John Smith
Now
Career arc
Bowls and playoffs: 1-6
1997Humanitarian BowlL 19-35
Louisville
1998Motor City BowlL 29-48
1999Humanitarian BowlL 31-34
2000Liberty BowlL 17-22
2001Liberty BowlW 28-10
2002GMAC BowlL 15-38
Michigan State
2003Alamo BowlL 3-17
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.
0-2 against his rivals at Utah State. Nobody he faced three or more times there has a winning record against him.
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.
7-3 against his rivals at Louisville. Just 1-2 against Ron Turner.
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.
1-7 against his rivals at Michigan State. Winless in 4 tries against Jim Tressel.
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.
0-1 against his rivals at Arkansas.
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.
8-13 against his rivals. Just 1-4 against Sonny Lubick.
Signature games
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
How he plays
Run/pass mix, by field position
Called about what the situation called for.
540 run and pass snaps at Arkansas, 2012–2012, 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
Four numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
Followed him here
Utah State→
Louisville1998Louisville→
Michigan State2003Players 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 2012 roster arrived on his watch — 37 of 115 players. The other 78 are holdovers from before he was hired.
This coach's entire tenure (2012-2012) 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.
Where he recruits
is his biggest recruiting state: 5 of 24 signees (21%) across his 2012–2012 tenure, drawn from 12 states in all. Next: TX (5).
71% of his signees come from AR and its 6 border states (TX 5, OK 3, TN 2, LA 1, MS 1).
Off this map: 2 signees to the west (AZ, CA) and 1 to the east (NJ).
- median hometown distance
- 240 mi
- within 100 mi
- 17%
- within 500 mi
- 81%
- beyond 1,000 mi
- 9%
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. None were his own recruits yet: all 1 roster-verified picks arrived under Bobby Petrino. 3 more can’t be traced to who brought them in (no roster record).
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | R3.34 | Knile Davis | Running Back |  Kansas City Chiefs | recruited under Bobby Petrino |
| 2013 | R4.15 | Tyler Wilson | Quarterback |  Oakland Raiders | Estimated |
| 2013 | R6.29 | Cobi Hamilton | Wide Receiver |  Cincinnati Bengals | Estimated |
| 2013 | R7.16 | Chris Gragg | Tight End |  Buffalo Bills | 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.
Career
Coaching career
The arc of his career is on Now.
Steady no large move in either direction on our stature ladder
Followed Bobby Petrino (2008–2011) · succeeded by Bret Bielema (2013–2017).
12th-best Michigan State tenure of 16 by the numbers.
Followed Bobby Williams (2000–2002) · succeeded by Mark Dantonio (2007–2019).
| Season | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||||
| Record | 8-5 | 5-7 | 5-6 | 4-8 | |
| Postseason | L bowl | — | — | — | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||||
| Offense | — | 90 | 95 | 47 | |
| Defense | — | 63 | 9 | 49 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||||
| 1st-down pass% | — | 40.6 | 43.7 | 52.3 | |
| Red-zone pass% | — | 24.1 | 29.7 | 38.4 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | — | 28.9 | 29.6 | 25.7 | |
12 NFL Draft picks: Matthias Askew (2004), Jeff Smoker (2004), DeAndra Cobb (2005), Dave Rayner (2005), Kevin Vickerson (2005), Will Whitticker (2005), Eric Smith (2006), Domata Peko (2006) + 4 more
8th-best Louisville tenure of 15 by the numbers.
Followed Ron Cooper (1995–1997) · succeeded by Bobby Petrino (2003–2006).
| Season | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | ||||||
| Record | 7-5 | 7-5 | 9-3 | 11-2 | 7-6 | |
| Postseason | L bowl | L bowl | L bowl | W 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 | — | — | — | — | — | |
8 NFL Draft picks: Chris Redman (2000), Frank Moreau (2000), Rashad Holman (2001), Deion Branch (2002), Dewayne White (2003), Dave Ragone (2003), Curry Burns (2003), Chris Johnson (2003)
13th-best Utah State tenure of 22 by the numbers.
Followed Charlie Weatherbie (1992–1994) · succeeded by Dave Arslanian (1998–1999).
| Season | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | ||||
| Record | 4-7 | 6-5 | 6-6 | |
| Postseason | — | — | 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 | — | — | — | |
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.
3rd all-time at Louisville
Was he good?
Only one of the usual three angles is measurable for this era — raised the program.
+7.4 pts at Louisville · #297 of 1290 · top quarter