Red Silk Smoking Jacket

Cool brah

Yeah, that was all kind of my point. Tons of variables. But, as @M.A. just pointed out, the same can be said for wins and losses... Hell, in just about all of football, simply having a good to great quarterback alone can make all the difference in the world.

You forgot, was he a cultural fit or an a$$h@!e and did fans like the way he looks or did he look like an Ewok with a sleeveless hoodie and is he a fat slob but if so, does he at least have a hot wife? Then that pretty much covers it I think.

Okay, here's your recruiting rankings. I did last two years for each as several don't have more than 2 classes. It's a bit of an inexact science because it's hard to know which classes were solely that coach's responsibility. When they were hired, for example, there was already a recruiting class in place that they inherited and had to try to maintain or improve in short order, etc. Anyway, I estimated the best I could on those and tried to use that coach's last two full recruiting classes. Also, you've mentioned you're not a big "take it with a grain of salt" guy, but some of these have to be taken with a grain of salt based on where they're at. Lance Leipold, for example is averaging 65, which isn't good enough for Nebraska, but it might be great for a place like Kansas. Obviously Deion is the same. Aranda at 41 is concerning when Rhule was at 33 at the same school and Rhule took over a s#!t show while Aranda took over a program in really good shape. Things like that have to be considered. Anywhoooo...what did we learn? Aside from the fact that there's an hour of my life I'll never get back, we learned that these stats would tell us it's Urban, then everyone else, by a mile

I +1ed you...but, only because I like the terms "flim flam' and "snake oil." You could have also thrown in a "bull hockey" or a "gobbledygook"

You can say that again I don't think anyone here is saying Aranda & Campbell haven't been more successful than our program over the the last decade. It's just that some of us have a little higher bar than finding a coach who can get us to a little better than what we've been. Aranda and Campbell seem like they may be able to get us to .500 football and I, for one, want better than that. Also, Campbell is a loser. You wanna see cringe, that last clip from a press conference I saw of him was sooooo cringe (goals like "be the best version of yourself" and referring to himself the whole time in the 3rd person), I can't get behind a guy like that. Loser.

I think we're saying the same thing here. Sure, winning percentage isn't the be-all-end-all piece of data to look at in a vacuum on these things. But, you can't deny it should at least be a factor. Maybe @TiredHuskerFanMWI sees it that way (his first post seemed a little that way), but he seems open to also looking at wins against ranked opponents and, although he doesn't seem to care about recruiting rankings, he was open to at least discussing it. I don't know, maybe some of us are just stat nerds who like to geek out on this kind of s#!t when we're playing imaginary AD? Regardless, I can see his point. Maybe I don't break it down into finite, guaranteed winners and losers the way he initially did, but I can see where winning percentage alone could break it down into lowest risk hire to higher risk hire and probably be fairly accurate, save a tweak or two here and there. And I don't think it's much of a reach to make an argument for or against it being able to hold up. Like this... Matt Rhule - 45.3% - higher risk Lance Leipold - 50% - higher risk Dave Clawson - 52.4% - higher risk Bill O'Brien - 53.1% - higher risk Mark Stoops - 53.4% - higher risk Hugh Freeze - 57.6% - higher risk Dave Aranda - 58.6% - higher risk Troy Calhoun - 59.9% - higher risk Matt Campbell - 60.6%- safe Jeff Monken - 60.6%- safe Lane Kiffen - 60.8%- safe Bronco Mendenhall - 62.5%- safe Dan Mullen - 62.8%- safe Dave Doeren - 63%- safe Clay Helton - 64.5%- safe Jamie Chadwell - 65.5%- safe David Shaw - 65.7%- safe Kyle Whittingham - 67.1%- safe Gus Malzahn - 67.9% - safe Luke Fickell - 72% - lower risk Chris Petersen - 79.5%- lower risk Bob Stoops - 79.9%- lower risk Deion Sanders - 80%- lower risk Urban Meyer - 81.5%- lower risk

Definitely with you on the ranked at the end of the year, not when they played part. Personally, I'd remove NFL altogether. It's a completely different game and it's been pretty well proven that success in one doesn't mean squat for success in another.

Fair enough. However, although good recruiting classes don't necessarily equal high winning percentage, I think those with the best winning percentages likely have high recruiting rankings. 24/7 let's you include transfers and look at overall rankings now (recruits + transfers). Maybe I'll run the numbers if I have some time this weekend.

Can you do the same for average recruiting rankings? I actually think Rhule and Leipold are good coaches despite their overall winning percentages, mostly just going by the eye test. But their recruiting classes are pretty dismal and neither has beat (m)any ranked opponents.

Yeah, I caught that and edited my post. Good to know the NFL thing is pretty much a moot point. Honestly, you might be onto something and I can't really argue with your analysis at all. I know you didn't include minor leagues (or whatever it's called these days), but I added 1 for you that shouldn't be overlooked just behind Urban at 80%. Yeah, I know, I apparently have an unhealthy obsession

Good info. Are these percentages based on total career or just their most recent jobs or how does that work? Edit, spot checking a couple and it looks like you're going with career totals. And I'm sure you know this, but you have to take some of those lower guys with a grain of salt. A lot of them are being highly regarded for rebuilding programs, which inherently have some first couple years with an asterisk by them. Also, winning percentage isn't everything. Hell Nick Saban was only 58.6% at Sparty when LSU found him.

How do you know he's not? How do you know he is?

Good point. Funny...my top 3 choices have (essentially) no buyout. And I'm in the "we need to spend whatever it takes to get the right guy" camp. My top 3 choices are also all already set for life financially, so, there's that.

Been done before...

Yeah, maybe there's a reason we're all nothing more than a bunch of keyboard coaches

I'd be drinking a Carib on a beach in St Barth for for the rest of my life. I was just assuming he'd want to coach again.

I don't think it really matters because whatever that number is, he's getting it either way.

I think your math is a little off because part of that $40M number that's being thrown around is for this year which makes it $40M over 5 years. So it's somewhere closer to $8M per year for 2023-2026. I could be wrong though.

My understanding is he gets around $8.85 million per year from the Panthers (7 year, $62M contract). He already got that for year 1 and 2 when he was coaching and he'll get it from them for the rest of this season. So, the Panthers are out around $26.55M of the $62M no matter what. But he's still owed the rest of the contract no matter what, so roughly $35.45M. After this year, whatever his new deal is with his new team will go against the balance. So essentially, he's getting paid $8.85 per year for the next 4 years no matter what. The only question is where it comes from. If we hired him and pay him $7M per year, the Panthers pay him the other $1.85M for the next 4 years. If we hired him and pay him $9M, the Panthers are off the hook. The Panthers really want him to return to coaching a demand a really high price tag.

Does that mean we also just have to call them "shirts" when they get brought back?

Yep, pretty sure that's how these deals work. One of the benefits to firing him early for the Panthers was to have him on the market as early as possible in hopes that he takes a college gig to lower the payment on what they owe him.

Yeah, I did see that about NFL talent. It’s pretty damn impressive. I was very close to that whole Baylor situation (living in Dallas) and Rhule was very highly regarded through that whole thing. What he did with that situation was pretty magical. I don’t love the fact that he’s never beat a ranked team, and I think his recruiting classes will have to improve (you need to be able to recruit and develop to win championships) to get to the elite level. But he’s got enough other really strong points to offset all that. He’s going to get a top gig if he wants it and I’d be great with him at Nebraska. He’s pretty squarely in my top 3. Texas fans are worried OU will fire Venables and hire Rhule if that tells you anything.

I don’t think that’s how this works. Pretty sure the Panther money goes away the minute he takes another coaching job. Or am I misreading your post?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying all those guys aren't an upgrade literally. They all most certainly are, on paper anyway. I'm saying if I'm Mickey, I may not see it that way...at least not to the extent of wanting to stick around and learn under them. I mean, sure they've all done pretty good things and he could probably stick around and learn under them. But it's not like they're a bunch of coaching legends with serious skins on the wall that he'd be crazy not to stick around and work under. Maybe I'm reading too much into it and Mickey would see it differently, I don't know. But, when I hear Trev already has his guy and Mickey's on board, I just assume it's a significant upgrade. And I wasn't saying I'm not sure on Rhule (or Leipold) as a coach, although he's never beat a ranked opponent and his recruiting classes were fairly poor. I was saying I'm not sure if Mickey would see either of them as significant enough upgrades to give his blessing to. Aranda, sure great working relationship, so maybe you're right. But if I'm Mickey, I can make a reeeeeeally strong case that I'm the next Aranda, so I don't see it at all. I'm probably just reading into it what I want to hear, which is the case with a lot of us. That said, I hope to God it's not Campbell or Aranda. Give me Mickey over either of those...all...day...long, and I'm far from being a "keep Mickey" proponent.