Many on this board have said HCSF is a bad coach. This seems more an article of faith, repeated like a catechism, rather than a matter of fact, or even reasoned opinion. To answer this question we must first decide what is a good coach. There are several components to this determination. At its most basic, a good football coach is one who wins the games he supposed to win and wins some he's not supposed to win. In other words, the good football coach wins the games where he has superior talent and steals some when he has inferior talent. So, how do we decide whether a coach has inferior or superior talent?
Although not perfect, all-conference teams offer a measure of the respective talent levels for the teams in that conference. In short, these teams are comprised of the difference makers in that conference and difference makers go a long way towards deciding the outcome of a game. Of course, all-conference players are not the only measure of a team's talent level. The NFL draft also says something about the talent level of a team. But, in terms of an independent analysis of a team's talent level, this is a good pace to start. I say "independent" because I'm trying to avoid a subjective determination of a team's talent. I would also emphasize that this a good relative measure of any coach's performance because it addresses the talent on his peers' teams.
With these thoughts in mind, I analyzed the three-deep all-conference teams during HCSF's tenure at DONU. I decided, and this is admittedly a bit arbitrary, to use a 4-3-2 scoring system with 4 points for a first team all-conference performer, 3 points for a second teamer, and 2 for third string. To get this information, I used Wikipedia's summary of the media and coaches' polls. If the media and coaches' and media disagreed on a player, I chose the higher rank for each player. I did not assign points for honorable mention nor did I factor in the NFL draft. While this omission means I may not have completely captured each team's talent level, it should not have a material effect on the teams' overall rankings relative to one another. The win-loss records for the various Big 10 teams bears this out for the most part.
Name 2018 2019 2020
IU 3 10 33
IL 11 16 14
Iowa 29 21 40
Mary. 10 3 2
Michigan 49 40 6
MSU 21 13 6
Minn 10 22 10
NE 9 5 7
NW 11 3 19
OSU 35 56 53
PSU 19 24 30
PUR 17 10 12
Rutgers 0 3 7
WI 26 17 16
As you can see, DONU ranks near the bottom in each year and for the three years combined. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the NFL draft. How did HCSF do?
2018--NU went 3-6 in conference with all games against superior teams.
2019—NU went 3-6 in conference; 2-0 against teams with inferior talent and 1-6 against superior teams.
2020—NU went 3-5 in conference; 2-5 against teams with superior talent and 1-0 against an evenly matched Rutgers team.
How do HCSF's 6 wins against teams with superior talent compare to other coaches? Fitzgerald also had 6 quality wins over the same period with 1 bad loss. N.B. HCSF did not have any bad losses by this definition. How about Ferentz? This was really eye-opening as far as I was concerned. He had 0 quality wins over the same time and 7(!) bad losses. 4 of the bad losses came in 2018--which had to be one of the worst underperforming teams in the BIG over this time. I did not analyze every BIG coach's record, but I"m pretty sure based on the above 2 examples that HCSF compares favorably to every one else and may be at the top of the conference. I leave it to somebody else to perform this analysis for all BIG coaches.
Some posters have complained about HCSF's play calling. The short answer here is that none of us has analyzed opposing teams' game film to determine where DONU may have an advantage and none of us is privy to the practices to see which plays the team seems able to best execute given what the coach's want to do. Notably, many of HCSF's BIG losses have been close. Given the obvious talent disparity, it's a tribute to the play calling that the games were close in the first place.
A further note. I only analyzed BIG games so I had some confidence that I was comparing apples to apples. I had no way to objectively compare out-of-conference teams' talent levels to DONU's. By limiting the analysis to BIG games I was comparing performances in roughly the same talent pool. Also, the all-conference team is based on actual performance, rather than projections based on somebody's feelings.
Of course, this isn't the only metric for measuring a coach's performance. It addresses primarily a coach's game preparation and coaching during a game. Another important metric is recruiting. In some ways it's the most important. The problem here is that rather than measuring on-field performance, recruiting rankings are a projection of possible future performance. This means there is no reliable way to measure the success of a coach's recruiting until 4-5 years down the road. The all-American teams bear this out as the vast majority (more than 75%) are juniors and seniors. We will have a much better handle on HCSF's recruiting in his first two years after the 2021 and 2022 seasons.
Another unquantifiable metric is player development. Each player has a range to his talent within which he can be "developed." Simply put, this means you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. "Player development" is unquantifiable because we have no way to gauge a player's talent range when he comes into a program. For that reason we can't gauge whether he was developed to the maximum by the staff. This also assumes that it's up to the staff alone and not the player to get this done.
To sum up, HCSF is a good coach, performing at a high level. If recruiting has been what we all hope, the future is bright.
Although not perfect, all-conference teams offer a measure of the respective talent levels for the teams in that conference. In short, these teams are comprised of the difference makers in that conference and difference makers go a long way towards deciding the outcome of a game. Of course, all-conference players are not the only measure of a team's talent level. The NFL draft also says something about the talent level of a team. But, in terms of an independent analysis of a team's talent level, this is a good pace to start. I say "independent" because I'm trying to avoid a subjective determination of a team's talent. I would also emphasize that this a good relative measure of any coach's performance because it addresses the talent on his peers' teams.
With these thoughts in mind, I analyzed the three-deep all-conference teams during HCSF's tenure at DONU. I decided, and this is admittedly a bit arbitrary, to use a 4-3-2 scoring system with 4 points for a first team all-conference performer, 3 points for a second teamer, and 2 for third string. To get this information, I used Wikipedia's summary of the media and coaches' polls. If the media and coaches' and media disagreed on a player, I chose the higher rank for each player. I did not assign points for honorable mention nor did I factor in the NFL draft. While this omission means I may not have completely captured each team's talent level, it should not have a material effect on the teams' overall rankings relative to one another. The win-loss records for the various Big 10 teams bears this out for the most part.
Name 2018 2019 2020
IU 3 10 33
IL 11 16 14
Iowa 29 21 40
Mary. 10 3 2
Michigan 49 40 6
MSU 21 13 6
Minn 10 22 10
NE 9 5 7
NW 11 3 19
OSU 35 56 53
PSU 19 24 30
PUR 17 10 12
Rutgers 0 3 7
WI 26 17 16
As you can see, DONU ranks near the bottom in each year and for the three years combined. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the NFL draft. How did HCSF do?
2018--NU went 3-6 in conference with all games against superior teams.
2019—NU went 3-6 in conference; 2-0 against teams with inferior talent and 1-6 against superior teams.
2020—NU went 3-5 in conference; 2-5 against teams with superior talent and 1-0 against an evenly matched Rutgers team.
How do HCSF's 6 wins against teams with superior talent compare to other coaches? Fitzgerald also had 6 quality wins over the same period with 1 bad loss. N.B. HCSF did not have any bad losses by this definition. How about Ferentz? This was really eye-opening as far as I was concerned. He had 0 quality wins over the same time and 7(!) bad losses. 4 of the bad losses came in 2018--which had to be one of the worst underperforming teams in the BIG over this time. I did not analyze every BIG coach's record, but I"m pretty sure based on the above 2 examples that HCSF compares favorably to every one else and may be at the top of the conference. I leave it to somebody else to perform this analysis for all BIG coaches.
Some posters have complained about HCSF's play calling. The short answer here is that none of us has analyzed opposing teams' game film to determine where DONU may have an advantage and none of us is privy to the practices to see which plays the team seems able to best execute given what the coach's want to do. Notably, many of HCSF's BIG losses have been close. Given the obvious talent disparity, it's a tribute to the play calling that the games were close in the first place.
A further note. I only analyzed BIG games so I had some confidence that I was comparing apples to apples. I had no way to objectively compare out-of-conference teams' talent levels to DONU's. By limiting the analysis to BIG games I was comparing performances in roughly the same talent pool. Also, the all-conference team is based on actual performance, rather than projections based on somebody's feelings.
Of course, this isn't the only metric for measuring a coach's performance. It addresses primarily a coach's game preparation and coaching during a game. Another important metric is recruiting. In some ways it's the most important. The problem here is that rather than measuring on-field performance, recruiting rankings are a projection of possible future performance. This means there is no reliable way to measure the success of a coach's recruiting until 4-5 years down the road. The all-American teams bear this out as the vast majority (more than 75%) are juniors and seniors. We will have a much better handle on HCSF's recruiting in his first two years after the 2021 and 2022 seasons.
Another unquantifiable metric is player development. Each player has a range to his talent within which he can be "developed." Simply put, this means you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. "Player development" is unquantifiable because we have no way to gauge a player's talent range when he comes into a program. For that reason we can't gauge whether he was developed to the maximum by the staff. This also assumes that it's up to the staff alone and not the player to get this done.
To sum up, HCSF is a good coach, performing at a high level. If recruiting has been what we all hope, the future is bright.