May was quite eventful when it came to evaluating college football coaches. We ranked all the Power Five coaches against each other (65-26 | 25-1), regraded coaching carousels from previous years and identified coordinators who could make the jump to being a Power Five head coach in the near future.
Oh yeah — and we had a legendary war of words between two national championship-winning coaches, as Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher went back and forth on NIL, recruiting, narcissism and more.
But now we're changing the tone a little bit from that spat, taking on another look at the 2021-22 coaching carousel as though it were a graduating class. It is graduation season, after all, and one thing we've enjoyed is handing out some high school-style superlatives.
While we were tempted to go all in on the motif and identify "best hair," this group mostly sports the high-and-tight look. And you could make an argument for several coaches as the "biggest flirt" considering the 29 job changes and high-profile moves involved in this year's coaching carousel. Instead, though, we tied these superlatives (mostly) to college football.
Most likely to win big early
Lincoln Riley, USC
Brent Venables, Oklahoma
The way Riley utilized the transfer portal has allowed USC's offense to quickly become one of the most dangerous in the entire country, raising the ceiling even more with the recent addition of Biletnikoff Award winner and 2021 All-American Jordan Addison. Belief in Riley flipping the switch in Los Angeles does require a lot of confidence in Alex Grinch bringing the defense up to speed — or at least playing well enough to get stops against the best Pac-12 teams — but the defensive coordinator's history provides evidence that it can be done.
What's somewhat less discussed is how Oklahoma, which hired one of its own in Brent Venables to replace Riley, is equally prepared to compete for a conference championship and contend for a College Football Playoff spot. Venables made strong staff hires that included offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby and found a Caleb Williams replacement with former UCF star Dillon Gabriel. Some talent left Norman after the coaching change, but the projected depth chart is still as strong as you're going to find in the Big 12.
Most likely to win big later
Mario Cristobal, Miami
Billy Napier, Florida
There's an argument that Cristobal carries ACC Coastal championship expectations in Year 1. However, that's not "win big" status when you consider the perceived gap between the Hurricanes and Clemson, even as the Tigers look to rebound in 2022 after failing to win the ACC for the first time since 2014.