Athlon: Ranking the Big Ten's College Football Coaches for 2016 (12. Tracy Claeys)

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12. Tracy Claeys, Minnesota

Jerry Kill’s sudden retirement was a setback for a Minnesota program that enters 2016 with four consecutive bowl trips. But the Golden Gophers are hoping to continue Kill’s success with one of his long-time assistants – Tracy Claeys. The Kansas native worked under Kill for 20 years and also served as the program’s interim coach in 2013 and once again in 2015. Under Claeys’ watch, Minnesota finished 2-4 over its final six games last season, including a 21-14 victory over Central Michigan. However, the Golden Gophers were competitive against Michigan, Iowa and Wisconsin. Claeys has big shoes to fill in replace his mentor, but Minnesota returns 14 starters and has a favorable schedule that should allow the program to reach at least six wins in 2016.

http://athlonsports.com/college-football/ranking-big-tens-college-football-coaches-2016

Go Gophers!!
 



Ok, let's talk about it. Here (I think) are the current B1G FB Coaches. Let's rank 'em.
OSU - Meyer
MI - Harbaugh
MSU - Dantonio
PSU - Franklin
Ill - Lovie Smith
IA - Ferentz
NU - Fitzgerald
WI - P. Chryst
MARY - Durkin (who?)
RUT - Ash
IND - Wilson
NEB - Riley
PUR - Hazell

Of this group - Riley and Chryst have each completed 1 full season with their respective teams. Claeys has a partial season. Smith, Durkin and Ash are going into their 1st seasons this fall.


Thoughts - let's say you rank the 3 new coaches from 12-14, simply because they haven't coached a game in the conference yet. Then, of the three coaches with 1 year or less, Riley and Chryst had better records than Claeys. Do you put Claeys ahead of Hazell? Claeys is 1-4 in BG games, Hazell is 2-22.

I like Claeys, but right now, I would put him at 10 or 11. And, if you take Lovie's pro experience into consideration, maybe that pumps Claeys down a notch.

Chime in.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
Ok, let's talk about it. Here (I think) are the current B1G FB Coaches. Let's rank 'em.
OSU - Meyer
MI - Harbaugh
MSU - Dantonio
PSU - Franklin
Ill - Lovie Smith
IA - Ferentz
NU - Fitzgerald
WI - P. Chryst
MARY - Durkin (who?)
RUT - Ash
IND - Wilson
NEB - Riley
PUR - Hazell

Of this group - Riley and Chryst have each completed 1 full season with their respective teams. Claeys has a partial season. Smith, Durkin and Ash are going into their 1st seasons this fall.


Thoughts - let's say you rank the 3 new coaches from 12-14, simply because they haven't coached a game in the conference yet. Then, of the three coaches with 1 year or less, Riley and Chryst had better records than Claeys. Do you put Claeys ahead of Hazell? Claeys is 1-4 in BG games, Hazell is 2-22.

I like Claeys, but right now, I would put him at 10 or 11. And, if you take Lovie's pro experience into consideration, maybe that pumps Claeys down a notch.

Chime in.
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I wouldn't argue with that. Although I would put Dantonio ahead of Harbaugh. I'm just not that sold on Creepy Jimmy.
 


Mark Dantonio #1, hands down, no question, everybody else is playing for 2nd. Sure, Urban has a national championship, but he also has OSU's resources. It's tough to compare coaches even across schools within the same conference. But you could use Nick Saban as a barometer. Saban has done remarkable things at Alabama. But Dantonio has a better record at MSU than Saban did. I'd rank them:

1. Dantonio
2. Fitzgerald
3. Meyer
4. Harbaugh
5. Ferentz
T6. Everybody else
14. Hazell
 

1) Urban Meyer I know he has Ohio State's resources, but his record is impressive regardless
2) Mark Dantonio He's turned Sparty into a top ten program. They are on Ohio State's level and are better than Michigan
3) Jim Harbaugh Has had success whrever he's gone, turned Michigan around fairly quickly in year one, can he continue to the trend or will it be like Brady Hoke after his first year?
4) Ferentz Massive buyout, has a rose bowl season just in time before the firing the squad could load its bullets.
5) Fitzgerald No body does more with less.
6) Lovie Smith. Won a superbowl as the Rams D coordinator, took the bears to a superbowl, gotta raw deal in Tampa. Good hire for the Illini
7) Mike Riley. Won a fair amount his first stint at Oregon State, has NFL experience as well. Like Lovie I don't think he's a long term solution at his school
8) Paul Chryst. Great OC at Wisconsiin, so so HC at PITT, decent first year at Wisconsin. Could certainly move up the list.
9) James Franklin Stick him here for now for what he did at Vandy, but at Penn State, no body has done less with more IMO
10) Kevin Wilson. If only his teams played defense, but he got IU to a bowl game
11) Tracy Claeys well as an interim, his team now, has a good chance to move up with a good year.
12)Durkin. Did a good job as Michigan's DC, big reason for their turnaround, Maryland ain't Michigan though.
13) Chris Ash. He's not the co coordinator in Columbus any more, Rutgers will be a challenge
14) Hazell It's not going well
 

Gophers7NatTitlesBadgers0 said:
Athlon sucks! Pure and simple.
Click to expand...
You might be right, but this ranking isn't evidence of that, at least as far as Claeys is concerned. Hard to rank a guy higher who has less than a season under his belt with no HC experience to back him up. Do I think he has the potential to be better than this ranking? Yep, but hasn't proven it yet.
 

TC coached a team with an under .500 record to a late December Bowl Victory. Not sure what else folks need for proof?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 



Seems about right. At best you could put him #10 currently and i think that's a stretch

Sent from my LGLS665 using Tapatalk
 

Good god please please stop posting snot from Athlon.
 

Need to clarify - in my original post, I was NOT ranking the coaches. I just typed them up in the order I found them on the big 10 web site. So, If I was ranking them, they would be in a different order.
 




Smith will be out after season 2. he is #12.
 


We all know who the best four or five coaches are in the BIG10, the rest are either too early to tell or won't even be coaching in two years. Let's watch Claeys and company put together a 10 win season and then we can discuss where he stands among the elites.
 

Nokomis said:
Mark Dantonio #1, hands down, no question, everybody else is playing for 2nd. Sure, Urban has a national championship, but he also has OSU's resources. It's tough to compare coaches even across schools within the same conference. But you could use Nick Saban as a barometer. Saban has done remarkable things at Alabama. But Dantonio has a better record at MSU than Saban did. I'd rank them:
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lol. Urban went undefeated at Utah and has 3 national championships, and is 10-2 in bowl games. He also has 2 losses in 4 seasons in the Big Ten, 4 losses overall in 4 years at Ohio State.

I hate the guy, but he's far superior to Dantonio
 


bemidjigopher said:
1) Urban Meyer I know he has Ohio State's resources, but his record is impressive regardless
2) Mark Dantonio He's turned Sparty into a top ten program. They are on Ohio State's level and are better than Michigan
3) Jim Harbaugh Has had success whrever he's gone, turned Michigan around fairly quickly in year one, can he continue to the trend or will it be like Brady Hoke after his first year?
4) Ferentz Massive buyout, has a rose bowl season just in time before the firing the squad could load its bullets.
5) Fitzgerald No body does more with less.
6) Lovie Smith. Won a superbowl as the Rams D coordinator, took the bears to a superbowl, gotta raw deal in Tampa. Good hire for the Illini
7) Mike Riley. Won a fair amount his first stint at Oregon State, has NFL experience as well. Like Lovie I don't think he's a long term solution at his school
8) Paul Chryst. Great OC at Wisconsiin, so so HC at PITT, decent first year at Wisconsin. Could certainly move up the list.
9) James Franklin Stick him here for now for what he did at Vandy, but at Penn State, no body has done less with more IMO
10) Kevin Wilson. If only his teams played defense, but he got IU to a bowl game
11) Tracy Claeys well as an interim, his team now, has a good chance to move up with a good year.
12)Durkin. Did a good job as Michigan's DC, big reason for their turnaround, Maryland ain't Michigan though.
13) Chris Ash. He's not the co coordinator in Columbus any more, Rutgers will be a challenge
14) Hazell It's not going well
Click to expand...

I like your list, especailly 1-5. 6-10 are probably fairly interchangeable at this point. 11-13 all have something to prove (so does Smith but he gets the benefit of the doubt based on his NFL background initially). Hazell as the clearcut #14, I am amazed he survived another year after last season. Would take a major turnaround in West Lafayette for him not to get the axe after this season.
 

Coach Claeys is an excellent schematic guy, and I'd say he's a good X-O guy, but the end of the Michigan game last year makes me question his tactical decisions. It remains to be seen whether he's a talented motivator and manager of personnel.

Too soon to say how good a head coach TC will be.
 


Overrated:
Pat Fitzgerald. It's not as if NW was awful before they hired him. Each of his predecessors did just as well as he did. So where does this "no one else could win at NW" come from? It's apparently harder to win at MN.
Kevin Wilson. Really? You would rank him ahead of Claeys? I don't see it at all. He's probably gone soon.
Lovie Smith. College and Pro are different. Many good NFL coaches can't win in college and vice versa. Way too early to judge.
Franklin. Great recruiter of STARS. Nothing else shown.

I would rank Claeys ahead of all of them, which puts him solidly in the 6-8 range. He's an elite coordinator, and I like what I've seen so far as a HC. I don't think it's fair to call out his regular season record without adding in the circumstances, and how well we played in those games.
 

Section2 said:
Overrated:
Pat Fitzgerald. It's not as if NW was awful before they hired him. Each of his predecessors did just as well as he did. So where does this "no one else could win at NW" come from? It's apparently harder to win at MN.
Kevin Wilson. Really? You would rank him ahead of Claeys? I don't see it at all. He's probably gone soon.
Lovie Smith. College and Pro are different. Many good NFL coaches can't win in college and vice versa. Way too early to judge.
Franklin. Great recruiter of STARS. Nothing else shown.

I would rank Claeys ahead of all of them, which puts him solidly in the 6-8 range. He's an elite coordinator, and I like what I've seen so far as a HC. I don't think it's fair to call out his regular season record without adding in the circumstances, and how well we played in those games.
Click to expand...
I think this may be the case, but ranking him above someone like Fitzgerald before he's coached a season is odd
 

Section2 said:
Overrated:
Pat Fitzgerald. It's not as if NW was awful before they hired him. Each of his predecessors did just as well as he did. So where does this "no one else could win at NW" come from? It's apparently harder to win at MN.
Kevin Wilson. Really? You would rank him ahead of Claeys? I don't see it at all. He's probably gone soon.
Lovie Smith. College and Pro are different. Many good NFL coaches can't win in college and vice versa. Way too early to judge.
Franklin. Great recruiter of STARS. Nothing else shown.

I would rank Claeys ahead of all of them, which puts him solidly in the 6-8 range. He's an elite coordinator, and I like what I've seen so far as a HC. I don't think it's fair to call out his regular season record without adding in the circumstances, and how well we played in those games.
Click to expand...

I gotta disagree regarding Fitzgerald and your bolded comments... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Northwestern_Wildcats_football_seasons
 

Section2 said:
Overrated:
Pat Fitzgerald. It's not as if NW was awful before they hired him. Each of his predecessors did just as well as he did. So where does this "no one else could win at NW" come from? It's apparently harder to win at MN.
Kevin Wilson. Really? You would rank him ahead of Claeys? I don't see it at all. He's probably gone soon.
Lovie Smith. College and Pro are different. Many good NFL coaches can't win in college and vice versa. Way too early to judge.
Franklin. Great recruiter of STARS. Nothing else shown.

I would rank Claeys ahead of all of them, which puts him solidly in the 6-8 range. He's an elite coordinator, and I like what I've seen so far as a HC. I don't think it's fair to call out his regular season record without adding in the circumstances, and how well we played in those games.
Click to expand...
Sorry a 2-4 record after coaching half a season does not get a coach in the 6-8 range.
 

Side question that is kind of on-topic: Since we are already listing Claeys' record - does he get credit for the games he was the de-facto head coach when Kill was having medical issues in previous years?
 


Section2 said:
Franklin. Great recruiter of STARS. Nothing else shown.
Click to expand...

Going 24-15 at Vanderbilt isn't showing anything?

Nokomis said:
Mark Dantonio #1, hands down, no question, everybody else is playing for 2nd. Sure, Urban has a national championship, but he also has OSU's resources.
Click to expand...

Meyer also went 22-2 at Utah, won 2 titles at Florida who despite the resources there the guy there before him and his successor weren't able to come close to achieving, and has gone 31-1 in conference play and 50-4 overall at OSU. Meyer's success far exceeds what OSU's resources provide, he's easily the top coach in the conference.
 


RockinRanger said:
Going 24-15 at Vanderbilt isn't showing anything?



Meyer also went 22-2 at Utah, won 2 titles at Florida who despite the resources there the guy there before him and his successor weren't able to come close to achieving, and has gone 31-1 in conference play and 50-4 overall at OSU. Meyer's success far exceeds what OSU's resources provide, he's easily the top coach in the conference.
Click to expand...

You have a point on Franklin. My memory is that his teams vastly underperformed the recruiting rankings, but credit where it's due.
Agree that Meyer is #2 by a lot. What he did at Utah was incredible. MD is a great coach, but has benefited from a cluster at Mich.
 

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