A lot of people in the media say this - college football news, espn etc. Generally for the last 5-10 years, the top tier of super elite-cfb jobs in terms of everything (prestige, recruiting, fan base, money, lifestyle etc) always, always, always includes Texas, USC and Florida. SC has temporarily been dethroned due to the threat of sanctions of course. Hell why do you think Mack Brown/Pete Carroll/Urban Meyer were never mentioned for other College jobs (other than wet dream "Meyer is catholic so he MUST coach for ND!")- there's basically no place else for them to go that wouldn't be a lateral move or a step down.
Two of the the top 5 jobs in the country opened up this year (USC, Notre Dame). Florida nearly did. Notre Dame opens up every 3-4 years, for that matter. That's silly. Unless Mack Brown has given some kind of time frame to Texas/Muschamp, it's not at all unreasonable to look at other jobs. First off, you never know what could change over the next 3 or 5 or 7 years. What if the defense or the team starts trailing off? What if Mack decides he's not ready to step down? What if there's a scandal/problem in the program? Given his SEC roots, Tennessee would make a lot of sense if he's looking for a head coaching position. It's a team that could easily be a perennial top 10 team with the right coaching - it's not too far removed from being exactly that. It currently has a fantastic recruiting class which he might just be able to keep. All the pieces are there for him to have success if he wanted the job. That said, it appears he's staying, and that's a reasonable choice as well. But it's not remotely dumb for him to seriously look at Tennessee. If we're looking at 5 years, for example, that's $10MM+ he'll never get back.
As a UT grad I'd argue Notre Dame would probably be it, despite it's recent status. It's a national program, national tv, and if it becomes relevant again (winning), it will be huge and relevant. As for Coach Boom, he was offered that job last year, hence the coaching in waiting designation by Texas.
I'd rather live in Austin than South Bend, Indiana. Even If you hate UT like some of you here, Austin > South Bend.
I'm on a board with Texas students and generally people who live in Texas, so I expect the answers to be biased. USC is a better job than Texas.
So, let's go to a national source that isn't biased to Texas. ESPN ran a poll on this subject (top college coaching jobs) just this week. You can see where USC ranks relative to Texas (to give you a hint, you have to look down): http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/rank?versionId=1&listId=488#topOfList
A fan poll? I'm not getting into the discussion, but citing a fan poll on ESPN as evidence that one head coaching job is better than another is weak.
That would be my first reaction too -but then what's so bad, at least in this context, about using a fan poll? It's a pretty amorphous subject so it's hard (unlike say a poll of registered voters) to determine the ideal sample size in this context.
I'm not a Texas fan, but it's a bit of a joke to say USC is clearly the better job, especially with the looming NCAA sanctions. Particularly since you wan't to rely on your own opinion to say USC is the better job, while laughing when someone cites thousands of opinions contrary to yours.
A fan poll on ESPN is horrible evidence because there is no science involved in the polling. It's basically whoever actually sees the poll and takes the time to vote in it, what forums is the poll posted on, etc. It's also subjected to the "what is happening right now" syndrome. Texas just played in the national title game and USC had a down year. Surprise surprise, a fan poll picks Texas over USC. Texas is a great job and I don't mean to knock it in anyway. I'd say it's probably #2 in the country, ahead of Florida. And I won't spend anymore time arguing with Texas fans over whether it's better than USC. I will say that Cat just doesn't have much credibility with me when discussing Texas because it's clearly a homer for them. His opinions are way too skewed.
To be fair, the original question here was whether non-Texas fans considered the Texas job to be the top in college football. Here was the question: Who, other than UT fans, would argue UT is the premier job in all of college football? So in that context, a national fan poll is a reasonable thing to look at if you want to take out the UT-fan bias. According to those national fans, Florida is #1 and Texas is #2. There are, of course, other sources as well from analysts to media people to whomever else. Realistically, I don't think you'll find any consensus on #1 because in many ways, the best job depends on the particular candidate and their strengths/weaknesses. But I think Texas, USC, and Florida would be in top 5 of every list, with some combination of Oklahoma, Notre Dame, and Ohio State mixed in.
