Everyone wants to know who the next best thing is in college football. To everyone’s surprise, it was the TCU Horned Frogs last season. Time and time again they defied the odds with their epic comebacks until the final game, there was no comeback this time.
Still, TCU achieved something that the Big 12 and Oklahoma failed to do in three opportunities, make the CFP championship game. It was even more remarkable that first-year head coach Sonny Dykes did this with Gary Patterson’s players that finished 5-7 the previous year.
Could there be another “Sonny Dykes” moment in 2023? If so, which first-year head coach could be the one to get it done? There was no shortage of candidates across the college football landscape. From Luke Fickell to Trent Dilfer, the coaching carousel was getting almost as much action as the transfer portal.
After thinking it over, I broke down my five candidates who could do it. While achieving what TCU did in 2022 isn’t probable, it certainly is possible.
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We will start with a head coach that has made it to the College Football Playoffs. Luke Fickell shocked the CFB landscape during the 2021 season when he led the Cincinnati Bearcats to the CFP semifinal game in the Cotton Bowl against the Alabama Crimson Tide.
While Fickell and the Bearcats didn’t make it to the championship game, it seems that he knows the formula. At Wisconsin, he should have better resources to do it quicker than in his fifth year in the program as he did in his previous stop.
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Despite his recent run at the NFL level, new Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule is known as a program builder. He turned Temple around in four seasons going from 2-10 to back-to-back 10-win campaigns before leaving for Baylor. The Bears went from 1-11 to 11-3 in his final season, losing to Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship.
He inherits a team that…
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