The dust has mercifully settled on the 2022–23 college football coaching hiring cycle (we think). The latest Silly Season left us with 24 coaches leading new programs. It’s quite the range of characters.
We have former TV analysts coaching at Colorado (Deion Sanders) and UAB (Trent Dilfer), once-fired coaches at FAU (Tom Herman) and Nebraska (Matt Rhule), and a 32-year-old hired at Arizona State (Kenny Dillingham).
In the SEC, Hugh Freeze will make his return to the spotlight at Auburn, and 36-year-old Zach Arnett will make his head coaching debut at Mississippi State as the youngest coach in that league in more than 30 years. Luke Fickell made the jump from Group of 5 to Power 5 at Wisconsin, and Troy Taylor is stepping up from FCS to the Pac-12 at Stanford.