Youth movement: Coaches getting younger across Power Five

The youth movement is in full effect when it comes to coaching at Power Five programs, with the average age coming in at 49.7 across the 64 teams. Here is a complete breakdown and an in-depth look at each division among the top conferences, and some thoughts from Rivals.com National Recruiting Director Mike Farrell.

RELATED: Richt changing perception of Miami | Herman faces expectations in Year 1

OVERVIEW: The ACC Atlantic does not have a lot of outliers among the group and is fairly even across age ranges with Boston College’s Steve Addazio (58) being the oldest in the division and NC State’s Dave Doeren the youngest at 45. Coming off his first national title, Clemson’s Dabo Swinney is the second youngest in the group at 47.

OVERVIEW: The ACC Coastal is the oldest group in college football even with Virginia Tech’s Justin Fuente being the youngest coach in the conference at 40 years old. Dragging down the ages here are Duke’s David Cutcliffe at 62 – the oldest in the conference- followed by Georgia Tech’s Paul Johnson and 59 and Miami’s Mark Richt at 57. Fuente is the only coach in the division not in his 50s or 60s. Recommendation? Lots of early games.

FARRELL’S TAKE ON ACC: “Richt is a great fit at Miami and he’s recruiting very well. It all depends on who the right fit is. Larry Fedora has done a really good job at North Carolina recruiting and developing guys and Johnson gets guys for his scheme. When you look at the Coastal division, it really hasn’t taken that next step when it comes to playoffs and the national championship. When you have Dabo Swinney, who is sort of the young coaching face of college football, it might make some of those programs look around a little bit in the next couple years.”

OVERVIEW: The fourth youngest coaching division in college football is the Big Ten East and that’s exciting because a lot of these high-end coaches will probably be around their respective schools for a long time. Rose Bowl runner-ups Penn State has a coach in James Franklin who’s only 45. Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh and Ohio State’s Urban Meyer are both 53. Maryland’s D.J. Durkin is the ripe young age of 39, the youngest coach in the division, but not the conference. Seems like a lot of good coaching rivalries are in store for years to come.

OVERVIEW: An injection of young coaches has catapulted the Big Ten West to fifth youngest nationally among divisions and Minnesota’s P.J. Fleck – at only 36 years of age – is rowing the boat on the youth movement. Pat Fitzgerald played at Northwestern and has been the head coach since 2006 but he’s only 42. Purdue just hired 46-year-old Jeff Brohm. Bringing up the rear is Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz at 61 and Nebraska’s Mike Riley, who is a spry 64 years old. It is hard to believe he’s the oldest coach in the conference.

FARRELL’S TAKE ON BIG TEN: “Jim Harbaugh, Urban Meyer and James Franklin are the face of the conference. Wisconsin is a successful program and Nebraska is recruiting well, but it comes down to those guys. When you look at Harbaugh, it’s a guy who looks like a little kid. It’s his energy and mentality. Urban, despite the health setbacks, is a constant, on-the-go guy and Franklin is a tremendous talker who is a great recruiter. Those guys set the bar. I don’t think you can get older in any conference and the Big Ten can’t afford to do that again. At one point, the average coaching age wasn’t what you need to recruit at the highest level and the influx of young coaches is what the conference needed.”

OVERVIEW: The oldest coach in college football – Kansas State’s Bill Snyder at 77 years old – is in the Big 12, but this is a conference absolutely dominated by young coaches. If you remove Snyder from the equation, the average age in the conference dips to 43.2. Talk about a youth movement. Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley is the youngest Power Five coach in the nation at 33 and then Texas Tech’s Kliff Kingsbury and Iowa State’s Matt Campbell are only 37. Two 42-year-olds in Texas’ Tom Herman and Baylor’s Matt Rhule join the conference this season. This is scary: Riley was born during Ronald Reagan’s first term. About one month after Riley’s birth, Snyder would turn 44.

FARRELL’S TAKE ON BIG 12: “Snyder kills the curve. The Big 12 is the perfect example of what we’re going to see in college football. I was just on a few message boards of teams with coaches on the hot seat and when names come up it’s Chip Kelly or Les Miles, guys like that. It’s going to be these young, hot-shot assistants and coordinators who are the future of college football and the Big 12 has set itself up well not just with Riley and Herman but some of the other young, aggressive, active recruiters – Rhule, Gundy, Campbell, Beaty and others. The Big 12 will be Riley and Herman and everybody else and that’s the way other Power Five conferences will gravitate when replacing their coaches.”

OVERVIEW: Other than the Big 12 and the SEC East, the Pac-12 North is the youngest division of coaches and – again – it’s because schools are looking to youthful coaches to revitalize some stale programs. New Oregon coach Willie Taggart and new Cal coach Justin Wilcox are both 40 years old. The dean of Pac-12 North coaches is Washington State’s Mike Leach at 56. Scary to think Washington’s Chris Petersen is only 52 and Stanford’s David Shaw is 44. Both could be around for a long while.

OVERVIEW: This one was surprising. Coming in as the second-oldest group of coaches was the Pac-12 South with every coach except USC’s Clay Helton being in their 50s. Utah’s Kyle Whittingham is the oldest at 57 but UCLA’s Jim Mora is 55 and Arizona’s Rich Rodriguez is right behind at 54. Helton is actually the oldest USC coach of the last three, but would anybody trade him for the messes of Lane Kiffin or Steve Sarkisian? Don’t think so.

FARRELL’S TAKE ON PAC-12: “The Pac-12 is set up really well. Helton was on the hot seat early last season and that’s completely changed. He’s a guy who’s being talked about leading a potential national championship run. Petersen is considered one of the best coaches in all of college football. Shaw is respected by everybody and on and on. We don’t know what Taggart is going to do, but he’s recruiting well. The Pac-12 will be very calculated in their decisions. If Jim Mora or Todd Graham go, I don’t think those schools will give the job to a coordinator kid. The Pac-12 is set up best with bright, young coaches and we’ll see if that plays out on the field.”

OVERVIEW: Other than the Big 12, the SEC East is the youngest division among coaches and again it’s because schools are not hesitant to bring in guys without tons of other head coaching experience. The youngest in Missouri’s Barry Odom at 40 followed by Georgia’s second-year coach Kirby Smart at 41. All but two coaches in the division – Florida’s Jim McElwain and Kentucky’s Mark Stoops – are still in their 40s. McElwain is the oldest at 55, hardly over the hill.

OVERVIEW: Alabama’s Nick Saban is the conference elder by a long shot at 65 years old, born on Halloween 1951. New LSU coach Ed Orgeron is 55, Texas A&M’s Kevin Sumlin is 52 and Auburn’s Gus Malzahn is 51. The rest of the division’s permanent coaches are on the back end of their 40s, except for Mississippi State’s Dan Mullen, who’s right at 45. Matt Luke, 40, replaced Hugh Freeze, 47, at Ole Miss on Thursday, dropping the average age of the division. Outside of Luke, who is an interim coach, this is an older bunch, comparatively speaking, but has no problems winning or recruiting.

FARRELL’S TAKE ON SEC: “It will shift to the (SEC East). It’s kind of like people thinking Texas was going to be down forever. It’s not going to stay this way. You’re going to see a lot of coaches lose their jobs in the SEC West in the next few years. The hires those programs make will trend younger. The SEC East is in a transition stage. Guys have been there one year or just a few years. When one of your veteran coaches is Butch Jones, who hasn’t been around that long, you’re still in transition. The SEC East will eventually take over the SEC West. When Urban was there, we didn’t really have this discussion. Prior to Saban taking the Alabama job, the East was king for a while.”

OLDEST: Bill Snyder, Kansas State

YOUNGEST: Lincoln Riley, Oklahoma

OLD-TIMERS (post-60): David Cutcliffe, Mark Dantonio, Mike Riley, Kirk Ferentz, Nick Saban, Bill Snyder

YOUTH MOVEMENT (30s): Lincoln Riley, D.J. Durkin, P.J. Fleck, Kliff Kingsbury, Matt Campbell

CONFERENCE BREAKDOWN

Big 12: AVERAGE AGE: 46.6 years

SEC East: AVERAGE AGE: 46.7

Pac-12 North: AVERAGE AGE: 47.5 years

Big 10 East: AVERAGE AGE: 48.7 years

SEC West: AVERAGE AGE: 50.7

Big 10 West: AVERAGE AGE: 51.3 years

ACC Atlantic - AVERAGE AGE: 51.6 years

Pac-12 South: AVERAGE AGE: 52.5 years

ACC Coastal: AVERAGE AGE: 53.4 years