As a fanbase when seasons don’t go as planned many people feel that getting a new head coach will fix it. Well we have 40 years of history at Pitt that proves this is not true. Averaging a new head coach every 4 years for 40 years should be sufficient time to test a theory...True!!....of course.
Hiring new coaches hasn’t yielded a home run but there is a more predictable way to be relevant every year.
So what do you do? Three things are tied into the formula for success and when teams win they all work in perfect harmony: coaching stability, fan base is fully engaged and high end athletic funding exists. But of the three, high end athletic funding is the difference maker.
For the time period I looked at, 17 of the top 20 schools in Football Annual Spending were perennially ranked teams. The three that weren’t were Arkansas, USC and VT. USC and VT still perform well most years so somewhere between 85% and 95% of schools are guaranteeing a certain level of success just by funding level (and that can take many forms including paying for the best coaching staff possible).
Here is a great example. Paul Chryst. Very average head coach in his first job. Career record of 19-19. Beat 3 ranked teams, lost to 14 unranked teams including YSU and Akron. Wisconsin comes calling. Most Pitt fans rejoice. They wonder what Barry Alvarez is smoking. But Wisconsin affords Chryst something he doesn’t have at Pitt, a $31 million football budget. Wisconsin is 17th in football spending (clearly assisted by the Big Ten’s TV windfall).
So what happens to Mr Average Coach? Same guy, same ideas, same communication skills, mostly same coaching staff. He goes 52-14 and plays in the Big Ten Championship game 3 times in 5 years. Winning percentage goes from 50% at Pitt to 79% at Wisc. He didn’t get smarter, he just got more support. Dollars also impress recruits with the shiny things they see in the facilities.
Let’s take this a step further. Wisconsin from 1956-89 had 6 head coaches. Four were under .500 and the two with winning records were 7 games over .500 and 4 games over .500. Truly terrible performance on the field for 33 years.
Alvarez comes on the scene and achieves a .500 record or his first 6 seasons (33-31-4), but the guy doesn’t get canned. Stability kicks in and over the next 10 seasons he goes 85-42 (67%). During that time Wisconsin makes a huge commitment and huge effort to increase athletic funding. Here is their story describing their goals and achievements.
http://www.uwathletics.com/athdept/annual_report_4101.pdf
See page 7 where they discuss season ticket sales (very similar starting point to where Pitt is). Also see page 10 where they discuss numbers of donors annually (very similar to where Pitt is right now, Panther club says “between 7500 & 8000”). Pitt needs to do the same thing (increase season tickets sales and double the donor base and get into the top 20 in national spending on Football). That is imperative if Pitt ever aspires to be perennial Top 20 team.
Let me walk you through the plug and play aspect of coaching changes once teams achieve high funding levels. Head coaches that aren’t exceptional in other jobs can excel in the fully funded jobs. Not 100% but most.
Alvarez leaves coaching after winning 61% of his games and transitions to AD. This is after Wisc has achieved their gains in season tickets and doubled their donors.
Bret Bielema takes over at Wisc with no head coaching experience. He wins 74% of his games over 7 seasons. He goes elsewhere (Arkansas) and wins 46% of his games in 5 years. This is a partial head scratcher because Arkansas has funding so something else was amiss. Point is Wisconsin’s model worked again with a coach who wasn’t successful elsewhere.
Upon Bielema’s exit Gary Anderson is hired from Utah St where he was mostly a below average coach with one 11-2 season. At Utah St he was 26-24 (52%), plug him into Wisc for 2 yrs and he goes 19-7 (73%). He leaves for Oregon St where he goes 7-23 (23%) and then back to Utah St this year and ends up 7-5.
Upon Gary Anderson’s exit Chryst gets called back from the minors and he ends up the best of the lot at 79% winning percentage.
It truly is plug and play. That’s what Pitt needs to duplicate. Four coaches in a row going 67%, 74%, 73%, 79%. Hovering between 8-4 and 11-3. I believe the key is money to spend. Impressive facilities, better coaching staffs, better tools for the staff, better programs for athletes, ...etc
Where is Pitt today?
Donor base: 7500-8000
Spending on Football: 40th $23M
Isn’t 40th about where Pitt performs on the field too? Coincidence?
In 1999 when I joined the Panther Club in its first year (I think the name was different) I had 3 points. 2 points for having FB season tickets 1 time and 1 point for a $50 donation. My rank was 2159. I had 3 points and there were only 2158 people with more points than me. That was a sad state of affairs.
So through some good effort, in those 5 yrs the Panther Club leadership doubled the donor base to 5000 by Oct 2004. In large part this was due to football and basketball club seat donation requirements as Pitt moved to Heinz and the Pete. By June 2010 the Panther Club achieved the highest donor base at 7800. Doubling this number is Pitt’s big challenge. They need to find a way to get to 15,000 donors and $31-$35M available for Football spending so that what may appear to be a slightly above average coach can blossom to his full potential as more resources are available. If the new 8000 donors average can average $875 donation that would be the $7M needed to catch Wisc.
Remember 85% - 95% of schools with Top 20 spending remain in the Top 25 rankings.
After all this if anyone is still a non believer, just think back to the 2 biggest turnarounds in Pitt athletic history and what drove it.
Pitt Basketball was thrust light years ahead and achieved #1 rankings when the Petersen’s made a huge contribution to construct the Pete. Men’s BB Trajectory was drastically changed. That’s what it takes. A paradigm shift.
Pitt Football won a National Title and followed it up with three 11-1 seasons when the Golden Panthers brought a much needed financial presence at a critical time. I feel lucky that I have many memories of watching those teams and I want the young fans of today to have a similar experience in the not too distant future.
Hiring new coaches hasn’t yielded a home run but there is a more predictable way to be relevant every year.
So what do you do? Three things are tied into the formula for success and when teams win they all work in perfect harmony: coaching stability, fan base is fully engaged and high end athletic funding exists. But of the three, high end athletic funding is the difference maker.
For the time period I looked at, 17 of the top 20 schools in Football Annual Spending were perennially ranked teams. The three that weren’t were Arkansas, USC and VT. USC and VT still perform well most years so somewhere between 85% and 95% of schools are guaranteeing a certain level of success just by funding level (and that can take many forms including paying for the best coaching staff possible).
Here is a great example. Paul Chryst. Very average head coach in his first job. Career record of 19-19. Beat 3 ranked teams, lost to 14 unranked teams including YSU and Akron. Wisconsin comes calling. Most Pitt fans rejoice. They wonder what Barry Alvarez is smoking. But Wisconsin affords Chryst something he doesn’t have at Pitt, a $31 million football budget. Wisconsin is 17th in football spending (clearly assisted by the Big Ten’s TV windfall).
So what happens to Mr Average Coach? Same guy, same ideas, same communication skills, mostly same coaching staff. He goes 52-14 and plays in the Big Ten Championship game 3 times in 5 years. Winning percentage goes from 50% at Pitt to 79% at Wisc. He didn’t get smarter, he just got more support. Dollars also impress recruits with the shiny things they see in the facilities.
Let’s take this a step further. Wisconsin from 1956-89 had 6 head coaches. Four were under .500 and the two with winning records were 7 games over .500 and 4 games over .500. Truly terrible performance on the field for 33 years.
Alvarez comes on the scene and achieves a .500 record or his first 6 seasons (33-31-4), but the guy doesn’t get canned. Stability kicks in and over the next 10 seasons he goes 85-42 (67%). During that time Wisconsin makes a huge commitment and huge effort to increase athletic funding. Here is their story describing their goals and achievements.
http://www.uwathletics.com/athdept/annual_report_4101.pdf
See page 7 where they discuss season ticket sales (very similar starting point to where Pitt is). Also see page 10 where they discuss numbers of donors annually (very similar to where Pitt is right now, Panther club says “between 7500 & 8000”). Pitt needs to do the same thing (increase season tickets sales and double the donor base and get into the top 20 in national spending on Football). That is imperative if Pitt ever aspires to be perennial Top 20 team.
Let me walk you through the plug and play aspect of coaching changes once teams achieve high funding levels. Head coaches that aren’t exceptional in other jobs can excel in the fully funded jobs. Not 100% but most.
Alvarez leaves coaching after winning 61% of his games and transitions to AD. This is after Wisc has achieved their gains in season tickets and doubled their donors.
Bret Bielema takes over at Wisc with no head coaching experience. He wins 74% of his games over 7 seasons. He goes elsewhere (Arkansas) and wins 46% of his games in 5 years. This is a partial head scratcher because Arkansas has funding so something else was amiss. Point is Wisconsin’s model worked again with a coach who wasn’t successful elsewhere.
Upon Bielema’s exit Gary Anderson is hired from Utah St where he was mostly a below average coach with one 11-2 season. At Utah St he was 26-24 (52%), plug him into Wisc for 2 yrs and he goes 19-7 (73%). He leaves for Oregon St where he goes 7-23 (23%) and then back to Utah St this year and ends up 7-5.
Upon Gary Anderson’s exit Chryst gets called back from the minors and he ends up the best of the lot at 79% winning percentage.
It truly is plug and play. That’s what Pitt needs to duplicate. Four coaches in a row going 67%, 74%, 73%, 79%. Hovering between 8-4 and 11-3. I believe the key is money to spend. Impressive facilities, better coaching staffs, better tools for the staff, better programs for athletes, ...etc
Where is Pitt today?
Donor base: 7500-8000
Spending on Football: 40th $23M
Isn’t 40th about where Pitt performs on the field too? Coincidence?
In 1999 when I joined the Panther Club in its first year (I think the name was different) I had 3 points. 2 points for having FB season tickets 1 time and 1 point for a $50 donation. My rank was 2159. I had 3 points and there were only 2158 people with more points than me. That was a sad state of affairs.
So through some good effort, in those 5 yrs the Panther Club leadership doubled the donor base to 5000 by Oct 2004. In large part this was due to football and basketball club seat donation requirements as Pitt moved to Heinz and the Pete. By June 2010 the Panther Club achieved the highest donor base at 7800. Doubling this number is Pitt’s big challenge. They need to find a way to get to 15,000 donors and $31-$35M available for Football spending so that what may appear to be a slightly above average coach can blossom to his full potential as more resources are available. If the new 8000 donors average can average $875 donation that would be the $7M needed to catch Wisc.
Remember 85% - 95% of schools with Top 20 spending remain in the Top 25 rankings.
After all this if anyone is still a non believer, just think back to the 2 biggest turnarounds in Pitt athletic history and what drove it.
Pitt Basketball was thrust light years ahead and achieved #1 rankings when the Petersen’s made a huge contribution to construct the Pete. Men’s BB Trajectory was drastically changed. That’s what it takes. A paradigm shift.
Pitt Football won a National Title and followed it up with three 11-1 seasons when the Golden Panthers brought a much needed financial presence at a critical time. I feel lucky that I have many memories of watching those teams and I want the young fans of today to have a similar experience in the not too distant future.
