William Maloney, AKA Eagle In Atlanta, wrote a column last week for his AOL FanHouse site. In it, he ranks the ACC coaches using an objective measure – the coach’s winning percentage versus the school’s all-time winning percentage. It’s hard to find objective ways to compare coaches, but this is a pretty good one. (any moron can do it subjectively) It would have been even better if he had removed the coach’s own record from the school’s record. This is particularly relevant for Bobby Bowden and Frank Beamer because they have been at their schools for so long.
Another factor that diminishes this ranking a bit is that the inherent strengths and weaknesses of programs can change drastically over time. Duke was once a national power football, but those days are long gone. Likewise, before Florida became the unquestioned greatest source of college football talent, Florida State was a very mediocre program. Yes, Bobby Bowden deserves TONS of credit for building a national power, but let’s face it, it’s immeasurably easier to win in Tallahassee now than it was 30 years ago.
But back to the ratings in that article. Ralph Friedgen came out on top, with an improvement of .143 over Maryland’s historical standards. Jim Grobe came in second followed by the two aforementioned giants, Saint Bobby and Beamer. For some reason (and I can maybe guess why), Eagle did not rate Jim O’Brien, considering him a new coach at NC State. It would make sense to me to include O’Brien’s record at BC for his rating. Same with UNC’s Butch Davis. It would be interesting to see how his years at Miami would rate, although to be fair, he was only there for a few seasons and had to deal with probation.