for a bowl of soup after the pair allegedly got in an argument — O’Brien actually had a pretty successful NFL tenure, going 52-48 over seven seasons from 2014-2020, winning his division and making the playoffs four times with a franchise many would describe as among the most dysfunctional in the league.

O’Brien got the call up to the NFL after delivering two winning seasons for Penn State — which doesn’t sound all that impressive, until you consider he was coaching in the aftermath of the Joe Paterno/Jerry Sandusky scandal and was hit with a four-year postseason ban and the loss of 40 scholarships in July of his first offseason. Pretty good job, considering! He won Big Ten Coach of the Year for his 8-4 finish in his first year. Before that, he was an offensive assistant at Brown, Georgia Tech, Maryland, and Duke and was an NFL offensive coordinator for the Patriots from 2009-2012, where he was famous for yelling at Tom Brady (instant respect in my book).

Offensive Scheme: O’Brien ran a very staid and traditional pro-style, I-formation offense with the Patriots and at Penn State, but his time with the Texans and quarterback Deshaun Watson saw him adopt a more modern spread scheme. At Alabama, he’s largely continued to operate the RPO-heavy spread scheme installed by Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian before him. He’s just a guy who’s well-versed in a lot of offensive styles, with experience in West Coast, pro-style, zone read, and RPO-heavy systems. Alabama fans have complained about the offenses under O’Brien, but the numbers don’t back it up: His two offenses with the Tide have finished 4th and 6th nationally in efficiency. 

Defensive Scheme: We don’t really know a lot about what sort of defense he wants to run; with the Texans, he preferred a base 3-4, with Wade Phillips, Romeo Crennel, Mike Vrabel working as his coordinators. But with Penn State, his two coordinators ran a 4-3. Who knows!

Reasons Why They Would/Wouldn’t Take The Job: O’Brien flirted with head coaching jobs last offseason but returned to Alabama. Nebraska is probably one of the higher-profile college jobs he could get, though he may be more interested in returning to the NFL as a coordinator and trying to make his way back to head coaching there.

Reasons For Success/Failure: O’Brien is not an exciting or sexy hire, but he’s dependably delivered results everywhere he’s been, knows offense, would be able to sell his NFL and Alabama success to recruits (especially quarterbacks), and is imminently respected in the coaching community — Nick Saban and Bill Belichick have both caped for him. The “Failed Head Coach To Alabama OC To Improved Head Coach” pipeline has worked for Kiffin and Sarkisian, and O’Brien had more pre-Alabama success than either of those guys, so I don’t see why it wouldn’t be applicable to him, too. But O’Brien has had most of his high-profile success come at Penn State, in the NFL, and at Alabama — three places that are going to have a lot more talent than Nebraska. There are also no real ties to the school to bring him here, and he seems to have a personality that clashes with and wears on players and assistant coaches.

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THE “RED FLAGS” TIER

Photo courtesy Nebraska Athletics

Mickey Joseph, Nebraska Interim Coach

Overview: Bailing on the structure I’ve been using to discuss Joseph, simply because we don’t have enough data or sample size to gauge his progress or know how he wants to play on either side of the ball.

Let me start by saying Joseph was put in an impossible position: He had to demonstrate he was worthy of a head coaching job with a coaching staff and roster he didn’t pick in nine games against the teeth of the schedule, while losing his starting quarterback to injury. It’s also a fact that Black and other minority coaches don’t receive the same level of opportunity for these top jobs as their white counterparts and often have to pull off more difficult feats to receive a fraction of the consideration. This wasn’t a fair situation for Joseph, at all.

But, with no other head coaching experience on his résumé, he needed to show that he could improve the play of the team during his interim tenure. That hasn’t happened. While he did start 2-1, one of the wins came against the worst team in the Big Ten per SP+, and the other was a game against an average team that NU probably should have lost. Nebraska had a borderline top 20 offense by schedule-adjusted efficiency with Frost involved; it’s fallen to the 50s since Joseph took over and handed the keys fully to Mark Whipple. Joseph’s move to install Bill Busch as defensive coordinator did deliver some immediate improvement and fix some of the more obvious head-scratching issues on defense, but the unit has been torched efficiency-wise in the last three games as the surprise of the change has worn off, it’s faced better opponents, and the league has adjusted. While this isn’t really Joseph’s or Busch’s fault — both showed up this offseason and aren’t responsible for defensive players not developing as they should have for the past five years — he needed to show his coaching would bring improvement. There simply isn’t any evidence it has.

That’s not to say he’d do a bad job were he to get the full-time gig; it’s more of just a giant question mark. Could he be a good coach with a full offseason to pick his staff and recruit his players? Yeah, definitely! Some of his success on the recruiting trail would indicate he could do a good job here. But we don’t know. That’s a huge risk for a program that is probably going to have a slew of more-proven options. I don’t think anyone should be mad if he keeps the job (I certainly won’t be), but I think there is more unknown with him than anyone else on this list. But, hey, coach hiring is a crapshoot anyway … why not pick the guy everyone loves?

Chris Klieman, Kansas State

Record: 69-9 at North Dakota State, 26-19 at Kansas State

Average SP+ Finish Since 2018: 53.75 | Average Recruiting Finish Since 2018: 60 | Difference: 6.25

Overview: Klieman is from Waterloo, Iowa, and played defensive back and served multiple stints as an assistant at Northern Iowa before getting a call to be defensive backs coach at FCS powerhouse North Dakota State in 2011. He rose to defensive coordinator with the Bison the following season and replaced Craig Bohl (a former Nebraska defensive coordinator) as the NDSU head coach in 2014 after Bohl left to coach Wyoming. Klieman kept the insane level of success Bohl established going, winning four national titles in his five seasons as head coach. After NDSU athletic director Gene Taylor was hired as K-State’s athletic director in 2018, Taylor then hired Klieman with the Wildcats to replace their legendary coach Bill Snyder. Klieman made two bowls in his first three seasons with KSU and is ranked in his fourth. 

Offensive Scheme: At NDSU and KSU, Klieman has implemented a physical, run-first scheme that mixes elements of spread, I-formation, and single-wing offenses. KSU finished third nationally in usage of gap-scheme runs in 2020 but also increased the amount of time it spent in the shotgun, indicating that it wasn’t just in the I pounding away. In the passing game, K-State tries to hide its lack of receiving talent and prop up its quarterback with play-action (it finished top 40 in play-action usage) and avoid true dropback passing situations (110th nationally in true dropback passing play usage). Klieman fired his original offensive coordinator at KSU last offseason and replaced him with former Wildcat quarterback Collin Klein. 

Defensive Scheme: K-State under Klieman initially started as an even front team, but after coordinator Scottie Hazleton left the program to take the same job at Michigan State, new coordinator Joe Klanderman also switched the Wildcats to the 3-3-5. The Wildcats’ defense has steadily improved each year since the switch and is a top 15 unit. K-State was top 10 nationally in usage of Cover 3, and top 50 in usage of Cover 2. Klieman has a defensive background and is heavily involved with the gameplanning.

Reasons Why They Would/Wouldn’t Take The Job: Again, Nebraska would represent improved money, facilities, recruiting, and NIL funding and provide a chance for Klieman to win bigger. He could be connected to K-State, I guess?

Reasons For Success/Failure: K-State is one of the hardest Power 5 jobs in the country to win consistently at, so Klieman should get props for being above .500 and does have some program building bona fides. But digging into the advanced numbers, his profile is a lot less impressive than other the people on this list. Until this season, no Klieman KSU team had been ranked higher than any Scott Frost Nebraska team in SP+; the Wildcats had a better record than NU in that stretch solely on playing one of the easiest Power 5 schedules in recent memory and having outlier close-game luck. Additionally, at both stops in his head coaching career he’s taken over for the best coach in the school’s history and has essentially cut and pasted their program and strategy. While I think Klieman’s focus on toughness and conservatism would play well with Nebraska fans, his teams simply haven’t been as good as their popular profile. If you’re looking for red flags, here they are.

Courtesy Army Athletics

Jeff Monken, Army

Average SP+ Finish Since 2018: 72.00 | Average Recruiting Finish Since 2018: 114.00 | Difference: 42.00

Overview: Monken has been a flexbone triple option guy from the start, starting in coaching as a graduate assistant for Paul Johnson at Hawaii in 1989 before following him to Georgia Southern, Navy, and Georgia Tech. Monken went back to Georgia Southern as head coach in 2010, where he was 38-16 in four years with three 10-win seasons. He went from there to Army, starting slowly before breaking through in his third year with an eight-win season; he’s since won nine or more games in four of six seasons. Considering Army, with it’s stringent academic admission requirements and limits on player weight, is one of the hardest jobs in the country, that’s incredible. Almost no one on this list is doing more with less talent; his highest recruiting class in the last four years was ranked 108th. His 11-win season in 2018 was the school’s best since 1958. I included him on this list because FootballScoop recently reported he was being vetted by NU. Coaching search “news” should have as little credence put into it as possible, but he does seem like he’s getting some consideration.

Offensive Scheme: Monken and Army run the old-school triple option, the OG triple option, out of the flexbone, like Nebraska used to run. While there is some modernity added since the ‘90s — Army incorporates some non-under center looks into its repertoire — it’s still the same run-first, physical, kill-the-clock, quick-and-physical-linemen-under-your-pads philosophy NU used. Monken was a finalist for the Kansas job two years ago and reportedly indicated then he wasn’t married to the flexbone system and would be willing to run something more modern as he rose to a bigger job.

Defensive Scheme: Like it’s offense, Army runs a unique scheme defensively meant to compensate for its personnel shortcomings. Former coordinator Jay Bateman installed an attacking Tite front defense in 2018 — similar to ISU’s — that used tons of coverage disguise and blitzed from everywhere. Bateman was a finalist for the Broyles Award that year before leaving to take the coordinator job at North Carolina, and the Black Knights have kept the scheme intact after he left.

Reasons Why They Would/Wouldn’t Take The Job: More than the monetary and conference benefits to the other people on this list, Nebraska would give Monken a chance to show his system worked in a bigger conference and eliminate the strict player requirements he faces now at Army. He’s showed his willingness to leave Army in the past, nearly getting the KU job two years ago before they picked Leipold. If he wanted and couldn’t get the Kansas job, the Nebraska job should be a lock were he the choice?

Reasons For Success/Failure: The triple option system could raise Nebraska’s floor and would be very fun for the nostalgia, but it also comes with a very limiting ceiling in 2022. While Monken has shown to be a fantastic culture builder and someone willing to adapt weird schemes to maximize his program, he seems like the guy you hire if you want to get the program back to going 6-6 consistently but someone who isn’t going to help it reach its full potential. If he wanted to adopt a more modern offense as part of his hiring, he offers a nice mix of program management, age, and flexibility.

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THE “PLEASE DON’T DO THIS” TIER

Urban Meyer, Unemployed 

Urban Meyer emerged as a name in the NU coaching search mostly after message board weirdos posted about him all over the internet, the frat guys attending the Fox pregame show for the NU-OU game chanted his name, and the national media seized on it for a cheap way to make fun of Nebraska. Meyer was a tremendously successful coach at Bowling Green, Utah, Florida and Ohio State, partially modernizing the last program into the high-level recruiting and NFL machine that it is today. It’s become increasingly clear, though, after reports emerged of his treatment of players as coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars, that he achieved this success mainly through ***LANGUAGE ALERT*** being a giant asshole. Meyer also allegedly kept a former assistant coach on his staff after he knew the assistant was abusing his wife and gave 31 players who were arrested at Florida "second chances," including Aaron Hernandez, who later committed a murder.

We also have some evidence Meyer’s skill or usefulness as a coach has faded. His NFL tenure with the Jaguars last season — where he was inexplicably hired from working as an analyst on the Fox pregame show after leaving Ohio State in scandal — was one of the worst and most poorly managed in the league’s history. The ESPN expose on his tenure is a truly wild ride: He began by hiring a strength coach accused of mistreating Black players, was filmed at a bar after a game with a girl on his lap (he’s married), forgot players’ names in front of the media multiple times, had to be talked out of benching his best skill player by his rookie quarterback, and assaulted his placekicker during the team’s warmups (which, when reported, was what finally got him fired after just 11 games as coach.) There were on-field cracks in the armor at the end of his Ohio State tenure, as well; he had to bring in Ryan Day to modernize his offense after it was shutout in a Playoff semifinal to Clemson, and the relatively unproven Day has gone on to have just as much success and produce more talent than Meyer did at OSU.

Meyer has demonstrated he’s not a good person and not someone who should be in charge of a diverse coalition of individuals. That should be disqualifying on it’s own. But because it’s not to a certain segment of Husker fans, he’s also coming off one of the most embarrassing on-field stretches of football coaching … maybe ever? There are plenty of good, proven coaches Nebraska can hire who don’t behave like Meyer does. Let’s all agree to prioritize those guys, instead.

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