B1G Coaching Tenures

Because they sound like the names of foreigners. Also, it should be O'Pelini.

Ferentz had some VERY good years in the first 1/3rd of his career and almost always rolls out good defenses - Norm Parker before he died was excellent.  Expectations are different there and relative to how they recruit they do well. They always have a good defense , they always have good offensive linemen.  They almost always lack any serious high end RB, QB, or WR.  I am generalizing but considering the lack of high starzzzz skill position players on offense he does a decent job there. 

I dont think it is that far different than Minnesota - its not an easy place to recruit and who are they getting in the Midwest?  The guys left over after ND, OSU and UM have picked.  Competing with Minnesota Wisconsin MSU and Illinois.  And Nebraska takes a bunch of the guys in the heartland as well. 

All that said, the contract they gave him was ridiculous.

Ferentz has been nothing but average to above average. He had some good seasons when Drew Tate was there, but Drew was a really good QB and his defenses in those seasons were great. Other than that stretch, I see mediocrity. The same goes for Michigan since 1999 with the exception of some bright spots here and there.

The big difference is the NC coaches made an immediate impact at the school where they took over

Unlike at Michigan after Carr '06-07 and Rich Rod, these coaches didn't have a roster to rebuild AND system to install:


Mack Brown (Texas 2005)
@ UNC, his first 5 years he was 24-31.  Final 5 years at UNC he was 45-15

@ Texas he was 70-19 in the 7 years before they won it all

Urban Meyer (Florida 2006 & 2008):

@ BG he was 17-6 in 2 years, then 22-2 at Utah.  He went 9-3 at Florida before winning it all

Les Miles (LSU 2007):
@ OkSt, he was 28-21 in 4 seasons.  He won it all in his 4th year at LSU, having gone 34-6 prior to that

 

Nick Saban (Alabama 2009, 2011, 2012):

@ MSU he was 34-24 in 5 seasons.  @ LSU he was 48-16 in 5 seasons with a championship in 2003.  @ Alabama he went 7-6 then 12-2 before reeling off 3 titles in 4 years

Gene Chizik (Auburn 2010):

He's the exception.  He went 5-19 in 2 years at Iowa St, then 8-5 in his first season at Auburn before going 14-0 behind Cam Newtown and some booster cash.

JimBo Fisher (see what I did there?) (FSU, 2013):

31-10 in 3 seasons at FSU prior to 2013 championship
 

I think it'd be more interesting to put together trajectory of *all* coaching changes of maybe the upper 50 schools of the last decade or so.

Just using 10 NC coaches is a self fulfilling data set. I don't think Michigan has the power to pull guys of that caliber in any case. The list of candidates is meager enough right now that my personal feeling is there's a good chance you have a bunch of upheaval just to land in the same spot again. I know people love pointing to the Malzahns and Harbaughs of the world, but that's the exception to the rule.

look, that was a look of acceptance they couldn't and wouldn't beat ND, and that's more disturbing than being baffled.

Brady Hoke sideline instructions:

1. Point towards the ball

2. Stare in disbelief after play

3. Clap hands and slap butts of players coming off the field

4. Repeat as necessary

From his Wikipedia Page:

"Beamer took over a Virginia Tech football program that was largely unsuccessful in its first century, having reached only six bowl games to that point."

prior to Beamer, VTU was an Independant, and weak one at that.  One that played a schedule  that included as many as 3 D1AA opponents along with a slew of pretty weak opponents to begin with.

Beamer was hired just prior to joining the Big East, a definite upgrade in competition and stature.  I suggest he was given more time for other reasons than he was just a good football coach.

Apples.  Meet Oranges.

VT was a horrid no history program.  The comparison for Beamer is a guy like Snyder at Kansas State.  Or Boise State 12 years ago etc.

If you want do apples to apples compare ND post Holtz, compare Bama in the Shula era, compare USC post Carroll, compare Oklahoma post Switzer, Nebraska post Osborne etc. 

Also I think ALL these comparisons have no merit.  For every outlier who started out bad after 3-4 seasons who goes on to rousing success (1 guy out of 20) another 5 out of 20 were ok coaches, and the other the other 14 were mediocre to bad coaches where the first 3 years proved exactly what they are.  So we can pick the outliers and say we surely have the outlier or we can go with probability.  

People defending Willingham and Weiss could say the same thing after 3-4 years.  "Hey would you have fired Beamer or Dantonio!?" (if Dantonio had been around in those days)