That school is flanked by Harvard Business School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management and Boston College's Carroll School of Management, among a half-dozen others.

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That's largely because many big-time coaches graduated from small colleges that play on lower levels like Arkansas's Bobby Petrino, who went to tiny Carroll (Mont.) College while others wind up at their alma maters, like Virginia Tech's Frank Beamer.

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Andy Boynton is Dean of the Carroll School of Management at Boston College and coauthor, with Bill Fischer, of The Idea Hunter: How to Find the Best Ideas and Make Them Happen (Jossey-Bass), written with William Bole.

FORBES: Racking Up Ideas, on the Cliff