beorach
Special Teams Player
I recognize that another topic got derailed, in part, over this topic...so I've started a new thread. For anyone else who'd like to research this, Wikipedia had lists of all the coaches and their winning percentages over time. The link below will take you to the lowest relevant entry of the top 15 programs by winning percentage, all time:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Miami_Hurricanes_head_football_coaches
I counted 112 coaches at these programs since 1960. If a coach was there before 1960, I included the games before that year also. I only neglected to count a coach if he didn't get at least one full season. There weren't many instances of that. Another item to note is that the winning percentage on Wikipedia counts ties as half a win and half a loss.
The average winning percentage for a coach at one of these programs, from a tenure that included 1960 until the present, is 0.639. The standard deviation for this figure, over the same stretch, is 0.146. The percentage of coaches that performed at least as well, or better, than Bo Pelini in that same time period is roughly 42. To put things more simply, the percentile ratings for the Husker coaches with (Husker head coaching) career winning percentages that exceeded the average is as follows:
91.165 for TO
90.371 for Bob
78.307 for Frank
68.723 for Bo
That's making a lot out of one number, of course, and the matter of statistical significance is still moot. That's why I like to look at z-scores. If I take the average plus a standard deviation, we have a point on the normal distribution that should give us a divider between the bottom 5/6 and the top 1/6 of our data. There are just sixteen coaches who exceed this threshold. The breakdown by program, again for just this time period and just this measurable (of winning percentage over a full career at one of these aforementioned programs), is as follows:
Miami - 3
Oklahoma - 3
Alabama - 2
Nebraska - 2
Ohio State - 2
Florida State - 1
Michigan - 1
Notre Dame - 1
USC - 1
Arizona State - 0
Georgia - 0
LSU - 0
Penn State - 0
Tennessee - 0
Texas - 0
The percentage of coaches to meet / exceed the Pelini benchmark for winning percentage (0.710 by my check) during this time specified, by program, is as follows (in order of position among the top 15 winningest programs, by percentage):
Ohio State - 83
Michigan - 57
Alabama - 50
Oklahoma - 44
Notre Dame - 33
Texas - 50
USC - 43
Nebraska - 57*
Penn State - 25
Florida State - 40
Tennessee - 33
LSU - 33
Georgia - 33
Arizona State - 25
Miami - 42
Take this for what it's worth. If you think this means that a monkey could win at Nebraska, it's all good by me. The research was very quick but figuring out what to type and actually typing took awhile... I may have been at this for a whole hour!
* - includes Pelini
p.s. - I dropped Boise State out and just focused on P5 teams + Notre Dame instead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Miami_Hurricanes_head_football_coaches
I counted 112 coaches at these programs since 1960. If a coach was there before 1960, I included the games before that year also. I only neglected to count a coach if he didn't get at least one full season. There weren't many instances of that. Another item to note is that the winning percentage on Wikipedia counts ties as half a win and half a loss.
The average winning percentage for a coach at one of these programs, from a tenure that included 1960 until the present, is 0.639. The standard deviation for this figure, over the same stretch, is 0.146. The percentage of coaches that performed at least as well, or better, than Bo Pelini in that same time period is roughly 42. To put things more simply, the percentile ratings for the Husker coaches with (Husker head coaching) career winning percentages that exceeded the average is as follows:
91.165 for TO
90.371 for Bob
78.307 for Frank
68.723 for Bo
That's making a lot out of one number, of course, and the matter of statistical significance is still moot. That's why I like to look at z-scores. If I take the average plus a standard deviation, we have a point on the normal distribution that should give us a divider between the bottom 5/6 and the top 1/6 of our data. There are just sixteen coaches who exceed this threshold. The breakdown by program, again for just this time period and just this measurable (of winning percentage over a full career at one of these aforementioned programs), is as follows:
Miami - 3
Oklahoma - 3
Alabama - 2
Nebraska - 2
Ohio State - 2
Florida State - 1
Michigan - 1
Notre Dame - 1
USC - 1
Arizona State - 0
Georgia - 0
LSU - 0
Penn State - 0
Tennessee - 0
Texas - 0
The percentage of coaches to meet / exceed the Pelini benchmark for winning percentage (0.710 by my check) during this time specified, by program, is as follows (in order of position among the top 15 winningest programs, by percentage):
Ohio State - 83
Michigan - 57
Alabama - 50
Oklahoma - 44
Notre Dame - 33
Texas - 50
USC - 43
Nebraska - 57*
Penn State - 25
Florida State - 40
Tennessee - 33
LSU - 33
Georgia - 33
Arizona State - 25
Miami - 42
Take this for what it's worth. If you think this means that a monkey could win at Nebraska, it's all good by me. The research was very quick but figuring out what to type and actually typing took awhile... I may have been at this for a whole hour!
* - includes Pelini
p.s. - I dropped Boise State out and just focused on P5 teams + Notre Dame instead.
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