College football coaching highlights and lowlights for Week 5 - 247Sports

Whether it was a new head coaching getting his first win, or an old head coach continuing to torment the blue bloods, this weekend saw a lot of upsets and wake up calls. Here are the weekend’s top coaching performances.

Head Coach of the week: Matt Campbell, Iowa State

When Iowa State lost its 2020 season opener to Group of Five upstart Louisiana, it was a disappointing start to the season for a coach that has operating on the outskirts of conference contender since his arrival in Ames back in 2016. Even a journey to the outskirts has been a rare achievement for a perennial bottom-dwelling Iowa State program but with an experienced quarterback, talented tight ends, a premier running back and plenty of defensive playmakers, 0-1 felt like the continuation of a steady plateau. This weekend was something different.

Iowa State had to settle for field goals early, often an insufficient achievement against Lincoln Riley teams. But it also forced field goals out of the Sooners, playing bend-don’t-break defense on three of Oklahoma’s six scoring drives. Special teams chipped in with an 85-yard kick return out of Kene Nwangwu to set up the game-tying score. Oklahoma wasn’t caught off guard, coming off a loss to Kansas State and a near upset one year vs. the Clones one year earlier. The Sooners knew this Iowa State team was dangerous. The Cyclones were just the better team and Campbell reasserted himself as one of the best coaches in the Big 12.

Offensive Coordinator of the Week: Newland Isaac and Willy Korn, Coastal Carolina

The No. 4 team in the country right now in points per drive is Coastal Carolina. It sits behind heavyweights Florida and Alabama and sudden G5 bully BYU. Coastal Carolina is also sitting in the top 10 in yards per play and scoring percentage per drive. This weekend was the best showcase to date of what the Chanticleers are putting together on offense. Coastal averaged 6.74 yards per play on the day, managed a ridiculous 41:21 time of possession, had balance throwing and running the football.

Coastal Carolina head coach Jamey Chadwell mentioned after the game how important it was to keep the Arkansas State offense on the sideline. An 18-play, 94-yard scoring drive in the second quarter got that done. The next time Coastal Carolina got the ball back it ripped off a 14-play drive that spanned 7:57. For context, Arkansas State allowed fewer yards per play against Memphis and Kansas State than it did against Coastal Carolina. Korn is a former four-star recruit that signed with Clemson out of the 2007 class in high school. Isaac has been with Chadwell all but one year since 2009, joining him at North Greenville, Delta State and Charleston Southern before rejoining him with Coastal Carolina in 2018.

Defensive Coordinator of the Week: Barry Odom, Arkansas

One week after Mississippi State beat the defending national champions and set an SEC record for passing yards in a single game, it was held to 14 points in a loss to an Arkansas team that hadn’t won an SEC game in its last 20 tries. Odom took the exact opposite approach to the one that got LSU torched by the Bulldogs. Instead of playing man coverage and challenging Mississippi State on the perimeter, he forced KJ Costello and that Air Raid offense to play patient and disciplined throughout the game and played opportunistic football to get the win.

Last week, in its win over LSU, Mississippi State averaged 10.4 yards per pass attempt. This week, Odom’s group cut that number in half, forcing 5.2 yards per pass attempt. The bend-don’t-break mentality paid off with the three Costello interceptions coming on the seventh, sixth and sixth play respectively of Mississippi State drives. As good as that Arkansas defense played, it wasn’t getting much help from the offense either. Arkansas’ offense only put together two drives that ate up more than 2:33 of the play clock. Nine of Arkansas’ 14 drives consisted of four plays or less. Mississippi State had a 13-minute time of possession advantage but it never disrupted the gameplan or the disciplined approach of Odoms’ unit.

Special Teams Coordinator of the Week: Chris Brasfield, SMU

The obvious key to SMU beating Memphis in one of the biggest Group of Five matchups of the season was big plays out of its big-time wide receiver Reggie Roberson. The more subtle key to victory was the play of the special teams. It starts with kick coverage. Memphis fielded seven kickoffs, four of them were touchbacks. Two others were returned to Memphis’ 19 and 13 yard-line and one more was covered on the game’s second to last play. SMU punter Chris Naggar had four kicks, two inside the 20 and two for 50+ yards. Finally, SMU was a perfect 3-for-3 on field goals, with Naggar hitting from 27, 25 and 43, which was the game-winner with nine seconds to play.

Position Coach of the Week: Matt Luke, offensive line, Georgia

We shouldn’t have been surprised to see Georgia’s offensive line looking a little less dominant than we’re used to in its debut performance against Arkansas. It lost two tackles to the first round and another starter to transfer. There were some new faces and the talent was going to take a dip but the difference between game one and game two with the group has been striking. After averaging a paltry 2.8 yards per carry running the football against Arkansas, Georgia averaged 4.5 yards per carry against Auburn and set the tone physically in the game. The offensive interior trio of Justin Shaffer, Trey Hill and Ben Cleveland has emerged as the strength of the unit as Warren McClendon settles in at right tackle opposite Jamaree Salyer on the left side. Luke, the former Ole Miss head coach, seems to have found his five and two games in the group is starting to hit a stride.

Hot Seat of the Week: Tom Herman, Texas

Since 2017, his first year at Texas, Tom Herman has lost as a ranked team to an unranked opponent six different times. That’s the most in college football and it underscores a frustrating trend under Herman: lack of consistency. The talent has been elevated, the roster appears to be stacked and yet Texas continues to have issues developing the kind of steady success that has been a baseline for the powerhouse teams that it is trying to ascend into. It seems unlikely that Herman’s job is legitimately in jeopardy this season, particularly given the COVID environment athletic departments find themselves in, but his third loss to TCU in four tries doesn’t paint a pretty picture.

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