Now
Career arc
Bowls and playoffs: 1-6
2009International BowlL 3-27
2013Texas BowlL 17-21
2014Citrus BowlL 17-33
2022Quick Lane BowlW 24-19
2023New Mexico BowlL 10-37Fans
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.
4-2 against his rivals at Northern Illinois. Nobody he faced three or more times there has a winning record against him.
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.
2-6 against his rivals at Minnesota. Winless in 3 tries against Mark Dantonio.
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.
2-0 against his rivals at New Mexico State.
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.
9-8 against his rivals. Winless in 3 tries against Mark Dantonio.
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 Beck.
1,649 run and pass snaps at New Mexico State, 2022–2023, 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 2 ranked New Mexico State classes of his own have averaged #109 nationally — best #106, worst #112.
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.
Followed him here
TCU→
New Mexico State2022- Ahmonte Watkins RB
Northern Illinois→
Minnesota2011Players who transferred from his old program to his new one through the portal in the same year he made the move. Name-matching across data sources misses some, so every count is a floor, not an exact number.
Roster ownership
Roster ownership
of his 2023 roster arrived on his watch — 108 of 127 players. The other 19 are holdovers from before he was hired.
Of his own players on this roster, 10% came through the transfer portal; the rest are non-portal arrivals (high-school signees, JUCO transfers, walk-ons).
Everyone he has brought in, 2022–2023Counting players who have since left: 8% of the 131 arrivals we can classify came through the 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 Minnesota rosters have averaged within a few pounds of the FBS average (2011–2015).
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: 16 of 62 signees (26%) across his 2022–2023 tenure, drawn from 19 states in all. Next: CA (10).
40% of his signees come from TX and its 4 border states (OK 6, NM 3).
Off this map: 3 signees to the east (CT, ME, others).
- median hometown distance
- 636 mi
- within 100 mi
- 6%
- within 500 mi
- 27%
- beyond 1,000 mi
- 22%
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.
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.
Steady no large move in either direction on our stature ladder
Followed Doug Martin (2013–2021) · succeeded by Tony Sanchez (2024–now).
| Season | 2022 | 2023 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||
| Record | 7-6 | 10-5 | |
| Postseason | W bowl | L bowl | |
| Coordinators | |||
| OC | Tim Beck | Tim Beck | |
| DC | Nate Dreiling / Melvin Rice | Nate Dreiling / Melvin Rice | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||
| Offense | 79 | 82 | |
| Defense | 70 | 20 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||
| 1st-down pass% | 32.3 | 36.7 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 28.8 | 36.8 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 40.7 | 23.4 | |
Outperforms his recruiting talent on offense and performs about as expected for his recruiting talent on defense.
Typical size for position, once adjusted for position mix.
Recruits older, more experienced transfers than most.
Coach of the Year: Conference USA Coach of the Year (2023)
Followed Gary Patterson (2000–2021) · succeeded by Sonny Dykes (2022–now).
Performs about as expected for his recruiting talent on offense and underperforms his recruiting talent on defense.
Barely touches the portal — recruits and develops his own.
Brings in bigger-than-position-typical players than most.
Recruits older, more experienced transfers than most.
11th-best Minnesota tenure of 15 by the numbers.
Followed Tim Brewster (2007–2010) · succeeded by Tracy Claeys (2015–2016).
| Season | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | ||||||
| Record | 3-9 | 6-7 | 8-5 | 8-5 | 4-3 | |
| Postseason | — | L bowl | L bowl | L bowl | — | |
| Coordinators | ||||||
| OC | — | — | — | Matt Limegrover | Matt Limegrover | |
| DC | — | — | — | Tracy Claeys | Tracy Claeys | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | ||||||
| Offense | 25 | 11 | 57 | 51 | 54 | |
| Defense | 19 | 41 | 38 | 49 | 50 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | ||||||
| 1st-down pass% | 30.5 | 29.2 | 20.1 | 21.9 | 38.1 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 35.3 | 28.7 | 18.3 | 21.0 | 34.5 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 57.7 | 28.9 | 30.8 | 16.7 | 22.0 | |
Performs about as expected for his recruiting talent, on both sides of the ball.
8 NFL Draft picks: Ra'Shede Hageman (2014), Brock Vereen (2014), Maxx Williams (2015), Damien Wilson (2015), David Cobb (2015), Ced Thompson (2015), Eric Murray (2016), De'Vondre Campbell (2016)
3rd-best Northern Illinois tenure of 13 by the numbers.
Followed Joe Novak (1996–2007) · succeeded by Dave Doeren (2011–2012).
| Season | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | ||||
| Record | 6-7 | 7-6 | 10-3 | |
| Postseason | L bowl | L bowl | — | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | ||||
| Offense | 45 | 42 | 88 | |
| Defense | 48 | 61 | 77 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | ||||
| 1st-down pass% | 30.7 | 25.5 | 30.7 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 24.6 | 29.3 | 32.3 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 31.0 | 22.6 | 22.2 | |
1 NFL Draft pick: Larry English (2009)
Was he good?
The data leans positive, where the data can separate from zero: every conclusive reading points the same way.
+6.2 pts at Northern Illinois · #337 of 1290 · middle half