A quick look at the 2019 FBS coaches

As we grind our way toward preseason rankings for all FBS teams, we have come to the important review of coaches.  There is generally little change in Savvy’s projections for coaches who remain in the same place from year-to-year, so most of the fun stuff happens in the teams that change coaches.

In last month’s review of each team’s returning roster production, I had the system funnel things down to a 1-5 value so that we didn’t have to deal with thousands of pieces of data.  For this preview of head coaches, I’ve asked Savvy to produce 1-9 values for the grid that follows.

Savvy’s projections are not intended to say that one coach is better than another.  Instead, it is more of how strong each coach’s resume’ is for his time in FBS.  Therefore, a rising star like Cincinnati’s Luke Fickell may be every bit as good as Nick Saban but Fickell hasn’t been a FBS head coach long enough to build Saban’s resume’.

That accrued data is combined with an evaluation of various trends and the result is a prevision that, in very general terms, answers this question:

If Savvy had $10, how much would it wager on each coach’s ability to bring his team to equal or better results in 2019 than it had in 2018?

You may have already come to another important question—like, how can any system accurately project the effectiveness of someone who has never been an FBS head coach before?

Actually over the years, I’ve discovered that many keys exist, they’re abundant, and they’re reliable.  Anytime a new one is uncovered, it’s like finding hidden treasure and I confess that the fun of that has made this pursuit somewhat of a guilty pleasure.

There are some oddities of note.  For example, if we converted Les Myles’ data from LSU into this simplified 1-9 discussion, he would likely rate an “8”.  But, he is starting at “6” mostly because he has been out of the game for a long time and because—well—he’s at Kansas now.

I was surprised to see Kevin Sumlin (Arizona) with the biggest drop in the over all (detailed) data.  Although Sumlin is a highly-admired coach, some of his trend lines bent sharply downward last season, a situation that now puts him squarely in the center of coaches we will be watching in 2019.

In the grid below, teams that have new coaches have colored highlights in the column labeled “here since”.  Those with coaches who have never head coached an FBS program are shaded in pink.

Savvy		2019
Coach Resume’
team	here since		strength of resume’
Air Force	07	Troy Calhoun	5
Akron	19	Tom Arth	3
Alabama	07	Nick Saban	9
App State	19	Eliah Drinkwitz	3
Arizona	18	Kevin Sumlin	5
Arizona St.	18	Edwards, Herm	6
Arkansas	18	Chad Morris	5
Arkansas St.	14	Blake Anderson	6
Army	14	Jeff Monken	6
Auburn	13	Gus Malzahn	6
Ball St.	16	Mike Neu	5
Baylor	17	Matt Rhule	7
Boise St.	14	Bryan Harsin	7
Boston Col	13	Steve Addazio	6
Bowling Green	19	Scott Loeffler	4
Buffalo	15	Lance Leopold	7
BYU	16	Kilani Sitake	5
C Michigan	19	Jim McElwain	5
California	18	Justin Wilcox	6
Charlotte	19	Will Healy	2
Cincinnati	17	Luke Fickell	7
Clemson	08	Dabo Swinney	9
Coastal Car	19	Jamey Chadwell	3
Colorado	19	Mel Turner	5
Colorado St.	15	Mike Bobo	5
Connecticut	17	Randy Edsall	4
Duke	08	David Cutcliffe	6
E Carolina	19	Mike Houston	3
E Michigan	14	Chris Creighton	6
Florida	18	Dan Mullen	9
Florida Atl.	17	Lane Kiffin	5
Florida Intl.	17	Butch Davis	6
Florida St.	18	Willie Taggart	6
Fresno St.	17	Jeff Tedford	7
Georgia	16	Kirby Smart	7
Georgia So.	18	Chad Lunsford	6
Georgia St.	17	Shawn Elliott	3
Georgia Tech	19	Geoff Collins	5
Hawaii	16	Nick Rolovich	6
Houston	19	Dana Holgorsen	5
Illinois	16	Lovie Smith	5
Indiana	17	Tom Allen	5
Iowa	99	Kirk Ferentz	6
Iowa St.	16	Campbell, Matt	6
Kansas	19	Les Miles	6
Kansas St.	19	Chris Klieman	3
Kent St.	18	Lewis, Sean	4
Kentucky	13	Mark Stoops	8
LA Lafayette	18	Billy Napier	6
LA Monroe	16	Matt Viator	5
LA Tech	13	Skip Holtz	6
Liberty	19	Hugh Freeze	6
Louisville	19	Scott Satterfield	6
LSU	16	Ed Orgeron	7
Marshall	10	Doc Holliday	5
Maryland	19	Mike Locksley	6
Massachusetts	19	Walt Bell	3
Memphis	16	Mike Norvell	6
Miami Fl	19	Manny Diaz	4
Miami Oh	14	Chuck Martin	4
Michigan	15	Jim Harbaugh	8
Michigan St.	07	Mark Dantonio	6
Middle Tenn	06	Rick Stockstill	5
Minnesota	17	P.J. Fleck	6
Mississippi	17	Matt Luke	5
Mississippi St.	18	Joe Moorehead	6
Missouri	16	Barry Odom	5
N Carolina	19	Mack Brown	5
N Carolina St.	13	Dave Doeren	7
N Illinois	19	Thomas Hammock	4
N Texas	16	Seth Litrell	5
Navy	07	Ken Niumatalolo	5
Nebraska	18	Frost, Scott	6
Nevada	17	Jay Norvell	5
New Mexico	12	Bob Davie	5
New Mexico St.	13	Doug Martin	4
Northwestern	06	Pat Fitzgerald	7
Notre Dame	10	Brian Kelly	8
Ohio	05	Frank Solich	6
Ohio St.	19	Ryan Day	5
Oklahoma	17	Lincoln Riley	7
Oklahoma St.	05	Mike Gundy	6
Old Dominion	09	Bobby Wilder	4
Oregon	18	Mario Cristobal	7
Oregon St.	18	Jonathan Smith	5
Penn St.	14	James Franklin	7
Pittsburgh	15	Pat Narduzzi	6
Purdue	17	Jeff Brohm	5
Rice	18	Mike Bloomgren	4
Rutgers	16	Chris Ashe	3
S Alabama	18	Steve Campbell	4
S Carolina	16	Will Muschamp	7
S Miss	16	Jay Hopson	5
San Diego St.	11	Rocky Long	6
San Jose St.	17	Brent Brennan	3
SMU	18	Sonny Dykes	5
Stanford	11	David Shaw	7
Syracuse	16	Dino Babers	7
TCU	00	Gary Patterson	6
Temple	19	Rod Carey	5
Tennessee	18	Jeremy Pruitt	5
Texas	17	Tom Herman	8
Texas A&M	18	Jimbo Fisher	7
Texas St.	19	Jake Spavital	3
Texas Tech	19	Matt Wells	5
Toledo	16	Jason Candle	5
Troy	19	Chip Lindsey	5
Tulane	16	Willie Fritz	6
Tulsa	15	Phillip Montgomery	5
UAB	14	Bill Clark	7
UCF	18	Josh Heupel	6
UCLA	18	Chip Kelly	6
UNLV	15	Tony Sanchez	4
USC	15	Clay Helton	5
USF	17	Strong, Charlie	5
Utah	05	Kyle Whittingham	8
Utah St.	19	Gary Anderson	5
UTEP	18	Dana Dimal	4
UTSA	16	Frank Wilson	4
Va Tech	16	Justin Fuentes	7
Vanderbilt	14	Derek Mason	6
Virginia	16	Bronco Mendenhall	7
W Kentucky	19	Tyson Helton	3
W Michigan	17	Tim Lester	5
W Virginia	19	Neal Brown	7
Wake Forest	14	Dave Clawson	6
Washington	14	Chris Peterson	8
Washington St.	12	Mike Leach	7
Wisconsin	15	Paul Chryst	6
Wyoming	14	Craig Bohl	5

…..