Fifteen FBS teams are unbeaten after Week 5, and three of them started in the same Sun Belt town. Curt Cignetti left James Madison for Indiana after 2023, and a group of Dukes went with him. Bob Chesney replaced him, won the Sun Belt, reached the College Football Playoff and took the UCLA job, and a group of his players followed. Billy Napier inherited what was left in Harrisonburg.
Indiana is 5-0. UCLA is 4-0. James Madison is 5-0.
This week's read
Of the 34 programs that started this season with a new head coach, three are still unbeaten, and two of them are on this tree. This week's Ledger follows it through one person at each stop.
At UCLA, it's Wayne Knight, who spent four seasons at James Madison and followed Chesney west. He has 445 rushing yards and nine touchdowns in four games.
At James Madison, it's George Pettaway, the backup Knight left behind, who stayed for the third head coach of his college career. On Saturday against Marshall he ran 14 times for 206 yards, the first Duke to reach 200 since Knight in last December's Sun Belt Championship.
At Indiana, it's Josh Hoover, the quarterback who arrived from TCU to run the offense. He threw four touchdowns at Rutgers in Week 5.
The market moved
North Dakota State is 5-0 in its first FBS season after a 28-0 win over Wyoming on Saturday, its first Mountain West home game. When the move was announced, the Bison faced two seasons without a postseason. An NCAA rule change since then makes them eligible this season for the Mountain West title game, bowl games and the College Football Playoff.
So what: moving up a level used to ask a roster to give up two postseasons. That cost is gone, which changes the conversation for every staff weighing a move up and every player deciding whether to stay through one.
What's moving: continuity in year one. Two of the three unbeaten programs with a new head coach started from people who already knew the system: UCLA brought its own, and James Madison kept enough of its own to carry the rest.
Worth your time
ESPN: Week 5 reality check. Three unbeaten first-year coaches, three different kinds of hire: the up-and-comer, the coach-in-waiting and the bounce-back. Read it after the tree.
MultiState: The new economics of college athletics. Thirty-five states now have their own NIL rules, and Louisiana keeps adding requirements for agents. Whatever the House does, the state an athlete plays in still shapes the agent's job.
Wiley: What the PCSA means for NCAA oversight and athlete pay. Read it for the agent section. Beyond the 5% fee cap, the bill would create a public, searchable database of athlete agents.
From the field
Agencies are building January boards in October. On calls this week, agencies new to the network went straight to unrepresented players filtered by eligibility and level, and a certified agency doing both NFL and portal work spent most of its time on which programs move players and where they go.
That is the agent's view of the same tree. A head coach's move is a market event for every player he coached, and the people advising those players are watching it now, three months before the window opens.
The Toolbox
When the coach leaves: one question, three chairs.
The staff. Who on this roster can teach the system to the people who just arrived? Players who already know the language shorten the install for everyone else. See every program's moves in one place.
The agent. Is the client's value tied to the coach or to the place? A player who fits the scheme leaving with the coach reads differently from one who fits the building that stays. Build that board in the network.
The athlete. What does staying open up? When the starter follows the coach, the snaps he leaves belong to whoever is still in the room. Claim your profile.
The Trusted Takeaway
A coaching change puts the same question to every player on the roster. At James Madison on Saturday, the player who answered by staying ran for 206 yards.
Explore the network: for staffs · for agents · for athletes.
One question for you: when a head coach leaves, who is the first person on your roster you call? Reply to this email or write [email protected].