Inspired by a piece Andy Bitter wrote for the Athletic, I thought it would be interesting to see other teams who have drastically improved between a coach's first year and second year, and see if there were any common trends across (a) staff changes, (b) QB changes, or (c) used the portal. Here's a quick and dirty list:
| Team | First Season | Year 1 Record | Year 2 Record | Staff Changes? | Starting QB Change? | Transfers In |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| South Carolina | 1999 | 0-11 | 8-4 | DL | Y | N/A (pre-portal) |
| Auburn | 1999 | 5-6 | 9-4 | None | Y | N/A (pre-portal) |
| Oklahoma State | 2005 | 4-7 | 7-6 | None | Y* | N/A (pre-portal) |
| UNC | 2007 | 4-8 | 8-5 | DC | Y | N/A (pre-portal) |
| Mississippi State | 2009 | 5-7 | 9-4 | DC, DL, LB | Y | N/A (pre-portal) |
| Washington State | 2012 | 3-9 | 6-7 | LB, IWR | Y | N/A (pre-portal) |
| NC State | 2013 | 3-9 | 8-5 | CB | Y | N/A (pre-portal) |
| Iowa State | 2016 | 3-9 | 8-5 | None | Y | N/A (pre-portal) |
| Baylor | 2017 | 1-11 | 6-7 | None | N | N/A (pre-portal) |
| Cincinatti | 2018 | 4-8 | 11-2 | DL, WR | Y | N/A (pre-portal) |
| SMU | 2018 | 5-7 | 10-3 | OL | Y | N/A (pre-portal) |
| Baylor | 2020 | 2-7 | 12-2 | OC, WR, OL | Y | 5 |
| Michigan State | 2020 | 2-5 | 11-2 | LB, Staff Shuffle | Y | 14 |
| Arkansas | 2020 | 3-7 | 9-4 | WR, LB, OL, DL | Y* | 7 |
| Ole Miss | 2020 | 5-5 | 10-3 | DL, OL, TE, STC | N | 2 |
| Mississippi State | 2020 | 4-7 | 7-6 | None | N* | 7 |
| Kansas | 2021 | 2-10 | 6-6 | WR, Staff Shuffle | N* | 1 |
| Illinios | 2021 | 5-7 | 8-4 | OC | Y | 1 |
| Virginia Tech | 2022 | 3-8 | 6-6 | OL, RB, QB | Yes | 6 |
At a high level, it appears that - with the exception of Matt Rhule and Mike Leach - at least one thing has to change around your staff, QB, or roster.
Callouts and Caveats:
- I tried to limit this to P5 teams - I didn't think it was that useful to include Scott Frost at UCF, for example, given how poorly he performed at Nebraska. I chose to include Fickel's Cincy team and Dyke's SMU team, just because both of those coaches have made a CFB playoff
- Be warned that there is A LOT of missing context here. For example:
- With staff changes, it's not clear if someone was fired or hired away.
- It's not clear how good the transfer portal players were
- It's not clear if the schedule was easier from year 1 to year 2
- An asterisk in the 'QB Change?' column means that significant time was split between QBs in one of the years - could be due to injury, could be a 2 QB system
- 5 of these coaches had their first season during COVID... I'm sure that made their first season worst than it could have been.
I'm probably going to expand/iterate on this. I'd like to use some metric for strength of scheduel (an improved record could be due to a weaker schedule in year 2) and change in team talent composite rather than just transfers in/out (this would account for recruiting wins as well).
Anyways, I think it's an interesting high level view of year over year change within a program. Makes me a little concerned that we aren't making enough change, but we'll see...
Enjoy.
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