ESPN College Football Team Coaches

Get the coaches associated with a college football team for a season – one row per coach, with name, birth detail, and experience.

Usage

espn_cfb_team_coaches(team_id = NULL, year = NULL, team_detail = TRUE)

Arguments

team_id

(Integer required): ESPN team id.

year

(Integer required): Season, 4 digit format (YYYY).

team_detail

(Logical): when TRUE (default), fetch the ESPN team catalog once and join friendly team fields next to the team_id column (see Details). Set FALSE to skip the catalog fetch and the join.

Value

A data frame with one row per coach:

col_name	types	description
season	integer	Season (4-digit year).
team_id	character	ESPN team id.
team_name	character	Team nickname; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_abbreviation	character	Team abbreviation; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_location	character	Team location / school name; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_display_name	character	Full team display name; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_short_display_name	character	Short team display name; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_nickname	character	Team nickname label; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_color	character	Primary team color; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_alternate_color	character	Alternate team color; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_logo_href	character	Default team logo URL; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_logo_dark_href	character	Dark-variant team logo URL; team_detail = TRUE only.
coach_id	character	ESPN coach id.
first_name	character	Coach's first name.
last_name	character	Coach's last name.
date_of_birth	character	Coach's date of birth.
birth_city	character	City of birth.
birth_state	character	State of birth.
birth_country	character	Country of birth.
experience	integer	Years of experience ESPN credits the coach.
coach_ref	character	$ref URL to the core-v2 coach-in-season resource.

Details

Wraps the ESPN core-v2 team coaches endpoint sports.core.api.espn.com/v2/sports/football/leagues/college-football/seasons/{year}/teams/{team_id}/coaches. The index endpoint returns a $ref list of coach resources; this wrapper dereferences each one and returns a row per coach with the coach detail flattened. Most teams list a single head coach per season.

When team_detail = TRUE (the default) the ESPN team catalog (espn_cfb_teams()) is fetched once and friendly team fields are joined in next to the team_id column – team_name, team_abbreviation, team_location, team_display_name, team_short_display_name, team_nickname, team_color, team_alternate_color, team_logo_href, and team_logo_dark_href, inserted immediately after team_id. A catalog failure degrades to NA rather than erroring the wrapper. Set team_detail = FALSE to skip the catalog fetch and the join.

See also

Other ESPN CFB Functions: espn_cfb_award(), espn_cfb_awards(), espn_cfb_clear_cache(), espn_cfb_coach(), espn_cfb_coach_record(), espn_cfb_coaches(), espn_cfb_franchise(), espn_cfb_franchises(), espn_cfb_futures(), espn_cfb_game_broadcasts(), espn_cfb_game_drive_plays(), espn_cfb_game_drives(), espn_cfb_game_leaders(), espn_cfb_game_odds(), espn_cfb_game_pbp(), espn_cfb_game_play(), espn_cfb_game_player_box(), espn_cfb_game_player_statistics(), espn_cfb_game_powerindex(), espn_cfb_game_predictor(), espn_cfb_game_probabilities(), espn_cfb_game_situation(), espn_cfb_game_status(), espn_cfb_game_team_leaders(), espn_cfb_game_team_linescores(), espn_cfb_game_team_records(), espn_cfb_game_team_roster(), espn_cfb_game_team_statistics(), espn_cfb_game_teams(), espn_cfb_groups(), espn_cfb_pbp_v2(), espn_cfb_player(), espn_cfb_player_career_stats(), espn_cfb_player_eventlog(), espn_cfb_player_gamelog(), espn_cfb_player_overview(), espn_cfb_player_seasons(), espn_cfb_player_splits(), espn_cfb_player_stats_v3(), espn_cfb_players(), espn_cfb_position(), espn_cfb_positions(), espn_cfb_powerindex(), espn_cfb_qbr(), espn_cfb_rankings(), espn_cfb_recruits(), espn_cfb_season_info(), espn_cfb_season_types(), espn_cfb_season_weeks(), espn_cfb_seasons(), espn_cfb_standings(), espn_cfb_team(), espn_cfb_team_ats(), espn_cfb_team_awards(), espn_cfb_team_events(), espn_cfb_team_leaders(), espn_cfb_team_powerindex(), espn_cfb_team_ranks(), espn_cfb_team_record(), espn_cfb_team_roster(), espn_cfb_team_schedule(), espn_cfb_teams(), espn_cfb_unnest_plays(), espn_cfb_venue(), espn_cfb_venues(), espn_cfb_week_rankings()

Examples

# \donttest{
  try(espn_cfb_team_coaches(team_id = 61, year = 2024))
#> ── Team coaches from ESPN ──────────────────────────────────── cfbfastR 2.3.0 ──
#> ℹ Data updated: 2026-06-09 07:57:55 UTC
#> # A tibble: 1 × 21
#>   season team_id team_name team_abbreviation team_location team_display_name
#>    <int> <chr>   <chr>     <chr>             <chr>         <chr>            
#> 1   2024 61      Bulldogs  UGA               Georgia       Georgia Bulldogs 
#> # ℹ 15 more variables: team_short_display_name <chr>, team_nickname <chr>,
#> #   team_color <chr>, team_alternate_color <chr>, team_logo_href <chr>,
#> #   team_logo_dark_href <chr>, coach_id <chr>, first_name <chr>,
#> #   last_name <chr>, date_of_birth <chr>, birth_city <chr>, birth_state <chr>,
#> #   birth_country <chr>, experience <int>, coach_ref <chr>
  try(espn_cfb_team_coaches(team_id = 61, year = 2024,
                            team_detail = FALSE))
#> ── Team coaches from ESPN ──────────────────────────────────── cfbfastR 2.3.0 ──
#> ℹ Data updated: 2026-06-09 07:57:55 UTC
#> # A tibble: 1 × 11
#>   season team_id coach_id first_name last_name date_of_birth     birth_city
#>    <int> <chr>   <chr>    <chr>      <chr>     <chr>             <chr>     
#> 1   2024 61      3960423  Kirby      Smart     1975-12-23T08:00Z Montgomery
#> # ℹ 4 more variables: birth_state <chr>, birth_country <chr>, experience <int>,
#> #   coach_ref <chr>
# }