Michael Ventre

At or near the start of this decade, there was a veritable pageant of college football coaches who were sure to win multiple BCS championships. They included Mack Brown, Bob Stoops, Pete Carroll, Jim Tressel, Nick Saban and Urban Meyer. And it’s still possible. They and some other top names in the business will just have to coach for another 30 years or so to get it done.

Everybody loves a winner. There is no more beautiful sight for fans of a particular school than to see their famous multi-millionaire head coach hold up that hideous hunk of BCS hardware and mug for the paparazzi. Such a scene says a lot about the program, especially this: We got our money’s worth.

But the harsh truth is that not all the celebrity coaches can win as many titles as fans and media think they should have won. To paraphrase an old axiom: It’s hard out here for a coach.

Meyer has won two BCS championships, and is in position to make it three this season. Even die-hard Meyer bashers would have a difficult time taking an enthusiastic swing at that piñata. He has built a factory in Gainesville, and as a result has earned the right to enjoy a criticism-free existence.

You know, like Bill Belichick.

But Meyer is the exception. Even men who have sensational backgrounds in football and who have delivered one successful season after another still get pounded for not doing more. It comes with the territory and the obese paycheck.

Why can’t they all be like Urban?

In fact, even though Florida is currently planted in pay dirt, the Gators aren’t infallible. Two years ago Florida finished 9-4 and 5-3 in the SEC. Nine and four. And to give you an idea of how far the program fell, the Gators lost to Michigan, 41-35, in the Capital One Bowl. Scholars have debated since then whether the greater ignominy was losing to Michigan, or playing in the Capital One Bowl.

But Meyer got Florida back on track, and last year the Gators defeated Oklahoma, 24-14, in the BCS title game. So although there are fluctuations in a program’s fortunes, Meyer has managed to keep the Gators from hitting an extended nasty patch.

Oklahoma’s Stoops and USC’s Carroll have not been so lucky, but then again, that depends on the absurd levels of expectations involved.

Stoops took over the Sooners in 1999. The following year, he won the BCS championship, going 13-0. Since then, he’s been on the skids, winning 11 games or more only seven more times in the next nine seasons. I don’t see how the man shows his face at coaches’ conventions.

This season, expectations were raised because Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Sam Bradford defied the talking heads and returned to Oklahoma rather than enter the NFL draft. Then Bradford injured his shoulder, and the Sooners found themselves among the Big 12 also-rans.

In 2001, his first season at USC, Carroll went 6-6. Since then, he hasn’t lost more than two games in one season — until this year. His Trojans are 7-3, and the way they got shellacked against Oregon and Stanford, there’s no guarantee that won’t deteriorate into 7-6, which would include a loss in the Plenty of Tickets Available Bowl.

Stoops stumbled because of a broken QB, and other injuries. Carroll — who had won an AP title in 2003 and a BCS championship the following year — had the perfect storm of inexperienced front seven on defense, true freshman quarterback, and new offensive and defensive coordinators.

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Whatever the reasons, coaches don’t win as many championships as people think they should because stuff happens. Sometimes recruits don’t pan out. Sometimes recruits commit, then de-commit, leaving roster holes. Sometimes a team is chock full of talent, but those players become fat and overconfident. Injuries, nightmare schedules, changes in the coaching staffs, off-the-field incidents involving players, lack of leadership in the locker room and on the playing field, and the improvements of other teams from year to year figure into the equation of every prominent coach’s results.