College Football Coaching Hires Include 39-Year Age Gap Between Bill Belichick And Zach Kittley

The stars of the current coach hiring and firing period may very well be those who preside over North Carolina’s social media accounts, which have been predictably buzzing.

Against that backdrop, it is easy to wonder how Bill Belichick will navigate NIL, the portal and other aspects of a rapidly changing collegiate landscape. It is difficult enough for a 42-year-old coach reared on the college gridiron, let alone a 72-year-old accustomed to dealing with a roster of professionals earning NFL salaries. Boosters? The only one Belichick had in Foxborough was owner Robert Kraft, who was a booster in the supportive sense during a 24-year run together.

There is also the fact Belichick has not been a coach for a single college game, or practice. True, he has a brilliant football mind and six Super Bowl rings that are sure to appeal to some. Recruiting? Meeting parents? Far different than drafting a young man with three, four or five years of collegiate experience behind him.

Make no mistake about this: Like the Patriots, Belichick is running the show in Chapel Hill. The folks at UNC thought enough of their new hire to deliver a five-year pact at $10 million per, or twice what predecessor Mack Brown pocketed on an annual basis. (Belichick replaced the 73-year-old Brown as the oldest head coach in the FBS.)

Only the first three years of Belichick’s deal are guaranteed, which could result in at least a little hesitation among recruits and, if nothing changes between now and then, potential 2026-27 transfers with multiple seasons of eligibility.

To help with the enormity of the many challenges facing major college football programs, challenges that are not likely to abate at any point soon, Belichick named former NFL executive and media member Michael Lombardi to be the program’s general manager, a position that is popping up more and more in football operations offices across the country to help address the game’s current and future environment.

How will bringing Belichick on board work out for UNC? As the well-worn saying goes, time will tell. Maybe Belichick, who lettered in football, lacrosse and squash at Wesleyan (Conn.) University, and Lombardi will construct what will become a model that many major football programs emulate when it comes to understanding and delivering on the demands the sport requires. Then again, maybe this will backfire, and quickly.

The trend in recent years has been to hire younger head coaches to deal largely with the complexities on the offensive side of scrimmage. While Belichick serves as an obvious exception having been born during the Truman administration, FAU tabbed one of the nation’s outstanding young offensive minds in Kittley. The 33-year-old is the youngest head coach in the FBS and 39 years younger than Belichick, who was in his first year as an NFL head coach with the Browns in 1991 when Kittley was born.

The hiring of Kittley, who the past three seasons directed the offense at Texas Tech, must come across as refreshing among supporters in Boca Raton. That is because the fifth (non-interim) Owls’ head coach the past decade is not of the recycled variety making a pit stop to revitalize a career. Indeed, Kittley’s profile differs drastically from Lane Kiffin, Willie Taggart and Tom Herman, whose tenure at FAU consisted of all of 22 games and six wins.

Kittley, a Tech alum, spent the past three seasons running the offense in Lubbock, a unit that enters the bowl season ninth nationally in yards per game with 460. It was with the Red Raiders that Kittley was a QB assistant in 2015 working with Patrick Mahomes before becoming a 27-year-old offensive coordinator at FCS member Houston Baptist where he mentored Bailey Zappe.

Zappe followed Kittley to the FBS and Western Kentucky for the 2021 season where the latter oversaw an offense that averaged 535 yards per games to place second in the nation after the unit ranked 120^th in 2020. Zappe set the FBS single season mark with 62 TD passes and was selected by, ahem, Belichick’s Patriots in the fourth round of the 2022 draft.

While Belichick and Kittley are at opposite ends (age wise) of the hiring spectrum, there are plenty of coaches in between. Here is a look at some of the other hires.

Welcome Back Rich Rod

Time heals all wounds? We will find out. Native son Rich Rodriguez could not wait to move from Morgantown to Ann Arbor late in 2007, something many in West Virginia have not forgotten. They also have not forgotten the 61-year-old succeeded Don Nehlen and led the Mountaineers to a 60-28 mark, though the last of those 28 defeats was to four-touchdown underdog Pitt in the 100^th Backyard Brawl at the end of that 2007 season. That was a forgettable, yet unforgettable setback that prevented No. 2 WVU from playing for the national championship.

Rodriguez spent three dismal seasons at Michigan (15-22) followed by six years at Arizona (43-35) and three at Jacksonville State where he led the Gamecocks’ transition to the FBS and immediate success in Conference USA that included a conference title this season. He heads home owing JSU $2.5 million for breaking his deal with the school, which extended him through 2030 in May. Rodriguez will make an average of $3.75 million over five years at WVU.

Scott Frost Returns To UCF

Frost took over a UCF program that went 0-12 in 2015 and completely turned the tables (13-0 and No. 6 ranking) in 2017, his second year and final year at the helm in his initial stint in Orlando. Not 24 hours after the Knights defeated Memphis to win the American, Frost was hired by Nebraska, his alma mater, which he led to a national championship in 1997. As a coach, he did not lead the Cornhuskers to a national title, or national relevance. Not even a winning season. He was gone after posting a 16-31 mark in four-plus seasons back in Lincoln.

At UCF, which completed its second season as a member of the Big 12, Frost has a five-year deal and will attempt to summon at least some of the success that accompanied his first stint. He wasted little time in bringing a familiar name on board to help the cause. McKenzie Milton, the Knights’ star quarterback under Frost, is the new QB coach.

Barry Odom Leaves UNLV, Dan Mullen Arrives

It has been very difficult for a coach, any coach, to achieve anything resembling success at UNLV since a program led by Randall Cunningham won 11 games in 1984. Even that season has a considerable asterisk thanks to NCAA sanctions resulting from the use of ineligible players.

Barry Odom took over a program that had been to exactly three bowl games since that 1984 campaign and entered the 2023 season with a nine-year bowl drought. All the former Mizzou coach did in his two seasons in Vegas was lead the Rebels from the depths of desert sand to the height of consecutive Mountain West championship games (both losses to Boise State) and a pair of bowls.

What’s more, this season’s success was despite having to replace quarterback Jayden Maiava, who entered the portal at the conclusion of last season before he landed at USC. It was also despite what took place with Matthew Sluka, who arrived from Holy Cross and led the offense for three games before leaving the program over an NIL-related controversy. The Rebels did not blink. Instead, they kept winning and head into Wednesday’s LA Bowl against Cal with their first 10-win season since, you guessed it, 1984, and as the No. 24 ranked team in the final CFP as well as the AP and coaches’ polls.

Odom will not be on the UNLV sideline after agreeing to a six-year deal that pays $39 million to take over a Purdue program in need of a miracle or two of its own. Indeed, Ryan Walters’ two-season tenure in West Lafayette was a colossal mess (5-19) that concluded with a 1-11 showing this year with six losses by at least 35 points.

Meanwhile, the new face in the head coach’s office at UNLV is that of former Florida and Mississippi State sideline boss Dan Mullen, who had a nice gig at ESPN the past three seasons. The coaching itch must have been too strong – Mullen is only 52 — and led to taking over in Vegas where Odom left the program light years better than what it was when he took over.

The hirings of Mullen and Odom, nearly two years to the day apart, must seem surreal to the folks at UNLV given the program’s history.

Bronco Mendenhall returns to Beehive State

Mendenhall stepped away from coaching following the 2021 season after 17 years at Virginia (6) and BYU (11). He returned to the sideline at New Mexico this past season and the Lobos (5-7) averaged 484 yards per game, a figure that is fourth nationally. In taking over at Utah State, Mendenhall returns to his home state and about a two-hour drive from his birthplace of Alpine.

The hope among the Aggies’ faithful is that the 58-year-old can, for one, put an end to the revolving door the head coaching position has become in Logan. Including those with an interim tag, Mendenhall is the sixth person to lead the program since the beginning of Matt Wells’ final season of 2018. Secondly, put an end to a string of three straight losing seasons.

Charles Huff Goes From Top To Bottom Of SBC

The Eagles will not be at the bottom of the Sun Belt under Huff. After leading Marshall to the SBC title, Huff left Huntington to take over at Southern Miss, which went 1-11 this year and has won more than three games once in the past five seasons. Huff’s departure was predictable if not inevitable given he was working without a contract for 2025 and with no sign of an extension on the way.

Huff’s leaving Marshall paved the way for Tony Gibson, a 2021 Broyles Award (nation’s top assistant) finalist and 2023 nominee as defensive coordinator at North Carolina State, to return to his home state and take over the Thundering Herd as a first-time head coach. Hence, both FBS programs in West Virginia are now run by coaches born within the state’s borders.