Earlier in the silly season coaching search, the top two coaching candidates floated by Purdue's fan base were Western Michigan's P.J. Fleck and former LSU head coach Les Miles. In recent days, it has appeared neither may end up in West Lafayette.
Yesterday, news-ish broke-ish that a deal was done-ish with Purdue and current Western Kentucky head coach Jeff Brohm. Western Kentucky was revealed to be beginning its own coach search, while coach without an agent Jeff Brohm stated no deal existed and he would not think about future plans until after the C-USA championship game today. Another name floated was current Air Force Academy head coach Troy Calhoun. Which are two odd choices when considered together; at Air Force Calhoun ran a run-heavy option offense (although he has experience coaching quarterbacks in the NFL under Gary Kubiak) and Brohm's offense at WKU was a pass-oriented spread offense. Using the same methods I used to look at Purdue's last few coaches, I will look at Brohm and Calhoun.
Western Kentucky (and their ambigious blob of a mascot) is relatively new to FBS level football, jumping up to that level in 2008. They played as an independent in 2008 and 2009, a member of the Sun Belt conference from 2010-2013, and a member of Conference USA since 2014. They have had four full time coaches since: David Elson, fired in 2009; Willie Taggart, who left in 2012 to coach South Florida; Bobby Petrino, who coached for a single year in 2013 before leaving to coach at Louisville; and Jeff Brohm, who was Petrino's offensive coordinator and will probably leave after this season. Brohm has played in minor league baseball, the NFL, and the XFL, and coached previously at Louisville, Illinois, and UAB (1).
In terms of recruiting, Western Kentucky has historically struggled nationally, as seen in figure 1. They have had three classes worse than 100th in the nation (Rivals does not track classes worse than 100): 2008, 2009, and 2015, which was Brohm's first class as head coach. However, he rebounded quite a bit, as their best class nationally, their current class, came under Brohm and is ranked 57th in the nation and best in the C-USA. The Hilltoppers have had success recruiting in their conference, as seen in figure 2; Taggart's classes were never worse than 3rd in the Sun Belt, and Petrino had a 2nd ranked class in the more competitive C-USA. While Brohm was likely part of assembling that class with Petrino, his first class as head coach ranked 9th in the conference, and his next two classes were 4th and 1st (this year's class). He has never put together a worse in conference class (unlike Hope and Hazell managed at Purdue), and has improved while at WKU.
So Brohm's recruiting has been a mixed bag, but is part of a trend of improvement both in his tenure and WKU's time as a program. How has he used that talent? Once again, I am using Football Outsider's S&P+ rankings to evaluate team quality overall and in terms of offense and defense.
Jeff Brohm took talent that was OK at best and made a juggernaut. Prior to his arrival, WKU's best team was a 74th ranked in overall S&P+ 2012 squad; their best offense was that team's 81st ranked offense. As offensive coordinator in 2013, the offense improved to 74th overall. In his first full year as head coach, the offense jumped to 9th ranked, with an overall ranking of 51st (up from 91st), held back by a 62nd ranked defense (an improvement from 96th). In his second year, a 4th ranked offense was paired with a 53rd ranked defense, for an overall ranked 11th squad. This year, the offense slightly regressed to 17th, probably as a result of offensive coordinator Tyson Helton leaving for USC, and quarterback Brandon Doughty graduating (2),(3). But the defense continued to improve (27th), producing a now 14th ranked in S&P+ team. The defense, despite their high rank in advanced metrics, does give up a lot of points; however, that is due to the nature of the up-tempo offense and how many possessions their opponents get. However, they prevent opponents from scoring on enough of the possessions that the efficiency-based advance metrics show a quite good defense. In essence, it doesn't really hurt you to give up 4 touchdowns if you gave the other team 8 chances to do it, while you got 7 touchdowns out of 8 chances. Brohm has turned around this team in both offense and defense, and brought WKU to historic heights for the program. If he is coming to Purdue, it would make this Boilermaker very happy.
Troy Calhoun has been the head coach at Air Force for longer than WKU has been in FBS. Before that, he was an assistant at Air Force, Ohio University, Wake Forest, the Denver Broncos, and finally the Houston Texans. He has spent 9 years at his alma mater (4). I'm not going to include recruiting rankings for Air Force because recruiting at the service academies is very unlike anywhere else. One, you are not trying to recruit future NFL talent; rather you need to find young men willing to join the military for at least 5 years, are able to handle the academic rigor of the academies, and happen to be good at football. That is an unbelievable challenge. The academies, because tuition and a stipend is payed to cadets/midshipmen by the US Government, don't have to abide by scholarship limits. This means a recruiting class is large and talented beyond football; it also means recruiting rankings tend to be inaccurate at how good of a class it is (class size impacts ratings). It also means multiple of classes by all three academies are worse than 100th in the nation by Rivals over time, but a number of larger classes are highly rated based on size alone.
However, I am going to look at the on field performance with S&P+ for Calhoun and Air Force. Calhoun succeeded Fisher DeBerry who retired after 23 years coaching the Falcons. DeBerry's final two teams ranked 73rd and 68th on the backs of 24th and 36th ranked offenses. Calhoun's teams have been all over the map, as seen in figure 4. Initially, they slightly improved in rankings, with a four year streak of teams ranked in the 50s overall, although offenses struggled while defenses improved. Then, in 2011, a slide began, with three years of defenses that were dreadful (ranked 111th, 118th, and 122nd) paired with mediocre offenses (42nd, 86nd, and 68th) to produce some pretty bad teams (92nd, 112th, 111th). In the last three years, offenses and defenses have improved, producing much improved squads (54th, 52nd, and 60th in overall; 58th, 34th, and 53rd in offense, and 60th, 71st, and 79th in defense).
Calhoun has been an inconsistent coach after given a successful program, albeit one very difficult to succeed at. And he's been at his alma mater for 9 years. If he was going to leave, I would suspect he would have done it already. While he has turned around a struggling program, the struggling occurred under his watch.
I would consider Brohm a much better choice than Calhoun. He took a decent program and improved them in everyway. Hopefully, a done-ish deal can become a done deal. Innovative offense will return to the banks of the Wabash, and so too will success. Boiler Up, Hammer Down, don't muck this up Bobinski.
(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Brohm
(2) http://www.usctrojans.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/tyson_helton_997317.html
(3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Doughty
(4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Calhoun
Addendum: Aurie, you are right
So, prompted by comment from Aurie, I did a quick analysis for Hazell's performance at Kent State prior to coming to Purdue. Aurie's hypothesis was that Hazell had success with the Golden Flashes because of strong recruiting classes from his predecessor, Doug Martin. Given that his two, rather successful (compared to the performance at Kent of other coaches) years came when two classes among the top in MAC were upperclassmen, I'd say that hypothesis has merit:
Given that Kent has floundered since Hazell left, it appears his success was a (Golden) Flash in the pan. Hazell did not recruit as well as his predecessor, and while player development and scheme may have contributed to success in 2011 and 2012, the same offensive scheme was still in place afterwards (OC Brian Rock stayed on after Hazell came to Purdue) and the Golden Flashes were unsuccessful offensively. Surprisingly, the defense has had its moments of at least being mediocre or solid, but not enough to carry the team. Granted, Paul Haynes has struggled in recruiting, but Hazell did not leave him with the kind of base of talent Martin gave him.
Yesterday, news-ish broke-ish that a deal was done-ish with Purdue and current Western Kentucky head coach Jeff Brohm. Western Kentucky was revealed to be beginning its own coach search, while coach without an agent Jeff Brohm stated no deal existed and he would not think about future plans until after the C-USA championship game today. Another name floated was current Air Force Academy head coach Troy Calhoun. Which are two odd choices when considered together; at Air Force Calhoun ran a run-heavy option offense (although he has experience coaching quarterbacks in the NFL under Gary Kubiak) and Brohm's offense at WKU was a pass-oriented spread offense. Using the same methods I used to look at Purdue's last few coaches, I will look at Brohm and Calhoun.
Western Kentucky (and their ambigious blob of a mascot) is relatively new to FBS level football, jumping up to that level in 2008. They played as an independent in 2008 and 2009, a member of the Sun Belt conference from 2010-2013, and a member of Conference USA since 2014. They have had four full time coaches since: David Elson, fired in 2009; Willie Taggart, who left in 2012 to coach South Florida; Bobby Petrino, who coached for a single year in 2013 before leaving to coach at Louisville; and Jeff Brohm, who was Petrino's offensive coordinator and will probably leave after this season. Brohm has played in minor league baseball, the NFL, and the XFL, and coached previously at Louisville, Illinois, and UAB (1).
Figure 1
Figure 2
In terms of recruiting, Western Kentucky has historically struggled nationally, as seen in figure 1. They have had three classes worse than 100th in the nation (Rivals does not track classes worse than 100): 2008, 2009, and 2015, which was Brohm's first class as head coach. However, he rebounded quite a bit, as their best class nationally, their current class, came under Brohm and is ranked 57th in the nation and best in the C-USA. The Hilltoppers have had success recruiting in their conference, as seen in figure 2; Taggart's classes were never worse than 3rd in the Sun Belt, and Petrino had a 2nd ranked class in the more competitive C-USA. While Brohm was likely part of assembling that class with Petrino, his first class as head coach ranked 9th in the conference, and his next two classes were 4th and 1st (this year's class). He has never put together a worse in conference class (unlike Hope and Hazell managed at Purdue), and has improved while at WKU.
So Brohm's recruiting has been a mixed bag, but is part of a trend of improvement both in his tenure and WKU's time as a program. How has he used that talent? Once again, I am using Football Outsider's S&P+ rankings to evaluate team quality overall and in terms of offense and defense.
Figure 3
Jeff Brohm took talent that was OK at best and made a juggernaut. Prior to his arrival, WKU's best team was a 74th ranked in overall S&P+ 2012 squad; their best offense was that team's 81st ranked offense. As offensive coordinator in 2013, the offense improved to 74th overall. In his first full year as head coach, the offense jumped to 9th ranked, with an overall ranking of 51st (up from 91st), held back by a 62nd ranked defense (an improvement from 96th). In his second year, a 4th ranked offense was paired with a 53rd ranked defense, for an overall ranked 11th squad. This year, the offense slightly regressed to 17th, probably as a result of offensive coordinator Tyson Helton leaving for USC, and quarterback Brandon Doughty graduating (2),(3). But the defense continued to improve (27th), producing a now 14th ranked in S&P+ team. The defense, despite their high rank in advanced metrics, does give up a lot of points; however, that is due to the nature of the up-tempo offense and how many possessions their opponents get. However, they prevent opponents from scoring on enough of the possessions that the efficiency-based advance metrics show a quite good defense. In essence, it doesn't really hurt you to give up 4 touchdowns if you gave the other team 8 chances to do it, while you got 7 touchdowns out of 8 chances. Brohm has turned around this team in both offense and defense, and brought WKU to historic heights for the program. If he is coming to Purdue, it would make this Boilermaker very happy.
Troy Calhoun has been the head coach at Air Force for longer than WKU has been in FBS. Before that, he was an assistant at Air Force, Ohio University, Wake Forest, the Denver Broncos, and finally the Houston Texans. He has spent 9 years at his alma mater (4). I'm not going to include recruiting rankings for Air Force because recruiting at the service academies is very unlike anywhere else. One, you are not trying to recruit future NFL talent; rather you need to find young men willing to join the military for at least 5 years, are able to handle the academic rigor of the academies, and happen to be good at football. That is an unbelievable challenge. The academies, because tuition and a stipend is payed to cadets/midshipmen by the US Government, don't have to abide by scholarship limits. This means a recruiting class is large and talented beyond football; it also means recruiting rankings tend to be inaccurate at how good of a class it is (class size impacts ratings). It also means multiple of classes by all three academies are worse than 100th in the nation by Rivals over time, but a number of larger classes are highly rated based on size alone.
Figure 4
However, I am going to look at the on field performance with S&P+ for Calhoun and Air Force. Calhoun succeeded Fisher DeBerry who retired after 23 years coaching the Falcons. DeBerry's final two teams ranked 73rd and 68th on the backs of 24th and 36th ranked offenses. Calhoun's teams have been all over the map, as seen in figure 4. Initially, they slightly improved in rankings, with a four year streak of teams ranked in the 50s overall, although offenses struggled while defenses improved. Then, in 2011, a slide began, with three years of defenses that were dreadful (ranked 111th, 118th, and 122nd) paired with mediocre offenses (42nd, 86nd, and 68th) to produce some pretty bad teams (92nd, 112th, 111th). In the last three years, offenses and defenses have improved, producing much improved squads (54th, 52nd, and 60th in overall; 58th, 34th, and 53rd in offense, and 60th, 71st, and 79th in defense).
Calhoun has been an inconsistent coach after given a successful program, albeit one very difficult to succeed at. And he's been at his alma mater for 9 years. If he was going to leave, I would suspect he would have done it already. While he has turned around a struggling program, the struggling occurred under his watch.
I would consider Brohm a much better choice than Calhoun. He took a decent program and improved them in everyway. Hopefully, a done-ish deal can become a done deal. Innovative offense will return to the banks of the Wabash, and so too will success. Boiler Up, Hammer Down, don't muck this up Bobinski.
(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Brohm
(2) http://www.usctrojans.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/tyson_helton_997317.html
(3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Doughty
(4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Calhoun
Addendum: Aurie, you are right
So, prompted by comment from Aurie, I did a quick analysis for Hazell's performance at Kent State prior to coming to Purdue. Aurie's hypothesis was that Hazell had success with the Golden Flashes because of strong recruiting classes from his predecessor, Doug Martin. Given that his two, rather successful (compared to the performance at Kent of other coaches) years came when two classes among the top in MAC were upperclassmen, I'd say that hypothesis has merit:
Given that Kent has floundered since Hazell left, it appears his success was a (Golden) Flash in the pan. Hazell did not recruit as well as his predecessor, and while player development and scheme may have contributed to success in 2011 and 2012, the same offensive scheme was still in place afterwards (OC Brian Rock stayed on after Hazell came to Purdue) and the Golden Flashes were unsuccessful offensively. Surprisingly, the defense has had its moments of at least being mediocre or solid, but not enough to carry the team. Granted, Paul Haynes has struggled in recruiting, but Hazell did not leave him with the kind of base of talent Martin gave him.
Have you done metrics like this for Hazell while he was at Kent State? One of the hypotheses for his success there was that he was merely handed a great recruiting class and not that he'd built it himself. Would be interesting to see what the data showed.
ReplyDeleteAurie, check the addendum above I just added. He was left with (comparably) better talent than what he brought it. Specifically, talent that was upperclassmen when he arrived.
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