OT: NYT Article on Coaching Changes

Submitted by Eye of the Tiger on

Not of direct relevance to Michigan at present, so OT, but of general interest to football fans.

A tidbit:

A study published last month in Social Science Quarterly may provide sobering news to Auburn, Tennessee and other universities that have fired their coaches. Using data from 1997 to 2010, the study compared the performance of major college teams that replaced their coach with teams with similar records that kept their coach.

The results, tracked over a five-year period following the coaching changes, might surprise many. The lowliest teams subsequently performed about the same as other struggling teams that did not replace their coach. Mediocre teams — those that won about half their games in the year before a coaching change — performed worse than similar teams that did not replace their coach.

Then some Captain Obvious analysis, but also other interesting bits about the unsustainable rise in coaches salaries, particularly in the SEC, and its relationship to coaching turnover. Link.

 

State Street

November 30th, 2012 at 11:10 AM ^

Becausing hiring James Franklin didn't drastically improve Vandy.   Arkansas State would be in the same position with or without Malzahn.  Kent State would be knocking on the BCS door without Darrell Hazell.  Right?

Coaching hires DO matter, Social Science Quarterly.  As long as you get them right. 

thisisme08

November 30th, 2012 at 11:41 AM ^

The root cause of teams that fire their coachs and still end up sucking is that AD's make stupid decisions and hire a coach who scraps their current offense/defense and switch to the complete opposite end of the spectrum (pro vs spread, 4/3 to 3-3-5).

With coaches starting to only get 2 years (Turner Gill, Colorado's coach) to show results, I mean think about it, thats 1 1/2 recruiting cycles to try and get your personnel in....its not happening.    

 

1464

November 30th, 2012 at 12:41 PM ^

This was posted a while back.  There are a lot of holes in this study.  It does not take into account coaching history (previously successful coaches will be given more leeway in terms of staying gainfully employed, and will also be more likely to return to their winning ways) or other metrics for success (off the field stuff such as recruiting and player development).  There are too many variables for this to be a practical or logical conclusion.

GOLBOGM

November 30th, 2012 at 12:46 PM ^

The article linked through the NYT article didnt work for me...

I was wondering if they broke it down by conference- or compared BCS teams and FBS seperately.  Perhaps BCS conferences had improvement that was offset by FBS schools that remained the same after coaching changes (or the opposite).

I was also wondering if any other sports were part of it.  Recruiting plays such a big role in football where uppercalssmen domiante so much- it can take 3 years to get your system going (or longer).

In basketball a new coach can get highly recruited freshman and change a program quicker imo.

Overall this is interesting but each firing is unique- and they need to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis imo.  

Plus, a lot of firing coaches is money and confidence not simply results.  Some firings seem to be equally about revitalizing programs (and revenue) more than even results...