It’s a good thing coaching classes don’t get examined to the extent of recruiting classes. If so, then the 2017-18 class would have to be considered a dud after the fanfare it had coming in.
Arizona State fired Herm Edwards on Sunday, the latest coach that was hired from that cycle that did not make it through a fifth season with their school. A total of 21 coaches were hired on that cycle, including 13 Power 5 coaches. Only six remain at that school.
This was supposed to be a coaching class of home-run hires. Jimbo Fisher to Texas A&M. Scott Frost to Nebraska. Chip Kelly to UCLA. Dan Mullen to Florida. All four had the bonafides to restore lost glory to their new football programs.
Now, Fisher, Kelly and Oregon State’s Jonathan Smith are the only Power 5 coaches still at that same school, and Fisher and Kelly have been viewed as disappointments.
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It got ugly in those other places. We examine the 2017-18 coaching hires
Which 2017-18 coach was the best hire?
Those 13 Power 5 coaches have combined for a record of 238-243 since 2018 at the schools that hired them – a winning percentage of .494. Fisher is the only one with a winning record still at his school. A closer look at those coaches and their records:
| COACH | SCHOOL | W | L | PCT | STATUS |
| Mario Cristobal | Oregon | 35 | 13 | .729 | Hired at Miami in 2022 |
| Jimbo Fisher | Texas A&M | 36 | 15 | .706 | Year 5, 2-1 this season |
| Dan Mullen | Florida | 34 | 15 | .694 | Fired in 2021 |
| Herm Edwards | Arizona State | 26 | 20 | .565 | Fired in 2022 |
| Joe Moorhead | Mississippi State | 14 | 12 | .538 | Fired in 2019 |
| Jeremy Pruitt | Tennessee | 16 | 19 | .457 | Fired in 2020 |
| Chip Kelly | UCLA | 21 | 25 | .457 | Year 5, 3-0 this season |
| Willie Taggart | Florida State | 9 | 12 | .457 | Fired in 2019 |
| Jonathan Smith | Oregon State | 19 | 28 | .404 | Year 5, 3-0 this season |
| Matt Luke | Ole Miss | 9 | 15 | .375 | Fired in 2019 |
| Scott Frost | Nebraska | 16 | 31 | .340 | Fired in 2022 |
| Kevin Sumlin | Arizona | 9 | 20 | .310 | Fired in 2020 |
| Chad Morris | Arkansas | 4 | 18 | .192 | Fired in 2019 |
Fisher has the second-highest winning percentage, but he is also taking heat for an early-season loss to Appalachian State in 2022. The Aggies failed to live up to their top-10 billing in 2021. It remains to be seen if that will be the case again in 2022.
Cristobal was a success story at Oregon, and he took the job at his alma mater at Miami. Fisher, of course, beat Cristobal head-to-head when the Aggies knocked off Miami 17-9 in Week 3. These are the two best coaches in this class.
Mullen did take the Gators to a SEC championship game and two New Year’s Day Six bowls, but it unraveled quickly in Gainesville. The rest is mostly a mess with the exception of Smith, who has led a slow build at Oregon State that has produced a 3-0 start in 2022.
Which 2017-18 coach was the worst hire?
By percentage, it would be Arkansas’ Chad Morris, who went 4-18 in a short two-year stint with the Razorbacks. Mississippi State’s Joe Moorhead and Ole Miss’ Matt Luke didn’t last long in the SEC either and ended up getting replaced by Mike Leach and Lane Kiffin, respectively. Willie Taggart lasted all of 21 games at Florida State.
From an attention standpoint, Frost’s tenure at Nebraska was a mess given he arrived coming off a 13-0 season with UCF. The Huskers were 5-22 in one-score games under Frost, and that reached a breaking point after a 45-42 loss to Georgia Southern on Sept. 10.
MORE: Breaking down all 22 of Frost’s one-score losses at Nebraska
Edwards simply didn’t work out at Arizona State. The Sun Devils have been in the NCAA’s crosshairs because of alleged recruiting violations, and a 30-21 loss to Eastern Michigan on Sept. 17 helped make that decision easy.
What about the Group of 5 coaches?
| COACH | SCHOOL | W | L | PCT | STATUS |
| Josh Heupel | UCF | 28 | 8 | .778 | Hired at Tenn. in 2021 |
| Billy Napier | Louisiana | 40 | 12 | .769 | Hired at Florida in 2022 |
| Sonny Dykes | SMU | 30 | 18 | .625 | Hired at TCU in 2022 |
| Chad Lunsford | Georgia Southern | 28 | 21 | .571 | Fired in 2021 |
| Sean Lewis | Kent State | 20 | 26 | .435 | Year 5, 1-2 this season |
| Mike Bloomgren | Rice | 13 | 32 | .289 | Year 5, 2-1 this season |
| Dana Dimel | UTEP | 13 | 36 | .265 | Year 4, 1-3 this season |
| Steve Campbell | South Alabama | 9 | 26 | .257 | Fired in 2020 |
Those coaches have combined for a 181-179 record at the schools that hired them, a .503 winning percentage. That is almost identical to the Power 5 coaches, but it’s not all gloom and doom.
Heupel, Napier and Dykes all bumped up to the Power 5 ranks and have winning percentages that are above .600. Heupel has Tennessee in the top 10 in his second season.
Only two of those eight coaches were fired, and Rice and UTEP stuck it out with Bloomgren and Dimel, respectively.
What’s left?
There is always that notion that coaches should have five years at a program to see what they can develop through recruiting and rebuilding. When you combine all 21 hires, that’s not a 50/50 proposition.
That is simply not the case with the class knowing that only six of the 21 coaches (28.5%) hired in 2017-18 are still at the school. Four (19.0%) got promotions or made lateral moves to the Power 5, and 11 (52.4%) were fired. Taggart and Moorhead were rehired at Group of 5 schools.
This cycle isn’t over either. Fisher, Smith and even Kelly are on stable ground for now, but that can change in a hurry.