USA TODAY International Edition
Youth movement on college staffs
Charlotte coach Will Healy was making the rounds at a men’s basketball game not long after being hired in December 2018 when an usher tapped Healy on the shoulder, threw back his thumb and ejected the 49ers’ new coach from the area. No students are allowed in this section, the usher told Healy.
For the first- year staff at Old Dominion, celebratory staff gatherings — on national signing day in February, for example — often don’t begin until the IDs of several assistant coaches have been evaluated and approved by servers or bartenders.
“They’ll make fun of me because I’m begging to be carded,” coach Ricky Rahne said of the Monarchs’ assistants. “Please card me. Make me feel a little bit better.”
Healy, 35, was the second- youngest coach in the Bowl Subdivision when he was hired at Charlotte. Rahne, 39, is the oldest member of an Old Dominion coaching staff that includes two assistants under 30 — old enough where references among staffers to vintage video games on Nintendo or Sega Genesis can land with a thud.
Old Dominion and Charlotte are on the extreme end of the age range that dominates college coaching, according to a survey of staff ages at programs in the FBS. Roughly three- fourths of all coaching staffs average under 45 years old. At least eight staffs feature no coach over 50. Twenty- six FBS programs average under 40 years old, led by Old Dominion, the nation’s youngest staff at an average of 32.4 years old, and Charlotte, next at 34. ( USA TODAY compiled the ages for 114 of the 130 FBS programs.)
“I did go into it thinking that I wanted to be younger,” Rahne said of his hiring process for assistants. “I felt like these guys that I’ve hired, they’re hungry. They see this as their opportunity and their chance to build their brand as opposed to maybe a guy who’s a little bit older who maybe you’re grabbing on the down end of his career.”
The average FBS on- field coaching staff is 42.5 years old, with a clear gap between programs on the Group of Five and Power Five levels. For teams in the Group of Five, which tends to hire upand- coming rather than established coaches, the average coaching staff is 40.6 years old. Among the Power Five, the average staff is 44.2 years old. The seven youngest coaching staffs are in the Group of Five; the nine oldest are in the Power Five. Including graduate assistants, who are typically recent college graduates, the average FBS coach is roughly 39 years old, according to the American Football Coaches Association.
Old Dominion and Charlotte are followed by Massachusetts ( 34.7), Kent State ( 35.1), SMU ( 35.5), South Florida ( 35.8) and Coastal Carolina ( 36.6). In all, 29 of the 55 Group of Five staffs surveyed average under 41 years old.
Just 11% of these Group of Five staffs average over 45, compared with a rate of 41% in the Power Five. Among the 25 youngest coaching staffs in the FBS, all but three are on the Group of Five level.
“I think there’s just an eagerness — not saying that as an older coach you can’t be a successful coach,” said firstyear South Florida coach Jeff Scott. “I just know that being the age I am, I turn 40 later this December, I just know a lot of guys that are kind of in that age I am and maybe even younger that are really eager to go out and hit the ground running.”
While not at the rate seen on the Group of Five, a similar hiring trend is beginning to emerge among the nation’s premier conferences. Six coaching staffs from the Power Five average 40 years old or under, led by Boston College ( 36.7) and its first- year coach, Jeff Hafley. The Eagles are followed by Duke ( 38.4), Minnesota ( 38.4), Oklahoma ( 39.9), Georgia ( 40) and Oregon State ( 40). And six new Power Five hires made during the recent coaching cycle are under 45, with the two youngest hires of the cycle — Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz, 36, and Florida State’s Mike Norvell, 38 — coming at Power Five programs.
Even as administrators show an increasing willingness to hand over control to young head coaches and even younger assistants, however, age and experience are among the defining traits of the most successful coaching staffs in the country.
The coaching staff at LSU, the defending national champions, averages 55.2 years old, the oldest surveyed by a significant margin — next is Pittsburgh ( 50.1 years old) and Northwestern ( 49.9). Many of the sport’s most successful programs are among the onequarter of FBS coaching staffs over 45 years old: Alabama ( 45.4 years old), Michigan ( 46.2), Oregon ( 46.3), Clemson ( 46.8), Auburn ( 47.7) and Ohio State ( 48.1).
One factor playing into the average age of an FBS staff is that hiring on an assistant- coach level is based on relationships. Once hired themselves, head coaches will begin tapping into connections in the profession. In one common scenario, new head coaches will call on their former program and provide promotions to ex- colleagues as an enticement — naming a position coach as coordinator or offering graduate assistants an on- field opportunity.
In the end, young head coaches will hire young assistant coaches.
And head coaches are getting younger. Overall, 14 of the 21 new FBS head coaches in 2020 are under 45, and just one, Colorado State coach Steve Addazio, is over 60.
Only two head coaches over 60 were hired prior to the 2019 season, both with a national championship on their resumes: Mack Brown at North Carolina and Les Miles at Kansas.
There are as many FBS head coaches 40 or under, 18, as there are head coaches over 60, while the average head coach is just under 50 years old.
“When you get your first head job, you’re going to hire people that you know, that you worked with, that are peers,” said Wake Forest coach Dave Clawson. “And just by nature, those are going to be young people because you’re younger.”
Conversely, for veteran coaches such as Clawson, 52, who has been a successful head coach at four stops since 1999, experience and the ability to maintain continuity among assistants factor into the age of a coaching staff.
The seven programs with the longest- tenured head coach — Iowa, TCU, Oklahoma State, Ohio, Utah, Northwestern and Middle Tennessee State — have an average staff age of 46.8 years old.
“I would imagine that head coaches that have 20 or more years of experience probably have a little bit older staffs,” Clawson said. “My network of assistant coaches is probably a lot more extensive than a guy that has been a head coach for two years or three years or just got a job.”
Despite extremes on the coaching spectrum — the youthful staffs at Old Dominion and Charlotte on one end with the veteran groups at LSU and Pittsburgh on the other — most FBS staffs lie in the middle, as head coaches attempt to evenly balance the merits of youth and experience.
“When you put together a staff, it’s like putting together a puzzle,” said Maryland coach Mike Locksley. “They’re all shapes and sizes and different age groups. But I do think there needs to be a balance of some youthfulness that brings some of the energy to your program as well as some wisdom that you gain from the experience of being in the business.”