UMGriz75 said:
Starting over is not entirely peril. I think it is true not just in sports, but in business and academics as well. With Engstrom gone, UM gets a re-set from continuing failure. I'm not sanguine about our current football staff, and if UM is to give its student-athletes the best opportunities to succeed, in sport and in life, doubling down on failure may be the second-best alternative to the "fresh start."
To quantify the effect that a coaching change has on recruiting, USA TODAY Sports examined 79 coaching changes on the automatic-qualifying level since the start of the 2003 season and reviewed the ranking of the coach's first full recruiting class, as rated by Rivals.com. The rating of a new coaching staff's first class exceeded that of the previous staff's final class in nearly 70% of the cases (55 of 79). The new staffs' classes ranked 8.94 spots higher on Rivals' scale when compared to their predecessors' final group — in some cases making a significant enough leap to turn around the direction of an entire program.
While recruiting bumps were seen across every AQ conference, the more noteworthy leaps were typically seen after coaching changes at historically successful programs. Washington's first full class under coach Steve Sarkisian took a 40-spot leap when compared to Tyrone Willingham's final class, in large part because of the Huskies' steep decline in Willingham's final two seasons. Nebraska experienced a 35-spot leap in 2005, after Bill Callahan replaced Frank Solich.
Even programs who found little on-field success experienced an immediate bump. For example, former Colorado coach Jon Embree's first full class, signed in 2012, was ranked 38 spots higher in Rivals' rankings than Dan Hawkins' final full class; Embree was 3-10 in 2011, his first year with the program. In 2008, former Minnesota coach Tim Brewster signed the 17th-best class in the FBS — a 40-spot leap compared to his predecessor's final group — after going 1-11 in his debut.
The improvement is also striking when comparing a new coach's original class, often signed on the fly after being hired, and his first full class signed after a season with the program. In this case, the 79 new AQ coaches experienced an average climb of 11.03 spots in Rivals' class rankings. Only 21 coaches saw a decline in class ranking after one full season in the position.
This trend can be attributed to several factors, none more important than the idea that new coaches, nearly to a man, are able to better sell their respective programs than the staff they've replaced. "You're basically there starting with a clean slate," Stoops said. "It doesn't matter what your identity was the previous year, because this is a new direction. This is where you're going."
The arrival of any new leader — whether a coach in football or a CEO in business — creates the "anticipation of a possibility," said Robert Marshak, a senior scholar in residence in American University's Department of Public Administration and Policy.
"The entrance of somebody new always holds out a little bit of hope that this person will somehow be different or act different or make different than what was before," Marshak said. "And if before is not as good as you would like it to be, then there is that possibility."
It's this "promise of the future" that leads to immediate results on the recruiting trail, said Hall of Fame coach Grant Teaff, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association.
"A lot of it has to do with the change that's taken place," he said. "There's new energy. There's new ideas. 'Yeah, I love that school, but they haven't been able to win. But man, this coach is going to win.' So, bingo."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/recruiting/2013/09/16/college-football-recruiting-new-coach-first-year-bump/2794545/
According to other sources, your first year bump phenomenon is the exception, not the rule:
"“The pressure has gotten out of control to win,” said Bradley Dale Peveto, whose contract was terminated last week after four seasons at Northwestern State of Louisiana.
Over the past decade, about 1 in 10 universities at the major college level replaced their head football coaches annually for performance-related reasons. But a recent study suggests that replacements do not tend to make underperforming teams much better in subsequent seasons and frequently make them worse.
Anecdotal evidence and scientific analysis indicate that replacing a coach is no guarantee of success. Houston finished 5-7 this season after changing its coordinator. Wisconsin is a middling 7-5 after firing its line coach. The Badgers reached the Big Ten Conference title game only because N.C.A.A. penalties left Ohio State and Penn State ineligible.
A study published last month in Social Science Quarterly may provide sobering news to Auburn, Tennessee and other universities that have fired their coaches. Using data from 1997 to 2010, the study compared the performance of major college teams that replaced their coach with teams with similar records that kept their coach.
The results, tracked over a five-year period following the coaching changes, might surprise many. The lowliest teams subsequently performed about the same as other struggling teams that did not replace their coach. Mediocre teams — those that won about half their games in the year before a coaching change — performed worse than similar teams that did not replace their coach.
The reasons for this are not clearly understood, but may stem from an adjustment period required by a coach at a new university, the time players need to learn a new system and disruptions made to recruiting networks, said E. Scott Adler, an associate professor of political science at the University of Colorado and the lead author of the study.
Statistically speaking, Adler said: “There’s not much to be said for every few years dumping a coach who’s had a couple bad seasons. In the long run, you are about in the same situation down the road if you had done nothing and ridden out the storm.”
Adler’s own university recently fired its coach, Jon Embree.
There are exceptions, of course, which lend urgency to efforts by fans and administrators to throw out one coach and bring in another. Auburn measures itself against a fierce intrastate rival, Alabama, which is seeking its third national title in four seasons after hiring Nick Saban at a hefty salary that has reached $5.5 million per season, the highest in the country."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/29/sports/ncaafootball/time-runs-out-but-not-the-money-in-college-football-coaches-firings.html