The complete list of things that please college football coaches can fit comfortably on a Post-it note. But there is one thing that these famously irascible men appreciate more than almost anyone else on earth: a good pair of khaki pants.

Coaches are the world’s leading connoisseurs of khakis. It often seems impossible this time of year to watch television on Saturday without seeing at least one multi-millionaire coach stomping around in what Sarah Harbaugh, the wife of khaki king Jim Harbaugh, once called Dad Pants—the “tragedy...