Auburn coach Hugh Freeze is going through it right now – even claiming Monday that the Tigers would beat Arkansas nine times in a row if they played them again after losing by 10 points over the weekend.
In defense of second-year coaches, though, many go through this phase before breaking out to elite status. Some never reach those heights but many do, including some of the biggest names currently in the sport.
Texas coach Steve Sarkisian went 13-12 in his first two seasons in Austin before taking the Longhorns to the College Football Playoff last year and he now has the No. 1 team in the country.
When one five-star quarterback went down (Quinn Ewers), another five-star quarterback stepped in (Arch Manning) and it doesn’t seem like the Longhorns have lost a step.
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Eli Drinkwitz was 11-12 in his first two seasons, then 6-7 in Year 3 when he was definitely on the hot seat before last year’s phenomenal turnaround, with Mizzou going 11-2 and beating Ohio State in the bowl game. Landing five-star receiver Luther Burden certainly helped Drinkwitz stay in Columbia and now the Tigers are rolling.
Long ago, Clemson coach Dabo Swinney was 15-12 in years one and two. Swinney then rattled off 12 double-digit winning seasons, won two national championships and secured nine wins last season, not enough for some who questioned whether the game passed him by. Silly.
At Florida State, before the Seminoles went undefeated through the regular season only to find controversy by being left out of the College Football Playoff, coach Mike Norvell was 8-13 in his first two seasons in Tallahassee. Norvell was hired to clean up a mess left by his predecessors, which was not an overnight turnaround.
The list goes on and on: Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy was 11-13 in the first two years. Since that time, he’s had eight double-digit winning seasons and not a single losing one in Stillwater, not exactly an easy place to win.
Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz was 4-19 in his first two seasons. Imagine where the Hawkeyes’ program would be if their administration was reactionary and cut the cord too early.
Penn State’s James Franklin, who came to Happy Valley after shocking success at Vanderbilt, went 14-12 in his first two years, worse than Bill O’Brien’s 15-9 who dealt with the wreckage from the Jerry Sandusky scandal.
Mario Cristobal went 35-13 at Oregon and even won a Rose Bowl only to leave for his dream job at Miami where he was a dud 13-13 in the first two years. Now, with the help of portal QB Cam Ward, the Hurricanes are ranked seventh in the country. The U might legitimately be back.
All of this is to say: Fans need to not jump the gun. Message board Monday does not solve the problems. Only time will – and when these coaches are making Monopoly-level money, sometimes it’s hard to stay off the keyboard with genius remedies the coaches probably haven’t considered.
Only a few elite coaches needed one year (or none) to keep the train going: Nick Saban went 7-6 in Year 1 and lost to Louisiana-Monroe before building the greatest dynasty of all time. Pete Carroll was 6-6 in 2001 before USC dominated college football. Nebraska’s Tom Osborne won immediately, but Penn State’s Joe Paterno was 5-5 in 1961 before having only one losing season over the next 33 years. Georgia's Kirby Smart went 8-5 in Year 1 (poor for his standards) before building the next superpower and winning back-to-back titles.
From the coaching carousel in the year Freeze took over at Auburn, there were some other major transitions: Brent Key at Georgia Tech, Luke Fickell at Wisconsin, Deion Sanders (Colorado), Ryan Walters (Purdue), Matt Rhule (Nebraska), Jeff Brohm (Louisville), Troy Taylor (Stanford), Scott Satterfield (Cincinnati), Kenny Dillingham (Arizona State) and David Braun (Northwestern).
Their combined record so far: 92-96.
Brohm is by far doing the best at 13-4 as he took Louisville to the ACC championship in his first year but the only others with a winning record are Key, Fickell and Braun.
Whether it’s Freeze at Auburn after a tough loss to the Razorbacks or anybody else, the point is that turnarounds take time and patience. All the excitement when a new coach is hired wears away once reality hits and only through recruiting and the transfer portal will things change.
