There are 130 Teams in Division 1 FBS Football. — There have been 60 (SIXTY!) Coaching changes since December 2019 until December 2021. — Nearly HALF of all Division 1 FBS Football! — Some might not seem to matter, but some seem to matter A LOT! It’s even worse when you put it on paper! So, here we go:
Akron; Appalachian St ; Arizona; Arkansas; Arkansas St; Auburn; Baylor; Boise St; Boston College; Colorado; Colorado St; Duke; Florida; Florida St; FAU; FIU; UCF; USF; Fresno St; GA Southern; Hawaii; Illinois, Louisiana; LSU; LA Tech, LA-Monroe; Marshall; Memphis; Michigan St; Missouri; Ole Miss; Mississippi St; Southern Miss; New Mexico; New Mexico St; Notre Dame; Oklahoma; ODU; Rutgers; San Diego St; South Alabama; USC; UNLV; South Carolina; SMU; Temple; Tennessee; Texas; TCU; Texas Tech; UTSA; Troy; UConn; UMass; Utah St; UVA; Virginia Tech; Vanderbilt; Washington; Washington St
Whether they were fired, went to another school - or just quit!
There is NO LOYALTY in college football anymore!
Well, let's divide that into four categories:
Some of these retired. A fella's allowed to retire, right? Shouldn't be called a lack of loyalty, he's just reached the end of his career. It happens.
Some of these were let go. Can't blame a guy for lack of loyalty if he was asked to leave. Now, you could say the university showed a lack of loyalty, and I would agree with you. But on the other hand, maybe it wasn't a lack of loyalty so much as broken trust. I mean, Jeremy Pruitt was one of those 60 coaches who left one of those 60 schools, right? I wouldn't call it a lack of loyalty that caused that decision.
And then there are the fellas who voluntarily left one job to go find another. But a significant number of these were being offered a step up, to head coach from coordinator. Or to head coach of Power 5 from a Group of 5 job. These are promotions, and should be encouraged, right? It's not really a lack of loyalty when you accept a promotion and leave your old job.
Finally, there are guys who made a lateral move. They left a head coach position at one school to be head coach at another school at the same level of the sport (Power 5 to Power 5, or G5 to G5). THIS is the group you can point at and say, "Loyalty issues!"
But even there, would you seriously begrudge a guy who leaves, say, Vandy, to get a job at a place like Penn State? Or a guy who leaves a place like Rutgers to go to Bama? [the latter is fictional, but the first example really happened recently] Those may be "peer to peer" moves, but they're really promotions, too.
In fact, the landscape isn't really totally flat anywhere. Even a move from, say, Notre Dame to LSU, might be viewed by some as a step up. Brian Kelly certainly seems to think it was. Or ask Lane Kiffin if he thinks a move from Tennessee to USC is a move to higher ground.
Now, we (most of us, anyway) would not agree with Kiffin on that score. But that's another part of the complexity of this kind of loyalty-shaming: the landscape looks different depending on your perspective. Not only is there no flat terrain, the terrain doesn't even flow the same way for everyone, it's different for each of us.
In other words, the number 60 is kind of meaningless. You have to break it down and see what it consists of. And once you start breaking it down, it quickly becomes obvious that loyalty/disloyalty is far from the only dynamic involved. In fact, if one had to call it just one thing, one would probably call it career progression more than anything else.
But I do agree with you that's a relatively high volume of moves compared to most two-year periods. Would be interesting to know what the average 2-year-period has.
