Bobby Bowden-Close call between he and K, but he's second all-time in victories. K isn't there yet.
Mike K-A truly dominating basketball program
Gary Williams-One the cusp of joining the top two guys, but needs more overall titles
Chuck Amato-Responsible for NC State's strong football program. They were nothing before him and now they are a good/great team evey year.
Ralph Friedgen-More ACC Titles than any other coach below him on this list and Amato. Thats pretty amazing considering he's been here 1 year.
Paul Hewitt-This guy is going to be the next Gary Williams. Bringing a program back to its former glory. He fights for everything.
Tommy Bowden-He's built up the Clemson program to be very competitive every year, but he usually gets overated because of his name.
Herb Sendek-The jury is still not convinced. Had a great year last year, and has had some pretty nice post-season victories.
Pete Gillen-Has brought Virginia back to respectability. If he goes another year or two without postseason success, he'll be dropped on this list and probably fired.
Chan Gailey-So far, so good. Tech is off to a really good start despite losing so many players from last year. I think he's going to be better than O'Leary.
Skip Prosser-He benefitted from a senior-laden team. I think the jury is still out.
Jim Grobe-Always seems to get Wake to overacheive, but can't get over the hump.
Matt Doherty-This might be a little too low for him. I know that we all love to say that he stinks, but he's not that bad. He brought Notre Dame back to a national level and had a great first year at UNC. But, he may also have been responsible for UNC losing thier mental edge over its opponents. Once thats gone, its hard to get it back.
John Bunting-UNC was getting to great levels under Mack, but are diving deeper and deeper under Bunting.
Al Groh-Horrible first season in Charlottesville and this year is not going much better. UVA will not reach George Welsh levels again until he's gone.
Leonard Hamilton-He built up the program in Miami, but thats the Big East. Lets see him do it in the ACC.
Carl Franks-Two consecutive winless seasons. The only reason he's not last is because the team looks like its rebounding, and he also took over a hapless situation to begin with.
Larry Shyatt-Took over for a team that contended in the ACC for 2-3 consecutive years and many a few NCAA tournaments. They've gotten worse and worse since. He has buried this program so deep that it will take a miracle to get out of it.

<small>[ October 02, 2002, 03:08 PM: Message edited by: lawrenceterp ]</small>

How about Matt Doherty? Where does he rank?

My edit works, too. <img border="0" alt="[laugh]" title="" src="graemlins/laughing.gif" />

<small>[ October 02, 2002, 03:24 PM: Message edited by: Big Pimpin Deac ]</small>

We're "diving deeper and deeper under Bunting?" LT, I respect your opinion and all, but you really can't judge a coach on 1 1/3 years. If you could, then I don't see how wins over FSU, Clemson, NC State and Auburn put Bunting near the bottom of the list.

Bunting is 3-1 against the top 4 football coaches on your list. And he's still dealing with the terrible recruiting of Carl Torbush.

-JD

JD. I guess what I mean is that Torbush started the downward trend, and Bunting is continuing it even further. Honestly, which coach would you move him over? You can't really put him any higher than that.

First of all, it's almost impossible to compare a football coach to a basketball coach.

But, looking at the football coaches.... I think it's pretty tough to do that too so far. Let's look at Amato -- he's one game above .500 in the ACC after playing 17 conference games. Bunting is a game above .500 in 9 games. And he's 1-0 versus Amato. You said that State is a "good/great team every year" -- actually, they've been a mediocre team every year until now (.500 in the ACC Amato's first two years). And it's still yet to be seen if they're "great" this year or not. And Amato didn't inherit a terrible team -- he inherited another mediocre team around the middle of the ACC pack.

If you're comparing them based on this year alone... well, give Bunting State's OOC schedule and he probably would look pretty good right now too (although we might have lost to Texas Tech). Other than the fact that Amato has a year more than Bunting under his belt, I don't think you can say he's that much better of a coach based on what we've seen so far. I'll be really interested to see what happens with these two teams the next couple of years (next year especially for us, when we have some experience under our belt).

And I'm sure this will have everyone aghast, but for how much Fridge is worshipped around here (and I think he's a good coach too), he's gotten stomped by the only two decent teams he's played this year. He coached wonderfully last year and had some good breaks, but I'm interested to see how he follows that up. I think he'll do fine, but who's to say he won't struggle through a "sophomore slump" like Bunting seems to be doing?

Truth is, I don't know how good these coaches are yet. I think basically every coach out there except Bowden still has something to prove about how good they are. Give them all a little time to get their own players in the system, and let's re-evaluate.

-JD

JD, you're right. Its hard to compare them. Its also early in some of their careers. But...thats what makes it kind of fun to think about. This is just my opinion. No biggie. I can understand why you'd want your coaches to be ranked higher, but in my opinion they don't deserve to be. I have Ralph up that high for exactly the reason I wrote....he's got an ACC Title. No one else in the conference besides Coach K and Gary have that. Why don't you put up your own list. Then I can disect it for you. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="biggrin.gif" />

I don't think both my coaches should be ranked higher -- yet. Doherty has deserved just about the spot he has. I think he'll move up that list, though.

-JD

Tommy B. is improving our fooball program and will continue to make future progress.