TechPhi97
Ramblin' Wreck
- Messages
- 564
- Location
- Davidson, NC
I've been reading all of these threads about our coaching search where everyone uses specific examples to try to make their case for a specific coach, usually based off of their record. I thought it might be interesting to look at the data. I'm using http://www.coacheshotseat.com/WinningestActiveCoachesIA.htm as the source for coaches w/l records. I took out any coach that has less than less than three years of experience at their current school to eliminate the "he's winning with the other guy's recruits" type of arguments. The coaches fall into two categories - those that had prior HC experience and those that don't. This is to separate the "why should we hire an assistant/we need HC experience" arguments. I'm also only looking at Power 6 conference members + BYU and ND, because that's what we are.
There are 44 coaches after I filtered out. 25 were hired with prior HC experience, and 19 were hired with no prior experience. The coaches with prior experience have won 63.3% of the games with their new school, while the coaches without prior HC experience have won 54.5%.
I also looked at the coaches and compared their current school winning % with their prior schools win % by taking the current school wins/losses out of the career record. The range is pretty wide, from Dave Doreen at -30.4% and Ed Orgeron at +37.8%. Of the 25 coaches, 10 had winning % that were 5% or less than their prior work, and 9 had winning % that were 5% or greater than their prior work. I don't think you can say with any certainty that the prior winning percentage makes that much of a difference to performance with the new team. Take Orgeron, for instance he had a 16-27 record (37.2%) before taking over at LSU, but he's won 75% of his games there. Paul Johnson won 73.3% of games before GT, and 58.6% on the Flats.
If I look at the coaches with prior experience, those that improve their winning % at their new team had an average of 5.3 years of HC experience; those that did worse at their new team had 8.1 years of experience. It also looks like the coaches that are most successful with their new teams have ~20 years of experience between their first position coach job and their first HC job, OR they had prior P6 experience.
There seems to be more downside to hiring a HC with no coaching experience (see: Chris Ash at Rutgers) but you also see some great stories like Kirby, Dabo, David Shaw and Gary Patterson. Mike Gundy is another without prior HC experience.
For me, if I'm comparing the current candidates on this list I like Collins over Elliott because (1) Elliott doesn't have enough position coach experience (~11 years vs. ~20 for Collins) and because of the HC experience. I think the winning % is not a reliable indicator, so I'm less worried about what Collins has done at Temple.
There are 44 coaches after I filtered out. 25 were hired with prior HC experience, and 19 were hired with no prior experience. The coaches with prior experience have won 63.3% of the games with their new school, while the coaches without prior HC experience have won 54.5%.
I also looked at the coaches and compared their current school winning % with their prior schools win % by taking the current school wins/losses out of the career record. The range is pretty wide, from Dave Doreen at -30.4% and Ed Orgeron at +37.8%. Of the 25 coaches, 10 had winning % that were 5% or less than their prior work, and 9 had winning % that were 5% or greater than their prior work. I don't think you can say with any certainty that the prior winning percentage makes that much of a difference to performance with the new team. Take Orgeron, for instance he had a 16-27 record (37.2%) before taking over at LSU, but he's won 75% of his games there. Paul Johnson won 73.3% of games before GT, and 58.6% on the Flats.
If I look at the coaches with prior experience, those that improve their winning % at their new team had an average of 5.3 years of HC experience; those that did worse at their new team had 8.1 years of experience. It also looks like the coaches that are most successful with their new teams have ~20 years of experience between their first position coach job and their first HC job, OR they had prior P6 experience.
There seems to be more downside to hiring a HC with no coaching experience (see: Chris Ash at Rutgers) but you also see some great stories like Kirby, Dabo, David Shaw and Gary Patterson. Mike Gundy is another without prior HC experience.
For me, if I'm comparing the current candidates on this list I like Collins over Elliott because (1) Elliott doesn't have enough position coach experience (~11 years vs. ~20 for Collins) and because of the HC experience. I think the winning % is not a reliable indicator, so I'm less worried about what Collins has done at Temple.