The new crop of Football Bowl Subdivision head coaches features a handful of established names — Mack Brown and Les Miles, to name two — and the normal collection of newcomers. There was even a rare Power Five to Group of Five transition from new Houston coach Dana Holgorsen, formerly of West Virginia.

What was missing were any significant high-profile openings. Ohio State promoted Ryan Day from within to replace the outgoing Urban Meyer, for example. Miami (Fla.) did the same with Manny Diaz, with a slight detour through Temple. To some surprise, the Southern California job didn't open up at all.

In a relative sense, it was a tame coaching cycle. With 26 changes complete, let's hand out grades for each of the new FBS head coaches coming out of the 2018 season:

A

Dana Holgorsen, Houston

The expectations will be immense — and so will be Holgorsen's paycheck. In other words, the sort of records he put together at West Virginia just won't cut it. But Holgorsen has the offense and the reputation to at least come close to matching Houston's oversize sense of self-worth.

A-

Neal Brown, West Virginia

Brown has been eyeballed as a Power Five coach for at least the past two hiring cycles after taking Troy back to the top of the Sun Belt. While his previous stint as the offensive coordinator at Kentucky had Brown pegged as a possible fit in the SEC, he instead slides right into a win-now situation at West Virginia. Brown led the Trojans to wins against LSU and Nebraska in the past two seasons and is more than ready for life in the Big 12.

Geoff Collins, Georgia Tech

Collins translated his two-year stint with the Owls into a gig at Georgia Tech, where he's already redrawn the Yellow Jackets' blueprint on offense, on defense and in recruiting. It's in the latter that he becomes intriguing: Collins will take Tech into toe-to-toe battles with the nation's strongest programs in one of the nation's deepest hotbeds of talent.

Eli Drinkwitz, Appalachian State

This is a great marriage of a program and a new head coach on the rise: Appalachian State cemented its place among the top teams in the Group of Five as Drinkwitz was earning his reputation as one of the top play-callers and quarterback tutors in the FBS. Look for Drinkwitz to keep the Mountaineers at or near the top of the Sun Belt.

Mike Houston, East Carolina

Houston heads south about 300 miles to exchange an FCS powerhouse in James Madison to a proud program that has plummeted to the bottom of the American. The most impressive part of this hire is the resume: Houston has been a smashing success at each of his three previous stops, with his high-water mark an FCS national championship in 2016.

Chris Klieman, Kansas State

The Wildcats tapped as Bill Snyder's replacement a coach fresh off four national championships in a five-year span at North Dakota State. If at first greeted tepidly, the Klieman hire has steadily been viewed in a more positive light — he's an established head coach with an ethos that fits Kansas State's culture.

B+

Mack Brown, North Carolina

It's easy to nitpick the hire for Brown's age but disingenuous to bemoan the fact he hasn't coached since 2013, as if they played with leather helmets during his last season at Texas. A more nuanced evaluation of the hire might suggest the following: Brown has one losing finish in his past 24 seasons as a head coach, has gathered a strong staff, was itching to get back into coaching.

Manny Diaz, Miami (Fla.)

Diaz is a great fit at Miami in a cultural sense, as a guy who knows the area, has built-in name recognition and already has the respect of the locker room after his strong stint at defensive coordinator. He's also made a great hire at offensive coordinator in former Alabama assistant Dan Enos. The lack of experience is an understandable concern, though it clearly didn't weigh heavily on Miami's thought process.

Scott Satterfield, Louisville

Satterfield wasn't Louisville's first choice — that would be Jeff Brohm — but he's still a nice fit at a time when the Cardinals need to be torn down and rebuilt with a steady touch. While not the home-run hire the Cardinals coveted, Satterfield and Brohm aren't too different: both have an established offensive identity, both have been successful in the job and both are viewed among the next wave of rising stars in the profession.

Mel Tucker, Colorado

Colorado went with defense to combat divisional rivals such as Southern California, Arizona and UCLA. That makes Tucker an interesting mix to a conference whose star coaches lean primarily toward offense, as in Chris Petersen, David Shaw, Chip Kelly and Mike Leach. Tucker's reputation has grown in his three years on the college level, and his move to a program such as Colorado is essentially a no-brainer.

B

Ryan Day, Ohio State

Day showed his chops in leading Ohio State to three wins as Urban Meyer's interim replacement. As an offensive technician, Day's reputation is secure. But he's a first-time head coach at a program whose five full-time predecessors in the position — Meyer, Jim Tressel, John Cooper, Earle Bruce and Woody Hayes — are or will be in the College Football Hall of Fame. In other words, Ohio State is rolling the dice in a way it hasn't since just after World War II.

Thomas Hammock, Northern Illinois

As a young, first-time head coach with existing ties to the program and a background on offense, Hammock has similarities to his predecessor, Rod Carey. The former NIU running back and assistant coach has since gone through a pair of Big Ten programs in Minnesota and Wisconsin while drawing praise for his work as the running backs coach for the Baltimore Ravens. Hammock will need to hire experienced staffers to help ease his transition but he's a good fit as NIU carries on after losing another coach to the Power Five.

Jim McElwain, Central Michigan

Sure. Why not? McElwain's tenure at Florida might've jumped the shark, but he nonetheless led the Gators to a pair of SEC East titles after winning a combined 18 games during his final two seasons at Colorado State. He operates at his best when not under the sort of bright spotlight provided by one of the premier programs in college football.

Jake Spavital, Texas State

Book Spavital into a gig far off the map and let him go to work. There's little doubt that Texas State will rise up the Sun Belt rankings on offense, behind an Air Raid that combines aspects of Mike Leach, Holgorsen and Kliff Kingsbury. If nothing else, the Bobcats will go from incredibly boring to strangely intriguing.

B-

Gary Andersen, Utah State

Utah State's strange coaching search in the wake of Matt Wells' departure to Texas Tech eventually circled back to Andersen, who led the Aggies from 2009-12 and laid the foundation for Wells' early success. There'll be a different feel: Andersen no longer has the trending-upward reputation that greeted his first year at Wisconsin but can operate far off the radar.

Will Healy, Charlotte

The 33-year-old former Austin Peay coach who has already drawn more breathless profiles than an A-list movie star. Healy is young, focused on offense, a strong recruiter and fairly accomplished, having quickly rebuilt the Governors from the bottom of the Ohio Valley Conference into a national factor. He'll provide Charlotte with a jolt of energy, which is what the program desperately needs.

Les Miles, Kansas

Miles brings immediate credibility to the weakest program in the Power Five. Whether he can convert that into wins on the recruiting trail remains to be seen. What will define Miles' tenure is whether he embraces a new outlook on offense after his desired scheme grew stale at LSU. But he breathes life into a woeful program.

C+

Rod Carey, Temple

Carey runs a little contrary to Temple athletics director Pat Kraft's recent football hires, Matt Rhule and Geoff Collins, who were first-time head coaches with energy to burn. In comparison, Carey is an established Group of Five coach from Northern Illinois. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but it'll be interesting to see how far Carey can take Temple on the back of what Rhule and Collins have already established.

Matt Wells, Texas Tech

Wells made hay early in his Utah State tenure with the help of Gary Andersen's rebuilding project and then hit a three-year lull, with the low point a nine-loss finish in 2016. That he was able to drag the Aggies out of that quagmire and to double-digit wins this past season reestablished Wells' reputation. The question is whether he's an upgrade over his predecessor, Kliff Kingsbury, who is viewed among coaches as one of the brightest offensive minds in the sport.

C

Tom Arth, Akron

Who is Tom Arth? He's the Zips' replacement for Terry Bowden, and he comes with some experience: four years in the top spot at John Carroll University and the past two at Chattanooga. Arth once led John Carroll to a win against Division III powerhouse Mount Union, which seems commendable enough to earn the opportunity at Akron.

Chip Lindsey, Troy

On the heels of Neal Brown, the Trojans are again looking to capture lightning in a bottle with a Power Five offensive coordinator with prior experience as a Troy assistant. In that sense, Lindsey is a safe hire. Unlike Brown, however, Lindsey doesn't arrive as a hot-shot coordinator but rather as one recently jettisoned with a season to go on his contract at Auburn who landed a brief stint in the same position at Kansas.

Scot Loeffler, Bowling Green

This is a safe hire by Bowling Green, if an uninspired one. The former Boston College, Virginia Tech and Auburn offensive coordinator isn't a flashy addition by any stretch but he has worked under a number of big-name head coaches, including Lloyd Carr, Urban Meyer and Frank Beamer. He'll be an improvement on his predecessor, Mike Jinks, though Jinks' tenure ranks among the worst in program history.

C-

Walt Bell, Massachusetts

UMass is a stuck-in-neutral program that should've never transitioned into college football's highest level of competition. The solution to the program's woes is to hand the keys over to a 34-year-old offensive coordinator who piloted his past three offenses to the following national ranks in yards per play: 110th, 104th and 76th. Bell might be a rising star, but the Minutemen should've banked their future on a hire with more experience.

Hugh Freeze, Liberty

Freeze inherits a strong base from Turner Gill and will almost certainly carry Liberty to six wins and beyond for however long his tenure lasts. Freeze is also an enormous question mark given his inability to adhere to basic guidelines during his stint at Mississippi, whether held to the standard of the NCAA or a higher power. The Flames were willing to give Freeze the chance to rebuild his tarnished reputation.

Tyson Helton, Western Kentucky

The former WKU offensive coordinator takes over a program fallen on hard times after a simply disastrous 2018 season. The prior experience is a bonus, as is Helton's background on offense and connection to the Jeff Brohm coaching tree. But he hasn't exactly drawn rave reviews as an assistant, his two seasons under Brohm notwithstanding.

Mike Locksley, Maryland

Outside of his recruiting draw, Locksley's greatest asset might come in his ability to bring together a program fractured by a horrendous 2018. And about his recruiting acumen: Locksley will make Maryland popular. But even as he rebuilt his reputation under Nick Saban at Alabama, it's difficult to overlook the 3-31 tenure at New Mexico that featured a number of off-field issues that rivaled the Lobos' on-field woes.