Where DeBoer Ranks on Early Power 5 Football Coaches' List
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Tis the season for ranking everything pertaining to Power 5 college football,
We're not out of May just yet and CBS Sports felt compelled to list the top coaches nationwide from Tuscaloosa to Tucson, and the predictable names, such as best friends Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher, were among the top five.
Kalen DeBoer, newly installed as the University of Washington football coach, comes in at 51st, which seems reasonable considering he's just getting started on college football's top level.
He's had two seasons in charge at Fresno State and a longer run at NAIA Sioux Falls, where he won three national championships.
CBS Sports makes him the seventh-highest rated Pac-12 coach, just behind two former Husky assistant coaches in Oregon State's Jonathan Smith (37th) and California's Justin Wilcox (44th).
Fair enough. DeBoer has to beat these guys in order to leapfrog them.
What's even more interesting is who among the Pac-12 football leaders falls almost directly behind the Husky head man.
That's right, Oregon's Dan Lanning (54th).
Yes, he was plucked from national champion Georgia's football staff led by Kirby Smart, which made him an attractive hire.
No, Lanning has never been a Power 5 head coach before. A head coach anywhere, for that matter which still makes him an unknown quantity.
Ask Jimmy Lake about the jump up from defensive coordinator to someone who probably spent too much time choosing the right practice music and the proper color of the stadium lights for nighttime display.
Exactly.
Lake wasted too much time on unimportant stuff while recruits were out there waiting to hear from him and his staff.
DeBoer has busied himself reorganizing a somewhat disorganized UW football program, and, by all accounts, he's received high marks. His practice didn't deviate from teaching. His coaches have offered upwards of 175 recruits.
Lanning has had a nice run of high school commitments and transfer pick-ups, though we're still not clear what he saw in taking on former Husky defensive lineman Taki Taimani.
Someone show the new guy the stat sheet from last year's Oregon-Washington game in Seattle, in which it says the Ducks rolled up 329 yards that day. Part of that was Taki's responsibility.
If Lanning can turn Taimani into a defensive force, well then he deserves to leapfrog most of his Pac-12 coaching peers on the next list that comes along.
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