The challenges of following a legend, from seven coaches who
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Chris Low, ESPN Senior WriterAug 18, 2024, 08:00 AM ET
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- College football reporter
- Joined ESPN.com in 2007
- Graduate of the University of Tennessee
RON ZOOK CAN laugh about it now, but it wasn’t so funny two decades ago.
In 2002, Zook was faced with the task of replacing one of the more transcendent football coaches in SEC history. It’s never easy to replace a legend, and Steve Spurrier was more than just a legend at Florida with his six SEC championships, one national title and the Fun ‘n’ Gun offense that electrified Gator Nation.
It didn’t take long for Zook to realize what he was in for.
“Hell, it started before the plane landed in Gainesville for the press conference to introduce me. Somebody had already come up with a FireRonZook.com website,” Zook recalled with a muted chuckle.
After the first of three up-and-down seasons — an 8-5 finish that saw the Gators beat top-five foes Georgia and Tennessee but also lose three games by more than two touchdowns — Zook remembers walking into his office one day and seeing Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher sitting at Zook’s desk with his feet propped up on it. Zook had previously worked for Cowher in Pittsburgh.
“You ruined it for us, Zooker. Now they’ve got a FireBillCowher.com site up in Pittsburgh,” Cowher said, needling his former special teams coordinator.
Zook has never considered himself a pioneer, but after a coaching career that started in the mid-1970s, he’s secure enough to offer some self-deprecating humor.
“I guess that’s my legacy to coaching, the first guy to have a website dedicated to firing me,” quipped Zook, now 70 and an analyst on Mike Locksley’s staff at Maryland. “They say coaches are hired to be fired. The difference with me is that I might have been fired at Florida the day I walked into my first press conference.”
Zook has a keen perspective on what Kalen DeBoer is going through right now. So do Chris Klieman, Frank Solich, Justin Fuente, Jimbo Fisher, Bryan Harsin, Lincoln Riley and others in college football who faced a variety of challenges while following a coaching legend, including sky-high expectations, resistance to change, and impatience from administrators, boosters and fans.
Kalen DeBoer embraces the opportunity to follow perhaps the greatest coach in college football history in Nick Saban. Gary Cosby Jr.-Tuscaloosa News/Imagns
DeBoer, the first-year coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide, is following perhaps the greatest coach in college football history. Nick Saban won six national championships in 17 seasons at Alabama, plus one more at LSU (2003). Ironically, when Saban took the Tide job in 2007, the shadow of the late Bear Bryant still hovered far and wide across campus, the state of Alabama and the sport as a whole — even with Bryant not having coached for 25 years.
Saban, the eighth Alabama coach hired in those 25 years since Bryant’s last season, was undeterred by the past. He once told ESPN: “The future was all I could see, in large part because of what Coach Bryant had accomplished there.”
Now it’s DeBoer’s time to step in behind a legend, and although he has heard (ad nauseam) the adage that it’s always better to replace the man who replaced “the man” than to replace “the man” himself, DeBoer has a quick retort.
“There’s only one person that’s ever going to get to do that, to follow Coach Saban,” DeBoer said. “What a challenge, what an honor, what an opportunity.”
CHRIS KLIEMAN TOOK over at Kansas State for Bill Snyder, who engineered one of the greatest turnarounds in college football history. Snyder was the K-State coach for 29 seasons (over two stints) and revived a program left for dead. Snyder’s impact was immeasurable. The Wildcats play their home games in Bill Snyder Family Stadium, and out front sits an 11½-foot bronze and granite statue of Snyder, who led his team to 19 bowl games after K-State had been to one in 93 years before his arrival. At 215-117-1, he is the winningest coach in program history and he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2015.
Klieman, now in his sixth season at K-State, understood what he was getting into, especially given Snyder’s preference that his son Sean succeed him. Even more importantly, Klieman understood the expectations. At his previous stop, North Dakota State, he replaced Craig Bohl when Bohl left for Wyoming. When Klieman was promoted from defensive coordinator, the Bison had won three straight FCS national championships. Klieman’s athletic director, Gene Taylor, who also hired Klieman at Kansas State, was brutally honest with him.
“There are no ifs or buts. If you take this job, you’ve got to win the national championship, OK?” Taylor told Klieman.
Well, that’s what Klieman did in his first two seasons. But in Year 3, North Dakota State lost to James Madison in the FCS semifinals.
“And it was the worst freakin’ offseason I’ve ever had,” Klieman said. “We beat Iowa that year and had a really good season, but we didn’t win the national championship.”
Chris Klieman has followed two highly successful coaches: Bill Snyder at Kansas State and Craig Bohl at FCS power North Dakota State. AP Photo/Charlie Riedel
After that “down” season, Klieman came back to steer the Bison to two more national titles before replacing Snyder at Kansas State. Taylor had taken the K-State AD job in 2017 and knew Klieman was ready to make the jump.
“One of the things that helped me there at the start,” Klieman said, “was that I’d already won the battle of winning the press conference because the guy who hired me didn’t care if I won the press conference.”
Klieman and DeBoer competed against each other when both were assistants in the Missouri Valley Conference, and they’ve stayed in touch. Their career paths both included significant time in small-school divisions. Klieman coached at Division III Loras College and Northern Iowa before landing at North Dakota State. DeBoer was at NAIA Sioux Falls for 10 years and FCS Southern Illinois for four before getting his first FBS job as offensive coordinator at Eastern Michigan in 2014.
“I don’t think you can ever really prepare for it, going in behind somebody like Coach Snyder, but that’s why I’ve always said from the day I got here that football is football,” Klieman said. “You’ve got to believe in your values and believe in what you’re doing and get the staff behind you and get the players behind you. Kalen will do the same thing there at Alabama. It’s still football, and Kalen knows football extremely well.”
Klieman won the Big 12 championship in his fourth season at K-State, the school’s first conference title in 10 years. He has won eight or more games every year except the 2020 season shortened by COVID-19.
For some of the coaches following legends, eight wins wasn’t nearly enough.
Frank Solich, like Zook, was taking on his first head-coaching job when he replaced Tom Osborne at Nebraska after serving on Osborne’s staff for 19 seasons. Solich also played for Bob Devaney, who combined with Osborne to win five national championships at Nebraska.
Solich jokes that it was sort of a double whammy to follow back-to-back legends, but Solich was Osborne’s pick to replace him.
“As you step into a position of that magnitude, it’s always going to be difficult, probably impossible, to please everyone involved,” Solich said. “But I looked forward to it. I knew Coach Osborne had a lot of faith and confidence in me, and even though I learned so much from both Coach Osborne and Coach Devaney, I knew I had to do it my way.”
Solich led the Huskers to the Big 12 championship in his second season in 1999 and won 10 or more games three straight seasons. But in Year 5, the Huskers went 7-7, ending a streak of 40 straight winning seasons. Steve Pederson was hired as Nebraska’s athletic director before Solich’s sixth season, and it became obvious to many around the program that Pederson was looking for an opening to fire Solich and hire his own coach. Nebraska finished 9-3 in the regular season, and, after a win over Colorado in the 2003 finale, Pederson fired Solich despite his 58-19 record in six seasons in Lincoln.
In announcing Solich’s firing, Pederson’s explanation included a now-infamous quote: “I refuse to let the program gravitate into mediocrity.”
Nobody needs to remind Solich that Nebraska hasn’t won a conference championship since his 1999 team went 12-1 and finished No. 3 in the final AP poll. Pederson was fired 3½ seasons after he let Solich go in the wake of Nebraska’s worst home loss in nearly a half-century, a 45-14 bludgeoning by Oklahoma State.
“You could probably look at it, and no situation is exactly the same with some of the coaches who’ve had to replace legends,” Solich said. “The difficult thing is when a new AD comes in, he wants to have his guy at the helm. So it is what it is and turned out the way it did.”
Solich, part of the 2024 College Football Hall of Fame class, went on to coach at Ohio University and ranked fourth for most victories (173) among active FBS coaches at the time of his retirement in 2021.
Some longtime Nebraska supporters have suggested there’s a “Solich Curse” on the program. The Huskers have gone through five coaches and 10 losing seasons since he was fired.
“Somebody asked me about that, and I told them I didn’t believe in curses,” said Solich, who returned to Nebraska’s Memorial Stadium for the first time since his firing during the 2023 spring game when the Huskers’ locker room was named in his honor, before joking, “But if I could put curses on people, there would be some people in trouble.”
Ron Zook lasted only three seasons at Florida after taking over for Steve Spurrier. Andy Lyons/Getty Images
Zook is realistic about his time at Florida, when he compiled a 23-14 record (16-8 in the SEC). He’s the first to admit that he made mistakes and that the Gators didn’t win enough after the iconic run under Spurrier.
It didn’t help that it became public knowledge that Zook wasn’t at the top of then-AD Jeremy Foley’s wish list to replace Spurrier. Bob Stoops (then at Oklahoma) and Mike Shanahan (then coach of the Denver Broncos) both passed on the job before Foley turned to Zook. The overtures to Stoops and Shanahan were widely reported.
Given the high bar Spurrier had set, there wasn’t a lot of patience around the program, and Zook lasted less than three seasons. But during that time, he was a very successful recruiter, as 21 of the 22 starters on Urban Meyer’s national championship team with the Gators in 2006 were Zook recruits.
“I thought we had it cooking and were set up for success. We just didn’t get a chance to finish it, and that’s how it goes sometimes in our business,” Zook said. “Florida is a great place, and they should win. And if they leave [current coach Billy Napier] alone, he will win.
“But you can’t keep pulling up the flowers to check the roots.”
ONE ASPECT THAT is different with DeBoer is that he doesn’t have any ties to Alabama or Saban the way Zook did to Florida and Spurrier or Solich did to Nebraska and Osborne.
Often the coaches following highly successful predecessors either worked for that coach or played under him at that school. The examples are numerous, including Sherrone Moore, who worked for Jim Harbaugh at Michigan. Others are Ray Perkins for Bryant at Alabama, Earle Bruce for Woody Hayes at Ohio State, Gary Gibbs for Barry Switzer at Oklahoma, Gary Moeller for Bo Schembechler at Michigan, Ray Goff for Vince Dooley at Georgia, Lane Kiffin for Pete Carroll at USC, Bryan Harsin for Chris Petersen at Boise State, Lincoln Riley for Bob Stoops at Oklahoma and Jimbo Fisher for Bobby Bowden at Florida State.
Jimbo Fisher worked with Bobby Bowden as “coach in waiting,” then led Florida State to a national title. Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel/MCT/Getty Images
“That may be a good thing for DeBoer, just the fact that it’s not an Alabama guy or Nick guy,” said Fisher, who was FSU’s coach in waiting when he replaced Bowden in 2010. “I think change is inevitable. You’ve got to do things differently. I just hope the people of Alabama, if he happens to lose one or two his first season, don’t go crazy, which they’re famous for. I mean, he’s going to lose some games, and how does he withstand it and how do the people in power withstand what’s going on?”
Fisher, who was fired last season at Texas A&M, is the exception to the rule. He replaced “the man” and won a national championship in his fourth season. He won 10 games in his first season, the first time the Seminoles had accomplished that feat in seven years, and reeled off 29 straight victories at FSU, tied for the second-longest winning streak in college football over the past 50 years.
“Coach Bowden was there for me, but he wasn’t there. He wasn’t around physically,” Fisher said. “The relationship I had with him and the family was one that I knew I could pick up the phone and call him if I needed to, which I did, but he wasn’t hovering and hanging around the program. He gave me the confidence when I took the job.
“His legacy was that he wanted people to have success behind him. He truly did.”
It’s well chronicled that Fisher and Saban have had their differences since their days of working together. But Fisher thinks Saban will be supportive of DeBoer and also isn’t the look-over-your shoulder type. Even so, Fisher said the fact that Saban has an office at Bryant-Denny Stadium “won’t make it any easier” for DeBoer.
“You gotta be yourself,” Fisher said, offering advice to DeBoer. “If you try to coach like somebody, you’ll end up never being somebody. You can’t be somebody else. They hired you, and you have to have enough confidence in yourself to do what you believe in, how you do it and the way you do it.
“And the guy behind you needs to get the hell out of the way.”
Justin Fuente also didn’t have any ties to Virginia Tech or Frank Beamer when he took over for the Hokies’ winningest coach in 2016. Fuente won 19 games in his first two seasons, but he managed just one winning season in the rest of his time in Blacksburg and was let go in 2021.
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Fuente said that Beamer couldn’t have been more supportive but that maintaining the right alignment at the university among administrators and others in the department was the most difficult challenge.
“There wasn’t one second that I felt Coach Beamer wished he were still coaching. He’d worked his butt off to make the program what it was,” said Fuente, who is out of coaching and lives with his family just outside Dallas. “He was never a hindrance. Hell, we lived in the same neighborhood. His wife brought my kids cookies.”
But with any coaching change of that stature, Fuente said, it’s inevitable that some people at the university never get on board.
“If you don’t have alignment, clear alignment, then you have no shot anywhere. And it doesn’t matter if that’s at Alabama or anywhere else,” he said. “I made my share of mistakes and I don’t regret being there or any of my experiences there, but there is going to be some difficulty along the way.”
Fuente said probably the most important aspect for DeBoer is making sure the people above him mandate that the “things that need to be tweaked are tweaked.” Saban has said many times that former AD Mal Moore was invaluable in helping set things up at Alabama where Saban could coach and recruit and not be bogged down with outside issues.
Joe Pendry, Saban’s first offensive line coach at Alabama and one of Saban’s closest confidants, used to refer to it as “having the stroke.”
Not everybody is going to have that stroke, but Fuente said having the president, chancellor, board members and athletic director all rowing in the same direction is critical.
“And if not, it’s death by a thousand paper cuts,” Fuente said. “Any one thing is not that big a deal, but hundreds of them — time after time — just sink you.”
Fisher said one of the other challenges for new coaches, especially following a strong personality like Saban, is that some of the boosters who want to meddle and had been kept at arm’s length under the previous regime might see an opening.
“They see it as their chance to get back in,” Fisher said. “That was never going to happen with Nick, and DeBoer can’t let it happen either.”
DURING HARSIN’S FIVE seasons as Petersen’s offensive coordinator at Boise State, the Broncos were 61-5 with two undefeated seasons and two Fiesta Bowl victories. So when Harsin replaced his old boss in 2014, he knew the stakes.
He also knew most of the key people in and around the program, which helped the transition. Harsin won at least 10 games in five of his six full seasons, not counting the shortened 2020 season, and three conference championships. That included a win over Washington in Petersen’s return to Boise to open the 2015 season.
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“After we went out and won 12 games and the Fiesta Bowl that first year, I kind of thought, ‘OK, we did our thing,'” Harsin said. “But the comparisons might have gotten even worse after that, and it was challenging. I think it did impact me. It impacted the team.”
And although Harsin had the advantage of knowing the Boise State landscape and power structure, which was not the case at all when he moved on to Auburn, he said a lot of what DeBoer might have to deal with at Alabama won’t necessarily be football-centric.
“It’s not just the wins and losses,” said Harsin, who was fired after less than two seasons at Auburn. “That’s the one thing that I realized. It’s the impact that Chris had, and especially during that time. Everybody knew Chris Petersen. Chris Petersen was the hottest coach. He could have gone anywhere, but he’s the Boise State guy, right? And when you listen to Nick Saban, how much impact he’s had on the game, that’s the other part when you’re following a guy like that, the massive impact they’ve had on the entire football community.”
Lincoln Riley, with his predecessor at Oklahoma, Bob Stoops, in 2015. AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki
Lincoln Riley, who is entering his third season as USC coach, was Bob Stoops’ offensive coordinator at Oklahoma for two seasons before getting the head-coaching job in 2017 when Stoops retired as the winningest coach in program history.
Riley guided the Sooners to four straight Big 12 championships and three College Football Playoff appearances in his five seasons. His abrupt departure for USC is still a sore subject among OU fans, but there’s no debating his ability to build on Stoops’ success.
“You can’t feel a pressure that you’ve got to change everything just because you’re the head coach now,” Riley said. “But you can’t be afraid to change the things that you feel aren’t right and that you need to do to make it fit the way that you see it and trust your own vision as well. That’s the trickiest part.
“So it’s a balance, a three-legged stool.”
It’s a balancing act, even with some of the cautionary tales from past coaches, that never looked anything but alluring to DeBoer, who has won everywhere he’s been.
Those who have coached with him and against him are convinced he’ll also win at Alabama. And when you come in behind a legend like Saban, it’s not about simply winning games but winning championships.
Last season, DeBoer was a game away from winning the national championship at Washington. So why not Alabama?
“These are the programs you want to be a part of, places that have the tradition, have the deep pride and fan bases that are special,” DeBoer said. “Yes, there are expectations that are extremely high. But think about the alternative, to be at a place that doesn’t have those expectations.
“That’s not what I was looking for, not what I’ve gone through to get to this point.”