"you still don't see the flaw in your main statistical argument. So 28/37 SECC coaches equaled or bettered their teams' record from the previous year during their first season AT THAT SCHOOL.

But how many were true ROOKIE HCs? That's the number that would be relevant."


14 coaches have won the SEC in their rookie stint at a school. Of those 14, only 3 won fewer games than the team did the year before. One was Doug Dickey at Tennessee who dropped a half game (UT went 5-5 the year before and he went 4-5-1 his 1st year). The other two were Bobby Dodd at gtu and Mike DuBose at Bama. Dodd took over tech the year after they lost their V12 advantage during WWII (the same reason we don't count the 1943 & 44 games in the series record with them). DuBose took over at Bama when they were on probation and had lost something like 30 scholarships over two or three years.

So 11 of 14 won the same or more games their rookie season as a head coach. One dropped a half game, the other two had pretty good reasons. It's a valid point.

And regarding McElwain at CSU, sometimes it's harder to start from virtually nothing like he did. They had won 3 games for 3 straight years, and he won 4 his first, and built on that every year. It's also a valid point.

Edited to add:
The 11 who won same or more games, with number of games, is as follows:
Bob Neyland (+3)
Bill Alexander (+1)
Red Dawson (+0.5)
Johnny Vaught (+7)
Shug Jordan (+5)
Vince Dooley (+3)
Galen Hall (0)
Bill Arnsparger (+4)
Mike Archer (+1)
Phil Fulmer (+1)
Mark Richt (0)



[Post edited by RedDawg at 02/13/2017 7:21PM]