Ranking the new college football coaching hires for 2025

This is by far one of the most fascinating college football hirings in ... well ... the history of the sport. Bill Belichick, the second winningest coach in NFL history who won six Super Bowl rings as a head coach and two more as a defensive coordinator, will be the head coach at North Carolina. There are too many layers to this story to fully discuss here, but on the topic of the hiring itself, North Carolina made a massive move. To land a coach with that resume and that brand behind him and to get him to come to a middle-of-the-road ACC program is a coup. Just having the rumors floating around before the hiring was good PR for the university, but to actually lock him up means they are serious about being a contender in the ACC and for the College Football Playoff. North Carolina football has been referred to as a sleeping giant, and now we'll see if that's the case.   

This is a fantastic grab for UNLV. Mullen worked his way up the ladder and had nine really good years at Mississippi State (69-46) before jumping over to Florida. While he only lasted four years in Gainesville, he did lead two 10+ win seasons and the 2019 team went 11-2 and won the Orange Bowl. Mullen replaces Barry Odom, who also ascended up the ranks before stalling out at Missouri, then building back up by taking the UNLV job (he's now on to Purdue). Mullen, who had been doing analyst work for ESPN since 2022, has had his name out there for some power conference jobs, so landing him is a huge deal for the Rebels. 

This is a fantastic hire by Utah State. Mendenhall returned to coaching this past season after stepping down as Virginia's head coach in 2021 and nearly got eternally dormant New Mexico into a bowl game. Mendenhall is best known for his 11-year stint at BYU where the Cougars went 99-43 and reached a bowl every season. For the Aggies to be able to bring in someone who already knows the state, knows how to recruit there and has had success is a huge win. Remember, Utah State will be playing its final season in the Mountain West in 2025 before moving to the rebuilt Pac-12.

Rodriguez was highly successful at West Virginia from 2001 to 2007, going 60-26 and racking up three 10-win seasons. He left the Mountaineers for Michigan, where he crashed and burned and was fired after three seasons. After six (mostly) mediocre seasons at Arizona (he was fired due to an off the field scandal), he spent a few years as an assistant at several schools before landing another head coaching job at Jacksonville State in 2022. He delivered three nine-win seasons for the Gamecocks and helped make their transition from the FCS to the FBS highly successful. Now he's back at West Virginia where he had his greatest success and trying to get the Mountaineers back contending for conference championships -- this time in the Big 12.

Just like West Virginia, let's go back to the future at UCF! Frost spent two years in Orlando where he popped off a 13-0 season and a self-proclaimed national championship. Frost left for his alma mater Nebraska right after that and fell flat. He went just 16-31 in four-plus seasons in Lincoln before he was mercifully fired after three games into the 2022 season. The reunion between the two is one of the more interesting pairings this coaching cycle. I mean, his last season with the Knights ended with that undefeated season, but that remains the only winning season in Frost's coaching career (seven seasons). And the UCF he's walking into isn't the same program it was when he first got there in 2016. For starters, they are now a member of the Big 12 and not the AAC and the shine on Frost has worn from his time with the Cornhuskers. 

This is a really good get by Charlotte. Just hours after winning the MAC championship, Albin was lured away from his head coaching job at Ohio to take the same position at Charlotte. After starting out with a 3-9 record in 2021, Albin's Bobcats would have three straight 10-win seasons. In the late 1990s, he was the head coach at Northwestern Oklahoma State where he went 13-0 and won the NAIA national championship in 1999. He would join Frank Solich's staff at Nebraska the following year, then re-joined Solich at Ohio in 2005. When Solich suddenly retired before the 2021 season, Albin rose to the job and has been fantastic in Athens. Charlotte has only been a football program since 2013 and has had just one winning season in their history. Bringing in a proven winner like Albin is a major move for the 49ers.  

Harrell did such a good job that the university snatched the interim tag away and gave him the permanent gig. Harrell took over for the fired Mike Houston on October 20th after a 3-4 start and promptly won the Pirates' next four games. ECU finishes the regular season with a 7-5 record, is bowl eligible and has turned around a stagnant offense. The Pirates averaged 40.6 ppg since Harrell took over (they were averaging 25.3 ppg under Houston). 

Dickert worked wonders in a tough situation at Washington State. He took over the Cougars program mid-season in 2021 after a scandal removed Nick Rolovich from his duties. He held the program together and took Washington State to three bowls in four years despite the uncertainty of the program due to the implosion and apparent rebranding of the Pac-12. Now he heads across the country to take over one of the more difficult programs to run in Wake Forest. Not that you cannot win in Winston-Salem, but there are barriers for the Deacs. One personal barrier for Dickert is getting to know the ACC and the recruiting area, as he's spent most of his career in the northwest and upper plains. 

Dickert's replacement at Washington State will be Jimmy Rogers, a fantastic hire for the Cougars. Rogers has only been a head coach for two years, but he's gone 27-3 and won a national championship at South Dakota State. His time in the Mount Rushmore State will be valuable experience when he begins recruiting in eastern Washington. Rogers was a coordinator for South Dakota State (where he won a Coordinator of the Year award) and was the DC during their 2022 title run. The following year he took over the head job when John Stiegelmeier retired and won their back-to-back titles. 

Odom made the best of his second opportunity and has parlayed that into another shot at a power program. Odom was the head coach of his alma mater, Missouri, and went 25-25 in four seasons (four of those wins would be vacated) before getting fired. after spending three seasons as an assistant at Arkansas, Odom got another chance and excelled. He led UNLV to a 9-5 record in 2023 and a 10-3 mark this past season, which saw the Rebels play in the Mountain West championship game. What is interesting about this hire is that Odom -- like his predecessor Ryan Walters -- is a defensive minded coach. Purdue was known for its high-scoring offenses for many years, that some felt Walters' failure may cause the university to go back to an offensive mind. UNLV did average 36.2 ppg this season, second to only Boise State in the Mountain West. 

Temple can be a difficult job, but Keeler may be the guy who can replicate the success of Matt Rhule, Al Golden and Geoff Collins in Philly. Keeler has more playoff wins than any coach in FCS history, winning a national championship with Delaware in 2003 and Sam Houston in 2020 -- the only FCS coach to win titles at two different schools. He helped Sam Houston to a successful transition into the FBS the last couple of years and is ready to rebuild the Owls, who haven't had a winning season since 2019. Keeler's time at Delaware as a player and coach helps his understand the recruiting area, and he was born in nearby Emmaus, Pennsylvania. 

This could be the first stop to a robust career for Kittley. For starters, at 33 years old Kittley is the youngest head coach in the FBS at his hiring. His offenses at Houston Christian, Western Kentucky and Texas Tech have been efficient and explosive (Tech has the nation's 9th best passing offense this season). Kittley was mentored by Kliff Kingsbury as an assistant at Texas Tech in the mid-2010s where he was a quarterbacks coach for Patrick Mahomes.  

Longo may be heading into his first season as a head coach, but this is a fantastic hire for the Bearkats. Longo has spent time at Sam Houston, where he was the offensive coordinator from 2014-2016, where his air raid offense was one of the most lethal in the FCS. He then stepped up into the power conferences where he was an offensive coordinator at Ole Miss, North Carolina and Wisconsin. His highest profile work was with the Tar Heels where he worked with Sam Howell (who set program records) and Drake Maye to helm some of the nation's top offenses. At Ole Miss he worked with elite receivers A.J. Brown and D.K. Metcalf. He left for Wisconsin in 2023 but didn't find the same success and was fired in November. Still, his offense will be sure to attract talent to a rising Group of Five program. 

Entz is a very interesting hire. He was the head coach at North Dakota State in 2018 after Chris Kleiman left to become the head coach at Kansas State. Entz went 60-11 in Fargo where he reached the playoffs all five years, getting to the championship game three times and winning two national championships. He left North Dakota State a year ago to become an assistant defensive coach at USC, and in one year changed the culture of the Trojans defense.  

Kelly is a good hire for a new-ish FBS program that has been finding success on the field. He knows the university, spending five years as an assistant coach for the Gamecocks in the 1990s. Since then, he's spent time as an assistant at some big programs - Georgia Tech, Florida State, Tennessee, Alabama, Colorado, and Auburn ... where he spent last season. He's been an assistant for Paul Johnson, Jimbo Fisher, Nick Saban and Deion Sanders -- four completely different types of coaches who've found varying levels of success doing things their way. 

This is a really good get for Bowling Green, a program that has had a roller coaster ride of success over the last decade. Scot Loeffler left to be the Philadelphia Eagles QB coach, the Eagles have hired former Ohio State Heisman Trophy winning running back Eddie George to run the program. George is coming off an impressive four-year stint at Tennessee State where he went 24-22 and is coming off a FCS playoff appearance and was named the Big South-OVC Coach of the Year. George brings some experience and a name that should do well in the state of Ohio. 

Huff and Marshall spent the last several weeks of the regular season unable to come to a contract agreement, so one day after Marshall beat Louisiana for the Sun Belt championship, Huff bolted for Southern Miss. This hiring was something of an open secret, as Huff now leaves the Sun Belt's champions to the worst team in the conference. What was once one of the better Group of 5 programs really fell under Will Hall's leadership (they were 1-11 this past season). Huff has a lot of heavy lifting for one of the poorest programs in the FBS. 

When Tim Albin left to become the head coach at Charlotte, the Bobcats looked within for their new head coach. Brian Smith has been at Ohio as the running backs coach, offensive coordinator and assistant head coach for the last three seasons as was already tabbed to lead the team heading into their Cure Bowl game (they beat Jacksonville State, 30-27). The Bobcats have completed their third straight 10-win season and led the MAC in offense. Keeping things in house should allow Ohio to continue on one of the best runs in the program's history. 

Simmons has a very successful coach in the FCS with Prairie View A&M and Florida A&M, ending with a winning record in all eight of his seasons. His final season at FAMU he went 12-1 and won the Celebration Bowl. He served as Duke's running backs coach last season before accepting the FIU gig. His experience in coaching and recruiting in Florida was a big factor in Simmons getting this job. The Panthers haven't had a winning season since 2018. 

Mack might be the right hire for Kennesaw State. The Owls have just taken the step up to the FBS level and completed their first season in Conference USA. Mack, who most recently was the running backs coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars, had success in his only head coaching job for North Carolina Central. Mack went 31-15 in four years with the Eagles and won three MEAC conference titles. He's spent most of his 20-year coaching career in the southeast and knows the college landscape well. 

Ball State went local when hiring a new coach, bringing in Butler head coach Mike Uremovich into the fold. Uremovich was born in Gary, Indiana, attended Purdue, and has spent the last three seasons turning Butler's program around. At Butler, he took a program that won six games combined in the three seasons before he got there and went 23-11. Current Ball State defensive coordinator Jeff Knowles has been friends with Uremovich since elementary school, played together in high school, and have worked together at several stops in college. Knowles left Butler (where he was Uremovich's defensive coordinator) last year to go to Ball State. Now they'll be together again. 

Another young coach who is taking a job where he's familiar. At one time, Joe Harasymiak was the youngest coach in Division I football when he took over at Maine in 2016 at the age of 29. In three years at Maine, he built the program up to a 10-4 mark and a trip to the FCS semifinals. He immediately left that job to be an assistant at Minnesota, then two years ago became the defensive coordinator at Rutgers. Harasymiak went to college in Springfield, MA and spent a lot of his coaching career in New England and the northeast. He resurrected the Scarlet Knights' defense, earning two nominations for the Broyles Award (given to the top assistant). UMass is a difficult job and following Don Brown's 6-23 stint in Amherst shows there's a lot of work to be done. Rest assured, the Minutemen will have a stout defense. 

Drinkall is yet another hire that has had success at a lower level and is stepping up into a head FBS job. Drinkall spent five years as the head coach at Kansas Wesleyan (NAIA) from 2014 to 2018. The Coyotes went 42-17 under his watch, going 13-1 in his final season and reaching the NAIA semifinals. He left to be an assistant at Army where he spent time at various positional coaching jobs and as co-offensive coordinator. Drinkall will bring a tough running style to the Chippewas, just like he did at both Kansas Wesleyan and Army. The once-proud Central Michigan program has fallen into a funk over the last several years and are hoping Drinkall's energy breathes new life in Mount Pleasant. 

Lamb may only be 35 years old, but he's a coaching lifer. His father was a prominent high school coach in Georgia and Tre immediately got into coaching after his QB playing days at Tennessee Tech were over.  He spent four years as the head coach at Gardner-Webb, where he went 20-20, before going 7-5 last year in his lone season at East Tennessee State. Now, those may not seem like gaudy records, but he quickly turned around two programs that were stuck in the mud. He led Gardner-Webb to consecutive Big South titles, their first in nearly 20 years, and led them to their first FCS playoffs appearance (and their first playoff appearance of any kind since 1992), and their first FCS playoff win. 

When Charles Huff left to take Southern Miss' head coaching job, Marshall pounced on NC State defensive coordinator Tony Gibson. Gibson knows West Virginia, as he was an assistant as West Virginia Tech for two years and spent 13 years over two stints with the West Virginia Mountaineers. That's huge for this program, as there were always questions about the stability of the Thundering Herd under Huff -- was he all in or was he looking for the next thing? Gibson has roots there -- he was born and raised in the state and attended Glenville State. He's 52 years old and this will be his first head coaching job, and there's more to Marshall (who just won the Sun Belt championship) than just being a native son. Stability is a good start. 

Loaggains spent a lot of time as an assistant in the NFL, working as a quarterbacks coach or offensive coordinator for the Titans, Browns, Bears, Dolphins and Jets. After the Jets fired Adam Gase and the entire staff, Loaggins went back to college and he's spent the last two seasons as South Carolina's offensive coordinator, where he turned around the Gamecocks' season this year by developing quarterback LaNorris Sellers. Loaggains hasn't been a head coach before and now heads a program that has high expectations that has faced a lot of adversity this past season. The area was devastated by Hurricane Helene and the football team suffered their first losing season since making the step up to FBS in 2014.

Eck has really worked his way to this point. He spent the beginning of his career as a graduate assistant at Wisconsin and Colorado before toiling as an assistant coach at Idaho, Winona State, Ball State, Minnesota State, South Dakota State and several other places. He finally got his shot to lead his own program when he got the Idaho job in 2022 and turned around a program that had five straight losing seasons and took them to three FCS playoff appearances. His most recent Vandals team went 10-4 before losing to top seed Montana State in the quarterfinals. Eck replaces Bronco Mendenhall, who did a fabulous job in his only season in Albuquerque. 

Rice is an interesting hire. He made his name in the high school ranks in Virginia before landing with Division III's Washington & Lee. He took the Generals to three playoff appearances in six years before moving on to FCS's Davidson College. He led the Wildcats to three playoff appearances by utilizing the triple option, which he figures to employ at Rice. His offenses finished near the top of the FCS in rushing and he understands the unique challenges of running a program like Rice. Moving to the FBS will be new, as well as leaving the mid-Atlantic for Texas. Will his offense work in the American Athletic Conference? Well, it's worked nicely for Army and Navy this season.