Now
Career arc
Bowls and playoffs: 8-4
East Carolina’06L’07W’08L’09LSouth Florida’10WLouisiana Tech’14W’15W’16W’17W’18W’19W’20L
Show all 12 games
2006PapaJohns.com BowlL 7-24
2007Hawaii BowlW 41-38
2008Liberty BowlL 19-25
2009Liberty BowlL 17-20
South Florida
2010Meineke Car Care BowlW 31-26
Louisiana Tech
2014Heart of Dallas BowlW 35-18
2015New Orleans BowlW 47-28
2016Armed Forces BowlW 48-45
2017Frisco BowlW 51-10
2018Hawaii BowlW 31-14
2019Independence BowlW 14-0
2020New Orleans BowlL 3-38
Report card
Offense carries it: 67th percentile offense, below the median defense at 37th.
Louisiana Tech, 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.
1-2 against his rivals at East Carolina. Winless in 3 tries against Rich Rodriguez.
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.
Just 1-2 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.
4-5 against his rivals at Louisiana Tech. Winless in 3 tries against Doc Holliday.
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.
5-7 against his rivals. Winless in 3 tries against Doc Holliday.
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
Passed more than the situation called for under Petersen, Fitch and Sloan.
7,493 run and pass snaps at Louisiana Tech, 2013–2021, 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
Six numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
His recruiting, really
His 4 ranked Louisiana Tech classes of his own have averaged #89 nationally — best #75, worst #120.
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
East Carolina→
South Florida2010South Florida→
Louisiana Tech2013Players 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 2021 roster arrived on his watch — 100 of 100 players. Nobody is left from before he was hired.
Of his own players on this roster, 15% came through the transfer portal; the rest are non-portal arrivals (high-school signees, JUCO transfers, walk-ons).
Everyone he has brought in, 2013–2021Counting players who have since left: 15% of the 27 arrivals we can classify came through the portal.
This tenure spans the 2021 transfer-portal tracking floor: seasons before 2021 structurally cannot be classified portal-vs-not (they land in 'unknown' below), so the portal-share figure understates how many pre-2021 arrivals might have been transfers under the pre-portal-tracking transfer rules.
“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 Louisiana Tech rosters have averaged within a few pounds of the FBS average (2013–2021). In the three seasons before he arrived, Louisiana Tech’s line averaged within a few pounds of the FBS average.
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: 72 of 164 signees (44%) across his 2013–2021 tenure, drawn from 14 states in all. Next: TX (46).
89% of his signees come from LA and its 3 border states (TX 46, MS 22, AR 6).
Off this map: 11 signees to the east (GA 7, FL 2, others), 5 to the west (AZ, CA, others) and 1 to the north (IL).
- median hometown distance
- 235 mi
- within 100 mi
- 19%
- within 500 mi
- 90%
- beyond 1,000 mi
- 2%
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 9 of them himself; 4 arrived under Sonny Dykes (2), Derek Dooley (2). 1 went in the first round.
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | R3.09 | Milton Williams | Defensive Tackle |  Philadelphia Eagles | |
| 2020 | R4.32 | L'Jarius Sneed | Safety |  Kansas City Chiefs | |
| 2020 | R4.33 | Amik Robertson | Cornerback |  Las Vegas Raiders | |
| 2019 | R3.21 | Jaylon Ferguson | Defensive End |  Baltimore Ravens | |
| 2018 | R6.27 | Boston Scott | Running Back |  New Orleans Saints | |
| 2017 | R3.18 | Carlos Henderson | Wide Receiver |  Denver Broncos | |
| 2017 | R5.34 | Trent Taylor | Wide Receiver |  San Francisco 49ers | |
| 2017 | R6.07 | Xavier Woods | Safety |  Dallas Cowboys |
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | R1.30 | Vernon Butler | Defensive Tackle |  Carolina Panthers | recruited under Sonny Dykes |
| 2016 | R4.36 | Kenneth Dixon | Running Back | Baltimore Ravens | recruited under Sonny Dykes |
| 2016 | R6.32 | Jeff Driskel | Quarterback | San Francisco 49ers | |
| 2014 | R4.07 | Justin Ellis | Defensive Tackle |  Oakland Raiders | recruited under Derek Dooley |
| 2014 | R6.34 | IK Enemkpali | Defensive End |  New York Jets | recruited under Derek Dooley |
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.
Steady no large move in either direction on our stature ladder
4th-best Louisiana Tech tenure of 11 by the numbers.
Followed Sonny Dykes (2010–2012) · succeeded by Sonny Cumbie (2022–now).
| Season | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | ||||||||||
| Record | 4-8 | 9-5 | 9-4 | 9-5 | 7-6 | 8-5 | 10-3 | 5-5 | 3-9 | |
| Postseason | — | W bowl | W bowl | W bowl | W bowl | W bowl | W bowl | L bowl | — | |
| Coordinators | ||||||||||
| OC | — | Tony Petersen | Tony Petersen | Todd Fitch | Todd Fitch | Todd Fitch | Todd Fitch | Joe Sloan | Joe Sloan | |
| DC | — | Manny Diaz | Blake Baker | Blake Baker | Blake Baker | Blake Baker | Bob Diaco | David Blackwell | David Blackwell | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | ||||||||||
| Offense | 21 | 79 | 85 | 97 | 72 | 27 | 55 | 7 | 30 | |
| Defense | 72 | 93 | 71 | 11 | 73 | 70 | 87 | 14 | 19 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | ||||||||||
| 1st-down pass% | 44.5 | 42.4 | 54.6 | 61.0 | 42.1 | 49.2 | 46.3 | 52.2 | 46.7 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 49.4 | 33.3 | 43.4 | 44.2 | 31.9 | 42.4 | 35.5 | 44.9 | 43.3 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 26.1 | 17.1 | 17.4 | 15.6 | 17.8 | 24.1 | 27.5 | 32.3 | 35.4 | |
Performs about as expected for his recruiting talent, on both sides of the ball.
Typical size for position, once adjusted for position mix.
Recruits older, more experienced transfers than most.
2nd-best South Florida tenure of 9 by the numbers.
Followed Jim Leavitt (2000–2009) · succeeded by Willie Taggart (2013–2016).
| Season | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | ||||
| Record | 8-5 | 5-7 | 3-9 | |
| Postseason | W bowl | — | — | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | ||||
| Offense | 22 | 54 | 25 | |
| Defense | 83 | 50 | 15 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | ||||
| 1st-down pass% | 38.8 | 44.2 | 43.1 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 22.0 | 33.0 | 34.5 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 6.8 | 13.5 | 12.5 | |
6 NFL Draft picks: Terrell McClain (2011), Mistral Raymond (2011), Jacquian Williams (2011), Kayvon Webster (2013), Samuel Barrington (2013), B.J. Daniels (2013)
6th-best East Carolina tenure of 15 by the numbers.
Followed John Thompson (2003–2004) · succeeded by Ruffin McNeill (2010–2015).
| Season | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | ||||||
| Record | 5-6 | 7-6 | 8-5 | 9-5 | 9-5 | |
| Postseason | — | L bowl | W bowl | L bowl | L bowl | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | ||||||
| Offense | 63 | 74 | 37 | 30 | 67 | |
| Defense | 25 | 70 | 25 | 90 | 62 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | ||||||
| 1st-down pass% | 44.1 | 39.3 | 44.3 | 41.2 | 38.8 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 29.7 | 25.0 | 36.4 | 27.5 | 27.3 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 16.1 | 23.9 | 17.1 | 19.2 | 17.0 | |
7 NFL Draft picks: Guy Whimper (2006), Aundrae Allison (2007), Chris Johnson (2008), Davon Drew (2009), Linval Joseph (2010), Matt Dodge (2010), C.J. Wilson (2010)
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 Conference USA coach
Was he good?
Every angle here comes back inconclusive — not enough separation from zero to call it either way.
+5.9 pts at Louisiana Tech · #354 of 1290 · middle half