Now
Career arc
Bowls and playoffs: 7-9 · won 0 of 1 national title game
Nebraska’98L’99W’00W’01L’02LOhio’06L’09L’10L’11W’12W’13L’15L’16L’17W’18W’19W
Show all 16 games
1998Holiday BowlL 20-23
1999Fiesta BowlW 31-21
2000Alamo BowlW 66-17
2001Rose BowlL 14-37
2002Independence BowlL 23-27
Ohio
2006GMAC BowlL 7-28
2009Little Caesars Pizza BowlL 17-21
2010New Orleans BowlL 21-48
2011Famous Idaho Potato BowlW 24-23
2012Independence BowlW 45-14
2013Beef 'O' Brady's BowlL 20-37
2015Camellia BowlL 29-31
2016Dollar General BowlL 23-28
2017Bahamas BowlW 41-6
2018Frisco BowlW 27-0
2019Famous Idaho Potato BowlW 30-21
Report card
Offense carries it: 58th percentile offense, below the median defense at 38th.
Ohio, every completed season graded against the whole field, then averaged.
Offense
Defense
Each season is his team’s percentile among every team with that stat (the share it beat), averaged over his completed seasons here; a mid-season takeover year and the season in progress aren’t graded. Letters: A+ 90th percentile and up, A 80, B+ 70, B 60, B− 50, C+ 45, C 40, C− 30, D 15, F below.
Fans
No fan talk about him on our list yet. His record is on Career.
Stats
Big games
Pick a job to see its years on their own.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
5-2 against his rivals at Nebraska. Just 1-3 against Mack Brown.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
11-4 against his rivals at Ohio. Winless in 3 tries against Butch Jones.
Signature games
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
16-6 against his rivals. Winless in 3 tries against Butch Jones.
Signature games
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
ATS is his record against the spread: did his team beat the closing betting line, winning by more than it or losing by less? Lines start in 2013; a dash means fewer than 6 of those games had one. One-score games carry no spread record: a big favorite that wins a close game has almost always failed to cover, so that number would say nothing about the coach.
How he plays
Run/pass mix, by field position
Ran more than the situation called for under Albin.
10,177 run and pass snaps at Ohio, 2005–2020, his own games, one row per offensive coordinator. Each cell is how much more often he passed than the rest of FBS did in the same situation (field zone, down, distance, score, quarter, same season), in percentage points.
Pass rate, stint by stint
Where each stint’s offense sat between run-first and pass-first, and how far it moved from one season to the next, against the FBS-wide average of 41% pass. The band is that stint’s real season-to-season range, not a fixed-width box.
Season-to-season pass-rate range for all 449 FBS coaching stints with at least three covered seasons, 2004–2025.
Building the roster
Five numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
His recruiting, really
His 3 ranked Ohio classes of his own have averaged #117 nationally — best #103, worst #127.
His class — he had the full signing cycle
Rank is each signing class’s national recruiting rank (#1 is best). Only a class he had a full signing cycle to build counts as his.
Roster ownership
Roster ownership
of his 2020 roster arrived on his watch — 127 of 127 players. Nobody is left from before he was hired.
This coach's entire tenure (2005-2020) predates 2021, when transfer-portal tracking begins in this database. Portal usage cannot be measured for this tenure at all -- this is not the same as '0% portal'.
“His own” means the player arrived while he was head coach; “inherited” means a predecessor brought him in.
Size up front
Size up front
Offensive linemen on his Ohio rosters have averaged within a few pounds of the FBS average (2010–2020 rosters on record).
Average listed weight of every offensive lineman on each season’s roster, holdovers included, against every FBS roster that season (2010 on; a program needs 3+ seasons under him to appear). Weights are the ones programs publish, and programs list differently. This describes size only — not scheme, and not quality.
Where he recruits
is his biggest recruiting state: 136 of 331 signees (41%) across his 2005–2020 tenure, drawn from 34 states in all. Next: FL (29).
54% of his signees come from OH and its 5 border states (PA 21, IN 7, MI 6, WV 5, KY 4).
Off this map: 19 signees to the west (CA 17, AZ, others). 1 signee without a plottable hometown location not shown.
- median hometown distance
- 172 mi
- within 100 mi
- 25%
- within 500 mi
- 73%
- beyond 1,000 mi
- 3%
The map counts signed recruits across his tenure; the distance figures cover his current roster, transfers and walk-ons included. Two different groups, kept separate on purpose.
The NFL pipeline
The NFL pipeline
players drafted into the NFL off his teams here. He brought in 3 of them himself. 6 more can’t be traced to who brought them in (no roster record).
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | R7.09 | Quentin Poling | Inside Linebacker |  Miami Dolphins | |
| 2017 | R3.16 | Tarell Basham | Defensive End |  Indianapolis Colts | |
| 2017 | R5.04 | Blair Brown | Inside Linebacker |  Jacksonville Jaguars | |
| 2014 | R7.04 | T.J. Carrie | Cornerback |  Oakland Raiders | Estimated |
| 2013 | R7.19 | Eric Herman | Offensive Guard |  New York Giants | Estimated |
| 2012 | R6.36 | LaVon Brazill | Wide Receiver | Indianapolis Colts | Estimated |
| 2010 | R3.26 | Taylor Price | Wide Receiver |  New England Patriots | Estimated |
| 2009 | R2.15 | Michael Mitchell | Safety | Oakland Raiders | Estimated |
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | R7.09 | Landon Cohen | Defensive Tackle |  Detroit Lions | Estimated |
A pick counts toward his tenure when the player’s final college season was one he coached, a checkable rule rather than a claim about who developed the player. A blank note means the player is on a verified roster and arrived on his watch. “Estimated” means no roster record, so the final season is assumed to be the year before the draft.
News
No outlet on our list has written about him by name yet. His record is on Career.
Career
Coaching career
The arc of his career is on Now.
Sustainer inherited a power and held it for five-plus elite seasons · Steady no large move in either direction on our stature ladder
5th-best Ohio tenure of 11 by the numbers.
Followed Brian Knorr (2001–2004) · succeeded by Tim Albin (2021–2024).
| Season | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||||||||||||||||
| Record | 4-7 | 9-5 | 6-6 | 4-8 | 9-5 | 8-5 | 10-4 | 9-4 | 7-6 | 6-6 | 8-5 | 8-6 | 9-4 | 9-4 | 7-6 | 2-1 | |
| Postseason | — | L bowl | — | — | L bowl | L bowl | W bowl | W bowl | L bowl | — | L bowl | L bowl | W bowl | W bowl | W bowl | — | |
| Coordinators | |||||||||||||||||
| OC | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Tim Albin | Tim Albin | Tim Albin | Tim Albin | Tim Albin | Tim Albin | Tim Albin | |
| DC | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Jim Burrow | Jim Burrow | Jim Burrow | Jim Burrow / Ron Collins | Jim Burrow / Ron Collins | Ron Collins / Pete Germano | Ron Collins / Pete Germano | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||||||||||||||||
| Offense | 22 | 2 | 24 | 57 | 8 | 40 | 78 | 71 | 25 | 18 | 42 | 29 | 92 | 97 | 90 | 28 | |
| Defense | 30 | 76 | 61 | 57 | 56 | 41 | 27 | 54 | 25 | 64 | 68 | 83 | 70 | 30 | 35 | 84 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||||||||||||||||
| 1st-down pass% | 29.3 | 28.3 | 30.8 | 41.3 | 42.5 | 31.3 | 40.4 | 37.2 | 38.2 | 40.7 | 39.9 | 46.2 | 39.5 | 36.5 | 39.7 | 39.1 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 32.1 | 23.7 | 23.6 | 38.1 | 51.1 | 22.7 | 33.9 | 44.3 | 43.9 | 36.2 | 31.7 | 43.1 | 27.7 | 30.0 | 26.2 | 29.2 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 14.3 | 14.6 | 17.4 | 35.0 | 21.7 | 42.9 | 12.8 | 18.2 | 10.0 | 28.6 | 32.6 | 22.4 | 19.4 | 35.7 | 19.0 | — | |
Outperforms his recruiting talent, on both sides of the ball.
2nd-best Nebraska tenure of 18 by the numbers.
Followed Tom Osborne (1973–1997) · succeeded by Bill Callahan (2004–2007).
| Season | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||||||
| Record | 9-4 | 12-1 | 10-2 | 11-2 | 7-7 | 9-3 | |
| Postseason | L bowl | W bowl | W bowl | L bowl | L bowl | — | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||||||
| Offense | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Defense | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||||||
| 1st-down pass% | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Red-zone pass% | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
30 NFL Draft picks: Mike Rucker (1999), Joel Makovicka (1999), Jason Wiltz (1999), Jay Foreman (1999), Chad Kelsay (1999), Kris Brown (1999), Sheldon Jackson (1999), Mike Brown (2000) + 22 more
All-time wins
Wins at programs this site tracks, 1936–present — one consistent count for every coach, not each program’s own historically reported total.
most wins by a Mid-American coach
Was he good?
The data leans positive: every conclusive reading points the same way.
+9.9 pts at Ohio · #221 of 1290 · top quarterModel fit as of 2026-09-04.