College football coaching carousel: What recent hiring trends could tell us about new coaches in 2024 season

When power conference athletic directors are in the process of hiring a new football coach, they’re essentially faced with two decisions: either take a swing at upside and identify an up-and-coming assistant or head coach at a lower level, or pay big money to lure a sitting coach with a comfortable job at one of the nation’s premier leagues. Available resources play a huge a factor in the final call, but we’ve seen some schools pull off major coups in recent years. 

The 2021-22 cycle saw three coaches with job security at major power conference schools, two of which had led their programs to College Football Playoff appearances (Lincoln Riley and Brian Kelly), leave for new jobs. The 2023-24 carousel broke that mark with four coaches moving from Power Four school to Power Four school. 

As a quick recap of the movement: Alabama hired Washington’s Kalen DeBoer to replace Nick Saban; Washington filled its vacancy with Arizona’s Jedd Fisch; Texas A&M lured Mike Elko away from Duke after the expensive firing of Jimbo Fisher; and Michigan State was able to pull Jonathan Smith away from his alma mater at Oregon State. 

There were even more — what we’d call for this article’s purposes — “upside swings” (i.e. hiring/promoting assistant coaches or Group of Five head coaches): 

It’s hard to predict success, no matter the coach’s previous location. Of the two categories we’ve sorted coaches into since the 2021-22 cycle — “Upside swings” and “Power conference to Power conference” — the winning percentages are almost identical. 

Obviously, the sample size with former assistants and Group of Five coaches is larger and the hit rate is arguably more impressive, especially when you factor in initial contract numbers and relative expectations. But when you zoom in even further on the data from the last two coaching cycles and the ensuing seasons on the field, there are some interesting trends we can pull out and apply to the 2024 hires to sort of set the tone for their first year. 

Upside swings 

Recruiters win: Turns out, talent acquisition is very important when it comes to winning in college football. It’s certainly one of the primary factors that programs should consider when hiring a new coach, especially if they’re targeting assistants. 

Just look at the immediate success of Oregon coach Dan Lanning. During…