Hokepoints: Big Hires Are Evidently a Big Deal Comment Count

Seth

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From left: Brady Hoke & Jerry Kill in 2011 [Upchurch], Les Miles and Cam Cameron at the 1989 spring game [Bentley], and James Franklin as a coordinator [courtesy Maryland Athletics] 

For HTTV this year I did a study on Big Ten and SEC, and the factors that led to a marked disparity in football success that grew up between them since 1999. One of the most stunning differences I found was in the splashiness of coaching hires.

Someone on the board early this morning asked whether high-profile candidates are such a big deal. The original study answered this emphatically: "Yes!" I thought I'd extend it to the rest of the Power 5 hires since '99 and see if that's still true.

Methodology: I looked at the circumstances at the moment of hiring of every coach (156 total) who started a tenure at a currently Power 5 program since 1999, and put them into one of three (plus one) categories:

  • Strong: Stealing another BCS school's coach, or the heir apparent at a power program, or grabbing the year's hottest candidate, or being the school that finally pries a legendary mid-major coach away when everyone else has been trying for years. Universally, these are headline-grabbing guys who probably needed a major monetary incentive to pry them from their last position.
  • Average: A guy who was obviously responsible for turning a mid-major into a perennial 9- or 10-win team, a successful NFL or power program coordinator, promoting your own heir apparent (not after firing his boss), etc. These are the hires that you nod at and say "that makes sense" or "B+".
  • Cheap: Promoting a coordinator you didn't plan on, grabbing a mid-major coach with mediocre success or success that's not obviously his. Grabbing a washout from the NFL or the Power 5, or a guy who wouldn't have been on any coaching radar except yours.
  • (Interim): Don't count unless they were made full.
    These are of course debatable, since they're the opinions of one dude who's been obsessively following college football over this time period, so you can only draw so much. I didn't remember all of them, obviously, but I was able to jog my impressions by reading articles on coaching searches around the time. This is one instance when my life was actually made better by the annual proliferation of "we grade this year's hires" articles from mainstream outlets. When I couldn't decide, I defaulted "average."
    I welcome your suggestions for changes, so long as they fit the criteria (hindsight must be irrelevant).
    The data:

[After the jump: what we learned]

When we break out the levels we get a result not unlike recruiting, where the performance of individuals is highly varied, but the blue chips are more likely to pan out:

Level Wins Losses Win% vs Norm
Strong 1780 988 64% +3%
Average 1906 1428 57% 0%
Cheap 1527 1467 51% -3%

There's an effect; it's not a huge one. Strong hires tend to win at a much higher clip, but they get hired at schools where winning is the norm, and winning almost two thirds of your games at a power five school is below the expectation for grabbing (and paying for) a big-name hire.

However the spread is significant. There is a trend, and if money isn't a big deal (or you're the kind of school who'll pay top dollar for a hire you could make on the cheap anyway) then the big name is absolutely the way to go. You can see why when you chart the hires of the power conferences in this time:

Conf Coaches Strong Average Cheap
SEC 37 23 9 5
PacXII 31 11 13 7
Big XII 21 5 8 8
Big Ten 30 4 9 17
ACC 34 4 17 13
Ind 3 2 1 -
Total 156 48 58 50

The conferences that emphasize big hires have been getting better; those who don't have fallen behind. The Big Ten's four headliners were John L. Smith (stolen from Louisville for a lot of money), Rich Rodriguez, Urban Meyer, and James Franklin. It would seem like just a 50% hit rate, worse than that if you're not sold on Franklin, or perhaps better than that if you're one of those people who wears Arizona undergarments to Michigan games.

One common thread with Smith and RR was the chorus of talk radio-level analysis singing "The spread will never work in the Big Ten!" on the way in, and on the way out, despite defensive struggles being the true culprit for their failures. On the micro level, there are all sorts of reasons why the big guys failed, and often it's weird things like culture non-fits, that cause it.

Big School Comparisons

Last thing I did was to break out the 36 hires made in this time by the 16 power schools that should have a similar kind of budget and recruiting cachet as the job at Michigan. They are: OSU, Bama, ND, Oklahoma, USC, Nebraska, Texas, PSU, Tennessee, FSU, Georgia, LSU, Miami (YTM), Auburn, and Florida.

Strong: 21 hires, among which four are Urban Meyer and Nick Saban. The other big successes relative to their program norms were Malzahn, Les Miles, Pete Carroll, Mark Richt, Bob Stoops, and Tuberville. Gene Chizik and Brian Kelly have won around the norm for their programs. Franchione and Kiffin (at USC) were somewhat below. Reserving judgment on Butch Jones and the guys hired just this year, only Tyrone Willingham and (sigh) Rich Rodriguez didn't come close to matching program expectations.

Average: 11 hires, and considerably less success. Larry Coker, Jimbo Fisher and Jim Tressel were the only major successes from this group, with Bo Pelini and Ron Zook (at Florida) around their programs' historical averages. Minor disappointments were Al Goden, Muschamp, and Bill O'Brien (who shouldn't be judged against the PSU norm for obvious reasons). Charlie Weiss, Mike Shula and Derek Dooley were disasters.

Cheap: Just four hires and none worked out—going cheap is rare for a program that can afford not to, unless your school is about to be hit with major NCAA violations. The latter explains Randy Shannon (-9%) and Luke Fickell, who registers as an interim for completing a season at OSU that was –29% below expectations. The two unforced errors were Bill Callahan, run out of his job with the Raiders by Charles Woodson's uprising who landed on Nebraska, and Brady Hoke.

Comments

Seth

November 4th, 2014 at 11:40 AM ^

That was one I was on the fence about. He was unemployed but also a hot coaching name in a lot of searches. I could reclassify as "average" if you can find me a weaker "STRONG" hire. The strongest of the "AVERAGE" hires was RR when he was a hot coordinator.

1464

November 4th, 2014 at 11:54 AM ^

Wow.  That escalated quickly... makes me think you may have been running this and then saw that I had posted my opinion about it this morning.

I think the data is interesting, in that it is the sort of data that could be used in a political venue to argue either side.  I still think that too much is made about big name hires, however, am not surprised that on the aggregate, they work out better.  The reason I think that the data may be skewed is because big name programs typically hire big name guys, and Purdue typically hires walruses.  So under the radar hires typically work with under the radar resources.

I'd like to see is what happens with truly elite programs that hire big name, middle of the road, or bargain bin candidates.  Michigan, OSU, Texas, USC, Alabama, Oklahoma, FSU, etc.  When we see that data, we can more firmly understand what it means.

What happens within the same strata of programs when they make these hires?  

schreibee

November 4th, 2014 at 1:23 PM ^

I know the impulse to use hindsight was impossible to resist, and being Michigan fans we are going to quibble this list to death (it's how WE roll),,, but, agree on RR to AZ, he was damaged goods at the time. "Average" at best, although when you made a category for schools with traditionally high expectations, you could have made a corresponding cat of schools with nothing to lose: call it the WTF cat. AZ would definitely be a poster boy.

Also, past failures/successes inevitably color the impression of a hire in retrospect, no matter how you may try to avoid it. Examples 1) and 1a) are Pete Carroll and Charlie Weis (at ND)

You called Carroll STRONG but in fact he was the personification of a failed NFL HC who no one (google USC reaction at the time of his hire) thought was a slam dunk.

OTOH, Weis was universally seen as a major get for ND (check his original contract and almost immediate obscene raise as evidence).  

I know there are others, but as I read down the list those two jumped out at me.

Really enjoyed the list, though. Amazing some of the names you forget over time, and some who were thought STRONG at the time who were abject failures (not talking RR here, now is not the time to rehash that with another hire on the horizon). Others perceived as average or even weak at the time went on to great success. No telling, Huh?!

woomba

November 4th, 2014 at 11:12 AM ^

is pretty touchy feely.  For example, Charlie Strong was at Louisville before Texas.  That sounds pretty average to me.  I would prefer to see the data broken out by salary or some other metric that's more quantifable.

Also, since generally blue chip programs are the ones making big name hires, the increased performance might be attributable to the programs themselves, not the hires.

LJ

November 4th, 2014 at 11:20 AM ^

I agree.  Ed Orgeron at Ole Miss, for example, is listed as strong, and he wasn't even a coordinator prior to his tenure.

Obviously it's difficult to avoid hindsight bias here.  If there's no objective way to do it, perhaps you could get another coder who hasn't yet seen your data and try to establish some reliability between the two?

Trolling

November 4th, 2014 at 11:27 AM ^

I strongly agree with this point. I believe that the point of this study was to determine whether or not a school should "invest" in a hotshot coach based on future win %. In this circumstance I mean invest in the most literal sense (those dolla bills y'all). It makes more sense to break these data down by coaching salary and see if the trend continues. Of course we run into some of the same problems encountered using the original operationalization of coaching hire, but I feel program power mediates the connection between strength of hire and wins more than coaching salary and wins.

Just the 2 cents from a grad student reading waaaay too much research everyday.  

MBloGlue

November 4th, 2014 at 1:33 PM ^

I disagree with your labeling Seth's analysis as "pretty touchy feely".  Qualitative analysis can be just as rigorous as quantifiable metrics. Each can be done well and each can be done poorly.   In my experience, for issues like the one presented here, the best forms of analysis rely on both to complement each other.    I've been working in the public policy realm for some time now.  I have seen too many occasions where public decision makers avoid making hard choices and trade-offs because some quantiative model with unexamined assumptions spits out a number at the end of the process they can hide behind.  Garbage in.  Garbage out. 

Seth is specifically looking at public perception at the time of the hire, which naturally lends itself to qualitative assessments.  You cite the Charlie Strong example, which may be an accurate critique of his classifications, but that doesn't make Seth's analysis "touchy feely".  You are proposing salaries (or "willingness to pay"), which is a different form of analysis of a different (and, in my mind, less interesting) issue.  Further, as Seth suggests, the use of quantitative metrics like salaries can also be gamed.  It seems evident to me in retrospect that Brandon paid Hoke more than necessary in order to create the public perception of a strong hire, especially with the rumors circulating of Brandon passing over some much higher profile but more outspoken candidates. 

Rather than replacing Seth's analysis, which I find both informative and interesting, I'd suggest instead that your recommendation for use of coaching salaries both before and after the hire could be used as criteria to validate his classifications and context-specific assesments of relative strength.  Coaching salaries by themselves wouldn't be very informative or interesting to me.

CodeBlue82

November 4th, 2014 at 4:55 PM ^

The data are presented well and the criteria for assigning strong, average and cheap categories, while subjective, are well-defined.  Nice work!  However, since analysis depends on a qualitative assessment, a nonparametric analysis would be statistically valid and perhaps more revealing. Just looking at the sign of the observed changes would be easy in the spreadsheet.  I tried doing it myself with pencil and paper, but I kept losing count. 

NittanyFan

November 4th, 2014 at 5:13 PM ^

the average "+/- vs. historical win %" across all 156 cases of Cheap, Average, and Strong was -4.45%.

 

For the Cheap hires, 21 cases were >-4.45% (better than the average), 29 cases were below.

For the Average hires, 32 cases were >-4.45%, 26 cases were below.

For the Strong hires, 27 cases were >-4.45%, 21 cases were below.

 

That's about as basic a non-parametric analysis that can be run, but I think it's another piece of evidence supporting a primary takeaway of "There's not a statistically definitive difference between Average and Strong hires, but you definitely don't want to go Cheap!"

jrblue

November 4th, 2014 at 11:16 AM ^

With all that money, goes cheap on coaches.  What the hell is wrong with this conference?  Because the universities are so strong academically do they feel embarrased to spend too much on good coaches?  if you look at the basketball programs you have to say no, right?  The Big Ten has great basketball coaches.  What the hell is with the big ten and their short-sightedness when it comes to football coaches but not basketball?  I just don't get it.

 

I Like Burgers

November 4th, 2014 at 11:53 AM ^

True, but who brings in the food for all of those mouths?  If you don't invest in your breadwinners, then people are eventually going to go hungry.  Trying to go cheap over $1-2M so you can spend a little extra on gymnastics, tennis, and field hockey doesn't make a lot of sense.

If you were in charge of a big company would you pay top dollar for a great sales staff?  Or would you go cheap on sales so Jan in accounting and Pete down in the mail room can get a good raise?

Feed your breadwinners to keep the machine running and everyone stays happy.

NittanyFan

November 4th, 2014 at 11:54 AM ^

Man the B1G goes cheap when it comes to coaching hires.

 

Seriously, in the last 15 years, John L Smith --- who was coaching at C-USA Louisville, had perennial undispclined teams and was coming off a 7-5 season --- was one of the four strongest hires the conference has made.

 

Some of these schools need to be re-investing their BTN mega-bucks back into football.

AnthonyThomas

November 4th, 2014 at 2:49 PM ^

I really think part of it is the fetishization of "gritty-grit, hard work pays off, underdogs come through" attitude that is quintessentially Midwestern and defines the culture of football a lot of Midwesterners adhere to. It's anachronistic and needs to go away. 

steve sharik

November 4th, 2014 at 11:26 AM ^

...the big name guys want to coach in the SEC. Academics are easier and de-emphasized, you can oversign, better access to talent, boosters willing to help you with recruiting and your own compensation (see: Saban's house), and the weather is nice than most.

If B1G schools (ACC, etc.) want the big names, they have to pay not the going rate, but more.

I Like Burgers

November 4th, 2014 at 11:58 AM ^

It all reminds me of when the Tigers were terrible in the early 2000s, and wanted to make a move towards being good.  No one wanted to play for them because they were terrible.  So the only way to get better was to pay way over market rate for guys like Pudge Rodriguez.  That changed the culture and perception of the Tigers and eventually allowed them to sign and recruit players for a more reasonable rate.

The Big Ten and Michigan are in Detroit Tiger's 2004 territory.  If they want to bring in a guy like Harbaugh, they need to offer in the $6-8M a year range and make him say no.  Make the money outweigh the benefits the SEC and warmer climates can offer.

funkywolve

November 4th, 2014 at 11:33 AM ^

Curious as to how he was 'average' hire at Wisconsin according to your criteria?  He was hand picked and groomed by Alvarez to be the head coach once Alavarez stepped down.

How is Miles catagorized as a strong hire by Okie St?  Prior to be head coach at OSU, he had been the oline coach for Colorado, Michigan, OC for Okie St and he was the TE's coach for the Cowboys for 3 years before he was hired by Oklahoma St?

jbibiza

November 4th, 2014 at 1:31 PM ^

I am not a fan of Beilema as a human being, but as a football coach he is hard to knock.  He took over a tire fire at Arkansas playing in the toughest league in the country.  He is rapidly molding them into the type of consistent hard hitting team that he had so much success with at Wisconsin.

He does this with 3 star talent. So even though he is a DB (not that db... though similar) he can make a silk purse out of a razerback's ear... and is already quite competitive despite the lack of wins. 

Seth

November 4th, 2014 at 11:46 AM ^

I'm trying to avoid hindsight with these. There was nothing major about Bielema succeeding Alvarez, and from a guy who knows Alvarez, the grooming and hand-picking is a bit overstated.

Les at Okie State I put as Strong because he was on a lot of radars despite not having the resume of most other "Strong" hires. He was big enough that Gundy (the next candidate for them) agreed to be his OC. I dunno--this is another gray one.

Mr Miggle

November 4th, 2014 at 12:59 PM ^

I know you didn't rate these hires by salary, but you make mention of schools being willing to spend in your discussion. For example, Notre Dame paid Charlie Weis the same as Florida paid Meyer when they had job openings in 2004. I think you can make a good case that the strong hires showed a willingness to spend, but they weren't the only examples of that.

I'd also argue about Illinois hiring Zook being cheap. He had been fired, yes, but from a top level program and with a winning record. For Illinis, that's a big move, also not a cheap salary.

Blue Blue Blue

November 4th, 2014 at 11:38 AM ^

though he was a Coordinator at Auburn, I believe he had a horrifyingly bad record at Iowa State.

He was not a STRONG hire, he was a SLEAZY hire, as he oversaw a crew whose biggest stars were juco transfers who would be on campus for maybe a semester before bailing

wile_e8

November 4th, 2014 at 12:21 PM ^

This is hindsight bias. At the time of his hire, he was most known for tanking at Iowa St., and I think that was his only head coaching experience at the D-IA level. Auburn fans were so unhappy with the hire they literally had fans show up to the airport to to boo him! Hindsight says it worked out ok, but at the time of the hire it was a stretch.

funkywolve

November 4th, 2014 at 11:39 AM ^

He was average hire for Pittsburgh but a strong hire for ASU?  His 6-6 record in one year at Pitt was enough to elevate him into a strong candidate?  I realize Pitt is a BCS school but just stealing a coach from a BCS school shouldn't be enough to catagorize that as a strong hire, should it?  That'd be like saying if UM hired Tim Beckman away from illinois that would be a strong hire cause they poached a coach from a BCS school.

jmdblue

November 4th, 2014 at 11:50 AM ^

for lots of reasons, but I tend to guess hiring "STRONG" coaches is toward the back of the list.  Why are they better?  My list (in order)

1) oversigning/greyshirting/cutting those who don't pan out... they just have more bodies than we do to to see who can perform at the D1 level.

2) Their recruiting techniques are quite productive and differ from ours.

3) academic practices that get/keep their guys eligible and "focused" on football.

4) Liberal use of JC guys to fill holes or, occassionaly, win you a NC.  (Cam Newton likely found his way to Auburn using #2 through #4).

5) Coaching.... There are lots of "STRONG" coaching "busts" from lots of different eras ... RR, Mack Brown, jackie Sherrill, most of ND's recent history.  I think the SEC wins because they want to win at any cost.  They do so with primarily with #1 through #4, but going all in with big name coaches doesn't hurt.

This isn't to say we don't desperately want one of the Harbaughs.  I don't want to move toward the SEC on the top part of my list so we need all the help we can get.

McSomething

November 4th, 2014 at 2:25 PM ^

How many conference and national championships did he win? With the talent base he was pulling from, that's the definition of underachieving. Not saying he didn't accomplish quite a bit, just not nearly as much as the expectations and talent suggest he should've. Not even saying he was the biggest underachiever.

Eye of the Tiger

November 4th, 2014 at 1:06 PM ^

My point was that, if you look at his entire body of work at Texas, he was incredibly successful.

Just looked up all the coaches' records since 1980ish:

  • Fred Akers: 86-31-2 (.737)
  • David McWillians 31-26 (.544)
  • David Mackovic 41-28-2 (.600)
  • Mack Brown 158-48 (.767)

That makes Brown the most successful Texas coach of the past 35 years.

 

 

 

funkywolve

November 4th, 2014 at 11:42 AM ^

I would catagorize as a strong hire.  He was a pretty hot candidate at the time.  In his 5 years at Boise St before he went to CU, Boise went:  8-4, 12-1, 13-1, 11-1 and 9-4 and had 3 finishes in the Top 15.  I live in Colorado and the consensus was when he was hired CU had hit a home run.