IdaGriz01
Well-known member
Read a sports commentary that got me to thinking about the “coaching carousel.” Many fan bases (FCS as well as FBS) would like to pull the trigger sooner rather than later on firing a coach whose team is not performing to their expectations. So I got to wondering how some of the more successful coaches got their starts.
It took a lot of digging, at least partly because it seems like most coaches have relatively little success when they first start out as head coaches. And some don’t make it, so you cannot find much about their overall careers. But I finally found a dozen to work with. They are not, of course, fully representative of all first-time head coaches because they have been “pre-selected” by the fact that they have been successful since. Six got their start at the FCS level, six at the FBS level.
So this is a composite of those twelve coaches. Experience prior to head coaching job: Played college football. Two of them coached 3-4 years at the high school. The average experience as a college-level assistant is 14.2 years. All but two got their big chances after 1995, and eight of them in 2003 or later.
The teams that hired them were coming off poor to awful stretches. The average record for the year before the new guy was hired was 3-9. For the three years before that, the composite record was 13-20. So they had no where to go but up.
In the first year as a new head coach, their teams averaged out to a 4-8 record. Of these examples, a couple backed into bowls game (6-6 will do that), but both lost. They improved steadily, to 6-6 in the second year and 7-5 in their third year. The ten coaches who went into a fourth year compiled a composite 9-3 record. Two coaches did not get to a fourth year because they were hired away by richer programs.
Many of the FBS teams got into bowl games in their third year and most managed it in their fourth year. Overall, they were about 9-7 in their bowl appearances. Four of the six FCS coaches got their teams into post-season play by the third or fourth years of their tenure. And two of those won a first-round game.
On the other hand: Only three of these twelve successful coaches have stayed more than 10 years at the school where they got their first head coaching job. One is still there after 7 years, so the clock is still running. The other eight averaged 4.3 years at that school before they were hired away
Who were these guys? In alphabetical order: Art Briles, Houston. Dave Clawson, Fordham. Tom Gilmore, Holy Cross. Al Golden, Temple. Lou Holtz, William & Mary. Mike MacIntyre, San Jose State. Bronco Mendenhall, BYU. Bobby Petrino, Louisville. Danny Rocco, Liberty. Brock Spack, Illinois State. Jim Tressel, Youngstown State. Tommy Tuberville, Ole Miss.
Several of these coaches are “household names” in college football coaching, while others are fairly obscure. But all have been successful, some very successful, so far. But even they took awhile to get rolling. Given the current attitudes of fans, one gets the feeling they were only given those three or four years because the teams they took over were so bad. :?
It took a lot of digging, at least partly because it seems like most coaches have relatively little success when they first start out as head coaches. And some don’t make it, so you cannot find much about their overall careers. But I finally found a dozen to work with. They are not, of course, fully representative of all first-time head coaches because they have been “pre-selected” by the fact that they have been successful since. Six got their start at the FCS level, six at the FBS level.
So this is a composite of those twelve coaches. Experience prior to head coaching job: Played college football. Two of them coached 3-4 years at the high school. The average experience as a college-level assistant is 14.2 years. All but two got their big chances after 1995, and eight of them in 2003 or later.
The teams that hired them were coming off poor to awful stretches. The average record for the year before the new guy was hired was 3-9. For the three years before that, the composite record was 13-20. So they had no where to go but up.
In the first year as a new head coach, their teams averaged out to a 4-8 record. Of these examples, a couple backed into bowls game (6-6 will do that), but both lost. They improved steadily, to 6-6 in the second year and 7-5 in their third year. The ten coaches who went into a fourth year compiled a composite 9-3 record. Two coaches did not get to a fourth year because they were hired away by richer programs.
Many of the FBS teams got into bowl games in their third year and most managed it in their fourth year. Overall, they were about 9-7 in their bowl appearances. Four of the six FCS coaches got their teams into post-season play by the third or fourth years of their tenure. And two of those won a first-round game.
On the other hand: Only three of these twelve successful coaches have stayed more than 10 years at the school where they got their first head coaching job. One is still there after 7 years, so the clock is still running. The other eight averaged 4.3 years at that school before they were hired away
Who were these guys? In alphabetical order: Art Briles, Houston. Dave Clawson, Fordham. Tom Gilmore, Holy Cross. Al Golden, Temple. Lou Holtz, William & Mary. Mike MacIntyre, San Jose State. Bronco Mendenhall, BYU. Bobby Petrino, Louisville. Danny Rocco, Liberty. Brock Spack, Illinois State. Jim Tressel, Youngstown State. Tommy Tuberville, Ole Miss.
Several of these coaches are “household names” in college football coaching, while others are fairly obscure. But all have been successful, some very successful, so far. But even they took awhile to get rolling. Given the current attitudes of fans, one gets the feeling they were only given those three or four years because the teams they took over were so bad. :?
