Second-order wins -- Coaching Impact

jdennis82 · January 29, 2015

For those of you who share my enjoyment of nerding out on sports stats/analytics, SB Nation's Bill Connelly has stair stepped his way to a look at coaching impact in college football.

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First, back in December, he looked at the 2014 season and determined the difference between actual wins and the number of wins a team should have had based on his "Five Factors: efficiency, explosiveness, field position, finishing drives, turnovers/luck."

http://www.footballstudyhall.com/2014/12/16/7398531/college-football-ratings-second-order-wins

North Texas comes in ranked #38 in differential with a "second-order wins" total of 4.4...0.4 wins more than actual wins in 2014

He then used this study to expand the study to include all seasons from '05 to find the teams which over/under achieved the most and then the following season's results to evaluate how these findings impacted the following season...

http://www.footballstudyhall.com/2015/1/26/7917313/second-order-wins-college-football

North Texas has two seasons listed among the "50 biggest underachievers" (2009 & 2010) - in both cases, the following year saw an increase in win%

Now, he's taken this data hoping to answer "Might coaching have an effect on your ability to win (or lose) close games that go against the run of the stats?" Have fun with his findings...

http://www.footballstudyhall.com/2015/1/27/7922421/second-order-wins-college-football-paul-chryst-ken-niumatalolo

North Texas has two coaches listed:

Todd Dodge: Avg Difference per season = -1.28 wins

Dan McCarney: Avg Difference per season = -0.5 wins

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My takeaway: As a supporter of Coach Mac's as I highlight his improvement in the program's academics, this study seems to suggest that the minor increase in win total each year (with '13 as an outlier) would have been expected by replacing a bad coach (Dodge) with simply an average coach.

In 2015, it's time for Mac to show if he's anything more than "average." I think he knows the importance of this upcoming year which explains the JUCO emphasis in recruiting.

CaribbeanGreen · January 30, 2015

Really good stuff. Your takeaway seems pretty darn solid to me.

untjim1995 · January 30, 2015

For those of you who share my enjoyment of nerding out on sports stats/analytics, SB Nation's Bill Connelly has stair stepped his way to a look at coaching impact in college football.

-------------------------------------------

First, back in December, he looked at the 2014 season and determined the difference between actual wins and the number of wins a team should have had based on his "Five Factors: efficiency, explosiveness, field position, finishing drives, turnovers/luck."

http://www.footballstudyhall.com/2014/12/16/7398531/college-football-ratings-second-order-wins

North Texas comes in ranked #38 in differential with a "second-order wins" total of 4.4...0.4 wins more than actual wins in 2014

He then used this study to expand the study to include all seasons from '05 to find the teams which over/under achieved the most and then the following season's results to evaluate how these findings impacted the following season...

http://www.footballstudyhall.com/2015/1/26/7917313/second-order-wins-college-football

North Texas has two seasons listed among the "50 biggest underachievers" (2009 & 2010) - in both cases, the following year saw an increase in win%

Now, he's taken this data hoping to answer "Might coaching have an effect on your ability to win (or lose) close games that go against the run of the stats?" Have fun with his findings...

http://www.footballstudyhall.com/2015/1/27/7922421/second-order-wins-college-football-paul-chryst-ken-niumatalolo

North Texas has two coaches listed:

Todd Dodge: Avg Difference per season = -1.28 wins

Dan McCarney: Avg Difference per season = -0.5 wins

--------------------------------------

My takeaway: As a supporter of Coach Mac's as I highlight his improvement in the program's academics, this study seems to suggest that the minor increase in win total each year (with '13 as an outlier) would have been expected by replacing a bad coach (Dodge) with simply an average coach.

In 2015, it's time for Mac to show if he's anything more than "average." I think he knows the importance of this upcoming year which explains the JUCO emphasis in recruiting.

Great stuff--I love this analysis too, even if I have no idea if its good or bad...it looks smart, for sure.

But that last bolded sentence cannot be further from the truth. Nothing in 2015 will matter, contract-wise, for Dan McCarney if we go 0-12, 6-6, or 9-3. I think his JUCO recruitment is in line with what Dodge did at about this point in his tenure here, which is try and hit JUCOs up for playing time at a school that needs them. Our Texas HS recruiting has been atrocious for so long that a new coach always comes in here thinking it will change, then finds out it won't, and then hits the JUCOs to try and make up the difference just to field a team that he hopes can be competitive.

I went back and looked at our Rivals recruiting class rankings from 2005 thru this year's 2015 class. We have ranked above 100 three times ('05 we were 95th, in '08 we were 86th, and in '10 we were 99th). Otherwise, every other year has seen us rated between 100 and 123--that Darrell Dickey, Todd Dodge, and Dan McCarney in that 11 year span. All three coaches had to learn the hard way that the Texas HS kids weren't coming in droves to UNT 9for whatever reasons) and that JUCo talent had to be brought in to try and help the situation. To me, that doesn't make this year any more important for Mac to turn things around and show he is anything but average. It really just talks about the fact that his approach to his entire program is built completely on building up talent on the lines and having a solid running game with an experienced busdriver at QB. If 2015 goes badly--I don't see more than 3-4 wins on the schedule right now-- it still isn't costing Dan McCarney his job. He will coach here until 2017, at the bare minimum, assuming his health holds up just fine.