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The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/TheHunnishInvasion on 2024-01-08 06:06:54.

Kalen DeBoer has had one of the most successful 2 year coaching starts in college football history. He seemingly came out of nowhere to become one of the top coaches in CFB. I’m curious what attributes did the UW Athletic Department see in him before hiring him?

His resume prior to UW was good, but there are all kinds of coaches with similar resumes who have failed or been no better than average. For example, Joe Moorhead’s resume was in many ways even more impressive than DeBoer’s when he was hired at Miss State. He inherited a 1-10 Fordham team and had them in the FCS playoffs 3 out of his 4 years (all but the 1st year). Then was highly successful as OC at Penn State. Yet, Moorhead flopped at Miss State.

As for DeBoer, he was 67-3 at Sioux Falls and won 3 NAIA national titles. Very impressive obviously, but it’s still NAIA, which is generally considered several levels below I-A college football. Moreover, Sioux Falls was a very successful program before he got there: They won a national title under coach Bob Young in 1996, and went to the playoff 9 of his last 11 years before DeBoer took over.

DeBoer then becomes the OC at Southern Illinois, a I-AA program. This stint isn’t quite as successful as the Salukis (one of the best nicknames ever!) went 23-23 during DeBoer’s 4 seasons as OC.

DeBoer then goes to Eastern Michigan as OC for 2 years before going to Fresno State to be OC under Jeff Tedford. Tedford and DeBoer have great success during DeBoer’s 2 years there, going 22-6. DeBoer leaves to be OC at Indiana (where he coaches Penix the first time).

Meanwhile, Tedford has health issues and ends up resigning at Fresno State after a disappointing season. Fresno State thus hires DeBoer. He goes 12-6 in 2 years.

Nothing in his resume is bad. It’s mostly successes. But there are so many coaches with resumes like DeBoer who get high-level P5 jobs and fail.

You can make the case that literally no college football coach in America (including Saban, Kirby Smart, Harbaugh, and Ryan Day) could have taken Washington to a national title game in 2 years after going 4-8 under the prior coach, who failed miserably in about every way.

It’s frankly one of the most stunning turnarounds in college football history. There have been other coaches who have had major success or even made national title games in Year 2, but most of them inherited much better situations. Urban Meyer inherited Ron Zook’s loaded recruiting classes and brought in Tim Tebow. Nick Saban had already won a national title at LSU and was a well-known coach who could recruit easily when he got Bama to the Sugar Bowl in Year 2.

Washington was in a tough spot in 2021 because there were a lot of high-profile job openings and most of the high-profile coaches were more interested in those. Lincoln Riley went to USC, which then created an opening at Oklahoma filled by Brent Venables. Brian Kelly went to LSU, which then created an opening at Notre Dame filled by Marcus Freeman. Bill Napier took over at Florida, Dan Lanning at Oregon, Mario Cristobal at Miami. You could argue that all of those openings were considered “bigger” than Washington at the time.

Washington missed out on all the “big name” hires. So what exactly did Jen Cohen and the people in the UW Athletic Dept see that made them think DeBoer could have this type of success? They obviously got things completely wrong with Jimmy Lake and completely right with DeBoer.

And the only thing I can find is that Tedford highly recommended him, but … ya know … pretty much every head coach that’s ever hired at any major P5 program is recommended by some important coach.

We’ll have to see how DeBoer fares in the long-run, once Penix is gone, but he’s off to an insane start and seemed to come out of nowhere. But whoever the folks who pushed for him in the Washington Athletic Department deserves major props. They hit a home run!