Help Wanted
A total of six NFL teams have jettisoned their head coaches this past season which means there will be a lot off buzz between now with the start of candidate interviews and when news of the final position being filled is reported. Speculation of who lands where is in full effect with a few names we've known for years - same old coaches projected to new teams. But there is also speculation of teams reaching into the college ranks to find their man (or woman someday?) to right the ship.
Hold that Tiger?
The Jacksonville Jaguars are in position to select Clemson superstar QB Trevor Lawrence first overall in the upcoming NFL Draft. There has been speculation of his current coach Dabo Sweeney being hired to fill the vacant HC job and continue mentoring his QB at the next level. Sweeney has had huge success in the college ranks and fans are eager to see what he can do at the next level but is college success enough to win at the next level?
As much as football is football, there are material differences that would be challenging to any coach making the transition from college to the pros. The system of acquiring players is more restricted in the pros and so there is theoretically more parity in the league (by design). This parity requires more complexity in schemes since you can't simply "out-talent" your opponent. Because the students have scholastic obligations and the NCAA regulations constrain practice time, recruiting talent is the coaching priority in college. In the pros, parity requires a more business like approach to coaching than in college because the difference between winning and losing usually comes down to a handful of plays each game. Therefore coaches study like monks - they are expected to be the first person in the building in the morning and the last one to leave at night. One person cannot do all the work, so the head coach must surround himself with talented assistants who are also smart, hard working and dedicated to detail so that no detail is overlooked. So there is a huge administrative component to head coaching in the NFL that just you don't frequently see with college coaches without pro experience. With all that to consider the question remains: Does it matter if a coach hired from college to take over a pro team has no NFL experience?
You know I had to find out...
Qualifiers
- There were 159 men hired to NFL head coaching positions since 1985 who coached during the period from 1990 to 2020.
- We exclude anyone who had more than 3 years experience as a professional position coach or coordinator prior to their first head coaching job (Jim Harbaugh is also excluded because he performed at a high level in the NFL as a QB which carries a high degree of organizational responsibility).
- That leaves us with 11 men who jumped from college to the NFL with 3 or fewer years of qualifying experience in the pros.
- The wins and losses above are only for the first head coaching gigs; that is, later coaching results are not included.
- Only 3 coaches had winning records at the end of their first head coaching campaign:
- Barry Switzer, Mike Sherman and Jimmy Johnson.
- The coaches with just 1 year in the NFL prior to becoming a head coach did the worst of the group with Schiano and Kiffin coming in at a combined 16-36 record (0.308 win rate).
- Coaches with no NFL position coach or coordinator experience at all came in at a win percentage of 0.457 which is below average.
- It's worth noting, Johnson and Switzer were beneficiaries of the legendary Hershel Walker trade. For those not familiar with the details:
- The three first round picks would become future Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith (1990), future All Pro Russell Maryland (1991) and future 3x All Pro Darren Woodson (1992) who were added to their prior first round picks future Hall of Famers Michael Irvin (1988) and Troy Aikman in (1989).
- Given the extraordinary nature of the DAL Hershel Walker trade situation, if we omit Johnson and Switzer to "normalize" the results, the coaches with 0 years qualified experience show a record of 89-117-1 for an aggregate win rate of .405.
For context, when we look at the 19 Super Bowl winning coaches from the original 159 coaches in our sample (see above), their aggregate win rate is .601 (2,529 wins and 1,669 losses with 7 ties). The 69 coaches who made the playoffs (but did not won the Super Bowl) had an aggregate career win rate of .495 (going 3,671-3,723-15). The other 71 coaches (who did not make any playoff run) performed as you might expect, at a .330 win rate (compiling a record of 766-1555-3).
- The wins and losses above are only for the first head coaching gigs; that is, later coaching results are not included.
- Only 3 coaches had winning records at the end of their first head coaching campaign:
- Barry Switzer, Mike Sherman and Jimmy Johnson.
- The coaches with just 1 year in the NFL prior to becoming a head coach did the worst of the group with Schiano and Kiffin coming in at a combined 16-36 record (0.308 win rate).
- Coaches with no NFL position coach or coordinator experience at all came in at a win percentage of 0.457 which is below average.
- It's worth noting, Johnson and Switzer were beneficiaries of the legendary Hershel Walker trade. For those not familiar with the details:
- The three first round picks would become future Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith (1990), future All Pro Russell Maryland (1991) and future 3x All Pro Darren Woodson (1992) who were added to their prior first round picks future Hall of Famers Michael Irvin (1988) and Troy Aikman in (1989).
- Given the extraordinary nature of the DAL Hershel Walker trade situation, if we omit Johnson and Switzer to "normalize" the results, the coaches with 0 years qualified experience show a record of 89-117-1 for an aggregate win rate of .405.
For context, when we look at the 19 Super Bowl winning coaches from the original 159 coaches in our sample (see above), their aggregate win rate is .601 (2,529 wins and 1,669 losses with 7 ties). The 69 coaches who made the playoffs (but did not won the Super Bowl) had an aggregate career win rate of .495 (going 3,671-3,723-15). The other 71 coaches (who did not make any playoff run) performed as you might expect, at a .330 win rate (compiling a record of 766-1555-3).
Conclusion
Based on the above, only one NFL head coach who was promoted from the college ranks with no more than 3 years experience as a pro position coach or coordinator out of the 11 qualifiers performed worse than the aggregate average of all other coaches in the sample who had not gotten to the playoffs.
So, through the lens that most coaches are hired to bad teams, the chances of Sweeney truly sucking are slim based on the numbers.
Only 3 (or 27.4%) performed above .500 on their first NFL head coaching job and that may be misleading. Not to minimize the work done in DAL to earn those Lombardi trophies but the opportunity to build a team the way they did is obviously rare so you can put an asterisk on this if you like. Only considering Sherman and eliminating the DAL boys, you get a much weaker 11.1% chance of such a coach recording a better than even record during their rebuild.
So excluding the DAL coaches, 89% of first time NFL head coaches included in our group fell short of the historical aggregate performance of their peers who made the playoffs (.496 win percentage).
The differences in the duties for head coaches in College (talent aggregation) compared to the NFL (hierarchy administration) are vastly different. One could also argue the game planning required when the level of talent is intended to be in parity (NFL) is naturally more intensive than in college where teams can get to a bowl game based on talent advantage alone.
So, Dabo Sweeney coming out to join Trevor Lawrence in Jacksonville might not necessarily be a bad idea, but history shows expectations for such a hire should definitely be tempered.
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