Anthony Wilson
Jamey Chadwell was a South Carolina State institution. Outside of a gap year at Delta State, he served as head coach for 13 consecutive years at state institutions, winning at every level. In 2020, he won the national coach of the year award after leading Coastal Carolina to an unprecedented 11-0 regular season. If the 12-team College Football Playoff existed back then, the Chanticleers would have taken the field.
Coincidentally, the head coaching position at the state’s top program, South Carolina, opened that same year. Chadwell was barely considered. The job went to a tough coach, Shane Beamer, thanks in large part to his SEC connections. Chadwell ultimately left for Liberty before the 2023 season and made a New Year’s Six Bowl in his junior year.
He ranks first in the 2024 CBS Sports Group of Five Coaching Rankings.
Despite his great success as a head coach and obvious connections at South Carolina, Chadwell’s ability was overlooked in favor of pedigree. Unfortunately, elitism on the part of power conference administrators is only growing as the divide between levels becomes more pronounced – and schools are only hurting themselves in the process.
The stories become increasingly frustrating. Jon Sumrall was a position coach at Kentucky before leaving to take over a 5-7 Troy team. He was 23-4 in two seasons with two Sun Belt titles. Mississippi State opened, but the school opted to go with Oklahoma offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby, who had two years of primary playmaking experience. Outside of the two power conference rebounds, Jeff Tedford and Bronco Mendenhall, essentially every other Group of Five coach in the top 10 rankings has been whitewashed for Power Four gigs.
Kent State had two seasons above .500 in the 30 years before Sean Lewis arrived. He did this twice in five years. Lewis eventually left his assistant position at Colorado and took advantage of it to work at San Diego State. Chris Creighton has reached six bowls in the last eight seasons at Eastern Michigan. The Eagles have only had one appearance in program history previously. Selling a legendary race in Eastern Michigan just doesn’t have the same level of pop for administrators in 2024. It took a firing of Les Miles at Kansas for Lance Leipold to have a chance after an absurd 24-10, three-year stretch in Buffalo. .
True, there is some logic to this. Four of the top five coaches in our rankings are promoted assistants: Kirby Smart, Ryan Day, Dabo Swinney and Steve Sarkisian. Making a non-traditional hire can also leave an administrator in hot water; just look at the Bryan Harsin era at Auburn. Jeremy Pruitt struggling as an SEC assistant turned failed Tennessee coach doesn’t bring the same kind of heat. Still, it’s a small excuse.
Look at the sport and you’ll see that many of the most successful programs in college football feature veterans. Kalen DeBoer led Washington to title contention after coaching Fresno State and NAIA Sioux Falls. Mike Norvell fixed Florida State after taking Memphis to a Cotton Bowl. The coaches on both sides of the Sunflower Showdown – Chris Klieman and Leipold – traveled from the small college ranks to build consistent Power Four winners.
Even looking at the recent past, Nick Saban spent one year at Toledo before stints at Michigan State, LSU and Alabama. Urban Meyer turned Bowling Green into a powerhouse. Current national championship-winning coach Jim Harbaugh fought his way from FCS San Diego to Michigan.
“Sometimes I thought it was harder for a guy to go down a level than it was to go up,” Houston coach Willie Fritz told CBS Sports in January. “They had a lot of things.”
Fritz went from junior college football to Cotton Bowl champion at Tulane. Finally, in his 32nd year as head coach, with six conference titles under his belt, Fritz takes command of a powerhouse conference team.
Of course, Group of Five fans may wonder why they should care. While coaching tenure can lead to consistency — and there has been specific success with retreads like Barry Odom at UNLV and Jerry Kill at New Mexico State — it has a severe impact on talent attractiveness when good coaches don’t earn promotions.
Between 2011-13, Arkansas State produced coaches at Auburn (Gus Malzahn), Ole Miss (Hugh Freeze) and a returning Boise State (Bryan Harsin). Blake Anderson brought consistency, but eventually the talent pipeline dwindled. The Red Wolves haven’t produced an NFL Draft pick since Ryan Carrethers in 2014. MAC coaches were especially stuck. No coach has risen to the power conference level since Leipold in 2020. Before that, it was P.J. Fleck in 2016. In 2024, the MAC posted its worst NFL Draft performance since 1996 with just two selections.
Perhaps even worse, several Group of Five coaches chose to follow Lewis’ lead and join Power Four teams. At Alabama alone, Kane Wommack (South Alabama) and Mo Linguist (Buffalo) left their head coaching positions for assistant roles. Will Wommack improve dramatically as a coach at Alabama? Probably not, but Wommack hopes just the flashy item on his resume does more for his career than coaching a 10-win football team. We’re closer to voting for homecoming kings than we are to hiring ball coaches at this point.
There is a new factor that could help: the expansion of the College Football Playoff. For at least the next two years, the best Group of Five champion will be guaranteed a place in the 12-team field. If the NCAA Tournament is any indication, simply showing up on the field can be a huge brand-building opportunity for coaches. And perhaps just as importantly, the guaranteed Group of Five spot ensures that several teams remain in the conversation until the end of November. Whenever the playoff is covered, so will Boise State, or Tulane, or Appalachian State.
And that brings us back to Chadwell. In 14 seasons as head coach, Chadwell has a 111-58 record across all levels. As a full-time coach at the FBS level, his record is an impressive 49-14. One day, Chadwell will take a role at the Power Four. He will probably succeed. Maybe one day Sumrall, Lewis or Jeff Traylor will too. Fritz has his chance now. When that happens, college football will look around and wonder where these coaches came from.
The number of quality head coaches at the Group of Five level is one of the biggest inefficiencies in college football in 2024. Eventually — like Kansas, Florida State and Washington before them — smart programs will take advantage.
