OT: the effect of firing coaches

I thought this was going to be about Charlie Weis. 

Survivorship bias - they probably don't factor incoaches that were replaced before they were 4 years in so they will be analyzing 'good enough' coaches by definition

How a Michigan alumnus and fan could write a study concluding this is beyond me.

I'm guess that is the conclusion because that is what the data shows.

Yes, I know I'm answering sarcasm with sarcasm.

I live down the road from NC State and they are going through this particular situation now.  Tom O'Brien has been there for six years and he's pretty consistently been in the 8-9 win range.  NC State has a habit of beating good teams (Clemson in 2011, FSU in 2012) but losing to bad teams (Virginia in 2012).

I've always thought....."Who do you think you are?"  Not every program can be in the Top 25.  I think that programs hate the status quo and all think that they can be better than they are.  That's true to a large extent but most team have ceilings.  We've seen the rise of teams like Kansas State, Oklahoma State and Stanford in recent years.  I think that those teams are more of the exception than the rule....and I'm not convinced that they can remain at those levels.

In the case of NC State, I don't think that they'll benefit from firing O'Brien (they'll most likely still be in the 8-9 win range regardless of the coach is).  Now, if a team is consistently in the 4-5 win range, they probably do need to look at coaching options.  That's a status quo that you really can't accept.

This is just bad science. It is impossible to scientifically determine the effects of firing coaches because you have no control group.

Never ever ever trust pop science bullshit like this.

Edit: to clarify, I'm not saying that a statistical analysis has o value, but you cannot draw distinct and specific conclusions from them.

I don't think the guy is wrong with respect to Michigan yet - he states that the zero improvement result is after year 4.  Hoke is obviously only in year 2 at this point.  Regardless, interesting articles are interesting.

their conclusion is probably borne out by their data.

However, to go from that to the belief that firing a lousy coach is guaranteed NOT to result in any improvement is idiotic, for the obvious reason that the history of college and pro football is filled with hundreds of examples showing dramatic and long-lasting improvement under a new coach.

From 1961 through 1978, Iowa had Jerry Burns, Ray Nagle, Frank Lauterbur, and Bob Commings as HC, with all of them having dreadful records. Using Adler's logic, Iowa made a dumb decision to fire Commings and hire Hayden Fry for the 1979 season.

Jon Embry should stay

The problem with this study is that it's going to be unduly influenced by the fact that terrible programs, like Indana, are regularly firing coaches whereas the stronger programs (like Michigan) very rarely do so.  So you have lots of coaching changes at the nearly hopeless schools that distort the total picture.  If you focus on schools that are historically average or above average, the picture may be very different. 

I don't think Michigan regrets its most recent firing (Rodriguez).  Nor does MSU regret its most recent firing (JLS), nor does Wisconsin (Don Morton - the coach before Alvarez), Northwestern (the guy before Gary Barnett - I can't remember his name) or Iowa (Bob Commings - the coach before Hayden Fry).  LSU is probably okay with having fired Gerry DiNardo (the coach there before Saban), ND is probably fine with Charlie Weis being gone, and I imagine no one at Alabama is pining for Mike Shula.

You've got to fire coaches. If you don't their career inevitably ends in scandal. 

Most teams are mediocre and they fire coaches to help but bring in another mediocre coach.  Do you think Urb would have come out of family time to coach Indiana or Saban would have left LSU for Iowa State?  Everyone tends to rise to their level of incompetence. When your team is a .500 for fifty years it is because your team is a .500 operation.  If a coach comes in and goes .750 he will be leaving to some place were he can go .500 until he gets fired.

So now I have some actual research to back up my assertion that firing Jim Leyland in the middle of this past season would not have accomplished much, if anything. Awesome!

This is the problem with big picture analysis.  I think great coaches make a big difference, but most schools can't afford great coaches.

Just because schools on average don't improve by firing a coach does not mean you should keep a bad coach.

On average, most schools don't have any improvement after firing coaches, and firing a coach if far from a gurantee of improvement, but some schools *do* improve after firing the coach. After a coach proves to be bad, keeping him will just gurantee a bad future. Firing him might make things worse, or it might have no effect, but it might make things better. Once you know you have a bad coach, I'd rather take a chance at getting a good coach at the risk of getting an even worse coach than just stick with a known bad coach. Never going to improve by keeping a bad coach.

athletic directors who have no idea what they're doing when they conduct a HC search. How anybody could have fired Glen Mason and think that Tim Brewster was going to be an improvement is still a mystery.