Michigan coaching trees 1901-Present.

Submitted by justingoblue on

This is my first board I have posted, and I know a lot of people out there know this topic better than I do, but I felt like it should be put in one place, because I was amazed at these numbers. I owe Undefeated Dream Season of 1992 and his "Michigan's appetite for a big name coach" post for the inspiration for this.

With the hiring of Brady Hoke, Michigan has had twelve coaches since Yost was hired in 1901. Of these, eight would fit the "Michigan Man" meme (having either played at Michigan or served as an assistant before becoming head coach). The four outliers are Yost, Crisler, Bo, and RR.

Yost and his coaching tree, plus a former player (Little, Wieman and Kipke) coached Michigan from the turn of the 20th Century into the Great Depression. Following Crisler's hire from the outside in 1938, Crisler and his tree lasted 30 years, when Bo was brought in from the outside. As we are familiar with, the Bo tree has now been in place for (at least part of) every presidential administration since Lyndon Johnson; we are quite familiar with the outlier from 2008-2010.

The numbers:

Four outside coaches have been hired in the last 110 years, and those four coaches were at the helm for a combined 59 years. In the same time period, eight "insiders" have been hired and have coached for a total of 61 years.

Per jmblue's edit, there have been 34 years of "outsiders" since 1926 when Yost retired after his second stint as head coach.

Not knocking either type of coach, but I had never gone through and thought about the past Michigan coaches in this light. Not sure that it means anything in context of the last few weeks other than Michigan is a very conservative place that historically resists change from the outside. Take from this whatever you like, but I found it interesting as hell to see the numbers together.

34Hybrid

January 13th, 2011 at 1:32 AM ^

but the more i think about it. Are defensive coaches were not very successful here and i blame that on Rich. Rich never had an identitiy on defense and it eventually lead to his doom!

Hail

BlueHills

January 13th, 2011 at 1:51 AM ^

was actually part of the Woody Hayes Miami of Ohio and Ohio State tree. So in a way, you could say that Hoke is part of the Ohio State legacy at Michigan.

That's kind of odd, isn't it, that our longest period of relative dominance of the league had its roots in...yes...Ohio.

One of the little weirdnesses that makes the B1G so much fun.

jmblue

January 13th, 2011 at 1:59 AM ^

It must be remembered, as well, that we are the winningest program in history.  Over the years, we haven't had that many reasons to go outside the family in coaching hires.  The few outside hires we've had have come when we either had fallen on hard times (as in Crisler, Schembechler) or had no apparent internal candidate (Rodriguez).

Incidentally, this is not that unusual.  Nebraska's history is very similar to ours: from 1962 to 2004 they had three coaches, with one passing the torch to another.  They went outside for Callahan for what proved a brief, unsuccessful stint, and then found a "Nebraska Man" in Pelini to replace him.

Likewise, OSU has had just four coaches in the past 60 years, and three (Woody, Bruce, Tressel) are from the same tree.  Cooper was the one outside guy.  It will be interesting to see where they go when Tressel retires.  An OSU Man?  Probably.

justingoblue

January 13th, 2011 at 2:07 AM ^

Very true. I wasn't trying to make this an indictment of the program or anything. By any objective measure our team is one of a very few greats, so who the hell am I to question it's amazing history.

I just think it's really interesting how it got done, and how long these coaching trees have been ridden.

Edit- Been ridden, and with independent success. Kipke, Oosterbaan and Carr were all hired from the inside and they share four MNC's and twelve B1G championships between them.

jmblue

January 13th, 2011 at 2:31 AM ^

Those numbers aren't correct.  Yost coached from 1901-23 and again from 1925-26.  That latter portion could be considered an internal hire - so 23 seasons from an outside hire.

Crisler coached from 1938-47 - 10 seasons.

Bo coached from 1969-89 - 21 seasons.

RR coached from 2008-10 - three seasons.

So outside hires have actually coached for 57 of the past 110 years.  But, they've only coached for 34 seasons since 1924, so your general point still basically holds. 

justingoblue

January 13th, 2011 at 2:32 AM ^

Ah, you're correct. I got caught in not counting the first year in, for example, 1969-89. I'll edit that right away.

But I don't think Yost counts as an internal hire after taking the year off. He was still around and had coached at Michigan, but he also doesn't fit the mold of former player or assistant either.

BlueArcflash

January 13th, 2011 at 5:05 AM ^

Its nice to remember Bo as a alright coach, but never winning a NC in 21 seasons has to raise questions. Sure he talked big and had a moderately successful program, other than that, not so much.

ND Sux

January 13th, 2011 at 7:19 AM ^

AYFKM?  The blue arcs are trying to flash across your brain but are failing to connect.  Not only was the Bo era considered hugely successful, but the 'program' is still in many ways defined by the stamp he put on it.  Toughness, tenacious D, keeping the program clean, "Those Who Stay...", the #1 jersey, and on and on.  I would love to see a list of traditions that started under Bo and live on today. 

NC's are not the be all/end all in measuring success.  Bo is a legend for many, many reasons. 

MGoVillain

January 13th, 2011 at 8:20 AM ^

BTW during Bo's tenure in college football nearly all the emphasis was put on winning your conference.  There was no BCS games or 30 something different bow l games you could get into etc etc.  It was pretty much Rose Bowl or bust.  Very different time.  I don't feel like looking up the numbers but Bo had like an .800 winning percentage and constantly won Big 10 titles.  He was a hugely successful coach not to mention defining the Michigan identity into the modern era.

Vasav

January 13th, 2011 at 9:14 AM ^

As are the comments posted below. Thanks for doing this, it really does bring some perspective.

There were plenty of reasons I liked Rod, and a big one was because I worried that with only internal hires we would stagnate. While I think this shows that's true, it also shows that there's no reason to go outside the "family" before we stagnate. Whether we were stagnating under Lloyd's last year is certainly debatable, and Rod has laid the groundwork for Hoke to have success, which makes this even more interesting to me - should Hoke's first couple fo years be considered the "love child" of Schembechler and Rod? And if Hoke manages to actually bring in a 3-3-5 and run a dumbed down spread, could we see some of Rod's coaching tree come back too Ann Arbor in the future? Do you think we may see Magee in Ann Arbor in the future?