Grab my season pass on the home page of freddywills.com. I have 8 of 11 winning seasons in college football! For a better ROI grab my college + pro Football package where I have average 27.04% ROI over 11 seasons! . Need a sportsbook this season? Take advantage of bonuses from Betonline, the sportsbook I use. They are currently offering a 100% crypto bonus.
2020 Power 5 Coaching Changes
In 2019 there were not as many big time programs breaking in a first year head coach. In 2018 we had blue blood schools like Florida, Florida State, Nebraska and Texas A&M. In 2019 we had Miami, North Carolina, Louisville, and West Virginia to name a few. In 2020 we have 12 coaches in their first year in the Power 5, but unfortunately 5 of the 12 won't be coaching this year as the Big 10 and Pac 12 canceled their seasons.
Here are the coaches that were supposed to make their debut this season, but won't due to their respective conferences canceling their seasons.
- Nick Rolich - Washington State
- Jimmy Lake - Washington
- Karl Dorrell - Colorado
- Mel Tucker - Michigan State
- Greg Schiano - Rutgers
Here are the coaches that will be making thier debut as part of the Big 12, ACC, and SEC. I give these three conferences a ton of credit for figuring out how to make this all work, and allow their student athletes a chance to play. I hope and pray they do not regret it, but only time will tell.
- Lane Kiffin - Ole Miss - I hardly consider Lane Kiffin an elite head coach, but he is getting an opportunity at a big time school. In his first year at FAU in 2017, he went 10-3-1 ATS. In 2010 at USC in his first year he went 5-8 ATS. Ole Miss returns 13 starters, but 8 on offense, which is Kiffin's specialty.
- Mike Leach - Miss State - This will certainly setup a very interesting rivalry with Lane Kiffin. Leach who spent the past 8 seasons at Washington State is bringing a totally new mindset to Pullman with his style of offense. In his first year at Washington STate he went 5-7 ATS.
- Sam Pittman - Arkansas - Is a first time head coach, but as a ton of experience in the SEC spending the last 7 years as an OL coach at Arkansas and Georgia leading some of the best OL performances over the past decade. He brings in some interesting coordinators in Kendall Briles as the OC, from FSU, and former Missouri HC Barry Odom, which should help him in the SEC.
- Eli Drinkwitz - MIssouri - This is a big junp from spending his first year coaching at App State last year to jumping to the SEC. Drinkwitz acquired a very talented App State team, and I fear he might be over his head a bit here at Missouri, but his offense should be interesting to watch. Drinkwitz will have a lot on his plate as he is also serving as the OC, and has no experience with the best conference in the nation, SEC.
- Mike Norvell - Florida State - This is Florida State's third head coach in the last 4 years, but Norvell is a good hire coming over from Memphis. I do think Norvell is an elite head coach as he went 38-15 over the last 4 years at Memphis, and 23-17 ATS the last 3 years. With 17 returnign starters it will be very interesting to see if Florida State is able to improve particularly on the offensive line.
- Jeff Hafley - Boston College - Hafley was the co-DC at Ohio State last year and has a lot of experience at the NFL level, and with him he brings a ton of NFL experience as his coordinators. I'm not sure how that typically transfer, but the good news is that a defensive HC is taking over a team that returns 9 defensive starters. BC also played really really fast last year, and I bet that will change under Hafley, which should lead to some value on the unders early in the season.
- Dave Arranda - Baylor - I really never thought much of Arranda as a defensive coordinator if I'm being perfectly honest, and now he has to take over a Baylor team that over achieved last year under Matt Rhule.
1st Year HC's Against The Spread - Power 5
Over the last 5 years first year head coaches have gone 274-287 ATS. Almost exactly 50% ATS, which is not significant at all. However, when we dig deeper and look at these first year head coaches as under dogs they are 135-168 ATS. Fading these coaches as dogs would produce a 55.5% ATS mark, which is a lot nicer, but I wanted to filter this even more. Last year I mentioned that you would want to take the elite coaches with experience out of the "fade" role. In 2017 you'd take out Kirby Smart, Tom Herman, Josh Wilcox, Matt Campbell, Justin Fuente who went 23-10 ATS as a dog. I mentioned in 2018 that comparable coaches are Dan Mullen, Scott Frost, Jimbo Fisher, and Chip Kelly, who went 15-8 ATS. The rest of the coaches went 20-32 ATS as dogs.
In 2020, I don't see a ton of top tier coaches. You could argue that Mike Leach should be up there, or maybe MIke Norvell, with what they did at their previous stops, over achieving, but I would stop right there. I would consider backing these two guys as dogs this year, but all others I would not touch.
2nd Year Head Coaches Power 5:
Over the last 4 years Power Five Conference head coaches in their second year have gone a combined 290-273 ATS, and 125-102 ATS as an underdog. There were several 2nd year head coaches with huge upsets in 2018 including Purdue who upset OHio State as a 12 point dog on the road winning 49-20. California upset highly ranked Washington asa n 11 point dog on the road, and Texas upset Oklahoma also winning outright as a 7 point dog on neutral field. In 2019 we saw Oregon State upset Cal as an 11 point dog, Arizona State upset a Top 5 Oregon team as a +14 dog, Tennessee had 4 outright upsets as a dog. So who are this year's candidates for upsets?
Louisville and Scott Satterfeld, who showed some big signs of improvement and will take the next step this year with 16 returning starters.
Neal Brown - West Virginia, I still expect some big things out of Brown, and there are going to be many chances with his team as an undergod, and I bet he pulls one out this year.
Chris Kleinman - Kansas State, had a huge upset last year against Oklahoma, and may pull another one this season despite breaking in an entirely new offensive line.
Geoff Collins - Georgia Tech, after a terrible year last year, which was to be expected Collins is turning the program around from a completely different style offense, to a more defensive minded, run heavy approach, which typically leads to upsets. He will have plenty of chances this year.
