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Ohio - The Cradle of Football Coaches

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ShakerBuck

Hall of Fame
Its amazing to me, how, year in and year out, how coaches that grew up in North Eastern Ohio are so prominent in the College football landscape.

4 of the top 5 teams in the current BCS poll grew up in NEO. (not even including those others that made stops at tOSU as assistants along the way ...i.e. Pete Carroll etc. )

#1 LSU -- Les Miles - grew up in Elyria
#2 Kansas -- Mark Mangino -- Grew up in New Castle PA (I know just over the border) but also went to YSU
#4 Mizzou - Pinkel - Grew up in Akron
#5 tOSU - Tressel - Grew up in Mentor/Berea

also

#10 Oklahoma - Bob Stoops -- Grew up in Youngstown
#12 Florida - Urban Meyer -- Grew up in Astabula
#17 Illinois -- Ron Zook -- Grew up in Loudenville
 
ShakerBuck;1001460; said:
Its amazing to me, how, year in and year out, how coaches that grew up in North Eastern Ohio are so prominent in the College football landscape.

4 of the top 5 teams in the current BCS poll grew up in NEO. (not even including those others that made stops at tOSU as assistants along the way ...i.e. Pete Carroll etc. )

#1 LSU -- Les Miles - grew up in Elyria
#2 Kansas -- Mark Mangino -- Grew up in New Castle PA (I know just over the border) but also went to YSU
#4 Mizzou - Pinkel - Grew up in Akron
#5 tOSU - Tressel - Grew up in Mentor/Berea

also

#10 Oklahoma - Bob Stoops -- Grew up in Youngstown
#12 Florida - Urban Meyer -- Grew up in Astabula
#17 Illinois -- Ron Zook -- Grew up in Loudenville
Click to expand...

Bo Pelini (Youngstown Cardinal Mooney) is a hot commodity for a top head coaching job, and and Mike Trgovac (Austintown Fitch) is a serious contender for the Michigan job.
 
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U.S. NEWS
DECEMBER 25, 2008
Why Ohio Makes the Best Coaches
From Shula and Hayes to Stoops and Meyer, Ohioans rule football with a lunchbucket approachArticle

By DARREN EVERSON
Ohio is a state in a deep recession, laid low by the decline of manufacturing. And yet, the Buckeye state is to college football coaching what Silicon Valley is to technology: It's where the brightest minds come from.

Both Florida's Urban Meyer and Oklahoma's Bob Stoops, who will face off in the national-championship game on Jan. 8, grew up in Ohio. Recent title-winners Jim Tressel of Ohio State and Les Miles of LSU are native Ohioans, as are two of the college game's rising stars, Nebraska's Bo Pelini and Missouri's Gary Pinkel. The list of coaches with Ohio ties includes Alabama's Nick Saban, who played at Kent State and coached at Toledo, and USC's Pete Carroll, who was an Ohio State assistant in 1979.

Less than 4% of the country's population lives in Ohio, but 15% of college football's major-conference head coaches were born there -- the most for any state. And this volume is more than matched by quality: 14 of the last 18 teams that have made it to the national title game have had head coaches with Ohio connections.

Four decades ago, when Ohio State's Woody Hayes, Michigan's Bo Schembechler and Notre Dame's Ara Parseghian prowled the college sidelines -- and fellow Ohioans Don Shula and Chuck Noll ruled the NFL -- Ohio's coaching supremacy was a foregone conclusion. But at a time when the best football is generally played in the South -- teams from the Southeastern Conference have won the last two national titles -- the rise of a new generation of Ohio coaches belies the popular perception that Midwestern football is slow, staid and increasingly obsolete.

The state's passion for football is fed by a history of tough, lunchbucket labor in mining, manufacturing and steelmaking. Ohio has one of the highest percentages of native-born residents of any state, which helps its interest in football regenerate itself through generations. Ohio is the seventh-largest state but has the third-most high school football players.
Click to expand...

Why Ohio Makes the Best Coaches - WSJ.com
 
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