A change of head coach in a bowl game

It happens every year: after guiding a team through a successful season, a coach leaves the team before the bowl game. Suddenly, everything that the team had worked for all year is up in the air as the coach is thinking about his new job, leaving the school to scramble for an interim coach to take over duties for the bowl game.

It’s not a fun situation for the school to deal with, but it is a situation you can profit from. It doesn’t have to fit that exact mold, either. A coach can be rumored to be leaving for another job, as Louisiana State experienced when head coach Nick Saban left right after the Tigers’ appearance in the 2004-05 Capital One Bowl. LSU lost 30-25 to Iowa and shortly thereafter, Saban jumped to the NFL to coach the Miami Dolphins. It is fair to say that he had his mind elsewhere and his players were worried that their head coach might not be there the next year. Iowa backers profited from the situation.

In 2005, the Champs Sports Bowl pitted Clemson against a Colorado team that had just lost its head coach in Gary Barnett, who resigned three weeks before the bowl game. The Tigers came out focused under Tommy Bowden while Colorado had to promote defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz to interim coach. The Buffaloes scored a touchdown late to make the score look closer than it really was – but Clemson won 19-10 nonetheless.

The Independence Bowl in 2006 featured a similar situation. Alabama had fired coach Mike Shula, promoting defensive coordinator Joe Kines to the interim head coach spot. Kines got the Crimson Tide to make it interesting, but ultimately Alabama fell 34-31 to a focused and emotionally stable Oklahoma State team.

Perhaps this theory was demonstrated the best in 2007-08, when there were eight coaching changes between the end of the season and the bowl games. Arkansas lost in the Cotton Bowl, Georgia Tech lost in the Humanitarian Bowl, Houston lost in the Texas Bowl, Navy lost in the Poinsettia Bowl, Texas A&M lost in the Alamo Bowl, and UCLA lost in the Las Vegas Bowl. The only team to emerge victorious from the eight: West Virginia, who beat Oklahoma 48-28 in the Fiesta Bowl. The interim coach for the Mountaineers, Bill Stewart, was promoted to head coach after his team’s performance in the game.

This bowl season, there are three more teams to consider fading for their bowl games: Marshall, who won the Little Caesars Bowl on Saturday, Central Michigan, who faces off against Troy on January 6 in the GMAC Bowl, and Cincinnati, who faces off against Florida in the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day.

Strangely, Central Michigan coach Butch Jones left to occupy the Cincinnati vacancy, while Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly left the Bearcats to take over at Notre Dame. Consider fading both of these teams for their bowl games, as the distractions will pile up, leaving more of the team’s mind off the field than on it.