Top coaches

By Tim Cottrell
Sports Writer/Designer
Published: May 25, 2008

A couple of my co-workers pointed out this coaching power poll by Rivals.com to me the other day, and I was initially aghast to discover they had ranked Les Miles No. 4.

That was largely due to the fact that they didn’t tell me it was a power poll.

Here was his Top-10:
1. Peter Caroll, USC
2. Jim Tressel, Ohio State
3. Urban Meyer, Florida
4. Miles
5. Bob Stoops, Oklahoma
6. Mark Richt, Georgia
7. Frank Beamer, Virginia Tech
8. Jim Grobe, Wake Forest
9. Tommy Tuberville, Auburn
10. Mack Brown, Texas

I, as a guy not particularly interested in recruiting, have never been a regular reader of Rivals, so I’m not too familiar with the criteria they use for determining such things, but overall I can’t argue with it too strongly.

However, it got me to thinking about who the top coaches in college football are.

Obviously, you could easily find half (or more) of them in the SEC now with Nick Saban, Urban Meyer, Steve Spurrier (again) and Bobby Petrino having joined the ranks in recent years.

But there are plenty of fabulous coaches in other parts of the country as well.

For my money, it’s hard to find two better pure football coaches than Tressel and Grobe.

Tressel built a I-AA powerhouse at Youngstown State before moving on to Columbus, and has since won one national championship and played for two more.

Grobe, on the other hand, might get more out of less than any coach in the country.

He took a Wake Forest team coming off a 3-8 season (and just one bowl appearance in eight years under Jim Caldwell) and went 6-5 in his first year with a terrible football team (and that’s being generous).

Since, he has led the Deacons to two more bowl appearances and an ACC Championship.

My disenchantment with Miles is well-known by regular readers of my column (or anyone who listened to me rant throughout last season), and I certainly wouldn’t put him among the top football coaches.

Anybody who watched LSU play last year could see they weren’t particularly well coached, but they were talented enough to overcome mistakes most of the time and lucky enough to have started the season ranked highly in an unbelievably wild season.

If we’re talking about the total package (coaching, recruiting, public relations, overseeing the program, etc.), then Miles and other coaches who aren’t quite as strong in the X’s and O’s department (such as Carroll) move up quite a bit.

I had planned on doing my own top-10, but have since decided I might need a little more time to think about what my criteria would be and study up a bit more on everyone before leaving someone out. Look for it some time in the next week.

But I’d love to hear who you think is the best (or worst) coach out there.