Forget the big name. Hire the no-name.
If the last few college football seasons taught us anything, it’s that Lane Kiffin knows how to lose to Kentucky, and top-dollar coaches like Brian Kelly, Jimbo Fisher and Lincoln Riley can fail to ever win a playoff game.
So, why bet the farm on the big names?
You might do just as well — no, you might do it better — hiring the hotshot young coordinator or the coach plying his craft in relative obscurity in the Group of Six.
Better yet, the no-namers will come be your coach at a bargain rate, and they’ll be hellbent on proving they deserved this opportunity in the SEC or the Big Ten.
Exhibit A: Will Stein.
Exhibit B: Bob Chesney.
Before that, there was a guy named Curt Cignetti. You know his name now, but admit
it, you had to google him when Indiana plucked him out of the Sun Belt in 2023.
Midway through the season, Stein and Chesney are doing it better than any of the dozens of other hires made during last year’s full-throttle spin of the coaching carousel.
I’m slightly exaggerating when I say Stein and Chesney were no-names this time a year ago, but they were much deeper cuts than Kiffin or Kyle Whittingham or Matt Campbell.
Will Stein, Bob Chesney become success stories in Year 1
Kiffin enjoys one-name status. If I say “Lane” to any football casual or hot yoga instructor, they know to whom I’m referring.
If I said “Bob,” you might have thought I was talking about the Builder or Sacamano or Hope or Barker or Marley or Dole.
If I said "Chesney," you’d probably think of Kenny.
After this season, though, any college football fan worth his weight in hot dogs will know Bob Chesney’s name.
Stein and Chesney are a combined 10-1 at Kentucky and UCLA, a pair of basketball schools. (What is it with deep-cut hires at basketball schools? Cigs is 33-2 at Indiana.)
Kiffin, Whittingham and Campbell are a combined 10-7 at LSU, Michigan and Penn State.
Those guys aren’t bad coaches. Between the three, they own more than 410 career wins. But, none of them could do it any better than Chesney has in Year 1. His Bruins are undefeated. UCLA and Kentucky have a better shot of making the playoff than LSU, Michigan or Penn State. Yes, that’s for real.
That’s evidence that if your school needs to cut the check to its current loser coach, never mind the big names. Try to identify the proper no-name.
Three SEC schools fought for Kiffin's services in the last spin of the carousel. LSU landed him with a $91 million contract, after owing a $54 million buyout to Kelly and admitting failure on its last beaucoup-bucks hire.
What did LSU’s money buy in Year 1? It bought a $20 Happy Meal. LSU overpaid for an underperforming roster, a Kiffin carnival, and a 35-34 overtime loss to Stein’s Wildcats.
Stein beat Kiffin at his own riverboat-gambler game. The Wildcats won a second consecutive game on an overtime two-point conversion after Kiffin puckered up and sent out the punt team on fourth-and-1 in the fourth quarter.
Stein, by the way, is making $5.5 million. That’s less than half of Kiffin’s salary, and although $5.5 million sounds good to you or me, it puts Stein second-to-last in the SEC in coaching salary.
LSU’s roster ranks among the nation's priciest, while Kentucky’s roster compensation ranks toward the bottom of the SEC.
From LSU to Michigan to Oregon to Texas A&M to Penn State and lands in between, numerous schools are failing to get adequate return on roster and coaching staff investment.
UCLA toppled Oregon, hours before Kentucky walked it off against LSU.
Money matters, but big spending doesn’t ensure success.
Neither does a big-name coach.
Consider last season’s 12-team playoff field. Only three of the qualifiers (Texas A&M, Alabama and Miami) were led by coaches who’d previously been a power-conference coach before their current job. Mississippi would’ve made it four of 12, if Kiffin hadn’t left before the playoff.
The other eight playoff coaches were either coordinators or coaches of lower-level schools before moving into their current roles. Not all of those guys qualified as no-names (Kirby Smart and Ryan Day had been well-known coordinators before climbing the ladder), but they weren’t top-dollar raids, either.
Cignetti coached James Madison just two years before Indiana hoisted the trophy.
Not every no-name pans out, but UCLA and Kentucky made shrewd hires
Hiring a coordinator or a G6 coach is no sure thing.
Arkansas hired Ryan Silverfield from Memphis. He's already gone to rot.
Sun Belt Bob looks great at UCLA.
Sun Belt Billy wilted in Florida.
Early returns indicate Stein was ready to jump from Power Four coordinator to SEC coach. He fits great at Kentucky, his native state. More importantly, his track record for quarterback development addressed one of Kentucky’s top needs.
Not every good coordinator proves suited to the big chair. (See Tennessee’s Jeremy Pruitt disaster.)
If hiring the G6 coach or the up-and-coming coordinator doesn’t pan out, at least it’s generally cheaper to cut the buyout check and try again than it is to part with the likes of a Kelly or a Fisher or a Riley, the big-name hire who goes bust.
When the coaching carousel reignites later this month, who’ll have the courage to hire the no-name instead of throwing money at the big name?
Stein can beat Lane, and by the end of this season, when you hear Stein, you might think of Will instead of Gertrude or Jill.
UCLA and Kentucky made shrewd hires, and Chesney and Stein are no-names no more.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network's senior national college football columnist. Listen to his podcast, "College Football Unfiltered." Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Forget Lane Kiffin, toast no-name coaching hires Will Stein, Bob Chesney | Opinion
