Overachieving and Underachieving Coaches & Seasons

[Kiyoat Husker]

 

This is interesting. The title is a little bit misleading. In my mind, whether a coach is overachieving or underachieving is directly related to talent vs. achievement. This calculation disregards talent completely (which is a hard thing to define anyway).

 

Instead he(she) is looking at things like field position, finishing drives, etc. Really this is more a measure of "winning in spite of yourself" since being in bad field position and not finishing drives would be your own fault anyway. I still agree that coaches that win in spite of themselves aren't simply lucky, but to me this is only one small part of being an overachieving coach.

 

I agree that Pelini was particularly good at doing that - willing his team to victory, somehow. I didn't realize that Frank was even better.

 

I do agree that it seems to be somewhat "winning in spite of yourself." And they did mention that it's still kind of a small sample size.

 

But over four years if you're getting an extra couple wins - or an extra couple losses - there would seem to be something to it. Handling the situation well or getting yourself out of a jam.

 

The problem I have with the "talent vs. achievement" rankings is I think it can be misleading. If you're a terrible recruiter but a decent coach, it looks like you score high on that metric. If you're a good recruiter and a good coach, you look average when you're probably near the top because you're doing all facets well.

 

 

True - if only there were a way to handicap the talent vs acheivement based on difficulty of recruiting to the location. It would be difficult to define, and it changes over time.

 

Look at Baylor, for example. With Art Briles gone the recruits are quickly abandoning ship. That wouldn't happen to the same degree at a traditionally elite school.