Ranking The 10 Best Hires Of The College Football Coaching Carousel

One of the wildest coaching carousels in college football history is finally reaching its end as Power 4 and Group of 5 schools across the country hold press conferences to announce their new head coaches this week.

While the world of college football coaching searches is always hectic, this year felt particularly chaotic as blue blood programs such as LSU, Penn State, Florida, and Auburn all went looking for someone to lead them back to the mountaintop.

Some coaching searches were more successful than others, however, giving fans reason to believe their programs are ready to turn things around.

With that said, we’re counting down the top coaching hires of what was a wild and memorable coaching carousel.

Top Hires Of The 2025 Coaching Carousel

Ultimately, nobody will know which schools made the right hire and which made the wrong hire for at least a couple of years.

When LSU hired Brian Kelly and Florida hired Billy Napier, the general consensus was that both programs hit home runs. Fast forward a bit, and both were back in the market for a new head coach.

Meanwhile, nobody could have imagined that Curt Cignetti, a little-known coach from James Madison, would turn Indiana into a genuine national title contender the second he set foot onto campus in Bloomington.

However, given the information we have, we did our best to rank the top hires of this cycle.

Honorable Mention: USF – Brian Hartline, Iowa State – Jimmy Rogers

When the current cycle began, many fans believed that Ohio State offensive coordinator Brian Hartline was one of the top names available and could well land at Penn State. After all, Hartline was coordinating one of the nation’s top offenses and had long established himself as perhaps the country’s top recruiter, especially at the wide receiver position.

However, the Nittany Lions passed on Hartline. That comes after both UCLA and West Virginia did the same in previous years. Whether it’s due to his inexperience as a head coach or rumored baggage, Hartline clearly isn’t seen the same way in the football world as he is among fans.

But either way, he now heads to South Florida with a big reputation and a ton of upside as the Bulls look to fill the hole left by another coach on this list.

Meanwhile, Iowa State moved on to Rogers immediately to replace Matt Campbell, who will also find his name further up this list. Rogers, just 38, is a South Dakota State graduate who took over the powerhouse program in 2023 and immediately went 15-0 and won an FCS national championship.

He followed that up by going 12-3 in year two and reaching the FCS semifinals before taking the head coaching job at Washington State, where he went 6-6 in 2025.

Now, he heads to the Big 12 as an under-the-radar but perhaps home run hire for the Cyclones.

10) Bob Chesney – UCLA

Chesney is another name that was long linked to the Penn State job.

He took over the head coaching position at James Madison following Cignetti and hardly missed a beat, going 9-4 in 2024 and then 12-1 this season, winning the Sun Belt and taking the Dukes to the College Football Playoff.

The 48-year-old turned around three lower-level programs before coming to JMU, and then showed that he was more than capable of winning big at a program with solid resources.

He’ll look to prove the same with the Bruins, who finished the season with some optimism after a brutal start led to the firing of DeShaun Foster.

The biggest question surrounding Chesney will be his ability to recruit at the Big 10 level, especially with no previous ties to the West Coast.

9) Alex Golesh – Auburn

Golesh took over a South Florida program that went 1-11 in 2022 and immediately turned things around, going 7-6 in 2023 and winning Boca Raton Bowl.

The problem, however, if he seemingly plateaued from there. Golesh went 7-6 in his second year, and 9-3 this past season. While that may seem impressive, the Bulls entered the 2025 season with visions of winning the American Athletic Conference and reaching the College Football Playoff.

Ultimately, none of Golesh’s losses this year were “bad” losses. USF got blown out by a far more talented Miami team and then lost by a combined six points to Memphis and Navy on the road. But after wins over Boise State and Florida to start the season, it was still a disappointing final 10 games.

The former Josh Heupel protege now brings his high-flying offense to the plains at Auburn, where, if things click, he could easily have the Tigers back in national championship discussions. Although the move certainly comes with some risk.

8) Eric Morris – Oklahoma State

What better way to replace Mike Gundy than going to find another young, up-and-coming offensive mind with a propensity for throwing the ball around the yard?

Eric Morris played under Mike Leach from 2004-2008 at Texas Tech, and it shows in his high-flying offenses, first at Incarnate Word with Cam Ward, and then at North Texas, which was one win away from the College Football Playoff this season.

The Mean Green went 11-2 this past season under Morris, making him one of the hottest coaching prospects in the south. If he’s given the time and the resources, there’s no reason the Texas native can’t carry Oklahoma State back to the top of the Big 12.

7) Charles Huff – Memphis

Charles Huff is the prime example of a coach betting on himself and winning.

Huff served as the running backs coach for Penn State from 2014-2017, where he famously recruited and helped develop Saquon Barkley. He then left Penn State in 2018 for Mississippi State, where he became the run game coordinator under Joe Moorhead.

When Moorhead was fired, Huff landed at Alabama under Nick Saban, before taking his first head coaching job at Marshall in 2021. Huff helped turn around a struggling Thundering Herd program, going 32-20 over three years, including a 10-3 season in 2024.

But he surprisingly left Marshall for Sun Belt rival Southern Miss, which had just finished at the bottom of the conference that Huff had won.

Well, this past season Huff improved the Golden Eagles from 1-11 to 7-5, while Marshall went from 10-3 to 5-7 without him. Now, Huff heads to Memphis, which is perhaps the most resource-rich program in the American Athletic Conference.

Previous Memphis coach Ryan Silverfield parlayed the job into one with Arkansas this offseason despite falling short of fans’ expectations with the Tigers. If Huff can meet or exceed those expectations, he’ll be in a big-time job before long.

6) Will Stein – Kentucky

Two years ago, the Kentucky Wildcats gave Mark Stoops a massive contract extension and raise following an approach from Texas A&M. Stoops then went 9-15 in the years to follow and found himself out of a job.

Now, the Wildcats will turn to Kentucky native Will Stein in hopes that he can clean up the mess.

Stein, just 36, is one of the hottest coaching candidates in the country after coordinating the Oregon offense the last three seasons under Dan Lanning.

The former Louisville Cardinals QB is considered an offensive guru and could well breathe life into a Kentucky program that has long needed it, even amid a handful of successful seasons under Stoops.

5) Collin Klein – Kansas State

The Prodigal Son hath returned.

This move always made sense for Kansas State. Chris Klieman had a nice seven-year run in Manhattan, especially replacing a legend like Bill Snyder. But this past season was a big step backward for the Wildcats and it was clear they may need a change.

What better change to make than your former Heisman Trophy finalist quarterback and one of the best offensive coordinators in the country?

Klein started at Kansas State from 2008-2012 and jumped into coaching with the program shortly after. He worked under both Snyder and Klieman before going to Texas A&M in 2024.

This season, Klein helped lead an Aggies offense that ranked 14th in the country in points per game and helped turn quarterback Marcel Reed into a star.

Bringing him back home as a head coach just made too much sense for Kansas State to pass up, and he has a great chance to succeed in a wide-open Big 12.

4) Matt Campbell – Penn State

Had Penn State’s hiring process not been so publicly messy, this hire may well have been further up our list.

Alas, Campbell is a darn good football coach. After five strong years at Toledo, Campbell took the Iowa State job in 2016. In over a century of football prior to Campbell, the Cyclones had won nine or more games in a season just twice.

Campbell did so twice in the last six seasons, including an 11-3 season in 2024, the most successful in Iowa State history by win total.

Additionally, he’s an Ohio native with ties to the Midwest and some of Penn State’s most common recruiting grounds, and he brings with him a staff with a strong reputation for player development.

Campbell may not be the most flashy hire, but it’s hard to argue with his resume.

3) James Franklin – Virginia Tech

Make no mistake about it, James Franklin had run his course at Penn State. The Nittany Lions needed to move on, despite Franklin having a significant amount of success over the last 12 years.

However, his messaging had long begun to get stale in Happy Valley and it was best for both sides to separate from one another.

That being said, Franklin is a darn good program builder and recruiter, and that’s exactly what Virginia Tech needed at this time. The Hokies haven’t been able to find their footing since Frank Beamer’s retirement.

Now, with Franklin at the helm, there’s a good chance they’ll have as talented a roster as anyone in a watered-down ACC, and there’s no reason to think Virginia Tech won’t be competing for conference championships fairly quickly, if not in year one.

2) Jon Sumrall – Florida

There is, admittedly, a bit of comedy in the fact that Florida fired Billy Napier only to hire what many people see as the newer, defensive-minded version of Billy Napier, just four years later.

However, Sumrall is 43-11 over his four seasons as a head coach and led Tulane to a College Football Playoff berth this year despite losing star quarterback Darien Mensah to Duke in the transfer portal.

Now, would that have happened had Jake Retzlaff fallen into their laps? Who can say? But he did, and that’s all that matters.

Sumrall is a proven winner, at least at his previous stops, and he should have Gators fans excited already with his first big move: poaching offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner from Georgia Tech.

1) Lane Kiffin – LSU

You don’t have to like Lane Kiffin. In fact, if even half the stories out there about him are true, you probably shouldn’t like Lane Kiffin.

However, there’s no doubting Kiffin is one of the best offensive minds in college football today and a top-tier recruiter.

LSU’s leadership, including Louisiana governor Jeff Landry, targeted Kiffin early at Ole Miss and did everything in his power to make sure he closed the deal.

While Ole Miss has definitely moved up the pecking order in recent years in terms of resources, it doesn’t have the firepower that LSU will give Kiffin.

Because it’s Lane Kiffin, there’s every chance this marriage ends in disaster at some point. But similarly, because it’s Lane Kiffin, there’s a darn good chance the Tigers win and win big before that point comes.