Updated December 29, 2010.
Al Golden leaving Temple for Miami of Florida is, by my best count, the 205th Division I-A-slash-Bowl-Subdivision coaching change since after the 2000 season, which is an arbitrary point that I picked because it's a nice round number. It's also the 28th such instance in the MAC during that stretch, meaning that 13.6 percent of all moves have happened in our fair conference.
This is understandably more than our fair share (currently 10.8 percent of all FBS teams are in the MAC) because we send a nice tablespoonful of young coaches to larger schools, and in return they hand the MAC schools large cash payouts to bring their new coach and leftover talent in for a "football thrashing" and several "teaching moments." Hey, the system works!
But here's a startling truth that, when I compiled the table below, oughta bode well for Golden and Minnesota's new football leader Jerry Kill: Of the eight coaches hired away since 2000 to bigger/better/baudier football programs, none of them have been fired. Gary Pinkel and Jim Grobe are still at Missouri and Wake Forest, and the only inactive two are Urban Meyer (who just resigned from Florida), and Terry Hoeppner, who passed away a few years ago (eerily enough, when I was in Bloomington on unrelated business). That's it.
Golden is the tenth such hire, so good luck to him and his boyhood varsity charm. So far his teams haven't shown an ability to close out a season effectively, since in each of the last two years they've lost their last two games.
If you want to see the table of coaching volatility, look below you, and notice that we had a steady flow of familiar faces from 2005-07. For now ... enjoy the high job turnover!
| Season (total) |
Promoted or retired (Replacement) |
Fired or resigned (Replacement) | Total FBS (MAC%) |
| 2000-01 (four) |
OHIO: Jim Grobe to Wake Forest (Brian Knorr) Toledo: Gary Pinkel to Missouri (Tom Amstutz) |
BG: Gary Blackney resigned (Urban Meyer) Buffalo: Craig Cirbus fired (Jim Hofher) |
25 (16% of changes) |
| 2001-02 | OMGEE NO COACHING CHANGEZ!!1! | 13 | |
| 2002-03 (two) |
BG: Urban Meyer to Utah (Gregg Brandon) | Ball State: Bill Lynch fired (Brady Hoke) | 18 (11%) |
| 2003-04 (four) |
Akron: Lee Owens fired (J.D. Brookhart) CMU: Mike DeBord fired (Brian Kelly) EMU: Jeff Woodruff fired (Jeff Genyk) Kent: Dean Pees resigned (Doug Martin) |
14 (29%) | |
| 2004-05* (three) |
Miami: Terry Hoeppner to Indiana (Shane Montgomery) |
OHIO: Brian Knorr fired (Frank Solich) WMU: Gary Darnell fired (Bill Cubit) |
23 (4%) |
| 2005-06 (one) |
Buffalo: Jim Hofher fired (Turner Gill) | 11 (9%) | |
| 2006-07 (one) |
CMU: Brian Kelly to Cincinnati (Butch Jones) | 24 (4%) | |
| 2007-08 (one) |
NIU: Joe Novak retired (Jerry Kill) | 18 (6%) | |
| 2008-09 (five) |
Ball State: Brady Hoke to SDSU (Stan Parrish) |
BG: Gregg Brandon fired (Dave Clawson) EMU: Jeff Genyk fired (Ron English) Miami: Shane Montgomery fired (Mike Haywood) Toledo: Tom Amstutz resigned (Tim Beckman) |
22 (23%) |
| 2009-10 (three) |
Buffalo: Turner Gill to Kansas (Jeff Quinn) CMU: Butch Jones to Cincinnati (Dan Enos) |
Akron: J.D. Brookhart fired (Rob Ianello) | 23 (13%) |
| 2010-11 (four) |
NIU: Jerry Kill to Minnesota (Dave Doeren) Temple: Al Golden to Miami of Florida (Steve Addazio) Miami: Mike Haywood to Pittsburgh |
Ball State: Stan Parrish fired (Pete Lembo) Kent State: Doug Martin resigned (Darrell Hazell) |
14 so far (29%) |
*This was also the year that the venerable Bob Pruett retired from Marshall, but this was also the year Marshall left for the C-USA. So nuts to them. They don't count.
A hearty thanks to CollegeFootballPoll.com with some of this invaluable data ... although they didn't have the Dean Pees resignation listed, so the total coaching-change numbers could still be off.