Expert has three B1G football-basketball coaching combinations among 10 best nationally

Three of the ten best football-basketball coaching combinations reside in the B1G. Well, at least if you ask The Athletic’s Stewart Mandel.

On a recent edition of The Audible podcast with Mandel and Bruce Feldman, the topic of ranking college football and basketball coaching combinations surfaced. Mandel pointed out that, with Nebraska’s recent hiring of Fred Hoiberg, several people were interested in getting his opinion whether the Huskers had one of the better combos in college sports, especially with Scott Frost on the football side.

Mandel went on to rank his top 10 combinations, and he surprisingly had three B1G teams in the mix, with two of those sitting in the top three. At No. 1, Mandel had Michigan State’s Mark Dantonio and Tom Izzo. He then put Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh and John Beilein in the No. 3 slot. Coming in at No. 8 was Purdue’s Jeff Brohm and Matt Painter.

Here’s the full top 10 from Mandel:

1. Michigan State (Mark Dantonio, Tom Izzo)
2. Texas A&M (Jimbo Fisher, Buzz Williams)
3. Michigan (Jim Harbaugh, John Beilein)
4. Notre Dame (Brian Kelly, Mike Brey)
5. Oklahoma (Lincoln Riley, Lon Kruger)
6. Duke (David Cutcliffe, Mike Krzyzewski)
7. TCU* (Gary Patterson, Jamie Dixon)
8. Purdue (Jeff Brohm, Matt Painter)
9. Syracuse (Jim Boeheim, Dino Babers)
10. Kentucky (Mark Stoops, John Calipari)

Mandel did note that the TCU pick came while there was a potential deal looming between Dixon and UCLA.

So, while Frost and Hoiberg could be an excellent combination in a few years, it’s just too early to put Nebraska in the top 10. But having three of those combos in the top 10 is a pretty nice accomplishment for the B1G.

You can listed to The Audible to get the full breakdown from Mandel and Feldman.

Dustin Schutte

Dustin grew up in the heart of Big Ten country and has been in sports media since 2010. He has been covering Big Ten football since 2014. You can follow him on Twitter: @SchutteCFB