I've often felt that winning percentage is not a great look at how good coaches actually perform as it does not factor in a multitude of items including environment, player talent and competition. As a result I devised a formula to try and tackle some of that problem and give a more accurate portrayal of what part of the wins and losses the head coach was responsible for.
This metric, the adjusted win percentage for FBS coaches, tries to take into account at least the players that each coach is responsible for. For example when a new head coach wins in their very first year the credit only lies somewhat with them. Many of the players they are winning with were recruited by the previous staff. Often these coaches go on to not be successful in the long term. The best examples I can think of are Ed Orgeron at LSU or Gene Chizik at Auburn. Both should be noted actually had their best year a few years in, but neither lasted after a prolonged time. On the flip side new coaches often lose heavily in their first year because it takes time to recruit and install new systems and to get a full buy-in from players. Think Sabin's first year at Alabama or Bobby Petrino's first at Arkansas.
The basic thrust of the formula is this, the longer a coach has coached a team the more accountable he is for their wins and losses. The transfer portal has changed some of this in that the formula now holds coaches more accountable sooner. Gone are the days when you had four years to show some results.
Special notes, these statistics are based on fbs wins and losses only. The time period for the coaches is endless so all the coaches years are included, but it is only an evaluation of current coaches not coaches from the past.
In the ACC no one has a higher adjusted winning percentage than Dabo Swinney at Clemson. No surprise, Swinney has helmed one of the best college football programs of this century and it shows in his win percentage. Many consider the last few years at Clemson to be down years because of Swinney's unwillingness to embrace the transfer portal, but he still has 80.6% winning rate since the portal began. Time will tell if the Tigers are going to regress, but the Aggregate has them as the 11th best team in the country this year.
Possibly the most interesting aspect of the metric for the ACC was which coaches seem to have been helped by rosters that they did not create. Dave Doeren at NC State, Bill O'Brien at Boston College, Pat Narduzzi at Pitt, Justin Wilcox at Cal and Tony Elliot at Virginia all have a better traditional winning percentage than adjusted, but no one has a bigger difference than Jeff Brohm at Louisville at -1.5% worse. This shows these coaches have had more success early in their time at programs which at least implies that these coaches have come into favorable situations early in their coaching and their traditional win percentages are at least a little inflated.
Here are the full results:
| ACC Coaches | Team | W | L | Adjusted W Pct | Traditional W Pct | Difference |
| Fran Brown | Syracuse | 0.0 | 0.0 | #DIV/0! | 0.0% | #DIV/0! |
| Dabo Swinney | Clemson | 154.3 | 32.1 | 82.8% | 79.8% | 3.0% |
| Rhett Lashlee | SMU | 14.5 | 6.0 | 70.7% | 66.7% | 4.0% |
| Mike Norvell | Florida State | 54.5 | 23.3 | 70.1% | 67.6% | 2.5% |
| Mack Brown | UNC | 252.0 | 109.5 | 69.7% | 65.7% | 4.0% |
| Dave Doeren | NC State | 81.3 | 48.5 | 62.6% | 62.7% | -0.1% |
| Manny Diaz | Duke | 18.5 | 11.5 | 61.7% | 58.3% | 3.4% |
| Bill O'Brien | Boston College | 5.5 | 3.5 | 61.1% | 62.5% | -1.4% |
| Jeff Brohm | Louisville | 48.3 | 32.5 | 59.8% | 61.3% | -1.5% |
| Pat Narduzzi | Pittsburgh | 53.8 | 42.0 | 56.1% | 56.5% | -0.4% |
| Dave Clawson | Wake Forest | 82.0 | 69.0 | 54.3% | 50.5% | 3.8% |
| Mario Cristobal | Miami | 57.8 | 51.1 | 53.0% | 50.3% | 2.7% |
| Brent Key | GT | 9.0 | 8.0 | 52.9% | 52.4% | 0.5% |
| Brent Pry | Va Tech | 8.5 | 10.0 | 45.9% | 41.7% | 4.2% |
| Justin Wilcox | California | 28.8 | 34.8 | 45.3% | 45.6% | -0.3% |
| Tony Elliott | Virginia | 4.5 | 12.5 | 26.5% | 27.3% | -0.8% |
| Troy Taylor | Stanford | 1.5 | 4.5 | 25.0% | 25.0% | 0.0% |
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