Coaching carousel winners and losers: Where does Lane Kiffin's FAU move land him?

With just about every FBS vacancy filled, it’s time to declare some winners and losers from the coaching carousel.

WINNERS

Texas. The Longhorns got the man they coveted, Tom Herman, and didn’t have to re-set the salary bar for the entire sport in the process. When a potential bidding war with LSU for Herman presented itself Thanksgiving night, there was conjecture that Texas might have to pay up to $8 million a year for a guy with two years of head-coaching experience. In the end, that didn’t happen – Texas got Herman for five years at $28.75 million total, which is not much more than it was paying Charlie Strong. A lot of people believe Herman is the next great coach in college football, and I’m one of them. Matching him with the allure of Texas should be a potent combination for years to come.

South Florida. Texas’ gain is also USF’s gain. The Longhorns’ dismissal of Strong allowed the Bulls to land a guy fully capable of meeting and perhaps exceeding the good work done by the departed Willie Taggart. Strong’s recruiting wheelhouse is Florida – seven Floridians he signed at Louisville are currently on NFL rosters, and an eighth (Gerod Holliman) won the 2014 Jim Thorpe Award. Strong’s personality also is a better fit for the USF job, which is far less of a publicity-intensive job than Texas was.

Purdue. The last time the Boilermakers hired a coach with a fertile offensive mind and a proven track record at a lower level, his name was Joe Tiller and he became the winningest coach in school history. Not saying Jeff Brohm will win 87 games at Purdue, but he brings instant credibility and excitement to a program that has been sorely lacking. Brohm interviewed with Baylor and was courted by Cincinnati, so Purdue did good work landing him – upping the salary to more than $3 million a year, plus ongoing facility projects, convinced Brohm that the downtrodden school is serious about trying to win in the Big Ten West.

Oregon. Ducks fans who had been fantasizing about The Return Of Chip might be underwhelmed by the hiring of Willie Taggart, but they shouldn’t be. Not only does he come with the persuasive recommendations of Tony Dungy and Jim Harbaugh, but he comes with an impressive résumé as well – give him a year or two, and then the results are there. At Western Kentucky, Taggart took over a program that had gone 2-22 the previous two seasons; after a 2-10 debut year, he went 14-10 the next two years. At USF, Taggart took over a program that was 8-16 the previous two seasons; after a 6-18 start, he was 18-7 his last two years. At a place like Oregon, that timetable for improvement might be accelerated.

North Carolina. The Tar Heels still have Larry Fedora as their head coach. After having his name thrown around as a candidate at several schools, that’s a win. Fedora has a 40-24 record thus far at Carolina for a higher winning percentage (.625) than Mack Brown had at the school (.599).

Penn State. Not only did athletic director Sandy Barbour do the right thing by quelling any talk early in the season about James Franklin being on the hot seat, the school got an added bonus when sources told Yahoo Sports on Saturday that offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead wasn’t interested in Temple or any other head-coaching jobs and would remain in State College for the 2017 season.

Florida International. Fools gold program has two winning seasons in its history, but now has a chance to make it for real with the hire of Butch Davis. He’s a proven winner with some NCAA baggage from North Carolina to overcome. If he still has the energy for the job, this could happen quickly.

Florida Atlantic. Gave Lane Kiffin the job he should have gotten at age 32, not 41. But even if Kiffin’s career arc is upside down, that doesn’t mean his hiring isn’t a coup at a school that hasn’t had a winning season since 2008.

Fresno State. Hire of alum Jeff Tedford gives program a chance to get back on its feet after plummeting out of competitiveness the last couple of years. Like Davis, Tedford has to prove he still has the fire for the job and that he cares about academics – but the man authored eight straight winning seasons at Cal, which is something that hadn’t previously been accomplished since 1918-25.

Mississippi State. Dan Mullen, the program’s best coach since the 1940s, is still the coach – after putting his name out there for other jobs last year and this year.

Atlantic Coast Conference. Zero head-coaching coaching changes among 14 members. Not all continuity is good continuity, but in this case it largely is.

UNDECIDED

Coaching changes that may or may not work out.

Baylor. If you can win 20 games in two seasons at Temple, you’ve done great work. The question is whether Matt Rhule’s great work will translate to Texas. He’s spent virtually his entire life in the northeast, and recruiting in Texas is its own brand of unique savagery. Rhule is smart enough to hire staff members with Texas ties, and Baylor badly needs a guy with his no-skeletons résumé. But this will be wait-and-see.

Indiana. The Hoosiers’ surprise parting with Kevin Wilson was followed by an equally surprising promotion from within of defensive coordinator Tom Allen. He did a fine job in his one and only season in Bloomington, but he’s just a decade removed from coaching in high school and just six years removed from coaching at the lower levels of the NCAA. Is he ready?

Houston. Promoting offensive coordinator Major Applewhite makes sense in terms of maintaining continuity and recruiting ties within the state. The unknown is whether Applewhite will be successful making the transition from offensive coordinator to his first head-coaching job. You also wonder: how much of Houston’s offensive success was due to Applewhite, and how much of it was due to Herman, whose expertise was on that side of the ball?

Cincinnati. Hiring Luke Fickell from Ohio State should enhance recruiting in a talent-rich state. Whether it will enhance the actual on-field product, nobody yet knows. Fickell was 6-7 as an emergency, stop-gap head coach at Ohio State between the Jim Tressel and Urban Meyer Eras, and the Buckeyes were 12-1 and 12-0 on either side of that season. A defensive guy, his hiring does not automatically upgrade an offense that was 11th out of 12 in the American Athletic Conference in scoring.

Western Kentucky. Sports Illustrated reported Monday that Notre Dame assistant Mike Sanford Jr. is the hire at WKU. While Sanford has a coaching pedigree and would keep alive the Hilltoppers’ string of offensive-minded head coaches (Taggart, Bobby Petrino, Brohm), it’s still something of a reach. He’s only 34 years old, and there were varying opinions about his work at Notre Dame. Nobody on that Fighting Irish staff can be too proud of how 2016 went down.

Nevada. The Wolf Pack brought aboard Jay Norvell from Arizona State, where the Sun Devils scored all kinds of points and stopped nobody. The good news is that Norvell is affiliated with the offensive side of the ball, where ASU was productive. He’s been around a lot of big-time programs and recruited the West extensively. Will he succeed as a head coach? Nobody knows.

San Jose State. Brent Brennan has ties to the area and the program, which is swell. What he doesn’t have is head-coaching experience, nor has he been a coordinator since his time at San Jose State between 2005-10. He spent the previous six seasons as a position coach at Oregon State, which had two winning seasons in that time. But, hey, finding anyone who is enthusiastic about coaching at SJSU is at least a start.

Georgia State. Shawn Elliott was handed the captaincy of a sinking ship when Steve Spurrier bailed at South Carolina last year, and he piloted it to a 1-5 record that included a victory over Vanderbilt and a few close losses. Apparently, that was enough to win over Georgia State.

Temple. ESPN reported Tuesday morning that the Owls have landed Florida defensive coordinator Geoff Collins, who has done great work both in Gainesville and previously at Mississippi State. Collins’ defense ranked in the top 10 nationally each of the past two years at Florida and he had a top-20 defense in 2013 in Starkville. Collins has no significant coaching experience in the northeast and will need help recruiting that area, but his Florida ties can help a program that has recently been able to dip into that state (there are 10 Floridians on the current Temple roster). Collins is highly regarded, but like everyone else without head-coaching experience, it’s a guess how well he will do leading a program.

LOSERS

American Athletic Conference. The conference was raided for Herman, Rhule and Taggart, following a year in which it lost Justin Fuente to Virginia Tech. That’s a significant brain drain, although keeping Ken Niumatalolo (Navy) and Philip Montgomery (Tulsa) is a plus.

LSU. Fired Les Miles (career winning percentage: .721). Whiffed on Jimbo Fisher (career winning percentage: .819). Whiffed on Tom Herman (career winning percentage: .846). Hired Ed Orgeron (career winning percentage: .420). But he’s a Louisianan, by golly.

Lane Kiffin. A year ago when Alabama was winning the national title with Kiffin calling the plays, consensus conjecture was that he would have a job in a Power Five conference by 2017. Instead he will be at Florida Atlantic, which tied for last in the Conference USA Eastern Division this year. Clearly, some questions remain for college administrators about Kiffin’s ability to handle the big chair.

Les Miles. Fired in September, the national championship winner had months to pitch himself to schools. To this point, nobody is catching what he’s been pitching. It looks highly likely that Miles will sit out 2017.

P.J. Fleck. If a 13-0 season at Western Freakin’ Michigan wasn’t enough to get the 35-year-old Fleck a Power Five job, what is? Concerns about Coach Row The Boat’s shtick might have hurt his candidacy in some locales. His apparent return to Kalamazoo for another season is a massive win for WMU.

Art Briles. Officially radioactive after the revelations kept coming out at Baylor. As he should be.