We know that football coaches have always been and will always be judged by wins and losses.
Winning brings accolades and adulation, job offers from other schools, NFL overtures, raises, contract extensions, lifetime deals and maybe eventually even a statue outside the stadium.
Losing, of course, brings pressure, the hot seat, getting fired and either moving back down the coaching ladder or being out of the profession altogether. None of that is changing anytime soon.
However, we will argue that the best statistic for measuring a coach’s skill is ATS record.
The reason is simple: Point differential has more predictive value when it comes to future win-loss record than prior win-loss record. The point spread set by the betting market has proven to be remarkably efficient at adjusting the expected margin of victory to control for discrepancies in the true talent level between teams.
In a Habermetrics analysis of more than 27,000 college football games since 1980, favorites have covered 49.8% and underdogs 50.2% of the time, according to SportsDatabase.com data.
When a football team — and by extension its head coach — covers the point spread, it means one of three things happened:
- The team won a game the market didn’t expect it to win
- The team won a game by more than the market expected
- The team lost a game but kept the score closer than the market expected
The ability to continue covering point spreads, even as the market adjusts to you, is a surefire sign of a great coach. Don’t believe us?
Nick Saban is 172-135-5 ATS (56.0%) across stops at Toledo, Michigan State, LSU and Alabama for a career 7.7% ROI. Saban showed his coaching chops early in his career, going 7-4-0 (63.6%) ATS in his single season at Toledo, then continued his upward trajectory by going 26-21-1 ATS (55.3%) at Michigan State.
If we cross over to the NFL, Patriots coach Bill Belichick is 254-192-11 ATS (57.0%) all-time for an incredible 9.6% ROI. Even though his early tenure in Cleveland is remembered by some as a failure, Belichick still strung together a respectable 40-38-0 ATS (51.3%) mark with the Browns.
The market is fluid and adjusts to great teams and coaches, but the absolute best find a way to stay a step ahead. With that in mind, here are the ATS records of the current Big Ten head coaches — at all FBS schools, not just their present school — per our SportsDatabase.com query:
Which Big Ten coaches are the best?
PJ Fleck. He made a name for himself at Western Michigan with his “row the boat” mantra but Fleck was also prolific at covering spreads, going 31-20-1 ATS (60.8) with the Broncos. His success has continued at Minnesota, where he is a 24-19-2 ATS (55.8%).
Fleck has helped the Gophers return to a level not seen since shortly after World War II, when Minnesota was winning national titles in a vastly different college football landscape. In 2019, Minnesota went 11-2 and defeated Penn State for the Gophers’ first home win over a top-five opponent in 42 years, then beat Auburn in the Outback Bowl. Minnesota’s 11 wins were its most since 1904.
After Minnesota’s breakout 2019 season, the Gophers regressed in an abbreviated 2020 season, going just 3-4. It will be fascinating to see if Fleck can lead a rebound or if 2019 turns out to be an aberration.
James Franklin. He went an impressive 25-14-0 ATS (64.1%) at historical SEC doormat Vanderbilt before taking the Penn State job. In seven seasons in Happy Valley, he has won 11 games three times, making New Year’s Six bowl appearances in each of those campaigns, and has compiled a 44-39-5 ATS (53.0%) mark.
Franklin is sometimes criticized as being a better recruiter than game-day tactician, but this analysis shows that reputation might be unfair.
Ryan Day. If you include the three games for which Day served as interim coach for Urban Meyer during the 2018 season, Day is 23-2 SU overall and 15-0 SU in Big Ten regular season play, winning two Big Ten titles and appearing in the College Football Playoff twice.
Day is 13-10-0 ATS (56.5%) during his still-young tenure. It will be interesting to see if he can keep pace with predecessor Meyer, who accumulated an outstanding 125-89-4 ATS (58.4%) across stops at Bowling Green, Utah, Florida and Ohio State, winning three national titles along the way.
Kirk Ferentz. His teams have a reputation for being boring to watch, but Ferentz has been a remarkably efficient coach over his 22 seasons in Iowa City, going 145-119-8 ATS (54.9%). Maintaining a nearly 55% cover rate over two decades is a tremendous accomplishment and at least partially explains why he is easily the Big Ten’s longest-tenured coach.
Tom Allen. Of the eight head coaches who preceded Allen at Indiana — Lee Corso, Sam Wyche, Bill Mallory, Cam Cameron, Gerry DiNardo, Terry Hoeppner, Bill Lynch and Kevin Wilson — none had an ATS record greater than .500, and as a group, they went 187-218-17 ATS (46.2%) for a -13.0% ROI dating back to 1980.
To find an Indiana coach that had a SU record greater than .500 prior to Allen, you have to go back to Bo McMillin, who was 63-48-11 from 1934-47. At 24-22 SU, Allen is above .500 SU and even better than that ATS at 24-19-2 (55.8%).
Jeff Brohm. Brohm dominated at Western Kentucky, going 30-10 SU and 22-16-2 ATS (57.9%) over three seasons, winning 15 of his last 16 games in Conference USA and earning the Purdue job.
Since arriving in West Lafayette, Brohm’s 19-24 overall record and 14-19 mark in the Big Ten don’t jump out at you. But keep in mind that the Boilermakers were 9-39 overall and 3-30 in the Big Ten in the four seasons prior to Brohm’s arrival. Oh, and Brohm has even managed to do something Jim Harbaugh hasn’t: beat Ohio State.
Paul Chryst. He went only 19-19 SU and 17-18-3 ATS (48.6%) at Pittsburgh, but the former Badgers quarterback has stepped up his game since returning home to Madison.
In six seasons at Wisconsin, Chryst has won double-digit games four times while amassing a 56-19 SU record and a 40-34-1 ATS (54.0%) mark. He’s also taken the Badgers to Indianapolis as West Division champions three times and gone 5-1 SU in bowl games.
Pat Fitzgerald. While Fitzgerald’s ATS record is just above .500 and he sits toward the bottom of this list, he’s had the Wildcats operating at a different level since 2015. Coming off two-straight 5-7 seasons, Northwestern went 10-3 in 2015 and it sparked a run that has seen the Wildcats go 46-28 SU over the last six seasons, including four-straight bowl wins.
In that time, Fitzgerald is 43-31-0 ATS (58.1%), a mark that takes a back seat to no one in the Big Ten. With a 106-81 SU overall record and a 63-60 SU record in the Big Ten over 15 seasons, Fitzgerald is Northwestern’s best coach by winning percentage since Dick Hanley patrolled the sidelines during the Great Depression.
Which Big Ten coaches are on the hot seat?
Jim Harbaugh. When Harbaugh arrived at Michigan, he brought a sterling 28-20-0 ATS (58.3%) record from his time at Stanford, a mark that would have him sitting two-tenths of a point behind PJ Fleck for the best ATS winning percentage in the conference. But Harbaugh has gone just 33-38-0 ATS (46.5%) for a -12.4% ROI during his time in Ann Arbor.
While he is 25-25-0 ATS in Big Ten games, Harbaugh’s a dismal 8-13-0 ATS in non-conference and bowl games. The bowl games in particular have been a sore spot, as Harbaugh is 1-4 both SU and ATS in postseason play. For whatever reason — and perhaps there are many — Michigan hasn’t seen the version of Harbaugh that we saw at Stanford.
Scott Frost. After inheriting a UCF team that had gone 0-12 the previous season, all Frost did was go 6-7 in Year 1 then 13-0 in Year 2, completing one of the most improbable turnarounds in college football history. During those two seasons in Orlando he went 15-8-1 ATS (65.2%) for a stellar 27.0% ROI.
Returning home to his alma mater — remember, his Huskers split that national title with Michigan in 1997 — he was hailed as the savior who would return Nebraska football to glory. But, like Harbaugh at Michigan, it hasn’t worked out that way, as the Huskers are 12-20 SU and 14-18-0 ATS (43.8%) during Frost’s tenure in Lincoln.
Given Frost’s status as a Husker hero and the native son who returned home to save the program, it is virtually inconceivable that Nebraska would part ways with Frost after just three years, but suffice it to say he is feeling the heat.
Mike Locksley. Locksley went 2-26 SU and 11-17-0 ATS (39.3%) at New Mexico from 2009-11 but reestablished himself in the ensuing years on the Maryland staff, even serving as the interim coach in 2015 after Randy Edsall’s midseason firing.
Locksley then spent two years on Nick Saban’s staff at Alabama, including one season as the offensive coordinator, before landing the Maryland gig in the wake of D.J. Durkin’s firing after the practice-related death of Jordan McNair.
While Locksley deserves ample credit for stabilizing the program after the fiasco Durkin left behind, he is just 6-17 SU and 10-12-1 ATS (45.5%) across his 2 1/2 seasons at the helm. If the Terrapins have another sub-.500 season, it wouldn’t be too surprising to see Maryland once again move in a new direction.
