By Steven Lassan (@AthlonSteven on Twitter)

When the 2012 season kicks off, 27 teams will have a new coach roaming the sidelines. Athlon examines each hire and grades the moves by each school. Grading new hires is never an exact science, but one can get a good snapshot of a coach by looking at his resume and previous experience. 

The coaching carousel in college football has been as crazy as ever this offseason.

By Steven Lassan (@AthlonSteven on Twitter)

When Arizona decided to part ways with Mike Stoops, it desperately needed to make a splash with its next head coach. It’s easy to throw around the phrase “home-run hire” during coaching changes, but I feel confident using that term with the Wildcats’ hire of Rich Rodriguez.

After winning nine games in each of Houston Nutt’s first two seasons in Oxford, the Ole Miss program has been in a complete freefall. The Rebels went 4-8 last year, and the 2011 season has actually been worse. Ole Miss has now lost 12 consecutive SEC games and looks to be headed for a 2-10 campaign. The last time the Rebels finished a year with two wins was 1946, a year before the legendary John Vaught took over in Oxford.