The four head coaches remaining in this year’s College Football Playoff have a lot to gain by winning it all.
Not just a national championship, and not just the bonus that comes with it. The other prize coming the winning head coach’s way is power and prestige at a time of upheaval in the sport and evolution within his profession.
Ohio State’s Ryan Day, Texas’ Steve Sarkisian, Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman and Penn State’s James Franklin are the final four. None has won a national championship as a head coach, making this season the third out of the last four in which the title will go to a head coach who has never won one.
But only two active head coaches have won a national title at the Football Bowl Subdivision level: Georgia’s Kirby Smart and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney, who each have two.
When a coach wins a national championship, his status changes. People want to know what Smart and Swinney have to say. Smart is on the NCAA’s rules committee. Swinney is less involved legislatively but plenty vocal. On issues like name, image and likeness rules, the transfer portal and the future of the sport, there are few leading voices left among coaches at a crucial time.
That’s where whoever wins it all this year can step in.
GO DEEPER
James Franklin’s answer to getting over big game woes might be sticking to familiar mantra
Nick Saban, the greatest coach in the sport’s history, retired last year and continues to vent about the state of the game on ESPN. The quirky Jim Harbaugh won last year’s title at Michigan and successfully left for the NFL in his third attempt to go back to that level. The grandfatherly Mack Brown was pushed out at North Carolina at the end of this season.
That’s nine national championships out the door of the active coaching pool, and with them went some legitimate power to drive conversation. Saban continues to be that voice at ESPN and periodically on Capitol Hill, but he still left the sideline in order to not deal with these issues directly anymore.
Urban Meyer is also on TV. Les Miles is done with college football. Ed Orgeron is enjoying the buyout life. Jimbo Fisher was fired at Texas A&M a year ago with the largest buyout in college football history.
Among the most famous coaches still working in college football, Deion Sanders has a powerful megaphone and Bill Belichick is respected for his NFL success, but their celebrity status positions them apart from the sport’s long-term issues.
College football is about to gain a new Face of the Sport in whoever wins this national championship.
All four faced plenty of doubters in getting here. Pundits questioned Day’s job status at Ohio State after his fourth consecutive loss to Michigan. Sarkisian hadn’t won 10 games in a season through his first nine years as a head coach and was fired from USC for issues related to alcohol abuse, working his way back to a head coaching job after stints on Saban’s Alabama staff and in the NFL. Freeman’s future at Notre Dame was questioned after the Irish’s loss to Northern Illinois in September, two years after a similar loss to Marshall. Franklin has been maligned for his 4-16 record against Ohio State and Michigan.
But the creation of the 12-team CFP helped all four rack up some notable wins, pad their resumes and quiet the haters. Whoever wins the semifinals will have proven they’re the right man for the job. And whoever wins it all will make history.
GO DEEPER
How Notre Dame saved its Playoff expectations after the season’s worst loss
There will be some extra history in the Orange Bowl, as no Black head coach has reached an FBS national championship game. Freeman and Franklin have talked about how important that achievement would be to them, at a time when Black representation among college football and NFL head coaches remains an issue (Freeman is also half-Korean). Just three of the 27 FBS schools that have changed coaches in this carousel hired a Black coach, and one was Southern Miss’ hire of Charles Huff, who went from Sun Belt champion Marshall to the last-place team in the same conference within 24 hours of winning the league title.
The power of the head coach has been decreasing for years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was presidents and athletic directors who made the key decisions, with coaches often left in the dark. The introduction of NIL freedoms allocated more money toward players and (theoretically) left less to throw at bloated coaching staffs. The rise of the transfer portal and subsequent legal decisions removing transfer restrictions took away the power coaches have over their players’ movement. The House v. NCAA settlement will lead to a system through which schools share revenue directly with players and decrease the size of football rosters.
In many ways, the change in the power dynamics was a long time coming, as coaches made tens of millions of dollars off of a supposed amateur system. Many coaches didn’t and still don’t like the new world.
Saban retired, bemoaning all of the changes. Jeff Hafley left a head coaching job at Boston College to become an NFL assistant, echoing Saban’s reasons. Chip Kelly left a head coaching job at UCLA to become Ohio State’s offensive coordinator in part so that he didn’t have to deal with some of the challenges.
Someone has to step up and step into those challenges. Younger head coaches like Kenny Dillingham at Arizona State and Dan Lanning at Oregon have embraced college football’s new world, and both their schools are better for it. Sanders isn’t shy about how he runs his program. But the sport needs a national championship-winning coach to set the tone heading into uncharted territory.
Swinney briefly took the mantle from Saban as the voice of the sport. Smart looks poised to remain near the top of the game. Whichever one of these four coaches wins the national championship will join an exclusive club, and with it will come the power to drive conversation — if he takes it.
(Photo: Adam Cairns / Columbus Dispatch / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)
