GC VIP Stadium Road Audibles — 6/29/24 Edition

It’s been too long since my last newsletter for you, but life’s been busy and I’ve was waylaid by the flu this week. Not just some “flu bug” but the actual influenza B. The doc at the Navy hospital here in Jacksonville said he’s seen five other cases of it recently, so take care of yourselves out there.

Today I have a couple of items of more general college football interest, neither of which is on its own newsletter-length. I think this audience of exquisite taste would be interested in both though, so here goes.

First: in the middle of June, Yahoo Sports broke news of the Big 12 working to sell naming rights to the conference with insurance company Allstate in the mix. Not that it’ll become, say, the Allstate Big 12, or the Big 12 presented by Allstate, but that it would become the “Allstate 12” in the way that some bowl games have only a sponsor for their names.

The move prompted a flurry of joke suggestions, none better than getting Dallas-based Southwest Airlines to do it to resurrect the Southwest Conference name.

Yes, it is a bit funny and absurd to think about the Allstate 12 Conference. Yet, I think it might be more crazy-like-a-fox than a lot of folks realize.

With the present lineups, the Big 12 will never match or exceed the Big Ten or SEC in TV revenue. Never, ever, ever. We won’t find ourselves in 30 or 40 years anticipating Arizona State-Cincinnati games in the way that some folks naturally find a modicum of interest in the idea of Penn State-Michigan State or Tennessee-Oklahoma.

There are two ways the league can go as a result: do nothing and pout about it, or try to find revenue that the other leagues won’t touch.

By now, the B1G and SEC are pretty shameless about money. Finding a revenue stream that would make them clutch their pearls instead of fire up the spreadsheets is a tough task.

One place you can actually do that is in the names “Big Ten” and “Southeastern Conference”. They’re big, important, valuable brands. They go back decades. They’re the top dogs in college football.

In other words, ain’t nobody in Indianapolis or Birmingham who would take any amount of money to go mucking around with the league names.

But the Big 12? The conference itself only goes back to 1996. It has been left for dead countless times since 2010, which happens to be the last year it actually had 12 teams. It had ten for a good long while, then 14 last year, and then it was going to be back to 12 before the Pac-12 blew itself up and allowed the conference to get to 16.

“Big 12” is meaningless as a brand. It’s a placeholder name that soldiers on due to familiarity and little else.

So sure, sell the naming rights. It actually is one place where the conference can make up revenue ground. Even if the SEC and Big Ten add “presented by _____” tags on their names, it probably won’t net as much money because such a thing is skippable when people talk about the leagues. You can’t skip the Allstate ad if the conference’s actual name is “Allstate 12”.

Second: Most guys who get head coaching jobs on the power conference level have a resume within certain parameters. They’ve been an assistant at that level before, likely a coordinator, and then maybe they have been a G5 head coach or something. Then they get their first crack at a (now) P4 job. Or maybe they’re the right inside hire after a firing or retirement because they know the place and the players like them.

Most are like that, but not all. Some guys rise through the ranks on account of the fact they just win everywhere they go. However they broke into coaching, they won a lot there. Then they won a lot at their next job. And then the next. It seems like the guy only wins.

A prime example is Lance Leipold. He went 109-6 with six national titles in eight years at D-III’s Wisconsin-Whitewater. He moved all the way up to Buffalo, where he managed to amass a winning record after six years there with a couple of division titles. He’s since quickly built perennial doormat Kansas into a terrific team.

Another great example is Kalen DeBoer, who won three NAIA national titles at Sioux Falls in the late 2000s. He worked his way up the assistant levels until he became Fresno State’s head coach in 2020. In his one full season there in 2021, he went 9-3. Washington then hired him, and he took the Huskies to the national title game last year. Now he gets to be Nick Saban’s successor.

There have always been some coaches who go from lower levels to the highest; Jim Tressel and his four I-AA national titles at Youngstown State says “hello”. However, Leipold really began to get a lot of media attention last year, and DeBoer and his story are now at one of the most inescapable programs in the country.

If Leipold and DeBoer have good seasons, it makes me wonder if it’ll finally be time for Jamey Chadwell to get a crack at a power job.

Chadwell became widely known from his time at Coastal Carolina. Prior to Myrtle Beach, the workplaces on his resume consist of East Tennessee State, Charleston Southern, North Greenville, Delta State, and Chaz Southern again (head coach this time). There isn’t a single major stop in there.

So despite going 35-14 at CSU, 36-13 in a non-interim basis at Coastal, and starting 13-0 at Liberty last year, no power program has hired him. He doesn’t have any experience recruiting on the biggest stage, and he runs a funky offense that’s a little too close to the triple option for some ADs.

There aren’t any D-III or NAIA national titles in there, but Chadwell fits the mold that Leipold and DeBoer generally come from. Chadwell has to hold up his end of the bargain by maintaining at Liberty, but big years from Leipold and DeBoer could help cement the “guy who wins everywhere he goes” stereotype as the big trend of the day.

And you know who has won basically everywhere he’s been? Chadwell. Sure, he did get Charleston Southern onto probation, but his Coastal Carolina and Liberty experience are more recent. If that kind of coach gets even more trendy, then Chadwell will benefit the most of anyone.

David Wunderlich
David Wunderlich is a born-and-raised Gator and a proud Florida alum. He has been writing about Florida and SEC football since 2006. He currently lives in Naples Italy, at least until the Navy stations his wife elsewhere. You can follow him on Twitter @Year2