2nd Year Coaches

McK · June 27, 2008

I just did a random survey of Div. 1A head coaches who began at their current programs in recent years-- 35 in all, from perennially ranked teams to perennial '2nd division' teams-- and the result is that more than twice as many coaches improve their team's record in their 2nd season over their first as drop off... it's 20 that improved; 8 got worse; 7 stayed the same (including where the difference was just a half-game).

Obviously, it's more likely a team had a 'bad' record at the time of a new coach's hiring, and that may explain much of the Year 2 results-- seldom is a coach given just a single season to show W-L improvement, and up is more likely than down even if there were no coaching change. So that's why these writers' projections have UNT winning 4, maybe 5, games in '08. But the intangible is the true worth of the coach. While Bob Stoops, Jim Tressel, and Urban Meyer all won NC's in their 2nd year, and Pete Carroll and Les Miles came close in their 2nd and won it their 3rd, it's notable that all those guys took the helm of a program with a deep-rooted winning tradition, so the name of the school itself already drew in top players. While UNT doesn't compare in that way, perhaps it can be likened more to Miles and Mike Gundy at Oklahoma St., or Hal Mumme at NM St.-- teams at a historical disadvantage to their competition, but they brought in new offensive systems and improved by 3-4 games in Year 2.

So while UNT made drastic improvemnet in offense in '07, while its defense was anomalously bad, and there were still perhaps 7 games that could have gone either way (including the 2 wins) with an 'average' UNT defense, I think the improvement will be better than as few as 2 or 3 wins in '08. Defense again will be the biggest question, but it can hardly be worse this year, and may be markedly better with the new coordinator. But even with just the offense improving with a more experienced line and a better understanding of Dodge's system-- and either a more mature QB, or one more experienced in his system-- that should be worth a couple of games.

So I think UNT will win 6 games this year. Any better than that depends depends on the intangible worth of the coach; if he bucks the trend and shows that he's 'got it' at the college (at least SLC) level as well as HS, this could be the real break-out year.

Edited June 27, 2008 by McK