Why Your Team Should Just Fire that Awful Coach Already

Ties aren't bringing Swag back to The U, Al Golden.

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Here's your early Sunday reminder that coaching is pretty darn important in college football.

In fact, if there's one thing the early goings of the 2015 season have taught us, it's that a good coach can make all the difference. Thought of as a lost program without Urban Meyer and Tim Tebow the last few years, Florida is now contending in the SEC, and on the verge of a Top-10 national ranking under its first-year head coach, while Michigan has folks in Big Ten country legitimately terrified under Jim Harbaugh. This coming just a year after the Wolverines served as the Midwest's punching bag.

So, if your favorite college football team has an awful coach, why are they sticking with him? Some coaches have large buyout clauses at smaller schools, while some are inextricably linked to an athletic director or administration that doesn't want to admit a mistake.

While there are examples of coaches turning around terrible starts (Barry Alvarez at Wisconsin, Kirk Ferentz at Iowa), you have a pretty good idea of whether or not your coach is a good fit by Year 3 running the program. If he isn't producing by then, it's time for your athletic department to swallow its pride (and maybe eat a ton of money), and cut bait.

Here are just a few examples of programs thriving with a new head man, and a few others that maybe held onto their coach one year too long.

Football Roundup: Good, Bad, and Ugly

Empty seats, another loss and a really stupid joke. This picture pretty much sums up the Jags as a franchise.

 By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Every week, editors Jeremy Conlin and Joe Parello bring you the good, the bad, and the ugly from the pro and college football weekend that was.

The Good

Demaryius Thomas

If you had him on your fantasy team, or you played against him, you know what I'm talking about. Thomas shook off any thoughts that Emmanuel Sanders might be Peyton Manning's new favorite target, grabbing eight balls for 226 yards and a pair of touchdowns.

Going over the 200-yard plateau is one thing, but averaging over 28 yards per catch is certainly another. Thomas is Denver's most explosive option and if he gets going, with as well as Sanders has clicked with Manning, it could be another historic season in the Mile High City.

-JP

Long and Suite Preview: The Big Ten

Sophomore defensive end Joey Bosa may be the most complete member of Ohio State's potentially dominant front-7.

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe) with a cameo from Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin)

The Big Ten may have actually played the biggest football game in its history in the last decade, though it seems like an eternity ago now.

But since then-No. 1 Ohio State topped then-No. 2 Michigan 42-39 in 2006's "Game of the Century" the conference has gone just 5-10 in BCS Bowl games, including two losses to SEC teams in the title game.

While The Big Ten fancies itself a football power, the results simply haven't been there. In fact, it would be fairer to compare The Big Ten to the Mountain West and now-defunct WAC, who went a combined 4-1 in BCS bowl games over the same span, than to the SEC, who won more national championships (7) than The Big Ten did BCS bowl games (5).

What the conference has done well, however, is brand itself and make money hand over fist. With The Big Ten Network thriving and delivering $44.5 million a year to senior conference members (schools in The Big Ten for six years or more. Sorry Rutgers and Maryland, wait your turn!) beginning in 2017, every football team will have the resources to contend.

But will they?

Your College Football Weekend Primer: Can The U Get Its Swag Back?

The U may have invented Swag back in the day, but the Canes need a win over UF Saturday to get their's back.

By Joe Parello  @HerewegoJoe

This weekend will deliver two "rivalry" games that really exemplify where college football is going. In case you didn't know, the game, along with the population of the country at large, is moving south.

Let's begin with Notre Dame's soon ending "rivalry" with Michigan, a feud downplayed by Irish coach Brian Kelly this week (Because his school is the one that opted out of the series), and talked up/exaggerated by pundits all across ESPN (Because the annual matchup is a ratings bonanza for them every time it's played in the Big House).

Let me be the first to say, as someone who attended a Big Ten school, that I personally don't care if Michigan and Notre Dame ever play again. Is it a significant rivalry? Sure, I suppose. It's two of the all-time winningest programs that reside within 150 miles of each other. It's a battle of two of the best programs in the midwest, but if college football's recent history has taught us anything, it's that geography is overrated.