Fortuna Files: Why UCLA made the right call with DeShaun Foster
Plus, intel on staff makeovers across the country, scheduling updates and more
At last, the coaching carousel is complete.
We think.
Thirty jobs came open, and 30 have been filled now that UCLA has hired DeShaun Foster. Perhaps a 30-for-30 on this 30-job cycle could be in the works one day, given the shock (Chip Kelly taking a demotion) and magnitude (three Playoff coaches leaving) of the 2023-24 cycle.
For now, we are left to immediately predict how the new guys in charge will do, and given the oddity of UCLA’s search — from the way the job came open to the timing itself — it is worth taking a look at what is or isn’t working in the Bruins’ favor.
One near-definitive conclusion: It is damn near impossible to succeed as a first-time head coach in the Big Ten.
The caveat?
Unless you’re an internal promotion.
Considering that Foster had been on UCLA’s staff the past seven years — and had only been hired away by the Raiders 10 days earlier — we will count this an internal promotion.
Excluding the incoming Pac-12 incomers for this exercise, 12 of the 14 current Big Ten schools have hired a head coach with no previous head-coaching experience since 2000. (You could count a 13th, Illinois, if you discount Lovie Smith’s NFL head-coaching experience prior to joining the Illini. But we think that counts for something here.)
(Editor’s note: We incorrectly stated that Kirk Ferentz was a first-time head coach at Iowa, but as eagle-eyed reader Jeff Winn points out, Ferentz was actually the head coach at Maine from 1990-92. We apologize for the oversight.)
Those first-time head coaches:
Tom Allen (Indiana)
Kevin Wilson (Indiana)
DJ Durkin (Maryland)
Sherrone Moore (Michigan)
Bobby Williams (Michigan State)
Tracy Claeys (Minnesota)
Tim Brewster (Minnesota)
Bo Pelini (Nebraska)
David Braun (Northwestern)
Pat Fitzgerald (Northwestern)
Ryan Day (Ohio State)
Bill O’Brien (Penn State)
Ryan Walters (Purdue)
Chris Ash (Rutgers)
Kyle Flood (Rutgers)
Bret Bielema (Wisconsin).
If you want to included coaches who were hired before 2000 but coached into this millennium you could add:
Cam Cameron (Indiana)
Lloyd Carr (Michigan)
Barry Alvarez (Wisconsin)
(We will not count Ralph Friedgen and Ron Vanderlinden at Maryland, Frank Solich at Nebraska, or Greg Schiano’s first run at Rutgers, since none of those tenures was in the Big Ten at the time.)
The 10 above italicized coaches were internal promotions. Excluding Moore and Braun, who were just hired full-time, it is fair to say that at least four of those other eight internal promotions were or are successful: Day, Bielema, Fitzgerald and Carr. (The ugly exit aside, Fitzgerald was the winningest coach in Northwestern history when he was fired for off-field matters.)
Which leaves us to the nine who were not italicized.
How many of those were or are successful?