Record Comparisons

[short ornery norwegian]

my thoughts - and these are personal opinions:

Mason - a basic level of competency. his teams were in most games. strong on offense, mostly iffy on defense. generally beat the bad teams. a few well-documented painful losses. able to recruit real talent on offense and coaching staff developed some excellent O linemen.

Brewster - some promise in year 2 and 3, but never could decide on what type of team he wanted to have, so revolving door of coordinators and systems. very little discipline - academic issues.

Kill/Claeys - at the very least, restored a baseline level of competence. solid on defense. inconsistent offense. staff very good at finding and developing defensive players. a number of players from this era went on to the NFL. Kill hampered by health issues. Claeys by off-field incident.

Fleck - came in with a lot of hype - "hottest young coach in the country." better recruiting classes - at least if you go by the rating services. One truly outstanding season so far, but also some average to above-average seasons, and one season hurt by covid. conservative coaching philosophy.

 

[Taji34]

Alvarez won the conference and the Rose Bowl in year 4

He also went 4-5-2 2 years later and was tied for 7th in the conference.

 

[GopherGangsta]

I have found it is very common for coaching records/results to suffer when you remove their best season(s)

What does Fleck’s record look like with the Gophers if you take out 2017 and 2020?

How many Super Bowls have the Patriots won if you take out their super bowl years?

Try that on Nick Saban's seasons with Alabama....Take out the national championship seasons and his record is still great....If you wanna say a coach is a great coach because he had one very good season and much of mediocre ones, go ahead.

 

[Schnauzer]

Try that on Nick Saban's seasons with Alabama....Take out the national championship seasons and his record is still great....If you wanna say a coach is a great coach because he had one very good season and much of mediocre ones, go ahead.

So that is your comparison? The guy that will go down as the greatest coach of all time? Okay. You even limited what I can compare with only his years at Alabama. I can’t even count .500 season at Michigan State. I’m in a box.

to be clear… I wasn’t declaring Fleck was a great or bad coach. I was simply pointing out how ludicrous it is to omit part of a coaching record to judge a coaching record. You can prove any point you’d like if you remove the parts that don’t fit your narrative.

 

[imthewalrus]

If a coach receives a pay check for coaching the team & running the football program at Minnesota or any where else, he owns the record from season one, game one, until he leaves to take another job, retires, is bought out or is fired. The moment he is relieved, in mid-season, he gets no credit for wins or losses. Just as his record starts from the first game he coaches a program, his record ends at that school the minute he is no longer THE man/woman of record at that program.

Only in fantasy land does a real football coach have a year zero, Even if a coach tries to spin a free season for himself if he was paid for his first year, the U of M had best demand every cent they paid that coach who grants himself a
Season ZERO be returned to the U of M.

 

[PMWinSTP]

my thoughts - and these are personal opinions:

Mason - a basic level of competency. his teams were in most games. strong on offense, mostly iffy on defense. generally beat the bad teams. a few well-documented painful losses. able to recruit real talent on offense and coaching staff developed some excellent O linemen.

Brewster - some promise in year 2 and 3, but never could decide on what type of team he wanted to have, so revolving door of coordinators and systems. very little discipline - academic issues.

Kill/Claeys - at the very least, restored a baseline level of competence. solid on defense. inconsistent offense. staff very good at finding and developing defensive players. a number of players from this era went on to the NFL. Kill hampered by health issues. Claeys by off-field incident.

Fleck - came in with a lot of hype - "hottest young coach in the country." better recruiting classes - at least if you go by the rating services. One truly outstanding season so far, but also some average to above-average seasons, and one season hurt by covid. conservative coaching philosophy.

Outside of 2019, all his seasons have been average in my book. Which do you consider above average?

 

[Some guy]

Try that on Nick Saban's seasons with Alabama....Take out the national championship seasons and his record is still great....If you wanna say a coach is a great coach because he had one very good season and much of mediocre ones, go ahead.

You got him.

nick Saban > PJ Fleck

Case closed

 

[oak_street1981]

I get what you’re saying and I also think that comparing score from 20 years ago can be flawed. The on field gap isn’t what it used to be in college football. Transfers and the exposure G5 programs get, seems to have led to less of a gap.

And I looked it up today:

Since many older coaches, coached when there was 8 conference games, I took a 32 game or 4 season approach.

Fleck 15-17 (7-2 and Outback Bowl Win in 3rd Year)
Ferentz 15-17 (4th Year 8-0 and Orange Bowl)
Fitzgerald 15-17
Brohm 13-19
Frost 9-19 and is in his 4th season
Jerry Kill 13-19
Alvarez 11-21 (4th year was 6-1-1 and a Rose Bowl win)

I agree that things have changed in the last 15-20 years and the lower rung teams have better chances of acquiring talent via liberalized TF rules.

Regardless, that Mason/Tony Peterson system tended to overwhelm lesser teams pretty quickly most times in the out of conference games. Even somewhat better teams like Colorado State and Tulsa ended up getting ground into the dirt by the Oline and the running game.

I still remember sitting in Akron Ohio of all places, watching a converted 245 LB linebacker playing tailback, due to Amir Pinnix being injured (and Gary Russell flunking out, which cost Mason his job), and the end result was a 44-10 or something win. My guess is BGSU last week will not end up being that much better this year than Akron was in 2006 in the MAC. (could be wrong, we will see)