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.
With all that being said this is the third piece in this series. This time we look at Conference USA. There is a clear and away winner in this category and it's not particularly close. It's Jamey Chadwell at Liberty. Chadwell created a fringe powerhouse at Coastal Carolina and his first year at Liberty was a success as well. The adjusted winning percentage metric has Chadwell at a 75% clip which ultimately ranks him as one of the best coaches in the country. He's a full 12.5 percentage points ahead of 2nd place coach Rich Rodriguez. Note: Brian Bohannon has not coached as an FBS head coach at this point which is why his stats are nil for this metric.
