Ranking how all the new coaches did in 2018

Rice beat Prairie View in the first game of the season then lost 10 straight before beating Old Dominion in the finale. Along the way, Rice gave UTEP its first win in 21 games. Rice was obviously in a rebuilding mode when Bloomgren got there, and the loss to UTEP may have been the bottom. The Owls were rarely competitive and are a long way off from going to three straight bowl games earlier this decade. Bloomgren is a good coach, but he has a lot of work to do to turn this thing around. 

Arkansas went winless in the SEC and 2-10 for the season. No one is pleased with the way the year ended, most of all Coach Morris. He is set to overhaul the roster and has a top 20 recruiting class coming in. This is a work in progress, and Morris is ready to put this lousy season in the rearview mirror.

Smith is a former quarterback at Oregon State and after coordinator and quarterbacks coaching jobs at Idaho, Montana, Boise State and Washington, he returned to his alma mater. The Beavers had a dismal season, with a 2-10 mark, as Smith worked to determine what he had on this roster to build on. The university believes in him and should be given time to attempt to turn this around, but he will need to limit the amount of blowout losses.

UTEP won a game this season, and that is an improvement over last season as the Miners snapped a 20-game losing streak with a win over Rice. This is a major rebuild, so this will take some time. Dimel hasn't had much success as a head coach prior to arriving in El Paso (he was 8-26 in a three-year stint as Houston's head coach from 2000-2002), but he won't be deterred by such a difficult job. The Miners have struggled for quite some time, and showing any success...even in a one-win season...brings a little bit of hope to west Texas.

This has been a disastrous year for Kelly and the Bruins. UCLA finished 3-9 on the season, yet no one noticed. Kelly helmed a high-octane offense at Oregon and then became a pariah in the NFL. Coming back to college was a no-brainer, and many felt that if he was in the right spot, he could find the success he had with the Ducks. Certainly that didn't happen this year, and there's already worry that Kelly won't ever get that magic back. One of the worst things to be in Los Angeles is irrelevant, and the crowd that watched the Bruins lose to Stanford at the Rose Bowl in the finale was the smallest in 21 years. 

Lewis was the youngest head coach in college football this season and got off to a tough 2-10 season at Kent State. The defense was horrible this year, as his roster lacked speed and, frankly, the talent to compete in the MAC. This is the fourth straight season the Golden Flashes won three or less games and is far away from the team that won 11 games in 2012. Still, Lewis has a plan and some time to turn this around.

This has been a terribly disappointing season in Tuscon. What was a promising lead up to the season with Heisman talk surrounding quarterback Khalil Tate ended with the team being shredded by Washington State (69-28) and a loss to rival Arizona State. It was such a bad season that Sumlin was put right back on all those hot seat lists that he lived on while he was head coach at Texas A&M. There have even been rumors of Tate possibly transferring. Not a good start at all for the Wildcats. 

South Alabama is in its sixth season of FBS play and slogged to a 3-9 finish. Campbell isn't your run-of-the-mill new coach. He led Delta State to a Division II national championship in 2000 and Central Arkansas to consecutive playoff appearances prior to taking the South Alabama job. He's turned around programs everywhere he's gone, so these Jaguars aren't a lost cause. It just will take some time to get it turned around.

The headline here is that Florida State's 36-year bowl streak ended in Taggart's first season in Tallahassee. The fan base is unhappy that after 42 seasons of just Bobby Bowden and Jimbo Fisher as head coaches, Taggart failed to continue the streak. The 'Noles lost four of the last five games to end the season, and the offense has been bad all year long. The cries around the program have placed a major target on Taggart's back.

First year in and Napier has Louisiana playing in the inaugural Sun Belt championship game. The team's five losses this year were to Alabama, Mississippi State, Appalachian State, Troy and Coastal Carolina. Napier has coached at Clemson and Alabama and has tasted success before, and he is trying to mold the Ragin' Cajuns into a Sun Belt power. He's on his way.

This was supposed to be a match made in heaven and when a sleeping giant was going to finally wake up. Except it didn't happen that way. Frost, a former Cornhuskers quarterback, came back to Nebraska after resurrecting UCF's program from the dead and completing an undefeated season. Nebraska started the season 0-6, with a home loss to Troy being the low point. The Huskers would go on to win four of their remaining six games, though only one (Michigan State) could be deemed as an impressive victory. It will be interesting to see how this goes forward and if Frost can return Nebraska to the glory days of when he played.

It was a long and winding road for Pruitt to get the Volunteers job, and it got off to a rocky start. Tennessee finished last in the SEC East with three of its five wins against East Tennessee State, Charlotte and UTEP. The Vols did beat Auburn and Kentucky, which shows there is some promise bubbling, but there were far too many games where they just weren't competitive. Pruitt is known as a shrewd recruiter, so he should be able to stock the Vols with talent over the next few years and build them back up to a contender.

I am including Canada in this even though he is an interim coach because he's been the Terps' head coach for the entire season. Canada has done a decent job, considering he wasn't named the head coach until weeks before the season began. He has had to both navigate the team through the D.J. Durkin scandal as well as get his players through the death of lineman Jordan McNair. Maryland opened the season by beating Texas and nearly upset Ohio State late in the season. It isn't known what will happen going forward, but Canada filled in admirably and could continue to be a head coach either in College Park or elsewhere.

Dykes is known for his offensive style of airing it out, and it was a mixed bag this year with SMU. There were times when the offense shined (especially in its 62-50 win over hapless UConn), but it is going to take time to get it where Dykes wants it. The Mustangs also struggled to stop anyone and will miss out on a bowl game for the fourth time in five seasons. Despite those setbacks, SMU was in the American West Division race for much of the year and looks to have a bright future under Dykes.

Coming into the season, people felt Edwards joining the Sun Devils was a joke. An ex-NFL head coach who had been doing analyst work at ESPN for a decade was taking over at Arizona State? Did he know the college game? Can he relate to the college kids? His season has been fairly successful, ending with a 7-5 record and a bowl bid. The Sun Devils started off hot and beat Michigan State but cooled off quickly. Still, Arizona State was competitive all year, beating Pac 12 South Division champion Utah as well as losing close games at Washington, Colorado and Oregon. He finished 5-1 at home and did a respectable job, but Arizona State has been stuck at respectable for the last three years. A nice start to build from.

Moorhead took over in Starkville after Dan Mullen left for the Florida Gators head coaching gig. Moorhead, who had a highly successful four-year stint as Fordham's head coach, he brought his brand of hard-nosed football to Mississippi State and produced. He won eight games while playing a brutal schedule and beat rival Ole Miss in the Egg Bowl. 

Fisher surprised some when he left a highly successful stint at Florida State to take the Texas A&M job. In his first season, he improved the Aggies with an 8-4 record and put them back into the national rankings. A&M finished in second place in the SEC's West Division — not too shabby when both Alabama and Clemson were on the schedule. He has a 10-year contract, so he's got plenty of time to mold this program into what he wants and hopefully achieve the same success he had with the Seminoles.

Cristobal has done two things in his first season in Eugene: He's brought some stability to a program that needs it, and he has the Ducks back on track to be a contender in the Pac 12 again. He knows winning, as he won two national championships as a player at Miami and another as an assistant coach at Alabama. He's also one of the best recruiters in the country and wants to build his team around a sound offensive line. While the roster isn't exactly what he wants, he's ahead of schedule in making Oregon relevant again.

Mullen has certainly done a good job in his first season in Gainsville. Last season, the Gators disappointed everyone with a 4-7 mark, which led to the firing of Jim McElwain. Mullen, who was 8-4 with Mississippi State last year, turned the program back around, going 9-3 during the regular season and beating rivals Florida State, LSU and his former team, Mississippi State. 

Sure, it would seem that inheriting a program that went undefeated the previous year would be a ready-made situation for success. Heupel has embraced those expectations and has continued the Golden Knights' winning ways, as they are back with another undefeated season. How much of that is Heupel, and how much of it is the experienced players? It remains to be seen, but he has this team right back in the national discussion.