EuroGator;n11952 said:
I'll be his Huckleberry. Above is his first post in it's entirety. Many of you seem outraged that he posted this, perhaps because you're assuming that he's trying to say that Muschamp's quality as a coach are on par with Saban, Spurrier and Donovan. I read back through the thread and I can't find where he implied this or made that assertion.
That is not accurate. He posted a set of facts -- winning percentages, arguably the most important facts -- for several coaches and stated that those facts "speak for themselves." Other posters then presented additional facts that deuce didn't like to which he responded by calling their facts “excuses,†“assumptions†and “claims†based on their “feelings.†He then reasserted that he had presented the only facts that mattered and that they “speak for themselves.â€
It’s as if he was comparing two rookie racecar drivers that had just run a qualifying lap on a racetrack in the same exact time and concluded the two drivers were equal. Then another person stated that one driver was in a Ferrari and the other was in a Miata. Deuce’s response was basically, “they ran it in the same exact time, the facts speak for themselves.â€
So I decided to look up some additional facts on coaches’ records their first three seasons as a head coach and the records of the teams they inherited in the three seasons before they took over. I looked at the longest tenured coaches in the SEC, some former members of our coaching staff, and one knucklehead that we all love to make fun of.
Here is what I found:
% Improvement (coaches first 3 compared to 3 years prior), Coach, School, % 3 years prior, % first 3 years
46% Bob Stoops, Oklahoma, 35%, 82%
32% Urban Meyer, Bowling Green/Utah, 45%, 77%
29% Steve Spurrier, Duke, 30%, 59%
20% Nick Saban, Michigan State, 32%, 53%
17% Les Miles, Oklahoma State, 39%, 57%
15% Dan Mullen, Mississippi State, 41%, 55%
11% Mark Richt, Georgia, 69%, 80%
3% Charlie Weis, Notre Dame, 57%, 59%
-9% Ron Zook, Florida, 67%, 59%
-9% Lame Kitten, Tennessee/Southern Cal, 75%, 66%
-12% Gary Pinkel, Toledo, 64%, 52%
-25% Will Muschamp, Florida, 83%, 58%
(Note that for Kitten and Meyer, who were at multiple places during their first 3 years, I took weighted averages of the previous 3 years at both schools. Also the percent improvement might look a point off because of rounding)
So looking at this list, the first 5 guys won national championships and most of the guys at the bottom of the list have been fired and taken lesser positions. The exception is Pinkel who has one conference title in 23 years as a head coach (Toledo in ’95) and whose most impressive post-season win is the cotton bowl.
Based on these facts I think it is useful to look at the program a coach has taken over and the level of success in the years preceding his tenure. I do not think it is “balanced†to refer to this as “excuses,†“assumptions†or “claims†based on “feelings.â€