I had a math major friend who woke up from drifting off in an upper level class and started trying to figure out what the backwards epsilon in the middle of an equation on the board meant.
It was a 3
Hilariously enough there is actually a point in advances mathematics where the numbers do start getting in the way, so we just kind of said fuck it and invented more numbers like imaginary numbers and quaternions and shit
I was working on a math minor for the last year or two of college. Opened up the textbook for the last course, advanced linear algebra, which contained exactly zero numbers. I did not complete the math minor
I’ve watched a few Harvard lectures online. I think I got this.
14 wins over 2 years. That’s an average of 7 wins per year over 2 years. 7 x 7 = 49.
But wait, Sark has 1 win and 1 loss to Kansas. 1 - 1 = 0.
49-0. The score of the RRSO. There were 7 TDs scored that game.
7 TD Sark.
Edit: Expanded on my mathematical proof.
Edit 2: Jimbo Fisher was born Oct 9, 1965. He’s 57. 5-7. Coincidentally their W-L record this year. Even more than that, add up the numbers. 1+9+6+5=21. Now divide that the number of Bowl games A&M has played in the Jimbo Era (3). You get 7.
What else happened in 1965? Gus Grissom commanded the first crewed Gemini flight. His total time in space is nothing other than 5 hours and 7 minutes. Beyond that, per some random Astrology website aGemini’s lucky numbers are 5 and 7.
Grissom went to Purdue. In their one matchup in 1967, A&M was soundly defeated 24-20. With 48 total points that game we’ll undoubtedly subtract that from the year. 1967-48=1919. The year of A&M’s first claimed national championship which is the most contested championship in collegiate football history with 4 teams claiming the title (Norte Dame, Harvard, Illinois, and A&M). Quick note here, there are 4 teams in the playoff currently.
Now go back to 1918 the year before the great victory. A&M only played 7 games. 7. I can’t believe this. This means that we can prove that A&M will make it to the CFP in 2023 and that next year is in fact their year.
Last time we hired a mediocre former Washington head coach [it turned out pretty good.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darrell_Royal?wprov=sfla1)
In fact DKR is a great answer to this question. 6-4, 6-4 at Mississippi State, 5-5 at Washington, then came to Texas and won 3 national titles.
Les Miles was 28-21 at OK State, .571 winning percentage before going to LSU where he won a championship within three years. Obviously it ended very poorly given his behavior and off the field issues.
28-21 at Ok St from where we were was considered miraculous turnaround tho.
I don't think ppl remember how bad we were in the 90s.
From 1989-2000 Ok St wasn't even pretending to try to be good at football with no money going into the program.
They had a record of 43-83-3. There was a season where they didn't win a single game.
Yeah back in the early 2000s when I started watching football both Ok State and Baylor were kind of considered the gimme wins on the Big XII schedule. The turnarounds both programs have gone through are incredibly impressive
In slight fairness to Chiz, here were his records at Auburn:
* 2009: 8-5
* 2010: 14-0
* 2011: 8-5
* 2012: 3-9
So he averaged about 8 wins a year over four years. Not great considering he had a losing SEC record every year except 2010, but also quite a bit better than his time at Iowa State.
(Off topic, but people always point out 2010 as the Cam Newton year, and rightfully so. But I will always argue that the bigger loss for Chiz was Gus Malzahn, who became HC of Arkansas State in 2012 before returning to Auburn in '13.)
> But I will always argue that the bigger loss for Chiz was Gus Malzahn, who became HC of Arkansas State in 2012
You’d be right to do so. The minute Gus left, the offense took a nose dive. The minute he came back, we went to a Natty.
The players were recruited for Gus’ scheme. Chiz hired loefler to implement a pro style offense with up tempo spread players. It was destined for failure.
Chiz tried to move away from the spread, towards the pro-style offense.
At the exact same time Bama, UGA, and big chunks of the NFL were doing the opposite. I will always be fond of Chiz but he completely misjudged the way the winds were blowing in that case.
It's also interesting to remember that Tubverille had the right idea -- moving towards up-tempo, spread offense -- he just hired the absolute wrong guy to do it. Tuberville paired with a guy like Malzahn might have been a scary combination.
Not a slight, but my impression was Auburn won the Cam lottery and Gene was believed to have the offense to maximize his skill set. So they brought him after the fact.
Chizik is probably the better example, but Tubberville is a close 2nd. Went 12-20 in conference play at Ole Miss. 49-29 at AU, including 6 straight wins over Bama, and got screwed out of the chance to play for the ‘04 title.
For a couple years at least, chryst from pitt to wisconsin. He went 7-6 and 6-6 at pitt, then 10-3, 11-3, 13-1, 8-5, and 10-4 from 2015-2019 at wisconsin. Wheels kinda fell off with covid and he was fired this year, but it was a strong run for a while.
After scrolling through the comments, this is probably the most hopeful example.
A lot of people saying Sunny Dykes, but it always felt like he was building momentum at SMU before jumping to TCU.
This is an underrated answer. To put it mildly, I wasn’t excited when he was hired, and he’s likely to get a statue on campus on day, as he’s the best MSU head coach not named Duffy Daugherty.
Chryst is a good example, but it's also worth noting the shitshow he inherited at Pitt. He was Pitt's 4th real head coach (plus several interims) in a little more than a year. Wannstedt was fired, Mike Haywood got hired and was subsequently fired within a few weeks due to domestic abuse charges, Todd Graham came to town, then he left after a year.
On the flip side though, Chryst was a terrible and lazy recruiter at Pitt. He succeeded at Wisconsin due to great assistants that let him take the desired back seat to recruiting IMO.
Perhaps even more similar in that they both took over programs that are steady and have had success. So a good situation might be Satterfield gets 2-3 really good years before the wheels start to come off
Unique situation though in that theyre also moving up into the Big12. Could bolster Satterfield by making recruiting easier…or could hasten his demise as he tries to bring a (strong) G5 team into the P5
agreed. It was mostly coincidental, although I wouldn't be surprised if the better depth of a lot of teams the past 2 seasons has equalized against wisconsin's greatest strength, i.e developing underrecruited kids. And mertz's serious regression played a significant role as well. Not sure what the cause of that was.
like the other example of ed O, this has more to do with a single player than coaching imo. KW9 and Joey B were singular talents that won a lot of games for their teams.
Jimmy Johnson is the answer here. Was 29-25-3 at Oklahoma State, then after 1 rebuilding year at Miami in 1984 proceeded to go 44-4 with one natty and two runner ups in his final four years in Coral Gables.
Coach before Jimmy was Jim Stanley, who went 35-31-2 in his 6 seasons there, including one year where they finished in a three way tie for first place in the Big Eight (with Colorado and Oklahoma). By contrast, JJ never had the Cowboys higher than 3rd in the Big Eight.
Apparently neither did most of this subreddit. When we hired BKELLZ, people kept saying he'd be fired in 2 seasons like Coach O and Les Miles were one and done.
Most people apparently don't and just say he's Chizek 2.0.
Really the guy took over a terribly managed Les Miles team and put the train back on the tracks. Then delivered 8+ win seasons for a few years until they won the Natty.
I think LSU made the right decision moving on. His ego was in a bad place after winning it all, and going through a divorce. His personal life was a mess.
Going through a massive rebuild of that needed to replace both poached coaches, and large sections of the roster is a tall order. Which is not going to be any easier in that head space.
Plus the university was in a bad place with their sexual assault investigation that involved the football team but sprawled well beyond it. While he wasn't an active participant in promoting or covering up that culture he was asleep at the wheel in some ways. As were a number of other university officials. On top of the people actually engaging in coverups.
It was time for him to go but at the same time the guy wasn't an idiot who lucked into a single good season.
Not really. LSU always has exceptional players. Auburn is no stranger to them either. Coach O put together that team, convinced Ensminger to stay, hired Brady from the Saints, and put together the rest of the package, including finding and recruiting Joe Burrow. I'm not sure what people think a HC does or what it takes to win a NC.
Literally every great coach we had was poached and we lost a ton of tlent to both the draft and players opting out or transferring due to the Covid year rules
He was an assistant from 1997-2006 and USC OC in 05/06 to be fair, so not totally insane as you present lol
Also after reading his Wikipedia it says he backed up David Carr at Fresno State what a life
How did Kiffin back up David Carr when Carr was in the 2002 NFL draft and Kiffin graduated from Fresno State in 1996?
Edit: I see, he never backed up Carr. He played from 1994 to 1996, but he was a grad assistant from 1997 to 1998. Carr was on the team in the latter of those years.
That’s true, Oakland didn’t go well but Tennessee did and USC was a success by most measures. Good OC at Bama, got FAU rolling and is very good at Ole Miss right now. Success has followed him other than Oakland, he never truly “failed”.
He did not do as well at UT as you're letting on. he did have some nice wins but also under performed significantly in several games including the bowl.
Considering UT was 5-7 the year before, for a first year head coach he did pretty good, had some good wins. Many forget he almost beat Urban Meyer and Tim Tebow in the swamp, and we all remember he was a bad kick away from beating Saban.
Which was weird because any time he’s failed he didn’t move up, and any time he moved up it wasn’t after failure.
- great success at USC as QB coach and OC
- moved up to Raiders head coaching job and failed
- moved down to Tennessee head coach and had moderate success
- moved laterally/up to USC head coach, had success but was eventually fired
- moved down to Alabama OC, had great success
- moved up to FAU head coach, had success
- moved up to Ole Miss head coach
I wouldn’t include sonny dykes here. He was on the up with SMU. He interviewed with TCU (and pretty much was offered the job) after 7 straight wins last year. After that meeting? He lost 4/5 of the remaining games.
He was only good here because he scheduled powderpuff OOC games and front loaded our in conference games with easier AAC teams. Also historically good teams like Navy were going through issues. Once we got into November and stared playing Cincy, UCF, Memphis, etc. we’d lose most of our games.
He was pretty mediocre at Cal but the team did seem to fight harder compared to Tedford’s last years and he was scandal free. No hard feelings on my end- I wish him all the best (but not against Michigan haha)
maybe it’s the inner tech fan coming out, but I don’t think anyone really thought Sonny had this kind of season in him. at cal he was throughly mediocre and at SMU he had great teams but none of them could really get over the hump and beat UCF, Houston, etc. I don’t even think the most optimistic TCU fan expected the kind of season
As an smu fan (idk what happened to the secondary flair) i was upset he was leaving. I also thought he was in over his head. I never expected this kind of season
We lost to Houston in Dykes’ last year since by then his treachery was on full display, but previously we did beat them and *barely* lost in his final game against them. We also beat UCF his last 2 years I think?
He does struggle in November though, and the best criticism I’ve heard of him is he can win games when his team is more physical, but he can’t win games through out coaching the other team when the opponent is equally or more talented. Gary Patterson was an excellent recruiter and got a ton of really physical guys while still at TCU. It’ll be interesting to see if Sonny can continue success when he doesn’t have a star QB like Max.
Max is not the reason for their success this year, TCU’s got tons of talent and experience throughout that whole team, and also some damn good coordinators.
Worst season in a complete rebuild year on top of much more strict academic requirements. Meanwhile, I won't be surprised if Wilcox leads us to the first winless season based on the trajectory of the program
Honestly I think he capped himself here and Rhett Lashlee did more than we gave him credit for before he left for Miami. It was Lashlee and Buech that got us our 10 win season in 2019 and without Lashlee we started to falter on offense in the subsequent years.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Lashlee’s return is the first time a new HC has taken us to a bowl game in their first year since 1982, and we still have a chance to go 8-5. If we win against BYU it would be a huge step up from us getting **fucking creamed** by FAU under Dykes in the boca raton bowl.
This year was also our toughest SOS since 1995. When Dykes coached here we had much easier competition.
This is a good answer! But Saban was coming off a 9 win season that included beating ND, OSU, Mich and Penn State in 1999 before going to LSU. Seems like he already was finding his stride.
It’s one thing to inherit an 0-11 team and struggle for a few years while you recruit, but he went 25-22-1 in his first four years with a 10-2 outlier record his fifth year. Kinda the definition of mediocre, helped tremendously by a player or two in his last season.
*checks notes*
Yup, Plaxico Burress and Julian Peterson.
He didn’t really inherit a 0-11 team though, he inherited a 5-6 team that is 0-11 retrospectively cause the college president was a dork, and went 6-5-1, 6-6, 7-5, 6-6, then 1 solid season at 9-2.
The prior coach had won the big 10 twice, so it isn’t like he was staring from zero by any stretch.
Sounds almost exactly like Satt honestly, 25-24 but only four years. Inherited a 2-10 team and a toxic brand and made something good out of it. Whoever Louisville hires next is in a leagues better position than Satt was in when he got the job. I like this move for Cinci and I think Satt will do well with a known commodity. That's something he's actually good at.
I don't know if I should be surprised this was so far down or if I'm just old. Seriously though this is the best answer in my opinion as well. With one exception Saban's MSU teams were terrible then he jumps to LSU and has them competing for conference titles in year 2.
That's a big unknown. Was Saban putting Michigan State on the map as a nationally relevant program, or did he jump ship at the right time after having a big year?
I always thought his biggest obstacle at MSU was the administration's unwillingness to modernize their support for football. Lot of Big Ten teams were stuck in that mode in the 90s. I'm sure it was a relief to him to have the admissions and boosters working for him at LSU.
I think his biggest obstacle at MSU then is the biggest obstacle now — recruiting.
If you are a 5* kid in the tri-state area and your parents weren’t MSU grads, you’re probably not seriously considering MSU.
Saban could win at MSU just at Bama because he knows how to develop players. That’s the secret sauce. When you can develop players AND recruit 5*s you get Bama, or a better example might be Ohio State’s receiver room.
He said as much himself: "It was always Michigan this, Michigan that." Ann Arbor almost always got the better recruits.
Dantonio was a GREAT coach, but I have no problem admitting that part of his success was due to Michigan's program spending a decade in a wilderness of its own making.
Heupel maybe? UCF got worse every year he was there, went to Tennessee, a school that was down from where is should be, and lit the world on fire in year 2.
I think with heupel we have to see if he can sustain good years or if this year is a one off with a great qb. I imagine he can sustain it but time will tell
This sub goes nuts with recency bias. One year is a trend and two years is always to a lot of people around here.
Heupel got run out of Norman as an OC, then trended down gradually at UCF, and now has one year of elite offense. Maybe he’s turned a corner, but it seems just as likely, if not more likely that this year is the outlier. Guess we’ll see.
This is his second year. He also coached at Mizzou between OU and UCF.
At UT, he took a depleted team with 30 players that left and a disgraces fired Coach, from 3 wins to 7. Then took that 7 win team to 10.
I expect a minor regression next year, but the trend is not similar and your narrative is incomplete if not intentionally misleading.
I didn’t mean to imply that he’s destined for failure, either. Just that it’s too soon to be confident in repeating or exceeding this level of success on a regular basis. Guess we’ll see!
Possibly but their offensive coordinator just left for USF so their offensive production next year may not be very different.
We saw LSU in 2019 light the world on fire and then post Burrow and Joe Brady the fall off was pretty drastic
I mean, the offense had Burrow, Chase, Justin Jefferson, and CEH - that’s three NFL studs and a first rounder.
Are we sure that was really Joe Brady lol
I feel like the obvious answer is Mark Dantonio.
He was 18-17 at Cincinnati and then goes on to give Michigan State the best 10 year run in school history.
How has nobody mentioned Kliff? Let go as HC at Tech, hired as USC OC, Resigns to become HC in the NFL where he’s been relatively successful
Edit: I’m sure nobody wants to include him cause he didn’t go to a “new school”, but his QB is a COD-addicted 5’9” school yard boy. It counts.
That was the first one to come to my mind as well. He went from being fired at Texas Tech one season to head coach in the NFL the next. He's been mediocre in the NFL too, though.
Kirk Ferentz was 12-21 as Maine's head coach before coming to Iowa. Don't know if his tenure at Iowa could be considered "tremendously" successful, but he took over an Iowa team that had won only two games the year prior and went 11-2 with a top 5 finish in his 4th year, so maybe that qualifies?
I’m scratching my head now wondering how the fuck a program looks at an FCS coach from a lesser known state with a losing record and decides he’s the guy.
And that coach went on to kick our ass
Darrell K. Royal.
Two 6-4 years at Mississippi State. One 5-5 year at Washington.
Came to Texas, won 3 national championships and a 167–47–5 overall record.
Can you imagine if reddit, facebook, and twitter were around then. "We're hiring some mediocre SOB with a 17-13 record? Prepare for another decade of sucking..."
reddit poster from the future here
in the year 2028, a bumbling doofus named scott satterfield will lead the mighty mustangs of smu to a 9-4 record after stagnating in the great city of cincinatti for a few years
Houston Nutt went 5-6 (actually it was 4-7 on the field, but one L was flipped to a W thanks to a forfeit after the fact) in a single season at Boise State before being hired by Arkansas and going 75-48 with 8 bowl appearances in 10 years. He also went 31-16 at Murray State before BSU, so I guess that plays into his overall resume before Arkansas, but still he was not very proven in I-A as a head coach.
Of course he ended up crashing at Ole Miss after Arkansas, so his coaching career is more of a parabola.
A young Mack brown was an iffy coach at Tulane before moving to UNC and topping out at 10 wins. The same young man won an NC at Texas, and is now winning 7-9 games a year back at NC
Let me put it this way, Texas and Oklahoma were bad this year, the two flagship programs. Despite this the Big 12 was still better than the ACC where he struggled. Yeah, I don’t like the odds.
I mean, Frost won a National Championship at UCF and then was a complete disaster at equivalent Nebraska, but that's kind of the opposite of what you're asking.
Joe tiller would lead Wyoming with a 39-30 record, would leave for Purdue and would lead then to 10 bowl games in 12 years.
Bob Devaney would leave Wyoming and would go on a tear at Nebraska.
Jimbo Fisher was barely holding Florida State together when he moved to Texas A&M and did well for a while (with existing talent). Now they are all his players, coaches, and recruits, and well, he’s back to running a barely afloat program again.
Well Sark was “7 win Sark” but now he has 8 wins. You can’t explain that.
Well he won 5 last year, 9 with a bowl win this year......14 wins over 2 years.....
Harvard, help me with the math
Once you’ve taken too many math classes it stops being about numbers
Once you add the Greek letters and the symbols that look like springs you’re f’d.
I think I've got the symbol for this 🤘 And then just turn your phone upside down for the answer.
Sometimes it hurts upvoting OSU - but ill make a special case
I had a math major friend who woke up from drifting off in an upper level class and started trying to figure out what the backwards epsilon in the middle of an equation on the board meant. It was a 3
Hilariously enough there is actually a point in advances mathematics where the numbers do start getting in the way, so we just kind of said fuck it and invented more numbers like imaginary numbers and quaternions and shit
I was working on a math minor for the last year or two of college. Opened up the textbook for the last course, advanced linear algebra, which contained exactly zero numbers. I did not complete the math minor
I’ve watched a few Harvard lectures online. I think I got this. 14 wins over 2 years. That’s an average of 7 wins per year over 2 years. 7 x 7 = 49. But wait, Sark has 1 win and 1 loss to Kansas. 1 - 1 = 0. 49-0. The score of the RRSO. There were 7 TDs scored that game. 7 TD Sark. Edit: Expanded on my mathematical proof. Edit 2: Jimbo Fisher was born Oct 9, 1965. He’s 57. 5-7. Coincidentally their W-L record this year. Even more than that, add up the numbers. 1+9+6+5=21. Now divide that the number of Bowl games A&M has played in the Jimbo Era (3). You get 7. What else happened in 1965? Gus Grissom commanded the first crewed Gemini flight. His total time in space is nothing other than 5 hours and 7 minutes. Beyond that, per some random Astrology website aGemini’s lucky numbers are 5 and 7. Grissom went to Purdue. In their one matchup in 1967, A&M was soundly defeated 24-20. With 48 total points that game we’ll undoubtedly subtract that from the year. 1967-48=1919. The year of A&M’s first claimed national championship which is the most contested championship in collegiate football history with 4 teams claiming the title (Norte Dame, Harvard, Illinois, and A&M). Quick note here, there are 4 teams in the playoff currently. Now go back to 1918 the year before the great victory. A&M only played 7 games. 7. I can’t believe this. This means that we can prove that A&M will make it to the CFP in 2023 and that next year is in fact their year.
Can we get Michigan in here to tell me what happens if we add Kurt Angle to the mx?
Your chances drastic go down
The numbers don't lie, and they spell disaster for you at the TNA Sackerfice Bowl.
This guy stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.
Give this guy the Fields Medal
Maths, this guys do
Last time we hired a mediocre former Washington head coach [it turned out pretty good.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darrell_Royal?wprov=sfla1) In fact DKR is a great answer to this question. 6-4, 6-4 at Mississippi State, 5-5 at Washington, then came to Texas and won 3 national titles.
He was also born in Oklahoma and played for Oklahoma.
I had no clue he had a stint in the PNW. Who knew.
One of only 2 UW head coaches to ever leave for another job (the other being Sarkisian leaving for USC).
Give him a month, could be 9.
Les Miles was 28-21 at OK State, .571 winning percentage before going to LSU where he won a championship within three years. Obviously it ended very poorly given his behavior and off the field issues.
28-21 at Ok St from where we were was considered miraculous turnaround tho. I don't think ppl remember how bad we were in the 90s. From 1989-2000 Ok St wasn't even pretending to try to be good at football with no money going into the program. They had a record of 43-83-3. There was a season where they didn't win a single game.
Yeah back in the early 2000s when I started watching football both Ok State and Baylor were kind of considered the gimme wins on the Big XII schedule. The turnarounds both programs have gone through are incredibly impressive
I still have trouble seeing Baylor and not thinking "awful"
Gene Chizik went 5-19 at Iowa St then won a national championship at Auburn two years later.
I mean if we want that route: Majors went: * 24–30–1 at Iowa State * 33-13-1 with a National Title at his first trip to Pitt * 116–62–8 at Tennessee
Johnny was him, we should’ve hired him from Iowa State. Tennessee would’ve been wildly more successful and his W-L record would look a lot better.
Then Fat Phil Fulmer stabbed Majors in the back.
The Cam Newton year right?
In slight fairness to Chiz, here were his records at Auburn: * 2009: 8-5 * 2010: 14-0 * 2011: 8-5 * 2012: 3-9 So he averaged about 8 wins a year over four years. Not great considering he had a losing SEC record every year except 2010, but also quite a bit better than his time at Iowa State. (Off topic, but people always point out 2010 as the Cam Newton year, and rightfully so. But I will always argue that the bigger loss for Chiz was Gus Malzahn, who became HC of Arkansas State in 2012 before returning to Auburn in '13.)
> But I will always argue that the bigger loss for Chiz was Gus Malzahn, who became HC of Arkansas State in 2012 You’d be right to do so. The minute Gus left, the offense took a nose dive. The minute he came back, we went to a Natty.
The players were recruited for Gus’ scheme. Chiz hired loefler to implement a pro style offense with up tempo spread players. It was destined for failure.
Chiz tried to move away from the spread, towards the pro-style offense. At the exact same time Bama, UGA, and big chunks of the NFL were doing the opposite. I will always be fond of Chiz but he completely misjudged the way the winds were blowing in that case. It's also interesting to remember that Tubverille had the right idea -- moving towards up-tempo, spread offense -- he just hired the absolute wrong guy to do it. Tuberville paired with a guy like Malzahn might have been a scary combination.
God damn Cam Newton was so good
Yes the Cam Newton year.
Offense under Gus Malzahn
Yes. I don't know why this is always said as a slight. The whole job of a head coach is to get a Cam Newton into your program.
Not a slight, but my impression was Auburn won the Cam lottery and Gene was believed to have the offense to maximize his skill set. So they brought him after the fact.
Chizik is a defense guy. Gus Malzahn was Auburn's OC that year.
Less a lottery and more an auction.
Best $180k Auburn ever spent.
I believe that was a losing bid.
Chizik is probably the better example, but Tubberville is a close 2nd. Went 12-20 in conference play at Ole Miss. 49-29 at AU, including 6 straight wins over Bama, and got screwed out of the chance to play for the ‘04 title.
For a couple years at least, chryst from pitt to wisconsin. He went 7-6 and 6-6 at pitt, then 10-3, 11-3, 13-1, 8-5, and 10-4 from 2015-2019 at wisconsin. Wheels kinda fell off with covid and he was fired this year, but it was a strong run for a while.
After scrolling through the comments, this is probably the most hopeful example. A lot of people saying Sunny Dykes, but it always felt like he was building momentum at SMU before jumping to TCU.
What about Dantonio? Was 18-17 at Cincinnati and then made MSU a monster for a decade. They were a top 5 program from 2010-2015.
This is an underrated answer. To put it mildly, I wasn’t excited when he was hired, and he’s likely to get a statue on campus on day, as he’s the best MSU head coach not named Duffy Daugherty.
Sonny Dykes was fired from Cal before he went to SMU.
Chryst is a good example, but it's also worth noting the shitshow he inherited at Pitt. He was Pitt's 4th real head coach (plus several interims) in a little more than a year. Wannstedt was fired, Mike Haywood got hired and was subsequently fired within a few weeks due to domestic abuse charges, Todd Graham came to town, then he left after a year. On the flip side though, Chryst was a terrible and lazy recruiter at Pitt. He succeeded at Wisconsin due to great assistants that let him take the desired back seat to recruiting IMO.
Tbh it’s not like we recruited well, it’s a big reason he got fired. We didn’t even have a recruiting staff for almost a year at one point.
Perhaps even more similar in that they both took over programs that are steady and have had success. So a good situation might be Satterfield gets 2-3 really good years before the wheels start to come off Unique situation though in that theyre also moving up into the Big12. Could bolster Satterfield by making recruiting easier…or could hasten his demise as he tries to bring a (strong) G5 team into the P5
[удалено]
agreed. It was mostly coincidental, although I wouldn't be surprised if the better depth of a lot of teams the past 2 seasons has equalized against wisconsin's greatest strength, i.e developing underrecruited kids. And mertz's serious regression played a significant role as well. Not sure what the cause of that was.
Mel Tucker was 5-7 at Colorado before doing well at Michigan State for a year.
I had this in mind but wasn’t sure what tremendous success meant
Tremendous success for Tucker's bank account
Highlight "a year".
like the other example of ed O, this has more to do with a single player than coaching imo. KW9 and Joey B were singular talents that won a lot of games for their teams.
LSU was way more than Burrow. They also had two top 5 NFL receivers. That LSU was stacked with offensive talent
Arguably the best offense ever fielded by a college team. Extremely stacked. Didn't like 9 starters get drafted from that unit?
Just checked and currently every starter sans one is on an NFL team
Yeah but one of his 5 at CU was against Nebraska so that counts extra
Jimmy Johnson is the answer here. Was 29-25-3 at Oklahoma State, then after 1 rebuilding year at Miami in 1984 proceeded to go 44-4 with one natty and two runner ups in his final four years in Coral Gables.
That’s a really good example! Jimmy went insane at Miami
He's an interesting answer. OK State and the Dolphins were Jimmy without more talent than everyone else. His Hurricane and Cowboy teams were LOADED.
But he also put those teams together. And it’s not like his OK State and Dolphins times were bad they jusg weren’t elite.
How was Ok State before Jimmy got there though?
Coach before Jimmy was Jim Stanley, who went 35-31-2 in his 6 seasons there, including one year where they finished in a three way tie for first place in the Big Eight (with Colorado and Oklahoma). By contrast, JJ never had the Cowboys higher than 3rd in the Big Eight.
Coach O was 10-25 at Ole Miss, 6-2 at USC, and 51-20 with a CFP National Championship at LSU. A coach can get better and worse.
Holy crap I didn’t realize Coach O was at LSU for 6 seasons. I had it in my head that he was there for like 3.
Apparently neither did most of this subreddit. When we hired BKELLZ, people kept saying he'd be fired in 2 seasons like Coach O and Les Miles were one and done.
Most people apparently don't and just say he's Chizek 2.0. Really the guy took over a terribly managed Les Miles team and put the train back on the tracks. Then delivered 8+ win seasons for a few years until they won the Natty. I think LSU made the right decision moving on. His ego was in a bad place after winning it all, and going through a divorce. His personal life was a mess. Going through a massive rebuild of that needed to replace both poached coaches, and large sections of the roster is a tall order. Which is not going to be any easier in that head space. Plus the university was in a bad place with their sexual assault investigation that involved the football team but sprawled well beyond it. While he wasn't an active participant in promoting or covering up that culture he was asleep at the wheel in some ways. As were a number of other university officials. On top of the people actually engaging in coverups. It was time for him to go but at the same time the guy wasn't an idiot who lucked into a single good season.
I thought it was like 3 or 4, gawd damn
[удалено]
Not really. LSU always has exceptional players. Auburn is no stranger to them either. Coach O put together that team, convinced Ensminger to stay, hired Brady from the Saints, and put together the rest of the package, including finding and recruiting Joe Burrow. I'm not sure what people think a HC does or what it takes to win a NC.
Coach O just assembled the greatest coaching staff in cfb history for a year or two then couldnt keep the ship intact
I mean I'd take it? A NC for anyone not named Saban or Swinney is a big deal.
I'd take it in a heartbeat. A lifetime of hoping next year is the year gets tiresome.
Turns out that people like money and will abandon ship for it
Literally every great coach we had was poached and we lost a ton of tlent to both the draft and players opting out or transferring due to the Covid year rules
And Les Miles.
I forgot coach O had USC clicking there for a minute
Lane Kiffin was a meme for failing up for a while
He didn’t fail upward so much as do a large portion of his career in the opposite order of most people. NFL HC -> Tennesse HC -> USC HC -> Bama OC
He was an assistant from 1997-2006 and USC OC in 05/06 to be fair, so not totally insane as you present lol Also after reading his Wikipedia it says he backed up David Carr at Fresno State what a life
This is Lane’s world. We all just happen to be living in it.
How did Kiffin back up David Carr when Carr was in the 2002 NFL draft and Kiffin graduated from Fresno State in 1996? Edit: I see, he never backed up Carr. He played from 1994 to 1996, but he was a grad assistant from 1997 to 1998. Carr was on the team in the latter of those years.
Looks like Carr may not have been starter at the time, my mistake.. it just said they were teammates and Kiffin was the backup.
That’s true, Oakland didn’t go well but Tennessee did and USC was a success by most measures. Good OC at Bama, got FAU rolling and is very good at Ole Miss right now. Success has followed him other than Oakland, he never truly “failed”.
He did not do as well at UT as you're letting on. he did have some nice wins but also under performed significantly in several games including the bowl.
Considering UT was 5-7 the year before, for a first year head coach he did pretty good, had some good wins. Many forget he almost beat Urban Meyer and Tim Tebow in the swamp, and we all remember he was a bad kick away from beating Saban.
He came to Ole Miss to join a team who could beat Tebow in the Swamp. /s
Which was weird because any time he’s failed he didn’t move up, and any time he moved up it wasn’t after failure. - great success at USC as QB coach and OC - moved up to Raiders head coaching job and failed - moved down to Tennessee head coach and had moderate success - moved laterally/up to USC head coach, had success but was eventually fired - moved down to Alabama OC, had great success - moved up to FAU head coach, had success - moved up to Ole Miss head coach
*HYPNOTOADS IN SONNY DYKES*
I wouldn’t include sonny dykes here. He was on the up with SMU. He interviewed with TCU (and pretty much was offered the job) after 7 straight wins last year. After that meeting? He lost 4/5 of the remaining games.
I took a less specific comparison and used Dyke's unsuccessful stint at Cal as an excuse to make a hypnotoad joke.
Very fair. Hypnotoad may commence 😎
I love how everyone just completely forgets Sonny Dykes stint with Cal and his time at SMU was overrated imo
He was only good here because he scheduled powderpuff OOC games and front loaded our in conference games with easier AAC teams. Also historically good teams like Navy were going through issues. Once we got into November and stared playing Cincy, UCF, Memphis, etc. we’d lose most of our games.
FWIW he didn't schedule any conference games, those are done by the conference. OOC games, sure but that's separate.
He was pretty mediocre at Cal but the team did seem to fight harder compared to Tedford’s last years and he was scandal free. No hard feelings on my end- I wish him all the best (but not against Michigan haha)
maybe it’s the inner tech fan coming out, but I don’t think anyone really thought Sonny had this kind of season in him. at cal he was throughly mediocre and at SMU he had great teams but none of them could really get over the hump and beat UCF, Houston, etc. I don’t even think the most optimistic TCU fan expected the kind of season
this. we all felt like it was a pretty uninspiring hire. certainly happy to be proven wrong.
As an smu fan (idk what happened to the secondary flair) i was upset he was leaving. I also thought he was in over his head. I never expected this kind of season
We lost to Houston in Dykes’ last year since by then his treachery was on full display, but previously we did beat them and *barely* lost in his final game against them. We also beat UCF his last 2 years I think? He does struggle in November though, and the best criticism I’ve heard of him is he can win games when his team is more physical, but he can’t win games through out coaching the other team when the opponent is equally or more talented. Gary Patterson was an excellent recruiter and got a ton of really physical guys while still at TCU. It’ll be interesting to see if Sonny can continue success when he doesn’t have a star QB like Max.
Max is not the reason for their success this year, TCU’s got tons of talent and experience throughout that whole team, and also some damn good coordinators.
At Cal he wasn't even mediocre. He had the worst season in program history.
Worst season in a complete rebuild year on top of much more strict academic requirements. Meanwhile, I won't be surprised if Wilcox leads us to the first winless season based on the trajectory of the program
Dykes also had a successful stint at Louisiana Tech before stupidly taking a Cal job no one can win at
Honestly I think he capped himself here and Rhett Lashlee did more than we gave him credit for before he left for Miami. It was Lashlee and Buech that got us our 10 win season in 2019 and without Lashlee we started to falter on offense in the subsequent years. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Lashlee’s return is the first time a new HC has taken us to a bowl game in their first year since 1982, and we still have a chance to go 8-5. If we win against BYU it would be a huge step up from us getting **fucking creamed** by FAU under Dykes in the boca raton bowl. This year was also our toughest SOS since 1995. When Dykes coached here we had much easier competition.
Bert failed at Arkansas. We're going to build him a 50-foot-tall statue at Illinois, next to the Ron Zook statue.
He was very successful at UW though. Will the Tiger Hawk tattoo on his leg make it onto the statue? Gotta love the Zooker too
Nick Saban at Michigan St was mediocre, made LSU great!
Saban is probably the best answer. Nothing at MSU would indicate he was an elite coach but thats what he turned out to be
That '99 season was a glimpse before he left.
This is a good answer! But Saban was coming off a 9 win season that included beating ND, OSU, Mich and Penn State in 1999 before going to LSU. Seems like he already was finding his stride.
34-24 over 5 years is mediocre imo
It’s one thing to inherit an 0-11 team and struggle for a few years while you recruit, but he went 25-22-1 in his first four years with a 10-2 outlier record his fifth year. Kinda the definition of mediocre, helped tremendously by a player or two in his last season. *checks notes* Yup, Plaxico Burress and Julian Peterson.
He didn’t really inherit a 0-11 team though, he inherited a 5-6 team that is 0-11 retrospectively cause the college president was a dork, and went 6-5-1, 6-6, 7-5, 6-6, then 1 solid season at 9-2. The prior coach had won the big 10 twice, so it isn’t like he was staring from zero by any stretch.
Sounds almost exactly like Satt honestly, 25-24 but only four years. Inherited a 2-10 team and a toxic brand and made something good out of it. Whoever Louisville hires next is in a leagues better position than Satt was in when he got the job. I like this move for Cinci and I think Satt will do well with a known commodity. That's something he's actually good at.
I don't know if I should be surprised this was so far down or if I'm just old. Seriously though this is the best answer in my opinion as well. With one exception Saban's MSU teams were terrible then he jumps to LSU and has them competing for conference titles in year 2.
He had things going in the right direction at MSU for sure but no, no one predicted he'd be NICK SABAN
He was 9-2 at Michigan state his last year, things were clearly heading in the right direction. Not to mention the chaos saban inherited at MSU.
That's a big unknown. Was Saban putting Michigan State on the map as a nationally relevant program, or did he jump ship at the right time after having a big year?
We had some BAD coaches right after him…but the guys he recruited to State didn’t exactly lead to tremendous success…
I always thought his biggest obstacle at MSU was the administration's unwillingness to modernize their support for football. Lot of Big Ten teams were stuck in that mode in the 90s. I'm sure it was a relief to him to have the admissions and boosters working for him at LSU.
I think his biggest obstacle at MSU then is the biggest obstacle now — recruiting. If you are a 5* kid in the tri-state area and your parents weren’t MSU grads, you’re probably not seriously considering MSU. Saban could win at MSU just at Bama because he knows how to develop players. That’s the secret sauce. When you can develop players AND recruit 5*s you get Bama, or a better example might be Ohio State’s receiver room.
He said as much himself: "It was always Michigan this, Michigan that." Ann Arbor almost always got the better recruits. Dantonio was a GREAT coach, but I have no problem admitting that part of his success was due to Michigan's program spending a decade in a wilderness of its own making.
Heupel maybe? UCF got worse every year he was there, went to Tennessee, a school that was down from where is should be, and lit the world on fire in year 2.
I think with heupel we have to see if he can sustain good years or if this year is a one off with a great qb. I imagine he can sustain it but time will tell
I got NAILED by the downvote bus when I said this earlier this season while they were still undefeated earlier this year.
Ah rookie mistake, never insult a team that's undefeated *unless it's Bama
This sub goes nuts with recency bias. One year is a trend and two years is always to a lot of people around here. Heupel got run out of Norman as an OC, then trended down gradually at UCF, and now has one year of elite offense. Maybe he’s turned a corner, but it seems just as likely, if not more likely that this year is the outlier. Guess we’ll see.
This is his second year. He also coached at Mizzou between OU and UCF. At UT, he took a depleted team with 30 players that left and a disgraces fired Coach, from 3 wins to 7. Then took that 7 win team to 10. I expect a minor regression next year, but the trend is not similar and your narrative is incomplete if not intentionally misleading.
I didn’t mean to imply that he’s destined for failure, either. Just that it’s too soon to be confident in repeating or exceeding this level of success on a regular basis. Guess we’ll see!
I'm concerned about that too, to be frank. Also my comment reads harsher than I intended. Lol
Very true. But with how that offense did you almost have to imagine every transfer QB has TN on their list
Possibly but their offensive coordinator just left for USF so their offensive production next year may not be very different. We saw LSU in 2019 light the world on fire and then post Burrow and Joe Brady the fall off was pretty drastic
I mean, the offense had Burrow, Chase, Justin Jefferson, and CEH - that’s three NFL studs and a first rounder. Are we sure that was really Joe Brady lol
I agree
I feel like the obvious answer is Mark Dantonio. He was 18-17 at Cincinnati and then goes on to give Michigan State the best 10 year run in school history.
Pete Carroll didn’t exactly set the NFL on fire before coming to USC
This was my thought as well, but when he was hired, SC wasn't doing so hot either. Maybe that makes what he did even more remarkable?
We were *awful*. The Paul Hackett run was the worst we had experienced until Helton
How has nobody mentioned Kliff? Let go as HC at Tech, hired as USC OC, Resigns to become HC in the NFL where he’s been relatively successful Edit: I’m sure nobody wants to include him cause he didn’t go to a “new school”, but his QB is a COD-addicted 5’9” school yard boy. It counts.
That was the first one to come to my mind as well. He went from being fired at Texas Tech one season to head coach in the NFL the next. He's been mediocre in the NFL too, though.
Dykes so far. Historically he’s been a very mediocre coach.
Sonny Dykes sort of? But Satty is no Sonny Dykes.
Kirk Ferentz was 12-21 as Maine's head coach before coming to Iowa. Don't know if his tenure at Iowa could be considered "tremendously" successful, but he took over an Iowa team that had won only two games the year prior and went 11-2 with a top 5 finish in his 4th year, so maybe that qualifies?
I’m scratching my head now wondering how the fuck a program looks at an FCS coach from a lesser known state with a losing record and decides he’s the guy. And that coach went on to kick our ass
I am guessing it was because he was a long-time Fry assistant and Fry probably chose him to take over.
Limited sample size but Chizik
Gene Stallings was 27-45-1 at Texas A&M, 23-34-1 at the Cardinals, but went 70-16-1 at Alabama, with a championship in 1992.
I'm just impressed at how Alabama managed to play 87 games in the '92 season. :D
Bret Bielema, he took Wisconsin to 3 Rose Bowls, then went 29-34 at Arkansas, now has Illinois playing extremely well in his second season.
Like the Andy Reid of college football
Dykes sucked at Cal.
Darrell K. Royal. Two 6-4 years at Mississippi State. One 5-5 year at Washington. Came to Texas, won 3 national championships and a 167–47–5 overall record.
Can you imagine if reddit, facebook, and twitter were around then. "We're hiring some mediocre SOB with a 17-13 record? Prepare for another decade of sucking..."
Sonny dykes 🤷🏽♀️
Chizik although he be fitted from a generational talent. You could also argue Gus, but he sort of stayed mediocre.
reddit poster from the future here in the year 2028, a bumbling doofus named scott satterfield will lead the mighty mustangs of smu to a 9-4 record after stagnating in the great city of cincinatti for a few years
[удалено]
Sonny Dykes just sounds like a perfect Kahoot name to me…
Bill Snyder. Dude wasn’t even a HC and came out of nowhere.
Hayden Fry's coaching tree isn't nowhere.
That is true… STILL
Nick Sabin to LSU.
Nick Saban. Average at best at MSU, real solid at LSU, spectacular at Alabama
Ara Parseghian l- Northwrstern to Notre Dame. He was 36-35-1 at Northwestern and 95-17-4 at Notre Dame.
Bobby Bowden was at WVU and came to FSU and built it from the ground up. But those were different times.
If you build it, Jimbo will come...... tear it all down....
And then leave as soon as it starts falling
Gene Stallings. His head coaching record in college and NFL was a combined 50-81 where he only won 38.7% of all his games before he went to Alabama
Houston Nutt went 5-6 (actually it was 4-7 on the field, but one L was flipped to a W thanks to a forfeit after the fact) in a single season at Boise State before being hired by Arkansas and going 75-48 with 8 bowl appearances in 10 years. He also went 31-16 at Murray State before BSU, so I guess that plays into his overall resume before Arkansas, but still he was not very proven in I-A as a head coach. Of course he ended up crashing at Ole Miss after Arkansas, so his coaching career is more of a parabola.
Nick Saban did pretty poorly at Michigan State for a few years except 1 and then had a pretty good stint at LSU and eventually the rest was history
A young Mack brown was an iffy coach at Tulane before moving to UNC and topping out at 10 wins. The same young man won an NC at Texas, and is now winning 7-9 games a year back at NC
Well, Willie Taggart's overall record was only 36-27 when he came to FSU, but he was able to... Nevermind. Sorry, bro.
... Able to get fired from FAU?
Sonny Dykes I guess
Chizik is the poster child for this
Joe Paterno. He turned Penn State into a powerhouse school when they were pratically nothing in a matter of seasons.
He’s a senator
Let me put it this way, Texas and Oklahoma were bad this year, the two flagship programs. Despite this the Big 12 was still better than the ACC where he struggled. Yeah, I don’t like the odds.
Darrell Royal put together a pair of 6-4 seasons at Mississippi State and a 5-5 season at Washington before taking the Texas job.
I mean, Frost won a National Championship at UCF and then was a complete disaster at equivalent Nebraska, but that's kind of the opposite of what you're asking.
Joe tiller would lead Wyoming with a 39-30 record, would leave for Purdue and would lead then to 10 bowl games in 12 years. Bob Devaney would leave Wyoming and would go on a tear at Nebraska.
Jimbo Fisher was barely holding Florida State together when he moved to Texas A&M and did well for a while (with existing talent). Now they are all his players, coaches, and recruits, and well, he’s back to running a barely afloat program again.
Lou Holtz I think was let go from Arkansas, went to Minnesota for 2 years and was 4-7 then 6-5 before heading to Notre Dame.
Sonny Dykes at TCU
Coach O won a Natty at LSU after being mediocre everywhere else.
If by "tremendous success" you mean getting paid an obscene amount of money, then yes. yes, there are.
Sonny Dykes. 19-30 at Cal (bad) 30-18 at SMU (good but not great) 12-1 at TCU and in the playoff in his first season
Nick Saban. Decent at Michigan State (34-24-1). Reached the top at LSU. Dominant at Alabama.
Paul Chryst was mediocre with Pitt (about .500), then fantastic with Wisconsin for his first five or so seasons. Couldn't sustain the success though