3 Coaches who had a breakthrough season in 2019

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College football coaches work tirelessly to build their programs year after year. Success is often not linear, and it takes years of laying bricks to build a solid program. Some programs need to be torn down and completely rebuilt while others were in great shape recently and just need a quick remodel. When a Coach has a break through season, its a thing of beauty for the fans of the program. We look at 3 coaches that had a breakthrough season in 2019.

Ed Orgeron, LSU

Let’s start with the most obvious pick, although it wasn’t so obvious when the season began. Orgeron took over LSU is 2016 with a great reputation as a strong recruiter but a 16 – 27 record as a head coach. He may not have been the obvious choice for he job at the time but in 2019 Orgeron reached the pinnacle of his profession, and the journey was as remarkable as the result.

Orgeron’s track record was not what you would expect from a coach being hired by LSU, but as the interim coach in 2016 he did enough to impress the powers that be to take a chance on him. 2017 and 2018 were not bad seasons, but at LSU the goals are to play for the SEC title and in the College Football Playoff and the Tigers appeared to be no closer to those goals.

Take a moment and think back to last off season when Joe Burrow was “a game manager” and “better than what LSU has had, but still not good enough”, and think how his career took off this year and the fortunes of the Tigers with it. Burrow and the Tigers came out of the gates scoring points at will scoring over 40 points in their 1st 7 games. Everyone was waiting for the clock to strike midnight and the carriage to turn into a pumpkin, but it turned out the offense was real and no matter how late in the season it got the Tigers just kept rolling.

Orgeron was always an elite recruiter but he added Joe Brady to his coaching staff and the offense transformed and not only joined the rest of college football in the new era of points, but took the poll position. No matter who the Tigers faced they kept scoring and they kept winning; 46 against Alabama, 50 against Texas A&M, 37 against Georgia, 63 against Oklahoma and finally 42 in a Championship game win over Clemson.

Burrow and Brady are gone to the NFL, and leave huge shoes to fill. But Orgeron has changed his narrative and went from being just an elite recruiter to being National Champion. Can the Tiger’s offense keep putting up points with a new QB? Only time will tell, but at least they have a Championship coach to guide them into the future.

PJ Fleck, Minnesota

Fleck arrived at Minnesota in 2017 after winning 13 games the past season at Western Michigan. The Gophers were looking for stability, and a young coach who could grow the program. After his success at Western Michigan expectations were high for Fleck but the results were not immediate.

In 2017 the Gophers went 5-7, Fleck was building a new culture but these things take time; Rome wasn’t build in a day after all. Fleck started recruiting players that fit his image for the program. In 2018 the signs of progress were noticeable; the Gophers went 7 – 6 but won 3 of their last 4 including a big 22 point road win against rival Wisconsin. It was clear that Fleck had the program moving in the right direction but no one saw 2019 coming.

2019 started somewhat slow, the Gophers won their 1st 4 games but all 4 were 1 score games, highlighted by a last minute 35 – 32 win over Georgia Southern. The Gophers were winning but the doubters were still out in full force, they Gophers may have been 4 – 0 but they were still not respected. Fleck stayed true to his mantra “row the boat” and just kept on rowing.

Over the next 4 weeks Minnesota piled up 4 blowout victories. The margin of victory was impressive but the competition (Illinois, Nebraska, Rutgers and Maryland) was still not very good, and the doubters still had questions. Those questions were answered the next week when the Gophers beat previously unbeaten Penn State in what would be the statement game of Fleck’s career to date. The Gophers lead all the way through, and despite Penn State repeated attempts to take the lead the Gopher didn’t relent.

The Gophers suffered a let down and lost a close game at Iowa the next week, and to Wisconsin in the final game of the regular season, but bounced back to beat Auburn 31 -24 in the Outback Bowl. The 11-win season Minnesota’s first since 1904. The program reached heights that had not been seen in the modern era of college football.

The best part for Fleck is the team returns 9 starters on offense. That kind of stability can lead to a true sustained breakthrough and not just a 1 year peak. Fleck has proven he can build a program in the past and this trend should continue at Minnesota. The future appears to be very exciting for the Golden Gophers.

Mario Cristobal, Oregon

Cristobal took over after Willie Taggart abandoned the Ducks after just 1 season (karma comes around Willie). Cristobal hadn’t been a head coach since an unceremonious end to his stint at FIU in 2012. Nonetheless he had shown promise at FIU and then gained experience as an assistant on Nick Saban’s staff at Alabama, before leaving to be an assistant at Oregon.

Oregon played in the first ever College Football playoff championship game to close out the 2014 season but went into a steady decline thereafter. In 2015 they finished the season ranked 19th in the AP poll and then finished the next 3 seasons un-ranked coming into the 2019 season.

The Ducks needed a bounce back campaign in 2019, the shine was fading fast and the fall is always faster than the climb. Fortunately, Cristobal had QB Justin Herbert returning despite 1st round NFL projections and an experienced offensive line to protect him. What we didn’t realize before the season is what Cristobal had on the other side of the ball.

The season began with a showdown against Auburn, ultimately Oregon lost a game they probably should have won, but this team was different than Ducks teams of the past. They played physical and played good defense, and these were promising signs. Oregon reeled off 9 straight wins before a 3 point upset loss at Arizona State, but then bounced back to win the Pac 12 Championship against Utah and closed the season with a Rose Bowl win over Wisconsin.

The most impressive thing about Oregon’s success was the way they won. Oregon was known for its high flying offense since the Chip Kelly teams, but the defense was always the question mark. The times sure have changed in Eugene, under Cristobal this past season Oregon allowed over 30 points only 3 times in 14 games. The defense allowed only 16.5 points per game down from 25.4 in 2018, 29 in 2017 and a whopping 41.4 in 2017.

With a defense that has become one of the best in college football, and the newly minted top recruiting class in the Pac 12 according to 247Sports, Cristobal seems to have flipped the curve and has Oregon climbing back toward the College Football Playoff.

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