Going into the 2019 season, how do the ACC coaches stack up? Here’s the preseason ranking of all the head men.
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Who do you want as your head coach for right now, and how good are the all the current ACC coaches?
Record and resumés aren’t necessarily everything, but of course they matter. Where are each of the teams going, which guys have the buzz, and which ones need to prove themselves a bit more?
These aren’t Hot Seat Rankings – those are coming later. These are the rankings based loosely on what the head coaches have done, and mostly about what they’re about to do.
Think of it this way. If you were to hold a head coaching draft …
14. Mack Brown, North Carolina
It’s not that Brown can’t coach anymore – he’s only a legendary Hall of Famer – and there’s enough experience returning to take the Tar Heels to a bowl game. He might just be the perfect hire who sets the tone to get the program back on track, buuuuuuuuuut … Scott Satterfield and Neal Brown were there for the taking, and North Carolina could’ve set its sights higher than that.
Brown’s a great guy and it would be a wonderful story if he’s on the top five of this list next year. This year, though, the other 13 coaches are either loaded with enormous upside, or are coming off a few fantastic years at rough places to win.
Last Season Preseason Ranking: Not Ranked
– 2019 North Carolina Preview
13. Geoff Collins, Georgia Tech
An amazing defensive coordinator before taking over the Temple head coaching job, he managed to win 15 games in two seasons. An interesting hire for the Yellow Jackets, he’ll bring the D right away in the style and coaching change, but can the O pivot from the Paul Johnson option attack? Give it time.
Last Season Preseason Ranking: Not Ranked
– 2019 Georgia Tech Preview
12. Willie Taggart, Florida State
Go ahead and hope and expect him to rocket back up into the top five if he and the program can rebound in a big hurry. He still hasn’t won a conference championship in his nine seasons as a head coach, he has a career 52-57 record, and he still hasn’t won a bowl game. And now, he’s known as the head coach who couldn’t get Florida State to a bowl game for the first time since 1981. It’s hardly all his fault – Jimbo Fisher didn’t exactly leave a full cupboard – but this is a superpower program that needs to become a player again.
Last Season Preseason Ranking: 5
– 2019 Florida State Preview
11. Steve Addazio, Boston College
For those Eagle fans grouchy about Seven Win Steve not being able to bust through and do something more – winning seven games in five of his six seasons – remember what life was like before he arrived. The Eagles went 6-18 in the two years before Addazio. It might not always be fun – having the bowl game cancelled because of weather wasn’t a positive – but BC mattered in mid-November when Clemson came to town.
Last Season Preseason Ranking: 10
– 2019 Boston College Preview
10. Pat Narduzzi, Pitt
Yeah, he was able to pull off a few big midseason wins to get Pitt to the ACC title, but was it really a breakthrough season? After losing the Sun Bowl, he went 12-14 over the last two seasons and is a mediocre 28-24 in his four years at the helm. Worse yet, he’s 0-3 in bowl games. This probably isn’t a fair ranking, but the coaching talent in the ACC just got a whole lot stronger thanks to the new hires.
Last Season Preseason Ranking: 13
– 2019 Pitt Preview
9. Manny Diaz, Miami
Let’s just wait and see if he’s ready to be the head man. He’s got the energy and he’s got the skills to take Miami back to its super-power status, but for now, call this ranking a holding pattern. If he can be close to as strong a head coach as he was a defensive coordinator, everything will be fine.
Last Season Preseason Ranking: Not Ranked
– 2019 Miami Preview
8. Justin Fuente, Virginia Tech
The 2018 season wasn’t that miserable by most reasonable standards. Before the 6-7 season with a clunker of a bowl loss, Fuente went 19-8 in his first two seasons and appeared to be the next-big-thing head coach going off to an even bigger gig. The bloom isn’t totally off the rose after a rebuilding year, but the Hokies had better bounce back big.
Last Season Preseason Ranking: 4
– 2019 Virginia Tech Preview
7. Scott Satterfield, Louisville
Yeah, Louisville wanted Jeff Brohm, and yeah, he would’ve been a great get, and yeah, Satterfield is every bit as good a hire, if not better. All he did was win 40 games and three Sun Belt titles – at least pieces of them – in the last four seasons with three bowl wins, and a fourth if you want to give last year’s team credit for dominating the New Orleans Bowl after he left.
But it was all at a Sun Belt program, right? Ask Penn State last season, Wake Forest two years ago, Tennessee in 2016 how good those Mountaineers were. He’s going to be fantastic for the Cardinals.
Last Season Preseason Ranking: Not Ranked
– 2019 Louisville Preview
6. Dave Clawson, Wake Forest
Wake Forest managed to come up with three straight winning seasons from 2006 to 2008, so it is possible to win in Winston-Salem. Even so, what Clawson has been able to do over the last three years to get the Demon Deacons bowling has been remarkable. Winning all three of them has been even more remarkable.
Last Season Preseason Ranking: 7
– 2019 Wake Forest Preview
NEXT: Preview 2019 ACC Top 5 Coaches
5. Dave Doeren, NC State
His biggest problem has been the awful luck of being in the Atlantic along with Clemson. Even so, his Wolfpack have gone 9-4 over the last two seasons, made all the stronger by getting it done last year following a massive rebuild on both sides of the ball. The last time NC State won more than eight games in back-to-back seasons? 1991 and 1992.
Last Season Preseason Ranking: 8
– 2019 NC State Preview
4. David Cutcliffe, Duke
Always in the team photo of the coaches who do the most with the least, he has won three bowl games in the last four years, he came up with five winning seasons in the last six, and he turned Daniel Jones into the sixth overall pick in the NFL Draft. Okay, so the Coastal title in 2013 might seem like a long, long time ago, but he keeps working his magic on the way to winning seasons.
Last Season Preseason Ranking: 6
– 2019 Duke Preview
3. Dino Babers, Syracuse
Now there we go. Babers came up with an amazing two years at Eastern Illinois and two more at Bowling Green – winning three conference titles in those four seasons. It was a struggle at Syracuse with two straight 4-8 seasons, but he apparently just needed time to build things up. Now he has the most fun team in the ACC outside of that program in South Carolina that his Orange likes to bother.
Last Season Preseason Ranking: 14
– 2019 Syracuse Preview
2. Bronco Mendenhall, Virginia
It was sort of a fish-out-of-water hire when he came in from BYU after spending almost all of his career west of the Rockies. He was an obvious choice to take over a Pac-12 program – he went to Oregon State – but in three short seasons, he has taken Virginia from two wins, to six, to eight. Now he might just have the best team in the Coastal.
Last Season Preseason Ranking: 12
– 2019 Virginia Preview
1. Dabo Swinney, Clemson
Eight straight seasons with ten or more wins, four straight ACC titles, two national championships in three seasons, four straight College Football Playoff appearances, a 55-4 record over the last four seasons with two of those coming against Alabama in the CFP, and a beyond-loaded team returning and a beyond-loaded recruiting class coming in.
And all before the age of 50. This is going well.
Last Season Preseason Ranking: 1
– 2019 Clemson Preview
