What makes a good job in college football?
It’s a question that is more relevant than ever as the coaching carousel spins, potentially to record heights in 2025 with 10 FBS coaches already axed and plenty more firmly on the hot seat.
While not all things are guaranteed when it comes to winning in college football, the fewer obstacles there are on and off the field tend to make for a clearer path to success.
Here, we take a look at each of the Power 4 conferences and which jobs are better than others in a bit of a vacuum. Recruiting base, donor support, NIL, school leadership, staff salary pool, historic success and facilities were factored in. The result is the coaching job pyramid, from the best gig in each league down to the stepping-stone jobs that make up the base.
First, we looked at the ACC and Big 12.
Next up is the Big Ten, which is not only the largest conference in the country but also a heavyweight at the top. There is maybe the best job in the country, a collection of elite level programs in one of the two top leagues, a collection of places that you can win at and a host of others that have to fight uphill for everything but are still good places to be in the current landscape.
How does the conference stack up? The Big Ten might be the easiest of the Power 4 conferences to segment out, but there are plenty of reasons why there’s not a ton of separation between what you can do with a non-elite gig nowadays—just ask Curt Cignetti.
The best job: Ohio State
This is the best job in the country as it’s pretty much recession proof. The Buckeyes have finished outside of the Top 10 just twice in 24 years. They play in a 100,000-plus-seat stadium that is always packed to the gills. There is a donor base that is one of the envies in college football that gives you everything possible on and off the field. The home state recruiting has trailed off slightly over the past few decades, but is still on the high end and gets supplemented by being one of the few programs that can regularly go anywhere in the country to easily land blue-chip talent. That all naturally comes with plenty of pressure on the head coach, but this is a place set up not just to win, but to compete for national championships every single season.
Elite: Oregon, Michigan, Penn State, USC
These are all spots where you have every resource available to win national titles and are well positioned to keep doing so in this current era. What a place like Oregon lacks in terms of natural resources or talent, it more than makes up for in terms of financial might with its mega-donors. It keeps knocking at the door of its first championship as a result. The fan bases the Wolverines and Nittany Lions lean on also provide everything a coach could want, have iconic stadiums and excellent access to talent for teams north of the Mason-Dixon Line. USC too often has gotten in its own way from a management and alignment standpoint but has everything you want beyond the cost of living your assistants may be concerned about.
Aspiring: Nebraska, Illinois, Washington, Michigan State
All of these places are spots where you should be able to make the College Football Playoff on occasion. Some have excellent facilities and a rich history, others can land players at a higher rate than some of their conference peers. Just about every one benefits from quality leadership and a desire to do more than just go to a nice bowl game in Florida with regularity.
Wax and wane: Wisconsin, Iowa, Northwestern, UCLA
We’ve seen talk of increased investment in football the last few years out of all of these, but there remain hurdles to taking things to the next level consistently. The three original Big Ten members had their moments back when the division format presented far more opportunities to rack up wins but each have work to do when it comes to NIL and, aside from the Wildcats, facilities. UCLA is a job capable of being in a higher tier when you look at its location, but it remains behind on focus from the administration on doing what’s necessary on the football field.
The base: Indiana, Purdue, Minnesota, Maryland, Rutgers
There’s a reason why Cignetti signing a mega-extension this year with the Hoosiers is so eye-opening with a rash of blueblood jobs open (or set to come open): The deck is generally stacked against a school which has been the historically least successful power-conference program. It’s also a credit to his coaching acumen that he thinks he can keep this train in Bloomington, Ind., rolling given that Indiana is behind several peers on the facilities front and doesn’t have anywhere near the traditional recruiting base that a school like Maryland has in the DMV area. What does count for a lot right now, however, is an administration that recognizes what it’s going to take in terms of dollar figures to get out of the bottom rung for good—something that a few others haven’t quite figured out or put into practice.
