Panthers are hiring Baylor’s Matt Rhule. How successful are college coaches in the NFL?
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Panthers hire Matt Rhule
Expanded coverage of Carolina’s new head coach
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The Panthers are hiring Matt Rhule as the fifth full-time head coach in franchise history, replacing Ron Rivera, who was with Carolina for almost nine seasons. Rhule comes to the Panthers from Baylor, where he spent the past three seasons following four years at Temple.
He’s the latest in a long line of talented college coaches who have jumped directly to NFL head coaching jobs, and all have had varying degrees of success. Here are a few highlights of how college coaches have performed in the pros.
Bill Walsh (49ers, 1979-1988)
One of the greatest football coaches in history spent two years at Stanford before building a dynasty at San Francisco. His Cardinal teams were good, not great, going 17-7, and it took a couple of losing seasons in the NFL before he got rolling. Walsh, father of the West Coast Offense, went 92-59-1 in the NFL, with six NFC West titles and three Super Bowl championships. It helped that the 49ers drafted Joe Montana just before Walsh’s first season.
Jimmy Johnson (Cowboys, 1989-1993; Dolphins, 1996-99)
Johnson went from being a pedestrian head coach at Oklahoma State in the early 1980s to winning a national championship at the University of Miami. He then succeeded Tom Landry as coach of the Dallas Cowboys and made the playoffs in three of five seasons, including back-to-back Super Bowl victories over the Buffalo Bills. Johnson and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones never got along and Johnson left after the 1993 season. After a short hiatus from coaching, Johnson was hired by the Miami Dolphins in 1996 and led them to the playoffs in three out of four seasons. Between Dallas and Miami, he went 80-64.
Barry Switzer (Cowboys, 1994-97)
This was always an odd hire — Switzer, who was teammates with Jones at Arkansas in the 1960s, had been out of coaching since his 16-year run at Oklahoma ended after the 1988 season — but it worked for a minute. Dallas won the NFC East in his first three seasons, including beating the Steelers in Super Bowl XXX. In 1997, a season after losing to the Panthers in the playoffs, the Cowboys went 6-10 and Switzer resigned. He was 40-24 in the NFL. “America’s team” hasn’t been the same since.
Steve Spurrier (Washington, 2002-03)
Seemed like a smart move at the time. Spurrier won nine SEC titles and one national championship in 12 seasons at Florida, but flopped in the NFL. In his two years at Washington, he went 12-20, finishing third in the NFC East each season. Not terrible, not good — just forgettable. Two years later he was back in the SEC at South Carolina, where he stayed for 11 seasons.
Nick Saban (Dolphins, 2005-06)
Six national championships at the college level but he couldn’t make the playoffs in his limited time in the NFL. Two years removed from his first BCS National Championship at LSU in 2003, Saban was the hottest coaching name on the market. But Miami’s front office never got him the roster pieces necessary to consistently compete in the AFC East against the likes of Tom Brady and the Patriots. In his first second and final season in 2006, the Dolphins cycled through quarterbacks Daunte Culpepper, Joey Harrington and Cleo Lemon. It was the first losing season of Saban’s head coaching career (previous stops at LSU, Michigan State and Toledo), and he promptly left to take over at Alabama. He went 15-17 with the Dolphins.
Bobby Petrino (Falcons, 2007)
He didn’t even get through a whole NFL season. His first stint at Louisville lasted four seasons, seeing the Cardinals go 41-9 and twice finish in the top six of the final AP poll, but Petrino’s short time in the pros was a mess. Atlanta went 3-10 under his direction before he resigned, infamously leaving a note in each player’s locker to inform them of his decision to fill the head coaching vacancy at Arkansas.
Pete Carroll (Seahawks, 2010-present)
To be fair, Carroll was an NFL head coach twice (Jets, 1994; Patriots 1997-99) before he ever led a college program. Perhaps that experience has helped his nearly seamless transition from never having a losing season at Southern Cal (2001-09) to making the playoffs in eight of 10 seasons in Seattle. Carroll is the most successful modern coach to jump from the college ranks, with a 100-59 record and two Super Bowl berths (one championship) with the Seahawks.
Chip Kelly (Eagles, 2013-2015; 49ers, 2016)
Made four BCS appearances in four seasons at Oregon, including the 2010 national championship game. After winning the Fiesta Bowl in 2012, he was hired by Philadelphia and made the playoffs at 10-6 in his first season. He went 10-6 again in 2014 but missed the postseason as was fired after going 6-9 in 2015. He was then hired by the 49ers, won only two games, and was fired again. UCLA hired Kelly as its coach in 2018.
Kliff Kingsbury (Cardinals, 2019-present)
Kingsbury wasn’t a particularly successful college head coach (35-40 in six seasons at Texas Tech) and was more lauded as an offensive coordinator and Mike Leach’s quarterback with the Red Raiders than anything else. He was fired after the 2018 season and the Cardinals didn’t wait long to scoop him up. Arizona, which feature’s 2019’s No. 1 overall pick in quarterback Kyler Murray, went 5-9-1 this season with Kingsbury.
This story was originally published January 7, 2020 at 2:25 PM.
