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What kind of coach would you hire?

I am genuinely curious what the consensus is on this topic. Seeing it is my team's bye week, I was sadly having to watch Florida and Tennessee. UT is really really bad. But it got me thinking that Jeremy Pruitt is a defensive coach. Then I thought back to my team, USF, who also hired a defensive minded coach. Then I thought back to my new team, Washington State, who has one of the best offensive minds in the country. So It begs the question, are defensive minded coaches bad or a thing of the past? .

It seems as college football continues to grow, the offense is growing with it. I look at coaches like Josh Heupel at UCF and Mike Norvell at Memphis who kick up the tempo. The play fast mantra has taken off. The offensive minded geniuses are reaping the rewards. On the defensive end, it seems like they cannot keep up with the new look offenses. I thought Charlie Strong was going to bring a lock down defense to Tampa. It has not really been the case especially against those fast paced teams like UCF.

So with everything I have watched I know that if Charlie Strong gets fired, I want an offensive-minded coach. But I was curious to see if the top college football teams in the country share that same sentiment. Thus, I looked through the AP Top 25 and those receiving votes to see the distribution of offensive, defensive, and mixed coaches. Here is the list of the coaches with their team in ().

Offensive:

Dabo Swinney (Clemson)

Lincoln Riley (OU)

Ryan Day (OSU)

Gus Malzahn (Auburn)

Dan Mullen (UF)

Jim Harbaugh (Michigan)

Tom Herman (Texas)

Paul Chryst (Wisconsin)

James Franklin (Penn State)

Josh Heupel (UCF)

Mario Cristobal (Oregon)

Jimbo Fisher (Texas A&M)

Mike Leach (Wazzu)

Brian Harsin (Boise State)

Chris Peterson (Washington)

Mike Gundy (Oklahoma State)

Jeff Monken (Army)

Mike Norvell (Memphis)

Dave Clawson (Wake)

Rod Carey (Temple)

Matt Campbell (Iowa State)

Joe Moorhead (Miss State)

Eli Drinkwitz (App State)

Pj Fleck (Minnesota)

Defensive:

Nick Saban (Bama)

Ed Orgeron (LSU)

Kirby Smart (UGA)

Brian Kelly (ND)

Kyle Wittingham (Utah)

Bronco Mendenhall (UVA)

Justin Wilcox (Cal)

Herm Edwards (ASU)

Gary Patterson (TCU)

Chris Klieman (KSU)

Mark Dantonio (Michigan State)

Mixed:

Kirk Ferentz (Iowa): Played linebacker, but coached mostly offense.

Kalani Sitake (BYU): Played fullback, coached RB, TE, OL, DB, LB, and ST.

So to save you from counting, if you haven't already, that is 24 offensive, 11 defensive, and two truly mixed coaches for the top teams in the country. What do you guys think? For those of you with offensive coaches, do you agree with my sentiment of wanting an offensive minded coach? Or would you rather have a defensive minded coach? Vote in the poll and comment below. I would love to discuss it with you all as I am shaky on my opinion for this topic.

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