Last week there was a post asking everyone who they thought were some of the most overrated coaches in college football. Now let's talk about the sport's underrated coaches from both the past and present.
My choices:
Past: Gary Pinkel.
He's on the shortlist of coaches who's the all-time wins leader at two different schools (Toledo and Missouri). Mizzou was a dumpster fire before he arrived and he took them to unprecedented heights. They were ranked #1 heading into the final week of the 2007 season, before losing to Oklahoma. Had they won, it would've been the Bucks vs. Missouri in the national title game. When they joined the SEC in 2012, nobody thought they'd have any kind of success, and yet in just their second season they were playing in the SEC Championship. He was also fairly innovative, being one of the first coaches to adopt the spread offense. Most hardcore CFB fans know guys like Urban, Rich Rod, Mike Leach, Joe Tiller, etc. were sort of the forefathers of the spread offense, but Pinkel should also be included in that group, and yet he never is.
Present: David Cutcliffe & Mario Cristobal
Cutcliffe because of the amount of success he's had at Duke. I think most people didn't even know Duke had a football team before Cutcliffe started winning. It's quite remarkable how he's been able to make them respectable. Considering that he was an assistant at Tennessee for over 15 years, I'm shocked the Vols haven't tried to break the bank to get him back.
Given that Oregon just won the Rose Bowl, I don't know how underrated Cristobal is now. But I don't think he gets nearly enough credit for how he's transformed Oregon so drastically in such a short amount of time. For years they were all speed, no toughness. Always trying to outscore their opponents, but lacking the physicality to beat the elite teams. Now Oregon's a team that's built through mammoth O-linemen and defense. They even stopped with the gimmicky uniform crap (well, most of them anyway). They're almost unrecognizable from the Chip Kelly/Mark Helfrich era teams.
So what say you?
