Coaching Carousel Slows Down

By Brett Samuels

Year after year teams across the country find it necessary to start fresh. They give their head coach the axe and decide its time to start life anew.

(Bell Hall/USA TODAY Sports)

Sometimes it is the case of a program gone awry. Gene Chizik at Auburn is the perfect example of this. Just two short years ago Chizik, with the help of Heisman trophy winner Cam Newton, led Auburn to an undefeated season and a national championship. Now after a 3-9 season and an 0-8 record in the SEC in 2012, Chizik has been fired.

In other cases, it is a program that never got off the ground. This was the situation in Colorado where Jon Embree was shown the door after just two seasons. In those two seasons the Buffaloes managed to remain the laughing stock of the Pac-12.

However the most common cause of coaching vacancy this year was leaving for greener pastures.

Willie Taggart left Western Kentucky to coach South Florida, but more notable was that his replacement would be ex-Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino. Before he was fired amidst an off field scandal, Petrino had racked a few successful seasons with Arkansas, including a Sugar Bowl appearance. Now he’ll have a chance at redemption with Western Kentucky.

Gus Malzahn took Arkansas St. to a bowl game in his first year as head coach, but left for the same job at Auburn, where he was the offensive coordinator during the school’s national title season.

Steve Addazio spent two years making the Temple football program relevant again, but now he has left to take the head-coaching job at Boston College.

With all of that going on, Bret Bielema stole the spotlight by leaving his job at Wisconsin to take the reins at Arkansas. The move was surprising for several reasons. First off, Bielema has had great success at Wisconsin, taking them to three straight Rose Bowls (though they lost the first two).

In addition, he was quoted just last summer as saying “We don’t want to be like the SEC in the Big Ten,” when referring to Urban Meyer bringing different recruiting tactics to Ohio State from his time at Florida.

However with the win now attitude of the SEC, Bielema will have the most pressure on him of any new coach across the nation.  If he can’t duplicate the success he had with the Badgers within a couple years, Bielema will be looking for a new team to coach again soon.