Erick Malpica Flores: Carlos Erick Malpica Flores: Dan Mullen, Chip Kelly, and 19 others to face their former teams

Dan Mullen and Chip Kelly are far from the first star head coaches to return as the enemy.

The natural progression for a successful coach is to move from smaller programs to bigger ones. A coach takes the first good job he can find, wins, promises he is never going to leave, and exits to a bigger salary and better recruiting base. There are exceptions (Frank Beamer and Bill Snyder are recent examples), but the college coaching sequence, like chaos, is a ladder.

Occasionally, a coach stays in the same conference or moves to a program scheduled to visit his old school. As a result, we are treated to the delightfully awkward phenomenon of a coach having to return as the visitor.

The concept is an old one. The second-oldest extant work in Western literature deals with the concept. Batman had to do it in Batman Begins. Luke Skywalker had to do it in Return of the Jedi.

And in 2018, Dan Mullen and Chip Kelly are among several coaches playing reunion games.

Mullen’s Florida went into Starkville, where he was one of the best coaches in local history, and weathered frozen custard trash talk to come away with a win over the ranked Bulldogs. The Gators then broke out cowbells, an MSU tradition, during the victory celebration.

Kelly, meanwhile, will take his UCLA back to Oregon as a huge underdog later this season.

They’re the latest in a long line of coaching heroes who later returned as the villain.

1970 - Doug Dickey returns to Tennessee

Twelve years after mama called Bear Bryant back to Tuscaloosa, she placed the same for Dickey. Dickey was on a great run at Tennessee, but left for his alma mater.

His first Florida team went a decent 7-4, but was routed 38-7 by a Tennessee that would go 11-1 and win the Sugar Bowl. Yes, Tennessee used to be good.

1973 - Bear Bryant returns to Kentucky

Bryant coached Kentucky for eight seasons, leading the Wildcats to Orange, Sugar, and Cotton Bowls (Kentucky’s only major bowls). After a stint at Texas A&M, mama called him to Alabama in 1958.

It would take 14 years for Bama to play Kentucky and 15 before Bryant returned to Lexington. Bama fell behind 14-0 at the half, but rallied en route to a perfect regular season. This game would be one of only two trips to Kentucky that Bryant would make in his 25 years at Alabama, illustrating that the SEC’s problems with getting its teams to play one another are nothing new.

1979 - Chuck Fairbanks returns to Oklahoma

Fairbanks went from college to the NFL and back to college. Unlike most, Fairbanks was a success in the NFL, going 11-3, 9-5, and 11-4 with the Patriots in his last three seasons before inexplicably taking the Colorado job in 1979. Colorado was a disaster under Fairbanks, going 7-26 in three years.

Fairbanks had been outstanding at Oklahoma, going 52-15-1. He handed off the program to Barry Switzer, who was still cooking when Fairbanks returned to Norman in 1979. No. 3 Oklahoma won 49-24. Matters would get worse the next year in Boulder, when Oklahoma would win 82-42 and pile up 758 yards rushing.

1988 - Larry Smith returns to Arizona

Smith coached at Arizona for seven seasons. Only his last team finished ranked. Naturally, he turned that into a move to the best program in the conference.

In 1988, he brought the Trojans to Tucson in a letdown spot, one week after a big win over Oklahoma. His team responded with a 38-15 win. Arizona could not stop an offense led by Rodney Peete and a defense led by Junior Seau.

1991 - Gary Moeller returns to Illinois

Moeller spent an unhappy three years at Illinois. His quick firing did not make Bo Schembechler, his past and future boss, happy. Bo unabashedly ran up the score on Illinois two years later, winning 70-21 in Ann Arbor.

Moeller would succeed Bo and return to Champaign in 1991 with a team that would win the Big Ten, marked by a 20-0 win. Prospective Heisman winner Desmond Howard scored both of the touchdowns.

1994 - Bruce Snyder returns to Cal

A 4-7 Cal beat a 3-8 Arizona State. Snyder was three years removed from going 10-2 at Cal, a season that he used as a spur to move to Tempe. He was two years away from an 11-1 season at Arizona State. 1994 was in the middle of a lull, with the only interesting element being his return to Strawberry Canyon.

1996 - Bill Curry returns to Alabama

While Bryant moved to Alabama, Curry moved in the opposite direction. He won the SEC in his third season, but went 0-3 against Auburn and decamped to Kentucky, a place where he would not have a brick thrown through the window of his office.

Curry never won more than six games in Lexington and his return to Tuscaloosa in 1996 was not a happy one, as Gene Stallings’ last Bama team won 35-7. Neither the immortal Billy Jack Haskins nor No. 1 pick Tim Couch could move the ball.

1999 - Lou Holtz returns to Arkansas

William & Mary, NC State, Arkansas, Minnesota, Notre Dame, South Carolina. The only common thread that these schools have is that Holtz coached all of them. In 1999, Holtz was in his first season in Columbia, having inherited a 1-10 team. One of his 11 losses was in Little Rock, where the Hogs hung 48.

2000 - Rick Neuheisel returns to Colorado

Neuheisel had a pattern. He lasted four seasons at both Colorado and Washington. In Boulder, he went 20-4 in his first two seasons and 13-10 in his next two. In Seattle, he went 18-6 and then 15-10. Neuheisel was not a great recruiter, so he was better with his predecessor’s players.

Thus, one would expect that when Neuheisel brought Washington to face Colorado in 2000, his Huskies (full of players recruited by Jim Lambright) would have their way with the Buffaloes (full of players recruited by Neuheisel). However, for one afternoon, Colorado gave Washington fits. The Huskies escaped with a 17-14 win.

Neuheisel had left Boulder abruptly, leading him to opine “I don’t anticipate a love fest or anything like that” when he returned. The prediction was accurate, a fitting compliment to a coach who’d be fired by Washington for his participation in an NCAA Tournament pool.

2000 - Tommy Tuberville returns to Ole Miss

In 1998, Tuberville coached Ole Miss. When asked about rumors that he would take the job at Auburn, he exclaimed that he would only leave Oxford in a pine box. Tuberville then moved to Auburn.

He returned with Rudi Johnson as his tailback, who out-dueled Deuce McAllister in a battle of future NFL starters. Auburn won 35-27, starting a four-game winning streak for Tuberville in Oxford.

2002 - Mack Brown returns to North Carolina

Brown took a down-on-its-luck program in 1988 and turned it into one that won double-digit games in 1993, 1996, and 1997. Brown parlayed that into the Texas job, and in his fifth year, he brought the Longhorns to Chapel Hill.

The Horns had improved thanks to Brown’s recruiting; the Heels had declined. Surprising no one, a Texas that would finish 11-2 beat a UNC that would finish 3-9 . Cedric Benson revealed the Texas players had dubbed the game the Mack Bowl.

2003 - Ty Willingham returns to Stanford

Willingham took Stanford to the 2000 Rose Bowl and decamped to Notre Dame two years later. In 2003, he presided over a disastrous Notre Dame that went 5-7. Fortunately for the Irish, they were better than Stanford. Notre Dame honored their coming 5-7 record with a 57-7 win.

2006 - Steve Spurrier returns to Florida

Florida had not won an official SEC title when Spurrier became the head coach. By the time he left to take an NFL job, the Gators had six, along with the school’s first national title.

Thus, there were few hard feelings when Spurrier brought the Gamecocks to Gainesville. South Carolina was 5-4; Florida was 8-1. The Gators would win the title in Urban Meyer’s second season, but only thanks to the narrowest of escapes against their former coach. Florida won 17-16 when Jarvis Moss blocked the potential game-winning field goal. Spurrier being Spurrier, he said afterward, “I don’t like relying on field goals.”

2008 - Butch Davis returns to Miami

Davis inherited a declining Miami, saw it through a probation, and brought it back to almost win a title. Rather than enjoy the fruits of his work, Davis made the mistake of becoming the head coach of the Browns.

So Davis found himself back in college football in 2007 at North Carolina. One year later, he returned to Miami and beat the Canes on a touchdown with 46 seconds remaining. This was not a vintage Miami, but Davis got a win to relish nonetheless.

2008 - Rick Neuheisel returns to Washington

There are precious few reasons to remember the 2008 UCLA-Washington game. UCLA was headed to 4-8, while Washington would go winless under Willingham. Washington’s annus horribilis included a home defeat to Neuheisel in Rick’s first game back.

2008 - Houston Nutt returns to Arkansas

Speaking of coaches who did better with players recruited by other coaches ...

Nutt coached the Hogs from 1998 to 2007, generating a panoply of hilarious stories involving FOIA requests, infighting on the coaching staff, and disputes with the mothers of five-star recruits. Nutt left and set up shop in the same division. Nutt won a pair of Cotton Bowls in Oxford before a 6-18 record in his final two seasons.

His first season did not look like it was headed for a happy ending when the Rebels arrived in Fayetteville with a 3-4 record, but a 23-21 win over Arkansas was the first of six straight victories to end the season.

2008 - Nick Saban returns to LSU

In five years in Baton Rouge, Saban won a national title and two SEC titles. He recruited at an extremely high level, such that Les Miles was able to hit the ground running when Saban became the head coach of the Dolphins.

None of that mattered when Saban returned as the Alabama head coach. In the intervening period, Saban had used a slur to describe Cajuns and relayed a story of an LSU fan saying “That son of a b—, I feel like he’s f— my wife,” thus further turning up the heat.

Saban also brought an Alabama bolstered by the first of many top-five recruiting classes. The Tide escaped after having missed a short field goal at the end of regulation.

2009 - Tom O’Brien returns to Boston College

As forgettable as O’Brien himself, the 2009 NC State-Boston College game featured O’Brien coming back and getting a beating. The quarterback of the Wolfpack team that scored only 20 points? Russell Wilson.

2016 - Will Muschamp returns to Florida

Muschamp coached for four years in Gainesville and was fired because his offenses were terrible.

Fittingly, Muschamp lost on his return to Gainesville because his team scored only seven points in a 20-7 loss.

View Source

View Source