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 said here is the fourth in the series, the Mountain West conference. You will notice that this includes only teams eligible for the Mountain West Championship game. Despite playing six games against Mountain West teams this year neither Oregon State nor Washington State are eligible in the Mountain West standings at the time of this posting.
Biggest thing that stands out about the Mountain West is their lack of under .500 coaches. They have only two. Compared to the conferences I've evaluated so far that is extremely low. The next closest conference to that was Conference USA with six.
What does that mean for the Mountain West? Mostly I think it means they have a lot of retread coaches. There are three coaches in the Mountain West with 100 plus adjusted wins. None of the conferences I have evaluated so far have had any. Seven Mountain West coaches had previous coaching stops as head coaches and then there is Troy Calhoun who has been at Air Force since 2007.
So who is the Coach with the best adjusted win percentage in the Mountain West? Well it's Spencer Danielson although the adjusted winning percentage only gives him credit for .75 wins and .25 losses. In other words they went 3-1 when he took over last year, but since he took over at the end of the season the adjusted winning percentage only gives him credit for 25% of the wins and losses. We'll get a better idea of how good he is after this season.
Behind him is Bronco Mendenhall with a career adjusted winning percentage of 64.7%. You've got to feel good if you're a Lobos fan right now. You just hired a coach with a very good winning pedigree.
Note: Jay Sawvel and Jeff Choate have no wins or losses as an FBS coach which is why they're an incomplete here.
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