Now
Career arc
Bowls and playoffs: 4-6
Air Force’82W’83WArkansas’84L’85W’86L’87L’88L’89LClemson’90W’91L
Show all 10 games
1982Hall of Fame ClassicW 36-28
1983Independence BowlW 9-3Arkansas
1984Liberty BowlL 15-21
1985Holiday BowlW 18-17
1986Orange BowlL 8-42
1987Liberty BowlL 17-20
1988Cotton Bowl ClassicL 3-17
1989Cotton Bowl ClassicL 27-31Clemson
1990Hall of Fame BowlW 30-0
1991Florida Citrus BowlL 13-37
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.
7-3 against his rivals at Air Force. Just 1-2 against Al Kincaid.
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.
Just 1-2 against David McWilliams.
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.
2-1 against his rivals at Clemson. 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.
12-9 against his rivals at Rice. Winless in 6 tries against Pat Hill.
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.
21-13 against his rivals. Winless in 6 tries against Pat Hill.
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.
699 run and pass snaps at Rice, 2004–2005, 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. Play-by-play starts in 2004, so his earlier seasons there aren’t in it.
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.
Building the roster
Four numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
Followed him here
Air Force→
Arkansas1984Arkansas→
Clemson1990Clemson→
Rice1994Players 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 2005 roster arrived on his watch — 25 of 25 players. Nobody is left from before he was hired.
This coach's entire tenure (1994-2005) 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: 35 of 45 signees (78%) across his 2003–2005 classes on record (his tenure ran 1994–2005), drawn from 7 states in all. Next: AR (4).
91% of his signees come from TX and its 4 border states (AR 4, LA 1, OK 1).
Off this map: 1 signee to the north (IL).
- median hometown distance
- 21 mi
- within 100 mi
- 100%
- within 500 mi
- 100%
- beyond 1,000 mi
- 0%
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 (a floor — see the note below). None can be traced to who brought them in — there’s no roster record for these players here.
At least 3 — the draft class following his 1995 season is missing from this table entirely.
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | R5.07 | Ryan Pontbriand | Center |  Cleveland Browns | Estimated |
| 2003 | R6.03 | Brandon Green | Defensive End |  Jacksonville Jaguars | Estimated |
| 1997 | R5.22 | Ndukwe Kalu | Defensive End |  Philadelphia Eagles | 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.
Inheritor inherited a power and neither built it higher nor let it collapse · Steady no large move in either direction on our stature ladder
7th-best Rice tenure of 16 by the numbers.
Followed Fred Goldsmith (1989–1993) · succeeded by Todd Graham (2006).
| Season | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||||||||||||
| Record | 5-6 | 2-8-1 | 7-4 | 7-4 | 5-6 | 5-6 | 3-8 | 8-4 | 4-7 | 5-7 | 3-8 | 1-10 | |
| Postseason | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||||||||||||
| Offense | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 39 | 32 | |
| Defense | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 41 | 2 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||||||||||||
| 1st-down pass% | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 9.8 | 14.7 | |
| Red-zone pass% | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 8.0 | 14.6 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 56.8 | |
3rd-best Clemson tenure of 10 by the numbers.
Followed Danny Ford (1978–1989) · succeeded by Tommy West (1993–1998).
| Season | 1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||||
| Record | 10-2 | 9-2-1 | 5-6 | 8-3 | |
| Postseason | W bowl | L bowl | — | W 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 | — | — | — | — | |
17 NFL Draft picks: Jerome Henderson (1991), Doug Thomas (1991), John Johnson (1991), Chris Gardocki (1991), Dexter Davis (1991), Vance Hammond (1991), Chester McGlockton (1992), Levon Kirkland (1992) + 9 more
3rd-best Arkansas tenure of 22 by the numbers.
Followed Lou Holtz (1977–1983) · succeeded by Jack Crowe (1990–1992).
| Season | 1984 | 1985 | 1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||||||
| Record | 7-4-1 | 10-2 | 9-3 | 9-4 | 10-2 | 10-2 | |
| Postseason | L bowl | W bowl | L bowl | L 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 | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
12 NFL Draft picks: Greg Lasker (1986), Ravin Caldwell (1986), Bobby Joe Edmonds (1986), Nick Miller (1986), Kevin Wyatt (1986), Greg Horne (1987), Wayne Martin (1989), Steve Atwater (1989) + 4 more
5th-best Air Force tenure of 6 by the numbers.
Followed Bill Parcells (1978) · succeeded by Fisher DeBerry (1984–2006).
| Season | 1979 | 1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | ||||||
| Record | 2-9 | 2-9-1 | 4-7 | 8-5 | 10-2 | |
| Postseason | — | — | — | W bowl | W 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 Rice
Was he good?
Only one of the usual three angles is measurable for this era — raised the program.
+2.7 pts at Rice · #510 of 1290 · middle half