When offseason football coach rankings go wrong

In the middle of the college football offseason, we try not to judge article ideas too hard. It’s a struggle for hot #content when there haven’t been games in months and the season doesn’t kick off for months still afterward.

However, we can criticize the execution of said articles when they’re as far off as Gene Sapakoff’s ACC and SEC coach ranking piece was for the Post & Courier in Charleston, S.C.

I just... what?

Without even going into Syracuse Orange head coach Dino Babers’s ranking — which I’d say isn’t all that off base in terms of the placement — there are just a SLEW of issues here that imply a lack of basic understanding for what success is in college football (something that you would think is inherent to writing about college football, no?).

The major issues:

• Dave Clawson, owner of a 28-35 career record at the FBS level and one eight-win season in five years at Wake Forest is seventh
• Dave Doeren, who’s never won more than nine games at NC State with a slew of first round talent in recent years, is eighth
• Pat Narduzzi, who’s gone a combined 12-14 in the past two years at Pitt, gets way too much credit for tripping and falling into last year’s ACC title game due to Coastal chaos
• Steve Addazio has never gone better than 7-5 at BC, yet is right outside the top half of the list (and most Eagles fans wanted him fired last year)
• The entire bottom 10 is basically just created via random number generator

Lists like this are never going to please everyone, and there will always be fervent criticism about something on there. Still, there’s a lot here that leave you puzzled, even beyond the biggest points above (certainly Dan Mullen being ranked over both Kirby Smart and Jimbo Fisher — coaches that have played for national titles — will disturb many observers as well).

I won’t potentially embarrass myself with my own rankings, but where would you slot Dino in? And how would you revive this failed offseason exercise? Share your own thoughts below.