Scooch
Living Legend
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... says data.
As I always preface all of my stats-heavy posts, this is not perfect. There are outliers and qualifiers.
I took a look at coaches currently with teams in the AP top 25 to see how they did in year #3 at their program. I didn’t bother to look at coaches from powerhouse schools, so I excluded Ohio State, LSU, Alabama, ND, Florida, Oklahoma , Michigan and Florida State. What Bob Stoops did at Oklahoma in year #3, or Saban at ‘Bama, really has little bearing on how we should calibrate our expectations at SU.
I also excluded Houston since the coach hasn’t been there 3 years yet . So I’ve focused on what arguably could be the sixteen comparable top 25 programs with circumstances vaguely similar to SU. Again, NOT PERFECT, but at least a conversation starter.
Of the sixteen coaches I examined 11 had more wins in year 3 than what the program achieved the year prior to that coach’s arrival. 2 were the same and 3 were worse. To be fair, just 8 of those 16 programs had winning seasons before the coach’s arrival, so many faced a relatively low bar. Also to be fair, of those 3 that were worse it includes David Shaw following a 12-1 year and Kyle Whittingham following a 12-0 year. Exceedingly high bars.
Perhaps more telling, of the sixteen coaches 12 had more wins in year #3 of their tenure then than they had in year #1. Three had the same amount of wins, and just 1 had less.
I know what some of the immediate responses will be: this isn’t apples-to-apples with SU’s circumstances, we have young talent, we’re catching up to the rest of the ACC, this isn’t a fair peer set, etc. I get it. I do.
But this data suggests that generally speaking, in broad strokes, by year #3 a top 25 coach tends to be showing progress, if not outright marked improvement. Only one of these coaches actually backslid from year #1 to #3, and that was Mark Dantonio with a 1 win decline.
I know progress is rarely linear, and I’m sure someone can produce examples of ultimately successful coaches who struggled for 3 years before flourishing later. But I do find this data troubling. We should be seeing improvement from a record standpoint, and we’re not.
Falling off from the 8 win total we had the year before Shafer started would not be unheard of. But falling off to 3 or 4 wins in year #3 definitely would be for a coach that ultimately gets to the top 25.
Maybe we’ll finish strong and put this to bed, I think we’d all prefer that.
As I always preface all of my stats-heavy posts, this is not perfect. There are outliers and qualifiers.
I took a look at coaches currently with teams in the AP top 25 to see how they did in year #3 at their program. I didn’t bother to look at coaches from powerhouse schools, so I excluded Ohio State, LSU, Alabama, ND, Florida, Oklahoma , Michigan and Florida State. What Bob Stoops did at Oklahoma in year #3, or Saban at ‘Bama, really has little bearing on how we should calibrate our expectations at SU.
I also excluded Houston since the coach hasn’t been there 3 years yet . So I’ve focused on what arguably could be the sixteen comparable top 25 programs with circumstances vaguely similar to SU. Again, NOT PERFECT, but at least a conversation starter.
Of the sixteen coaches I examined 11 had more wins in year 3 than what the program achieved the year prior to that coach’s arrival. 2 were the same and 3 were worse. To be fair, just 8 of those 16 programs had winning seasons before the coach’s arrival, so many faced a relatively low bar. Also to be fair, of those 3 that were worse it includes David Shaw following a 12-1 year and Kyle Whittingham following a 12-0 year. Exceedingly high bars.
Perhaps more telling, of the sixteen coaches 12 had more wins in year #3 of their tenure then than they had in year #1. Three had the same amount of wins, and just 1 had less.
I know what some of the immediate responses will be: this isn’t apples-to-apples with SU’s circumstances, we have young talent, we’re catching up to the rest of the ACC, this isn’t a fair peer set, etc. I get it. I do.
But this data suggests that generally speaking, in broad strokes, by year #3 a top 25 coach tends to be showing progress, if not outright marked improvement. Only one of these coaches actually backslid from year #1 to #3, and that was Mark Dantonio with a 1 win decline.
I know progress is rarely linear, and I’m sure someone can produce examples of ultimately successful coaches who struggled for 3 years before flourishing later. But I do find this data troubling. We should be seeing improvement from a record standpoint, and we’re not.
Falling off from the 8 win total we had the year before Shafer started would not be unheard of. But falling off to 3 or 4 wins in year #3 definitely would be for a coach that ultimately gets to the top 25.
Maybe we’ll finish strong and put this to bed, I think we’d all prefer that.
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