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How College Football's Coaches Have Fared Against Top-25 Tea

sitzee

sitzee

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Although Golden's record while at The U is 3-6, I'm surprised to see how many coaches have losing records against The Top 25...
 
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is that top 25 at the time of the game or top 25 ranking after the season is done? makes a huge difference to me as several teams bounce in and out of the rankings that shouldnt be there every year.
 
sitzee said:
View attachment 24650

Although Golden's record while at The U is 3-6, I'm surprised to see how many coaches have losing records against The Top 25...
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Here's the rest of the article:


The Associated Press college-football poll came out Sunday, which got us thinking: Which coaches fare best against ranked (i.e., real) competition?

The Count compiled the records of all 64 major-conference coaches (plus Notre Dame's Brian Kelly) against AP top-25 opponents. We included both their career record and their record at their current school.

Granted, this is a harsh measuring stick. Coaches who faced ranked opponents while they were rising through the profession at small-conference schools are at a disadvantage. So are the coaches of traditional doormats. But it is interesting for once to see coaches' résumés against elite competition—as opposed to their overall records, which are larded up with cupcake opponents.

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Observations:

David Shaw, Stanford (14-4): The best winning percentage (.778). Granted, it is a relatively small sample size—Shaw has been a head coach for only three seasons, and he took over a strong program—but 18 ranked opponents in three years is a ton. Urban Meyer has faced seven in three years at Ohio State. (Also, two of Shaw's four losses were in overtime.)

Bob Stoops, Oklahoma (50-23): The most impressive record, bar none. Consider: Nick Saban, the gold standard of college coaches, is 28-12 against ranked opponents at Alabama—a slightly higher winning percentage (.700 versus .685), but barely half the games. Stoops's big-game reputation took a hit in Oklahoma's 55-19 loss to Southern California in the 2004-season national-championship game, but looking back at that now, that USC team was one of the greatest teams of all time—and its Bowl Championship Series title was later vacated because of rules violations.

Bret Bielema, Arkansas (10-20, 0-6): The most noteworthy figure here is the one gleaned by subtraction: Bielema was 10-14 against ranked teams in his previous job at Wisconsin, despite inheriting a mature, successful program.
 
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I would like to see a more granular view of Top 10 vs. Top 25 as well as a metric of the opponents who consistently rank highly. There is a difference between going 2 - 2 against the LSU's of the world and going, again for example, a UCF, Boston College or some other mid-tier team that happens to crack the Top 25 for a week or two.

Still, Saban is The Man. No matter how you split the numbers.
 
Who out of that group would we:

a) want to go after as a replacement for Golden?

b) have the ability to hire away?

Obviously there are a few guys floating out there like Butch that I would take who are not currently coaching, but for the most part I think we have a pretty good thing relative to our donor base (and let's be honest, that is what matters). The talent train is starting to roll and I see a number of top 25 victories in our future, but let's not be unrealistic about how many of those games even good coaches lose, especially while building a team (great stat re: Saban at LSU).
 
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It mostly has to do with what level school you are coaching at, and thus the level of talent you can acquire. See David Cutcliff as an example.
 
ball915 said:
Great job Dan Mullen. Going on his 6th year too.
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And to think he was seen as being on the "short list" here too.

What's Muscorch's excuse too? Even the garbage $EC teams are all too often still ranked so the mere quantity of "superior" conference play should have provided that clown a better record.
 
Surprised by Rich Rodruiguez numbers (16-26, 3-7). Yeah, he sucks as a coach, but he coached for years in the Big Least. I guess they were regularly butt stomped in their OOC games.
 
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David Shaw is excellent.

Stanford always seems like their ready to go in big games.

They always play extremely disciplined and never seem to beat themselves.
 
Man, some good coaches on there with some pretty bad records. Just goes to show how much some of those teams make their records by just beating up on crap teams.... Bill Snyder for example.... I was impressed to see Urbies record, though its much easier to get up for one or two bigger games a year.... Surprised to see AG at 3-6. That doesn't jive with the theory of being 1-11 vs teams with a pulse.. where does that come from anyway?
 
Obviously a smaller sample size but Chris Petersen's 8-4 is pretty impressive too. It'll be interesting to see how he fares in a real conference.
 
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jerzeycane said:
David Shaw is excellent.

Stanford always seems like their ready to go in big games.

They always play extremely disciplined and never seem to beat themselves.
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Think he's a good coach, but he also inherited a good program.. "started from the bottom" does not apply.
 
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