Our friends at The Red and White from State ran a poll to gather opinions on which Wolfpack football coach was the best of all time. The final results look like this:
– Dick Sheridan…..49%
– Lou Holtz………..21%
– Chuck Amato……13%
– Earle Edwards…..10%
Rhetorical Questions:
– So who did you vote for and why?
(If you didn’t vote….then shame on you.)
– How much do you know about NC State coaches that came “before” you?
There are a few websites that I find absolutely essential as aids to intelligent discussion. One such website is College Football Data Warehouse. Sites like this are literally invaluable because of the wealth of information available with just a few mouse clicks…especially to those of us that need to have our memory jogged from time to time. So let’s see what we can dig out about the various Wolfpack coaches:
Here’s a table summarizing the overall records of Wolfpack coaches over the last 50+ years:
So the top three vote getters are also the top three winningest coaches at State over the last 50+ years. (But note that “we” didn’t get them in the same order.) But college football fans don’t really get worked up over winning percentages….they get hyped over:
– Playing in bowl games
– Winning bowl games
– Poll rankings; and
– Victories over your rival(s).
Let’s see how the various coaches have performed in these more “critical” areas:
BOWL GAME EXPLOSION
How many times have you heard someone say that Chuck’s bowl record doesn’t mean anything because there are “too many bowls”? Let’s look at the growth in bowl games for a few minutes:
A review of the information available at the CFB Data Warehouse shows two distinct periods of growth:
– From 11 bowl games in 1975 to 18 bowl games in 1984.
– From 18 bowl games in 1996 to 28 bowl games in 2002.
Here is a year-by-year summary if graphs are more your thing. So what do we make out the increase in available bowl games when evaluating coaches?
The answer is quite simple…increasing the number of bowl games has absolutely no effect on evaluating coaches. Go back to the graph of the winning percentages and look at each year. Chuck should get the exact same amount of credit for a 6-5 season that you would accord Monte Kiffin. The obvious difference between the two coaches is that 6-5 was the high point of the Kiffin era.
MY TAKE
1) Lou Holtz
It’s not really close in my opinion.
– Four bowl games in four years…and in an era where there were far fewer bowl games to play.
– End-of-year national rankings in three of four years
No one else really has the resume to touch Lou. However, you would have to be at least my age (mid-40’s) to even remember when Holtz coached at State.
2) Dick Sheridan
There were several things that I didn’t remember until I was looking over the numbers:
– 6-1 vs UNC
– 2-4 in bowl games
– Three national rankings in six years.
Most anyone would look good after three years of Tom Reed…but Sheridan clearly had one of the best tenures of any coach ever. I wish he had stayed longer, but I suspect that working for Todd Turner wouldn’t have been alot of fun…so I don’t begrudge Sheridan a long and happy retirement.
One more thing in Dick’s resume that needs to be highlighted is the fact that he turned down the chance to follow Vince Dooley at Georgia to stay at NC State (in addition to passing on overtures from South Carolina, Auburn, LSU and Arizona). Sheridan truly wanted to be at NC State and believed in what was growing in Raleigh. Those moves earn Sheridan a fond place in any Wolfpack fan’s memory banks. State’s bowl record under Sheridan keeps him from offering serious competition to Holtz for the top spot in our poll.
3) Earle Edwards, Bo Rein, and Chuck Amato (TIE)
Just based on the numbers, I put Earle Edwards in to create a three-way tie. However, I have absolutely no rememberance of his years at State so I can’t say anything good or bad about him. He had some good years and some that weren’t…but there was one little factoid that I ran across which convinced me to include him:
– From 1956 through 1964, State played UNC in Chapel Hill every year. Edwards had a 6-3 record over those nine years…thus earning him a place in my list of top coaches.
Bo Rein probably doesn’t get enough credit for his years at State:
– State’s last conference championship (1979) along with the nation’s toughest schedule (IIRC)
– Two bowls and an offer to a third in four years. (Once again, it was tougher to make a bowl game during this era.)
Obviously, LSU thought enough of Bo to hire him away from State. I am certainly glad that the ACC is much more of a football conference than it was back then. It is absolutely no fun to watch good coaches get hired away by bigger programs.
And finally we get to Chuck:
– Second highest poll ranking in State’s history
– Five bowls in six years
Now before someone starts whining about “minor” or “useless” bowls…go back and look at the winning percentage graph. The simple fact of five winning years in six seasons places Chuck near the top of the list for NC State coaches. (Don’t bring up the OOC schedule unless you are prepared to discuss the increased difficulty of the conference schedule and have the same info for past coaches as well.)
It is all right to want more in the future…but don’t forget where Chuck fits compared to State coaches over the last fifty years. Those people claiming that Chuck is on the hot seat simply show that they don’t have a clue (In my humble, but accurate, opinion).
Post Script:
I have another entry that I am working on covering NC State football history. Life has severly restricted my time to participate at SFN and these entries are dragging out longer than I had planned. Until I get a chance to finish the second part, keep the comments focused on the past and not next season or future years. (Haven’t we heard the same opinions enough for now?)
Don’t forget…I’m not bashful about deleting entries that don’t stay on topic.
