3 College Football Coaches who haven’t lived up to expectations

Click here for all articles in the 3 coaches Series

New coaches bring optimism and hope to a fan base. There’s a vision and fans want to believe in it, to make it a reality. As is the nature of sports some achieve those dreams and others for whatever reason fail. Today we look at 3 coaches who haven’t lived up to the expectations in place when they were hired.

Tom Herman, Texas

It’s strange that Texas has struggled so much this decade. The fan-base is tremendous, and the administration invests heavily in the program. It’s a blue blood program that demands excellence, unfortunately Texas hasn’t won the Big 12 since 2009, and has watched rival Oklahoma win it 5 years in a row.

After the 2016 season Texas turned to Tom Herman to revive their program and restore them to prominence. Herman had just gone 24 – 4 in 2 seasons at Houston and Texas outbid LSU (who settled for Ed Orgeron) for his services. Herman was the guy who was going to revitalize the program and have the Longhorns playing for championships again.

A 7 – 6 season in 2017 was not ideal but it was justifiable; it would take some time to rebuild the roster, change the culture, and get the team back on track. The losses weren’t ideal but they could be tolerated for the greater good. In 2018 everything appeared to be getting on track. The Longhorns went 10 – 4 and finished the year ranked 9th in the AP poll. There was talk that the program was back and in 2019 Herman and company would be competing for the Big 12 title and maybe even a spot in the College Football Playoff.

The 2019 season was off to a solid start. The Longhorns were 5 – 2, and the 2 losses were both 1 TD losses to LSU and Oklahoma, hardly unforgivable given that both teams were among the top 4 in the nation. The problem is the wheels came off the bus after that start, Texas would finish the year 3 – 3 over its last 6 games with losses to TCU, Iowa State and Baylor. A year after winning 10 games the Longhorns were back down to 8 – 5.

The regression on the field is a problem but so is a troubling recruiting trend. In both the 2019 and 2020 recruiting classes none of the top 5 players from Texas according to the 247Sports Composite committed to the Longhorns. Texas has too much tradition, pride and too strong of a brand to let the top kids in their backyard leave.

Herman was incredibly successful at Houston. He recruited top defensive tackle Ed Oliver to play for the Cougars. He won 24 games in 2 years. That was the guy Texas paid over $5 million per year for. He has won some games at Texas and he has recruited some good players, but he hasn’t won nearly enough to live up to the expectations Texas fans had for him.

Texas was close to returning to glory in 2018 and maybe 2019 was just a one year setback. There’s still time for Herman to gain traction and continue the upward trajectory the program had, but Texas is not a place that will wait around forever. Everything’s bigger in Texas and that includes the expectations, in 2020 Tom Herman’s going to have to start reaching them.

Jim Harbaugh, Michigan

Michigan had been struggling to find a coach since Lloyd Carr left. They had tried to hire Rich Rodriguez to bring his spread offense to the Big 10 but that experiment failed miserably (18 – 22 in 3 seasons). The administration turned to Brady Hoke but despite an 11 win 1st season, Hoke could not gain any traction, his win totals decreased the next 3 seasons and he was let go after the 2014 season. The fans and the administration were frustrated with the direction of the program and they could not afford to miss again.

Jim Harbaugh was a former Michigan Quarterback who had played in the NFL. He coached Andrew Luck at Stanford and then spent 4 seasons in the NFL, reaching the Super Bowl with 49ers. Although he wore out his welcome in San Francisco, Michigan was confident this was the coach to lead their program into the future. He was a Michigan Man, he had experience in the NFL and in college. He was a recognizable name across the country. There was no better option to lead the program.

It would be unfair to say that Harbaugh hasn’t had success at Michigan. He won 10 games 3 times in his first 4 years. He changed the way teams have satellite camps in the spring and summer, he even started taking his teams to Europe for spring football. The problem was Michigan couldn’t seem to win the big game and they hadn’t beaten Ohio State since 2011.

2019 was a season that began with great optimism for Michigan. Everything seemed to line up perfectly; The Wolverines returned starting QB Shea Patterson for a second year, new offensive coordinator Josh Gattis was going to implement a new age offense built on speed, and to top it all off Urban Meyer had retired at Ohio State. The Wolverines had a good roster, a new offense, and perhaps their rival would be taking a step back with a new coach.

The Wolverines started the season 2 – 0 before a quick bye week lead into a showdown with also unbeaten Wisconsin. The Wolverines had struggled to win big games under Harbaugh and that trend continued as the Badgers dominated en route to a 35 – 14 victory. The optimism of the season was waning quickly but the team rebounded and and ran off 3 straight wins before another big showdown this time with unbeaten Penn State. Again, Harbaugh and the Wolverines came up short in the big game and despite a furious second half comeback, lost 28 – 21. The Wolverines used the momentum from the 2nd half comeback and ran off another 4 straight wins before the season ending showdown with unbeaten Ohio State. But the more things change the more they stay the same, and again Michigan could not win the big game and suffered a humiliating 56 – 27 defeat at the hands of their rivals. The Bowl season provided 1 last opportunity to win the big game against Alabama but it was not to be and the Wolverines faltered and were beaten 35 – 16.

Harbaugh has won a lot of games at Michigan and won 9 in 2019 as well, but he can’t seem to win the biggest games. Michigan rarely loses to a subpar team but they also never seem to beat the really good teams. In 2019 it was more of the same and to add insult to injury Ohio State has now beaten Michigan 8 straight games.

Harbaugh is the 3rd highest paid coach in college football, at some point the return has to live up to the investment. It’s hard to say Harbaugh is on the hot seat because he does win a lot of games, and where would Michigan go from here? But the expectations are to win conference championships and compete with Ohio State and at some point Harbaugh needs to start winning the big games to do that.

Dana Holgorsen, Houston

Normally we wouldn’t have a 1st year coach on this list but this was not a normal situation. Holgorsen arrived from West Virginia after a fairly successful 8 seasons there. He took over a team that won 37 games in the last 4 years, had an explosive offense and dark horse Heisman candidate at QB. The expectation was that the team would be successful right away and that D’Eriq King would make a case to be in New York as a Heisman finalist.

Holgorsen was known as an offensive innovator and surely with the weapons at his disposal the Cougars would make their mark in 2019. The season began with a loss to Oklahoma followed by a win over Prairie View. Neither result was unexpected and things appeared to be on track. What happened next was like a scene from a roadrunner cartoon when coyote plummets off a cliff down the canyon.

In week 3, Houston took a 14 – 7 lead to the locker room against Washington State but fell apart in the 2nd half and lost 31 – 24. Again in week 4 Houston took a halftime lead against Tulane 28 – 14 and again they fell apart in the 2nd half en route to a 38 – 31 loss. After the game star QB D’Eriq King decided not to play the rest of the season to preserve eligibility and later transferred to Miami. The losses kept mounting and the Cougars finished the season 4 – 8. There were no wins of note and no reason for future optimism.

It was bad enough that a coach known for his offense had somehow alienated his star QB but since the season ended 10 more Houston players have entered the transfer portal. Holgorsen lost plenty of games in 2019 but he may have also lost the locker room. A coach can recover from losing games, but losing the locker room is normally the kiss of death for any coach.

Luckily for Holgorsen this was his first year and Houston wasn’t going to bail after 1 season, but if these disturbing trends continue we don’t expect that patience to last very long.

For the latest content follow us on twitter @saturdayscfb & @cfbsaturdaysC or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CFBSaturdays.