Nearly one in four FBS programs will be searching for a new head coach shortly.
That's more than usual. Heading into the 2014 season there were only 20 FBS programs debuting brand new head coaches carrying exaggerated dreams and boundless enthusiasm. Back in 2011 while Urban Meyer was working for ESPN there were 24 men with clean 0-0 records at their respective schools.
That group included Miami's Al Golden, Maryland's Randy Edsall, Meyer's replacement at Florida Will Muschamp, Michigan's Brady Hoke, Colorado's Jon Embree, Syracuse's Paul Pasqualoni, Not-That-Miami's Don Treadwell and North Texas' Dan McCarney.
Even legendary coaches rarely ride into the sunset.
The following season when Meyer descended from the heavens Bristol to Columbus, Charlie Weis, John L. Smith, Carl Pellini, Tim Beckman, Charley Molnar and Ellis Johnson joined him in taking over FBS programs of their own. Every single one of the coaches listed above has already been fired, except for Meyer.
They all probably feel great shame and disappointment with those outcomes - except Weis, who just reclines on his couch every day while loudly complaining about his skyrocketing income taxes. Also among that already-fired 2012 coaching group: Tony Levine.
Wait who is Tony Levine? He's the guy Tom Herman is currently cleaning up after in Houston.
Another guy hired that year: Kyle Flood at Rutgers. Gus Malzahn, Jim McElwain, Bill O'Brien and Paul Chryst started with schools the same season Meyer rebooted Ohio State and they all started this season coaching elsewhere. O'Brien might be looking for work against his own will very soon.
So this turnover begs the question: Why would anyone want to be in this business?
Assume you play the game correctly, move your way up from staff to staff and finally land an FBS head coaching job: To get there you started as a graduate assistant, working non-OSHA compliant hours, living in squalor - or with help from mom, dad or some other angel investor - and making your job your entire life. If you make it to the very top, that's when the real fun starts.
Prior to your formal introduction there's already howling from the loudest corner of the fan base that the school didn't get the right guy. The right guy was in the candidate pool tier above yours, or two tiers, or Jon Gruden. The clock starts ticking before you address the media for the first time. Your job security is already in question. This dynamic rarely fails to happen in college football.
Ohio State with Urban Meyer and Michigan with Jim Harbaugh are enormous exceptions to this rule - but the hirings of their respective heroes Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler were treated exactly like this.
The Buckeyes briefly had and then lost Don Faurot (Missouri plays its home games on a field named after him) and no one knew who Bo was in Ann Arbor. Those guys, now immortal coaching legends and Hall of Famers, accepted their dream jobs amidst universal shrugs and scrutiny. They weren't the right guys until they were.
A first-year JUNIOR accountant can expect to EARN $50,000. That's what Kansas JAYHAWKS WR coach Eric Kiesau makes.
Once new head coaches arrive on campus they're encroached by strangers with on-the-job advice while pumping gas or buying milk. Their inescapable visage is an open invitation for suggestions. College coaches are a figurative doorbell and literally everyone in town is a Jehovah's Witness. A coach's wife is required to become a First Lady. This is not optional or negotiable - it's written into every marital contract.
Then they have to get to work, which means pandering to teenage boys, the most volatile and least predictable variety of homo degeneratus across all of anthropology. As a bonus job requirement they get to gratify and suck up to their parents, their uncles, their coaches, their teammates and their fans, and that involves traveling and talking on the phone. Both of those activities are empty and exhausting.
And sometimes those pandering activities fall flat. Fortunately, everyone in the world finds out about those failures.
When coaches not traveling or gabbing with teens they get the pleasure of stroking their own fans, alumni, former players, the media and when they're home - which is barely ever - their spouses. Hi honey.
It's not just being a college head coach; it's being one in the current environment which does not allow for anything but immediate success. Look at Frank Beamer: He took over a Virginia Tech program in 1987 that had gone 10-1-1 under Bill Dooley the previous season; the seventh in a row where the Hokies had a winning record. He inherited some scholarship restrictions (you could have 95 back then; Beamer had to survive on only 85 for a couple of seasons) but that was it.
Virginia Tech went 2-9 in his first season, an eight-game swing in the wrong direction. The Hokies then went 3-8, 6-4-1, 6-5, 5-6 and 2-8-1 over the next five seasons. No coach at any level in the current era would be given the time Beamer required to elevate a program not in disrepair to the levels he eventually did, which includes seven conference championships and a BCS title game appearance. That coach today would be fired after 6-5, or sooner.
So why would anyone want to do this? There are easier paydays to chase in American business than college coaching. Former Jim Tressel assistant Paul Haynes is near the bottom of FBS coaching salaries and he's making just under $400,000, which is less than Urban made last season in bonuses alone.
Meyer prefers assistants who want their own programs.
That's also eight times more the median household income in America. Haynes is financially secure, but accounting is still a sturdier profession. A first-year accountant can expect to make $50,000, significantly more than a grad coaching assistant. That's also what Kansas WR coach Eric Kiesau currently makes. Those two jobs have decidedly varied levels of vocational humiliation.
But accounting isn't for everyone; you have to be some sort of sick, twisted and uniquely talented individual to make that your life's work - and that also happens to be exactly the reason why coaches coach.
This winter there will be howling from the loudest corner of the fan base from each of the 30 or so schools that they didn't get the right guy. And in most cases, that loud corner will be proven right in short order. Even if they're wrong, consider what happens to even some of the men who succeed in this business.
Look at Ohio State's permanent head coaches going back to World War II: Tressel, John Cooper, Earle Bruce, Woody, Wes Fesler. Inducted into College Football Hall of Fame in 2015, 2008, 2002, 1983 and 1954 respectively. Terminated from their positions at Ohio State in 2011, 2000, 1987, 1978 and 1950 respectively.
But coaches keep chasing, grinding and willing their way into the profession. Those who stay cannot imagine doing anything else. When you love what you do it is no longer work. When football is your life working in football doesn't feel like a job. Accounting is a job. What you're blowing off right now to read this column is a job.
Leaving this business can feel more like a death than a retirement. The broadcast booth serves as the afterlife for expired coaches (where they're still formally addressed as coach) and few vocations define who the person is holistically as much as FBS coaching does. Consider Minnesota's Jerry Kill, who this morning became the eighth FBS coaching turnover of the current season:
Jerry Kill looks like he could break down and walk off the stage any moment at this press conference. Says he doesnt know what hell do now
— Eric Seger (@EricSeger33) October 28, 2015
This is intense. "Last night when I walked off the practice field; I feel like a part of me died." - Jerry Kill pic.twitter.com/7gqiHcrEbj
— Jason DeRusha (@DeRushaJ) October 28, 2015
Kill: Ive taken years off my life and (my wifes), but wed both do it again, wouldnt we? Damn right."
— CoachingSearch.com (@coachingsearch) October 28, 2015
Eight FBS coaches who were in charge in August are now currently out of work and a whole bunch more will join them in few weeks either in abrupt retirements or as a job search. Patience has never been lower, the demand for championship-level coaching has never been higher, and the supply of guys who are betting on themselves to reach the top only so they can be knocked down easily matches it.
These people would rather die of passion than of boredom, as Vincent van Gogh was fond of saying. May you be lucky enough to feel that way about whatever it is you do.
