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January 4, 2021 By: Mark Knudson

Will any College Football coaches end up on the NFL Coaching Carousel?

Black Monday has arrived – and a good number of NFL coaches are getting their pink slips.

The question is, which direction will the teams now searching for a head coach turn? Will teams like the New York Jets and the Houston Texans simply look for NFL retreads and sign up a former head coach from another team…or perhaps look for that “hot coordinator” from a playoff team? Or…will any of these teams have the nerve to roll the dice on a current college football coach?

College coaches – even highly successful ones – haven’t always transitioned to the NFL very well. Nick Saban was a bust in Miami. Chip Kelly and Steve Spurrier were big winners in college who flamed out in the pros. On the other hand, Pete Carroll and Jimmy Johnson won titles in both the college and professional ranks, so it has been done successfully, too. (Do we really count Barry Switzer, who won a Super Bowl with Johnson’s players?)

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The jury is still out on Matt Ruhle – who won big at Baylor and had a reasonable first season with the Carolina Panthers. Same with Kliff Kingsbury, formerly of Texas Tech and now with the Arizona Cardinals. The fact that these two have proven solid so far should help others in the same situation. Will any of the NFL teams looking for a head coach today take that gamble on a college guy this off season? And if so…who?

The coaching rumor mill is full of news about Urban Meyer, who technically isn’t a college coach – he’s been a broadcaster for the past three years – but would fit the bill, nonetheless. He’s reportedly the leading candidate in Jacksonville.

But what about some current college coaches?

Forget about Saban. That ship sailed. But what about Dabo Swinney from Clemson? When might he scratch the NFL itch? He’s done about all he can do in college football. Is he up for the next challenge? Then again, maybe taking a pay cut to go pro isn’t the best idea.

Jim Harbaugh took the 49ers to the Super Bowl before bolting for Michigan. It hasn’t gone as well as most Wolverine fans thought it would. Now might be the time for Harbaugh to seriously look at a gig like the Detroit Lions have open at the moment. Wouldn’t be a hard transition…and he’d be getting while the getting was good.

Harbaugh’s successor at Stanford, David Shaw, has long been rumored to be a target of NFL teams. He’s not getting any younger. It might make (dollars and) sense for Shaw to take his shot now as well.

Then there are a group of younger college head coaches who haven’t been linked to pro jobs much in the past, but who might fall into the same category as Ruhle and Kingsbury and end up being surprisingly good hires. Matt Campbell has excelled at Iowa State and has proven he can take mid-level talent and turn it into a top-ten team. He’s been mentioned as a fit for bigger college programs, but so far, has stayed put. Might be tough to get him out of Ames, but then again, the lure of the NFL is strong for an up and comer. A couple years ago that was Minnesota’s P.J. Fleck, who’s stock dipped a bit this year, but who’s been “upwardly mobile” his entire coaching career and would likely relish a shot at the pro level.

Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley is an offensive innovator and has been mentioned several times for NFL gigs. Thus far, he’s been steadfast that he’s staying in Norman. But his career has been much like Kingsbury, so you never say never with a young guy like that.

On the other side of the ball, Northwestern’s Pat Fitzgerald was the perfect fit at his alma mater, and he too has achieved a lot of team success with mid-level talent. He’s a more traditional defensive minded coach who might be a fit in a place like Detroit, too.

If you’ve been watching closely, you’ve noticed that the pro game is slowly morphing toward the college version, especially on offense. More dual threat quarterbacks and teams running some zone read option plays. More emphasis on spreading the field and less on the straight ahead power game. Many college coaches have been ahead of the curve in terms of offensive innovation. All these candidates have proven they know how to manage a game and run a successful program. The question is not if they can do the X’s and O’s part, but rather how well they can relate to professional athletes. Saban and Kelly couldn’t make that part work. Carroll and Johnson could and did. Spectacularly.

Chances are that Meyer would be a successful NFL coach, too. Hiring him – or Harbaugh or Shaw for that matter – wouldn’t be that much of a gamble. But reaching into the college ranks to snag Campbell, Fitzgerald or Riley would be. If it doesn’t work, then the NFL retreads will puff out their collective chests and go back to talking down to college coaches. But if it does, it could pay off in a really big way and build on a trend that’s already picking up steam.