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Brian Kelly, Coach Prime, and Coaches We Love to Hate (But Shouldn’t)

Which five coaches join LSU’s Brian Kelly and Colorado’s Deion Sanders as taking unfair hate?

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Sep 3
Sep 3

By Mike Huesmann

In all walks of life, there are people we love to hate. College football is no different. The men who coach these 19-year-olds and make millions of dollars doing it have a knack for bringing out polarizing opinions, online hate, and passions we rarely see anywhere else. Some of these are warranted, some are not. Here are five coaches who are extremely polarizing yet probably take more schtick than they should.

Brian Kelly, LSU

The fake accent made us all laugh, he’s not warm and happy, but he’s an elite coach. He was a D2 national champ at Grand Valley State, won at Central Michigan, had an undefeated season at Cincinnati, and that’s all before Notre Dame and LSU. You don’t become the winningest coach ever at one of the two most storied programs in the country by being lucky.

Kelly won 113 games for the Irish. He then took over an LSU roster that was neglected by Coach O and had 35 scholarship players on it. In year one, he won the SEC West. In year two his QB won the Heisman. Both years he won 10 games. This year he has the Tigers in contention for a playoff spot. There isn’t a way to spin it that he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Kirk Ferentz, Iowa

Winner of 201 games with the Hawkeyes. Only eight coaches in Division I history have won more games at a single school than Ferentz, and that list could get smaller in the next couple years. Complaints about the offense have been warranted, but that also neglects the success and is ignorant of the complimentary football that Iowa has played.

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Ferentz is great at forcing the opponent to make the first mistake and capitalizing. I don’t think people who want him gone realize the risk of fading to mediocrity without him. Iowa has been fortunate only to have two coaches, Hayden Fry being the other, since 1979. You can’t count on another Hall of Famer walking into Kinnick Stadium.

Lincoln Riley, USC

Ok, I get this one more than the other four. He has traits that can be tough to handle, those make it easier to pounce on him during the bad times (like now). He’s nonchalant, aloof, and can be prickly. We don’t always like those in coaches.

But Riley’s track record of wins and producing quality QBs is fantastic. Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, Jalen Hurts, and Caleb Williams were all top-notch college players and current NFL starters. You can’t convince me Riley wasn’t a part of that. The Oklahoma fans are, and always have been, delusional about saying they improved when he left. They’ve had one decent season in three since he’s been gone.

At OU, Riley made the college football playoff three times, and that doesn’t look likely to happen anytime soon. The Sooners are currently ranked 14th in Brett Daniels’ SEC Power Rankings. Riley is struggling this year; I don’t know if the new and tougher conference excuse is a reasonable excuse. He takes deserved heat, but he rarely gets the credit for the good.

Deion Sanders, Colorado

New people and ideas are not always welcome, especially when they are outspoken and brash. The hate on Sanders has been largely unfair, and a backlash not to him but the other segments of the media who praise him more than he probably deserves. No one is as polarizing today in the game, and that’s not fair. He took over an awful 1-11 team and in year two they sit at 6-2 and are contenders in the Big XII.

The Buffaloes possess two guys who’ll be top ten picks in the next NFL Draft. Beyond the on-field stuff, they are a team that appear to be doing good things. Their GPA has improved, we aren’t seeing Buffalo players getting in trouble, and they’re trying to be a faith-based team (though even that has gotten Sanders in some controversy, see below). Stripped down behind the sunglasses, press conferences, and social media, this program is light years ahead of where they were when he was hired.

Mark Stoops, Kentucky

Until the last 12 months, he wouldn’t have been close to this list but things have changed. Public opinion on him has changed, some fair and some unfair. The dalliance with Texas A&M didn’t have good optics and the Wildcats are bad this year, that can happen when you pick the wrong portal QB.

I don’t think his haters, primarily UK fans, have any historical context of the great job he’s done. Kentucky was an afterthought, a football backwater who no one thought about before Stoops. Do you guys remember the Joker Phillips fiasco? Rich Brooks wasn’t awful, but he also never won more than eight games in a year. Stoops brought UK their first 10-win season since 1977. Stoops is, by some margin now, the winningest coach in Wildcat history. He lifted them from poverty and raised the floor a significant amount. They are not, and will never be, elite, but he will leave this job miles ahead of where he took over. 

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