Forde-Yard Dash: Resetting the College Football Coaching Landscape

As fans grow increasingly irritated with their highly paid coaches, what if there was a great escape plan?

Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier could be the first coaching domino in a cross-sport reset. / Brianna Paciorka/USA TODAY Network via Imagn Images

Forty names, games, teams and minutiae making news in college football, where the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party turned into a police-induced hangover. First Quarter: Ten Angry Fan Bases. Second Quarter: CFP Selection Committee Questions.

Third Quarter: The Ultimate Escape Plan

The landscape is rife with fan bases who have reached a point of fatigue with their well-paid coaches, and probably vice versa. But have you seen how much it would cost to fire them? The Dash offers a 51% unserious domino effect that would allow a bunch of schools and coaches to reset or relocate without a lot of nasty terminations. Commissions accepted from schools, coaches and agents for concocting this master plan.

Step One: The Florida Gators (21) fire Billy Napier and hire James Franklin.

The Gators are the one school that has to hand out the expensive pink slip in this scenario, to the tune of a reported $26 million. Napier has recovered decently from a rocky 1–2 start to the season, but quarterback injuries and a ridiculous schedule appear to have doomed him to a third straight losing record. And that won’t cut it at Florida, even with good excuses.

So if Napier is out, how about Franklin parachuting out of an increasingly stale and discontented situation at Penn State? Eleven years in State College, Pa., is a long time, and he once worked miracles in the SEC, going 24–15 at Vanderbilt.

Florida fans and boosters might not immediately be thrilled by hiring a guy who cannot beat the biggest dogs in his league, fearing an inevitable decade of continued losing to Kirby Smart. But consider: Franklin is on his way to a sixth season of double-digit wins at Penn State, and Florida has half that many in the same span of time. Since Urban Meyer left, Gator Nation has no standing to look down its reptile snout at going 11–2.

A large swath of Florida fans and boosters want Lane Kiffin, of course. The Dash could construct a highly entertaining scenario off that possibility as well, but for purposes of brevity let’s keep moving to the next domino.

Step Two: The Penn State Nittany Lions (22) hire Curt Cignetti. 

This would be a bitter blow to the Indiana Hoosiers, who made the hire of the year in taking Cignetti away from the James Madison Dukes. It would frankly suck. Losing Cignetti after one season could set the program back toward the decades-deep quagmire from which it came.

But Penn State is a demonstrably better job, and Cignetti is a guy with Pennsylvania roots. He was born in Pittsburgh and coached at a couple of places in the state, as an assistant with the Pitt Panthers and as a head coach at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

The possible drawbacks? Cignetti is 63 and it would cost Penn State $8 million to buy him out from the Hoosiers. But he’s doing the best work of his life right now—Google him, he wins—so age shouldn’t be a concern. That’s especially true at a school that once employed a head coach until he was 84. And $8 million isn’t exorbitant in the current economy of the sport. 

Some people at Penn State—including athletic director Patrick Kraft—might have their hearts set on bringing Matt Rhule home. He’s a graduate of the school from the Joe Paterno era and a friend of Kraft’s—in all likelihood this would be his dream job. But he’s also struggled to gain traction leading the Nebraska Cornhuskers—he’s 10–11 overall, just 5–10 in the Big Ten. Cignetti has the same number of league wins in one-third of the league games.

The Iowa State Cyclones’ Matt Campbell could be waiting in the wings if Penn State were to open and Rhule is deemed too big a risk. But let’s keep this set of wild scenarios on a single track.

Stoops has helped Kentucky to eight straight bowl game appearances. / Jordan Prather-Imagn Images

Step Three: The Indiana Hoosiers (23) hire Mark Stoops.

Stoops is a winner whose run has tapped out with the Kentucky Wildcats. His record the past three seasons stands at 17–18, and eight of those wins are against Miami (Ohio), Youngstown State, Northern Illinois, Ball State, Eastern Kentucky, Akron, Southern Mississippi and Ohio. He tried to jump to Texas A&M last year, before a booster revolt squashed it. 

He’s an extremely effective recruiter in the Midwest. Indiana has made the commitment in terms of facilities and (enough) NIL backing. Pull the rip cord, and land in an adjacent state and a slightly easier league.

Step Four: The Kentucky Wildcats (24) hire Jamey Chadwell.

The coach of the Liberty Flames would very much want the UK job. His record the past five seasons, at Liberty and the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers, is a sizzling 49–9, with two undefeated regular seasons.

That said, the most popular fan choice at Kentucky would be alum and former assistant Jon Sumrall, who has killed it with the Troy Trojans and in his first season leading the Tulane Green Wave. He’s 30–6 in his third season as a head coach, a star on the rise. 

But for purposes of this exercise, The Dash is sending Chadwell to Lexington to set up the next move … 

Step Five: The Liberty Flames (25) hire Dabo Swinney.

He was called by the Lord to leave behind the calls of Tyler from Spartanburg.

Step Six: The Clemson Tigers (26) hire Baltimore Ravens offensive coordinator Todd Monken, with Brent Venables as the highest-paid defensive coordinator in college football history.

Monken calls plays for the No. 1 offense in the NFL. Before that, he called plays for the Georgia Bulldogs’ back-to-back national champions, giving Stetson Bennett the platform to attain improbable star status. 

Venables would have to swallow a considerable amount of pride in taking a demotion and a pay cut. But he’d be leaving a burning building in Norman, Okla., and the brutality of the SEC to return to his happy place, where he was the star defensive coordinator during Swinney’s best years.

Lashlee has seamlessly shepherded SMU's return to a power conference in his first year in the ACC. / Jaylynn Nash-Imagn Images

Step Seven: The Oklahoma Sooners (27) hire Rhett Lashlee. 

This would require athletic director Joe Castiglione to hire Oklahoma’s first sitting head coach since Howard Schnellenberger was a one-year disaster in 1995. It would be a great move, rejuvenating an offense and retaining Texas recruiting acumen.

Losing Lashlee would be gutting for SMU, which won the AAC last year and might win the ACC this year, making a spectacular transition back to power-conference status. The Pony Express boosters might be able to money-whip Lashlee into staying in a league that’s far easier to win, but SEC revenue coupled with Oklahoma tradition is allegedly tough to turn down.

That would create an opportunity for this gem of a backdoor cut …

Step Eight: The SMU Mustangs (28) hire Lincoln Riley, completing the USC escape hatch exacta after the school hired men’s basketball coach Andy Enfield in the spring. 

Riley needs a change of scenery even more than Franklin, and going back to his Texas roots might be the perfect career reboot. His run with the USC Trojans is a deepening mess, with his record plummeting from 11–3 to 8–5 to 4–5. Riley had no say in the Big Ten move, which is not going well. If the NFL doesn’t call (why would it, at this point), he can go recruit Dallas with the backing of billionaires.

Step Nine: The USC Trojans (29) hire Kalen DeBoer.

If the man wants to wear a drab T-shirt on the sideline in the L.A. Coliseum, he can do so in peace. And he can do so without the shadow of Nick Saban looming over him. USC athletic director Jennifer Cohen hired him at Washington, so this would be getting two main players in a very successful band back together again.

Step Ten: The Alabama Crimson Tide (30) hires DeMeco Ryans.

The former Crimson Tide star leaves the Houston Texans and comes home to restore Bama. And stop the dominoes from falling any further in the college game.