The Linch Pin of Winning

[Rodney Kent]

I fully believe a team is a mirror image of a coach regardless of the caliber of players he assembles. I believe the coach is the most important ingredient in the process of winning. However, it is true that once a coach has established his credibility as a winner, he naturally attracts better athletes to his program. For this reason, I am going to offer statistics for my view. I will use many coaches and many teams, but will start with a post I made on another board years ago about the same debate.

After, that post, I will post the GT history of wins and losses with the different coaches, and basically the same criteria of studies for GT. Yes, the criteria for most schools have changed over the years and at Tech, but not to the degree that the coaching had its effect. After the Tech history, I will then produce numerous examples confirming the coach as the catalyst of winning and losing.

 

[Rodney Kent]

COACHES VS TALENT
Great coaches normally start off at schools with lesser developed programs and win big. They gravitate to a more developed program snf still win big. Eventually, they wind up at a larger program and become an icon.

Inept coaches don’t win even though they often start at the biggest programs with the best athletes. Sometimes they are promoted within the ranks, but do not win with the same athletes.

Examples are numerous, but a few names should suffice. Frank Solich (assistant) at Nebraska let that program slide from the record of 356-69 by two successive coaches and was subsequently fired; Torbush (assistant), at North Carolina, let Mack's program slide and was fired; Gerry Faust took over at Notre Dame from combined records of two successful coaches (148-33) and was fired after producing a record of 30-26 with the same type athletes. These are only a minute sample, but represented major programs with great athletes.

Ara Parsegian coached at Miami of Ohio with a record of 39-6-1, was hired by Northwestern, who previously, could not compete in the Big Ten, and made them into a winner. He was then hired by Notre Dame and .became a legend there.

Bear Bryant started coaching at Maryland with a 6-2-1 record, then to Kentucky (60-23-5), then to Texas A&M (25-14-2), and eventually to Alabama to become a legend.

Bobby Bowden coached at Samford (31-6-0), then West Virginia (42-26), and then FSU (304-97), a girl’s College, and the rest are legend. A few of the many examples.

It is well known that good football players want to attend schools that win big, go to bowl games, and are favorites of the pro scouts. The rich get richer, but it is the coach that is the catalyst. Some of the following examples are in the past, but are still valid.

There is little doubt that we have better athletes than Wake Forest, but they sometimes beat us with less talent. We had better talent than Fresno State in a bowl game (they even had seven players who had to sit out for the bowl game), but they beat us with less talent.

Up until last year (during Friegden’s tenure), we had out-recruited every ACC school in the past five years, other than FSU. Why have the other ACC schools beaten us like step-children since Friegden left?

We had some of the smaller division schools beat us in years when we had poor coaching. We beat some much bigger and better programs in the Dodd era when we had less qualified athletes than most of our opponents.

A POSTER ASKED ME THIS QUESTION:

BUT, if it were all on the coach, what is the point of divisions? Why couldn't Bobby Johnson coach Furman up to beat Clemson? Why do Army and Navy always suck? Is it because of coaches? How did Bobby Bowden lose to Mark Richt.

MY ANSWER: Regarding Furman! They beat North Carolina 28-3 in 1999 after Mack Brown left. North Carolina had the same players, but Torbush could not beat Furman with them.
NCSU has a 4-8 all-time record against Furman. NCSU lost 3 out of the last 4 games to Furman from 1976-1985. They dropped Furman from the schedule after 1985. By the way Furman had a great coach during those years.

Now, on to the poor military teams! North Carolina lost 4 out of the last 5 games to Air Force from 1963-1969. North Carolina dropped Air Force. North Carolina and Navy are 5-5 all time. North Carolina was 3-2 in their last five games against Navy from 1984-1992. One was only a 21-19 win. North Carolina dropped Navy after 1992.

Maryland is 5-14 all-time against Navy. George Welsh and Navy beat Maryland handily.
NCSU is 3-6 all-time against Navy. NCSU is 7-11 all-time against VMI. NCSU is only 11-8 all-time against William and Mary.

Virginia is 3-5 all-time against Army. They are 11-28 all-time against Navy. George Welsh and Navy beat Virginia handily until Welsh went to Virginia. Virginia and Welsh then beat Navy handily.

 

[Rodney Kent]

Duke is 12-16 against Navy. Duke was a powerhouse at one time when the great Wallace Wade coached them. Duke also won the conference and beat other ACC teams handily when Visor Boy (Spurrier) was Duke's coach.

The reason for having divisions is mostly economical, because the smaller schools have small stadiums, facilities, and fan bases. They do move up occasionally, but only after the school makes a commitment to expanding the facilities and the economics of playing in a higher classification.

Bowden lost to Richt, because Richt outcoached him. It would be stretching a point to say UGA has been out recruiting FSU for years. FSU had the talent, but they had lost two outstanding assistants in Richt and Amato. Bobby Bowden was getting old and losing the ability to think on his feet as quickly as he could when younger.

SAME POSTER: ahso, I'm talking about today's Army, not Blanchard and Davis days.

Me (ahso): Maybe you need to check out the coach at Army when Blanchard and Davis played. He was one of the better coaches of his day, with or without Blanchard and Davis.

And as far as the quarterbacks recruited by the Fridge, he did pretty well with those he recruited while he was here. The Quarterbacking only went downhill after he left.

 

[Rodney Kent]

GEORGIA TECH COACHES
John Heisman: 1904-1919; 104-29-7; 77% (A)
William Alexander: 1920-1944; 134-95-15 58% (C+)
Bobby Dodd: 1945-1966; 165-64-3; 71% (A-)
Bud Carson: 1967-1971: 27-27; 50% (C)
Pepper Rodgers: 1974-1979: 34-31-3; 52% (C)
Bill Curry: 1980-1986: 31-43; 42% (D)
Bobby Ross: 1987-1991: 31-261; 54% (C)
Bill Lewis: 1992-1994: 11-19; 37% (F)
George O’Leary: 1994-2001; 52-33; 61% (C: HC) (OC: A-)
Chan Gailey: 2002-2007; 44-32; 58% (C+)
Paul Johnson: 2008-2013; 47-32; 60% (B)

All these coaches had basically the same restrictions and conditions at Tech. Of course, it is a fact that some of the entrance requirements have been tightened as time progressed with each coach. The coaching sagged for five coaches, but then began to revive some at the arrival of Friegden, Gailey, and Johnson.

Also, it is to be noted that O’Leary had a record of 18-20 without the services of Friegden, and never won a game against UGA (0-4) without Friegden.

The point of this post is to show that individual coaches were the catalyst for winning as opposed to the types of athletes that come to Tech.

Tech did not have a Head Coach for 11 years until Heisman took over the job. The record was 10-32 until Heisman, he immediately won big time 77% of the games for 16 years.

Alexander won 58% of his games in 24 years. Bobby Dodd won 71% of his games for 22 years.

Football was doing well at Tech until Dodd retired. Bud Carson won just 50% of his games basically with Dodd recruits in his 5 years. Pepper Rodgers did little better with the Wishbone (52%) in his six years. Bill Curry could only muster 42% in his 7 years. Bobby Ross barely won with 54% in his 5 years, but did have one good year winning the National Championship.

Bill Lewis dipped to 37% in 3 years. George O’Leary had a losing record for 2+ years and then his winning percentage jumped when Friegden came in as Offensive Coordinator with the same material. Friegden did not recruit, so he had to use the players O’Leary recruited, but was excellent with his offenses.

O’Leary lost to UGA (0-4) without Friegden, but beat UGA 3 times with Friegden. O’Leary finished with a 52-33 record (61%), but I attribute the winning to Friegden and his offense.

Chan Gailey won 58% (44-32) of his games in 6 years, but did not blow the roof of at Tech. As of now, Paul Johnson has won 60% (47-32) in his 6 years. He started off with a bang, but has seen his performance drop since the first two years.

The picture is to paint a portrait at Tech of the main ingredient to winning. It is apparent that the winning or losing is directly proportional to the quality of the coach and not the athletes. Some of the coaches had the same quality of athletes as others, but their coaching performance was not the same.

The records show the same school, different coaches and different results. Even O’Leary could not win with his players until Friegden arrived.

Another caveat: Bobby Dodd left the SEC because the other schools would sign way more than the allotted quantity of athletes allowed on a team. The others would cut the players who did not make the grade in the Spring Practice. They lost their scholarships so the schools could get down to the allotted amount required. Dodd would not recruit more than the allotted amount and always insured that each player who signed with Tech would remain on scholarship even if they were not quality players. The entire time Dodd was part of the SEC, Tech was always at a disadvantage in terms of quality of athletes, but he still won because he was a good coach.

 

[Rodney Kent]

If you desire to see the history of a football team, go to www.cfbdatawarehouse.com and click on “Div 1-A Teams” at the top of page. On the next screen select the desired team, such as Alabama. The history and yearly results of Alabama will appear on left of screen. Select “Coaching Records” to analyze the effect of coaching on Teams. Of course this can be done with any team in any division of football.

ALABAMA

Alabama had varying success, but did not become a known power until Xen C. Scott became their Head Coach from 1919-1922 (29-9-3) (74%) in 4 years. Wallace Wade followed Scott with (61-13-3) from 1923-1930 (81%). Immediately after Wade, Frank Thomas coached 1931-1946 (115-24-7) 81%. These three coaches brought fame to Alabama football.

By the way, the same Wallace Wade left Alabama and coached Duke from 1931-1950 with a record of 110-36-7 (74%) in 16 years. You leave Alabama and go to Duke and still win big! According to the quality of athletes at each school this is prohibited by some naysayers.

The winning at Alabama dropped off with the next coach to 65% in 8 years, and then to 17% for the next coach and 3 years.

Bear Bryant was then hired and immediately the program became great again with a winning record of 232-46 in 25 years.

After Bryant, the coaches changed often with near hits and some big misses. Mike Dubose had a record of 24-23 in 4 years (51%), and later Mike Shula’s record was 10-23 in 4 years with stellar athletes.

Finally, Saban arrived and righted the ship again. His record to date is 74-15 (83%) in 7 years.
Once again, it can be proven even at a school with plenty of money and extremely good recruiting, easy subjects, etal, that the athletes matter little if the coach cannot steer them in the right direction.

There are too many teams to produce the same results over and over again, also producing the same coaches being successful everywhere they go. However, I will post a few more facts and data to prove that the catalyst for winning is the coach instead of the athletes. In fact, UGA gets extremely good athletes, but they do not win the National Championship with them. They have also had some very bad coaching and years of bad teams.

 

[Rodney Kent]

MILITARY SCHOOLS

The Army seemed to have pretty good success with football during the war times. I am assuming the “Mandatory Draft” affected this diversion somewhat. Even if the Navy did not have the draft, they would benefit from those who preferred to join the Navy rather than be drafted into the infantry of the Army. For this reason, my focus is on Army, Navy, and Air Force after certain wars ended and the removal of the “Mandatory Draft”.

It is well known that the military schools do not get the same quantity and quality of athletes entering the Colleges and Universities. It becomes more difficult to win against superior athletes, but it is proven that some coaches have won anyway at the military schools. It seems obvious that these records are proportional to the skills of the particular coaches.

AIR FORCE

Football began at the Air Force in 1956. Four coaches from 1956-1983 had a percentage of winning of 52%; 48%; 27%, and 45%. One coach, Fisher Deberry took over in 1984-2006 and had a winning record of 169-109 (61%). His present successor has a record of 49-41 (54%). It is clear that it can be done, but it has to be the right coach using only the skills available from that quality of athletes.

ARMY

I started with Earl H. “Red” Blaik, the head coach who began in 1941-1958. The war did not end until 1944, so he might have benefitted from a few years of the draft, but continued coaching for 18 years. His record for that period was 121-33-10 (77%).

After Blaik, from 1959-1982, the records of the coaches started falling slowly then drastically until 1983-1990 when Jim Young became Head Coach. His record was a modest 57%, but proved Army could win even with the dearth of athletes available.

The next six coaches had percentage wins of 45%, 0%, 13%, 26%, 25%, and the last coach just fired was 33%. It is recognized that the present administration has been cutting back on the military, but we have also had many wars during this time. It is a mixed bag, where there is probably still a dearth of athletes, but we see that two Head Coaches could still win sufficiently with military football recruits.

NAVY

Navy also had competitive teams during the draft and war years, but also their records began to decline steeply after the wars and mandatory draft.

Edward J. “Eddie” Erderlatz 1950-1958 had a record of 50-26-8 (64%), and Wayne Hardin 1959-1964 38-22-2 (63%) were the last two good records at Navy for the next 8 years (Two 4 year coaches had records of 41% and 23%. Then a new coach arrived, George Welsh, and brought back respectability to Navy. His record was 55-46-1 from 1973-1981 (54%). He then became the UVA coach, and his record at UVA was 134-86-3 (61%) from 1982-2000.

After Welsh, the next 5 coaches had records of 37%, 24%, 25%, 40%, and 0%. Paul Johnson then coached Navy for 6 years with a record of 45-29 (61%). After Johnson, the present coach, Niumatalolo, has a record of 49-30 (62%).

It is obvious at this military school that certain coaches can overcome the deficiency of the quality of military athletes. Again, the records prove the coaching is the catalyst in the winning at the military schools.

 

[ATL1]

I really dont have nothing to add other than I love this post.

 

[Rodney Kent]

ATL1: Thanks, there are multitudes of other data on the same subject, but I stopped with these as they seem sufficient to get the point across.