5 College Football Coaches Who Are Very Easy to Dislike

Nick Saban isn't on this list, but this definitely does not flatter him.

By: Nick Hornburg

    The start of the 2018 College Football Season is fast approaching (cue Andy Williams’ It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year), and it shall be as glorious as any other season: Legends will be written, Heroes shall be anointed, Texas might actually be back and Alabama will definitely not win the title again (maybe not that last part). However, as the season still has yet to start, the demented side of my brain is not yet properly distracted and has now fostered a mild obsession with the villains of College Football (Heroes can wait until September damn it!). We all have head coaches around the world of College Football who we don’t like (for various reasons, rational or otherwise), but here are five head coaches who, if one wanted, one would not have to work hard to find reasons to dislike.

    It should be noted, the criteria here is quite different from what most people deem sufficient to cause hatred. This does not extend to Coaches who were detested in the FBS and have moved down to the FCS (Bo Pelini), despicable assistants who were once head men (Greg Schiano), incompetent ex-coaches (Charlie Weis), disgraced ex-coaches (Art Briles), or Coaches who are hated on a personal level simply because they are (very) good at their jobs (Nick Saban, Mark Dantonio). Rather, these are the coaches whose haters are fueled not by on-field results, but instead by their personalities, baggage, or anything else that makes their existence a fact regrettable to many (note: I personally do not have issue with all of these coaches, some I even like, however, in those cases, I can understand why people would take issue)

N.B. all images from google images

5. Paul Johnson, Georgia Tech

    Paul Johnson is a relic of a bygone era. The former hyper-successful Georgia Southern head man and Ken Niumatalolo’s predecessor at Navy brought the Triple Option (or ‘Flexbone’, as he prefers to say) to major college football when he arrived in Atlanta in 2008. For a mid-tier ACC program, results have been quite good, particularly in an 11-3 2014 season that ended with an Orange Bowl victory. Unfortunately, Johnson seems to have taken a decade’s worth of endless questions about the viability of his system, skepticism about his recruiting and simply never being taken all that seriously to heart. Johnson always casts the image of an arrogant, stubborn, nerd who resentfully guards his sacred option offense from the unsophisticated peasants in the press room and on the recruiting trail. This manifests itself in various forms, including sneering at any question about his recruiting rankings, defensive fronts consisting of 80% converted tight ends, and a general smugness hanging around every word after a victory. Modern college football is better for having the option in it, and I personally hope Johnson stays at Tech for at least a few more years, but if I had to describe him to a friend who wasn’t a football fan, I’d say he’s that one nerdy kid in high school (all of you either knew that kid or, like me, were that kid) who never forgave you for not knowing the difference between Red Eyes Black Dragon and Blue Eyes White Dragon.

4. Lane Kiffin, Florida Atlantic

     Lane Kiffin has been considered one of the up and coming coaches of college football since about 2001. Kiffin parlayed six years of working for Pete Carroll into becoming the head coach of the Oakland Raiders, he lasted 20 games before running afoul of Al Davis (just like every other Raiders coach before him), and decided to drop back to the NCAA, becoming the head coach at Tennessee in 2009. Kiffin delivered almost immediately, openly accusing Urban Meyer of breaking recruiting rules at a booster breakfast, among other transgressions. After an indifferent 2009 season, Kiffin then proceeded to jump ship to become the head coach at USC, and Tennessee fans responded predictably. It took about three seasons before USC fans got sick of him, and was clipped five games into the 2013 season, in a conference room at LAX just after getting off a red eye flight following a loss to Arizona State (that says more about USC than it does about him, admittedly). Kiffin rallied the next season, becoming the offensive coordinator at Alabama, turned them into a scoring machine, ran his mouth again and again, so much so that in his final season in Tuscaloosa, the tension on the sidelines between him and Nick Saban became must-see viewing, ultimately culminating in Kiffin bizarrely getting fired days before the national title game (yes, Saban was THAT sick of him). Kiffin’s potential as a coach is undeniable, and his Conference USA title in the first year at FAU is proof of concept, but last year’s results, and his goofy but oddly charming twitter personality, obscure how quickly he and his gargantuan mouth tend to wear out their welcome.

3. Jim Harbaugh, Michigan

    I love Jim Harbaugh and will defend him passionately, but if Paul Johnson was the prickly nerd in high school, Jim Harbaugh was the well-meaning but at times intolerable guy who walked in every morning and slapped you on the shoulder as hard as he could and screamed “WHAT’S HAPPENING MY DUDE?” directly in your ear, then proceeded to ruminate on how his morning had gone while you sat there feeling like you’d just been hit by a bus. Jim Harbaugh, and others like him, do not allow much room for a middle ground. Most Michigan fans (myself included) love him (don’t worry Kev, I said most), and almost everyone else wishes he was dead. Harbaugh, in many respects, is Dabo Swinney taken to his ideological extreme: he runs on a seemingly unlimited supply of infectious energy, makes his players want to run through a wall for him, but he has an extra layer of bizarre quirkiness and an, at times terrifying, intensity that sets him apart from his counterpart at Clemson. In his college days in Ann Arbor, he publicly guaranteed a victory in Columbus in 1986 (which he made good on). He then proceeded to the NFL where he spent more than a decade personifying the phrase ‘F*** IT, GO DEEP’ (ten seasons of double digit completions of 20+ yards, five seasons of more than 5 40+ yard completions, seven seasons with double digit interceptions). Before long, he ended up at Stanford, where this happened...I don’t think Pete Carroll ever forgave him. When turning Stanford into a juggernaut stopped being fun he became to head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, where he fought Jim Schwartz, went to three straight NFC Championship games, winning one, and proceeded to so profoundly annoy the 49ers owner, the incalculably rich but incalculably dumb Jed York, that he got fired after going 8-8 in 2014 despite being the best the 49ers had had in 20 years. Now, three years into his tenure in Ann Arbor, he has professed his love for Judge Judy, slept over at seventeen year-old Quinn Nordin’s house (hey, it worked, Nordin flipped to Michigan on signing day), jumped into a swimming pool wearing Khakis, given the Pope a winged helmet, made satellite camps a thing (Darth Saban and his SEC sycophants were less than pleased), disparaged skim milk (tough but fair), screamed at a giant talking peanut container, expressed bitter disappointment in officiating (justified), refused to release depth charts, and just in general acted like a maniac. For supporters, he’s exactly what you want leading your football team in principle: an intense, hyper-competitive madman who isn’t afraid to go out of his mind for his team. For everyone else, his antics are irritating, his intensity is out of control, and his sanity deserves to be questioned. For better or worse, Harbaugh is obnoxious, and that isn’t going to change anytime soon.

2. Bobby Petrino, Louisville

     Bobby Petrino: serial winner, offensive wizard, expert bridge-burner. SBNation’s Petrino Timeline is all that is necessary here. The world of College Football should’ve realized what was coming in 2001 when Bobby Petrino, then the Jacksonville Jaguars’ offensive coordinator, bolted to be the offensive coordinator at Auburn without ever telling Tom Coughlin. He then left Auburn to be the head man at Louisville, and immediately turned around and talked to boosters about the Auburn head coaching job, even though HE HAD JUST BEEN HIRED AT LOUISVILLE and Tommy Tuberville WAS STILL THE COACH. He later became head coach of the Atlanta Falcons (shortly after signing a 10-year extension at Louisville of course), and proceeded to resign 13 games later WITHOUT TELLING HIS PLAYERS IN PERSON. Petrino then landed in Arkansas, did pretty well for a few years, then proceeded to crash his motorcycle, which he swore had no passengers (but it did: a former Arkansas volleyball player and team assistant who he had an affair with at the time, to be specific), he was fired shortly thereafter. After a year out of coaching and a season at Western Kentucky, Petrino returned to Louisville, where he has most definitely not been involved in any scandals whatsoever. Petrino perfectly encapsulates the cynical world of college football: He wins a lot of games, thus there is always a school that thinks that it’s the one who won’t get bitten, then proceed to fall into a hell-hole for a few years (Louisville and Arkansas learned this the hard way), despite ample evidence stating that such a school does not exist. Job-hoppers are ever-present in college football, and there is nothing wrong with that and it is not a black mark on the character of anybody who does it. That said, Petrino provides textbook instructions on how NOT to jump from job to job: Dishonestly, inconsiderately, and leaving those behind to hate every fiber of your being. Also, because it bears mentioning again, please refer back to how his time at Arkansas came to an end.

1. Brian Kelly, Notre Dame

     How fitting, the most easily hateable coach in college football happens to be the coach of the most easily hateable football program in college football. (*cracks knuckles*) If Mark Dantonio is the Jose Mourinho of college football, then Brian Kelly is Big Sam Allardyce: Walks into every room as if he’s the greatest thing to happen to the world, arrogantly struts around with a team that is often borderline unwatchable, yells and screams like a petulant child during games, tends to choke at the end of games, proceeds to flip the bird at anybody daring to question when said choking occurs, gets surprisingly decent results, such that nobody’s really happy but it’s not worth the risk to fire him, proceeds to spit in everyone’s face when he doesn’t get fired, and just in general seems to live to extinguish your happiness as a sports fan. Thankfully, Kelly’s Notre Dame teams tend to lose enough that I get my fair fill of joy from watching him lose (even in his best season, 2012, the way it ended brought a smile to my face). One of the biggest reasons I have for hating Notre Dame is the massive superiority complex possessed by their entire fanbase (yes, I’m aware that I root for Michigan), and the way that Notre Dame conducts itself concerning the expectations for its program and their confidence in their superiority (not dissimilar to the SEC’s immensely pretentious “It Just Means More” campaign), coupled with their seeming tolerance of Brian Kelly continuously underperforming, is positively nauseating. If Kelly had to adhere to the standards Notre Dame and its fans claim he does, he’d have been gone in 2016. Thinking objectively, I am aware that Notre Dame is a tough job, Brian Kelly is a decent coach, and isn’t even doing all that terribly considering the circumstances, but his insufferable manner, mixed with posturing by Notre Dame fans concerning standards for their program while he consistently falls short, making him look like a child who perpetually misbehaves but never gets punished, is why he is the most easily hateable coach in college football.