An Exceedingly Lengthy But Useful Look at Coaching Tenure in College Football

College football's drawn-out postseason is plenty inspiration to take a closer look at various aspects of the game. We're here to present a state of the coaching union, 2009. Among many curiosities, college football is home to two coaches with more than 30 years of tenure at their programs in Florida State's Bobby Bowden (34 years) and Penn State's Joe Paterno (44).

In contrast to their celebrated longevity, exactly half of the first division's 120 coaches are either first, second or third-year coaches. The chopping blocks have been fed a healthy and consistent dose of resignations, job-hopping and rolled heads that leaves the rest of us scratching our heads at how youthful and nearly-fired Texas Tech coach Mike Leach could soon be among the ten most tenured coaches in college football. Graphs and numbers and paragraph-like things after the jump.

College football's upper division -- I refuse to call it the FBS or whatever awkward and weak-kneed nomenclature is official right now -- currently has 120 schools among its membership. Too many by our count but that is another story for another day.

Among those 120 much-coveted jobs -- well, maybe not Eastern Michigan -- exactly half are now owned by coaches that are either fresh hires or in their second or third years. By the numbers its 21 first-year coaches, 18 in their second season and another 21 in their third year. Count some surprising powers among those, including Alabama, Nebraska, Tennessee and Michigan.

Second-year Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez is actually just the fourth Michigan coach since the legendary Bo Schembechler replaced the forgettable Bump Elliot in 1969. Tennessee's Lane Kiffin is his program's third coach since 1977 when Johnny Majors was hired. Philip Fulmer was replaced after 17 years at Rocky Top, leaving as easily among the most-tenured coaches in the game.

In total, a staggering six coaches with eight or more years tenure at their jobs were replaced this offseason. Some of these were planned departures, however, such as in the case with Purdue's Joe Tiller who led the program for 12 years before stepping down.

Odd stories followed for the trio of coaches replaced after just their second season. Army pushed Stan Brock out the door after he failed to run an offense more suited to success at the academies. Gene Chizik left what looked like a slow and likely unsuccessful rebuilding job at Iowa State for Auburn. Jeff Jagodzinski was fired at Boston College after he refused to back down from an ultimatum not to interview for the vacant New York Jets' head coaching job.

His situation seemingly prompted a copycat standoff in Lubbock, as beloved Texas Tech coach Mike Leach attempted to negotiate a contract extension. Things went smoothly until the university inserted several unusual clauses into his contract late in the negotiations including a demand to have permission before any future job interviews.

In both situations the coaches refused to budge, with Jagodzinski losing his job and Leach nearly losing his before he worked out the extension in a final negotiation that removed the clause. Amusingly, in retaining his job, Leach will make next year his 10th at Texas Tech. In so doing he becomes the 13th most tenured coach in college football. Its amazing to think that outlasting most other coaches as far as tenure can still lead to questions of ones loyalty.

Looking at numbers for a moment, here's the following distribution of coaching tenure in college football (number of coaches in y-axis, years tenure in x-axis)



In numbers that's 21 first-year coaches, then 18 (second-year coaches), 21, 7, 15, 5, 3, 5, 12 and 1, with 12 coaches counting 10+ years of tenure. Who could imagine USF coach Jim Leavitt, with 13 years tenure, as the 7th-most tenured coach in college football? He doesn't exactly strike you as the Mack Brown, Mike Belotti, Frank Beamer, Bobby Bowden type to be the face of a program.

Looking at the graph, there's a clear drop-off after third-year coaches with a fairly reliable downward transition with odd spikes for 5th year and 9th year coaches. Count defending national champion Florida Gators coach Urban Meyer among the 5th year group, as well as LSU's Les Miles, South Carolina's Steve Spurrier, Utah's Kyle Whittingham and Notre Dame's Charlie Weis.

The ninth-year group is even more special, with USC's Pete Carroll, Georgia's Mark Richt, Ohio State's Jim Tressel, TCU's Gary Patterson, Wake Forest's Jim Grobe, Rutgers' Greg Schiano and oddities like Memphis' Tommy West and FAU's ageless Howard Schnellenberger. There's more than a few future college football hall-of-famers in that bunch.

Did you know Chris Ault is the third-most tenured coach in college football, as this year will be his 25th at Nevada?

With Oregon coach Mike Bellotti likely retiring sometime soon (this year would be his 15th in Eugene), that next group of veteran coaches in the coming years is likely to include Fresno State's Pat Hill (13 years), Texas' Mack Brown (12), Oklahoma's Bob Stoops (11), Iowa's Kirk Ferentz (11) and, oddly, Connecticut's Randy Edsall (11).