By Mike Huesmann
It seems that just as many, if not more, head coaches fail at marquee jobs compared to the success stories. This could be for a variety of reasons: they might inherit a bad team, be in over their heads, or be at a school historically prone to mediocrity, among other factors.
What has always intrigued me as a follower of coaching patterns is how some coaches succeed at one school but fail at another. Billy Napier is a current example of this phenomenon. Surely Napier and these men didn’t forget how to coach once they got a P4 job. Examining why they succeeded at a smaller school but failed at a bigger one is fascinating to me.
Here are five coaches who did just that, where they are now, and whether I suspect we’ll see them as head coaches again. To be considered for this list, the coach must have succeeded at a G5 school (not FCS or lower) and been let go by their P4 school.
Chad Morris
SMU and Arkansas
No one on this list had lower lows than Morris. He took over an average SMU team, but one that was not in great roster shape when he started. He consistently built and they improved every year until he won seven games in year three. He then was hired by Arkansas after the Bielema tenure concluded. That Arkansas situation wasn’t great but wasn’t rock bottom either. He would take them to, or at least near, rock bottom.
In two seasons, Morris failed to win a conference game, beat only two FBS opponents, and lost to the likes of North Texas, Colorado State, San Jose State, and Western Kentucky. He left the job worse than when he took over, always a bad indicator. Currently, Morris is the WR coach and passing game coordinator at Texas State, a shrewd move on his part. GJ Kinne looks likely to get a P4 job before too long, if Morris does well, he may be in a place to get a promotion to head coach. I see this as his most likely path to a FBS head coaching job.
https://twitter.com/ClemsonSportNet/status/1751004837595267212
More Sports News
Bryan Harsin
Arkansas State, Boise State and Auburn
No one on the list had higher highs than Harsin. He had a strong season at Arkansas State and then was electric at Boise State, where he inherited a good situation. In seven years at Boise, he was 5-2 in the 2020 Covid year, but apart from that he won nice games once, and had double-digit wins every other year.
Harsin then went to Auburn where he was a fish out of water. The boosters quickly turned on him, recruiting faltered, and the team’s performance dropped, with only nine wins over two seasons. From early on—similar to the current Napier situation—it was clear things wouldn’t end well. I believe Harsin is a good coach who was simply a poor fit for the SEC. He’s more suited to coaching out West, and he should stay there. He isn’t coaching in Fall 2024, but I do think he’ll land another head coaching job, either in the MWC or the new-look Pac-12. He’s young, has a proven track record, and some AD will take a chance on him. I think it’ll be a solid hire too.
https://twitter.com/__whatley__/status/1841640602913415258
Darrell Hazell
Kent State and Purdue
Darrell Hazell may largely be forgotten but he shouldn’t be. He was good at Kent State, and won 11 games there in 2012. Can you imagine the Flashes winning that many games now? They’ve only had one winning season since his departure for Purdue.
Hazell was a hot commodity at the time and many programs would’ve hired him. However, in four years with the Boilermakers, he never won more than three games in a season, and Purdue became the Big Ten’s whipping boys, winning no more than one conference game per year. It took Jeff Brohm, a heck of a coach, years to turn that program around after the Hazell years. After being fired by Purdue, Hazell coached WRs for the Minnesota Vikings from 2017-2018. I doubt we’ll see him as a head coach again—he’s likely truly retired.
https://twitter.com/Vikings/status/835161143878504448
Larry Fedora
Southern Miss and North Carolina
Fedora took over at Southern Miss from Jeff Bower, who had been a decades-long institution in Hattiesburg. In his four years, the Golden Eagles never had a losing record and were 12-2 in 2011. After that success, Fedora bolted for Chapel Hill following the Butch Davis era, which was filled with both wins and scandals. Initially, it looked like Fedora would clean things up at North Carolina. He had more P4 success than anyone on this list, even leading the Tar Heels to an 11-win season. But they regressed rapidly and finished with three- and two-win seasons in his final years. It might be unkind to put him on this list, but the way things ended, he makes the cut.
Fedora is the most difficult for me to predict in terms of future head coaching opportunities. I doubt it will happen. but with G5 schools hiring seasoned veterans like Bronco Mendenhall and Derek Mason, maybe he gets the shot if he wants it.
https://twitter.com/statsbywill/status/1837546810489163805
Willie Taggart
Western Kentucky, South Florida, Florida Atlantic, and Oregon, Florida State
There are so many layers to Willie Taggart’s coaching career that I had to dive in. He took over a disastrous program at WKU and made them competitive within three seasons—a solid job. He then took on a tough situation at South Florida and did well there too. Next came a jump to Oregon, where he only spent one year, making it hard to fully evaluate his impact. However, I’d argue there’s no way Oregon would trade him for Mario Cristobal or Dan Lanning in hindsight.
Taggart’s biggest downfall came at Florida State, where he was a disaster. Although the program had regressed in Jimbo Fisher’s last year, blaming that alone is a convenient excuse for those defending Taggart. The truth is, he was in over his head after a flawed hiring process and was simply ill-equipped for the job. Taggart lasted less than two years. In 2020, he was hired by Florida Atlantic following Lane Kiffin’s departure to Ole Miss—a hire I liked at the time—but it turned out to be another failure, as he never won more than five games in three seasons.
Taggart is now the running backs coach for the Baltimore Ravens. I could see him becoming a head coach again at an FCS or G5 school, though it’s not guaranteed. He may very well become a career NFL assistant, and that’s not a bad life.
