The Zeitgeist List · Coordinators · Never a head coach

John Chavis.

Defensive coordinator · 6 seasons · 3 stints · 3 programs1 season ranked in the national top 10%
Own effect on the unit
Defense−0.09not distinguishable from zero
model fit as of 2026-09-04

The tenure clock

Every stop re-aligned to its own first year, so the stops stack instead of scrolling past each other. The gray dashed line is a reference, not a path: each point is the median of whoever was still in the job that year, across every real OC/DC stint since 2014 at that role, and the pool shrinks year over year because surviving to a later year means not having been fired.

100th — best in the country90th — elite — top 10%75th — top quarter50th — national median25th — bottom quarter0 — worst in the countryHis defense’s national rank, by year of tenureYear 1Year 2Year 3Year of that tenure, not calendar yearn=730n=430n=235LSU, year 1: 91st percentileLSUTexas A&M, year 1: 70th percentileTexas A&M, year 2: 54th percentileTexas A&M, year 3: 53rd percentileTexas A&MArkansas, year 1: 27th percentileArkansas, year 2: 6th percentileArkansasmedian still in the job
LSU 2014–2014
Texas A&M 2015–2017
Arkansas 2018–2019
Median of those still in the job, that year of a tenure. A shrinking pool, not a path.
Texas A&M, 3 years
▼ 16.5
69.9 to 53.5 percentile.
Arkansas, 2 years
▼ 20.8
26.5 to 5.8 percentile.
Median defensive coordinator
+0.5
first season to last, across 235 stints of 3+ years. 50.6% improve at all.

Every stop on the calendar

YearsProgramWalked intoYear 1BestVs. talent
2014–2014LSU81.291.091.0—
2015–2017Texas A&M22.369.969.9▼ 4.2
2018–2019Arkansas15.826.526.5▼ 42.4
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