Updating the average coaching tenure for every SEC school

Congratulations, Kirby Smart.

If you’re a head coach in the SEC, and you want job security, the University of Georgia is a great place to take a job. Mark Richt coached in Athens for 15 years, and UGA boasts the fourth-highest average coaching tenure all-time.

In fact, the SEC East coaches must feel pretty good collectively. Florida and Tennessee are the two most patient football programs in the conference, historically. Jim McElwain (second season) and Butch Jones (fourth season) are still relatively early in their tenures.

Florida holds a slight edge over Tennessee in average tenure, by mere hundredths. But in addition to recent short stays by Derek Dooley and Lane Kiffin, the Vols hired their first football coach in 1899, while Florida didn’t launch the football program until 1906.

Coaches at the turn of the 20th century rarely retained the position for more than one or two seasons, so overall, the average modern-era hire can expect an additional half-year or so on top of the listed average. In other words, LSU’s average coaching tenure is 4.0 years, but accounting for those early one- and two-year stints, the modern average is more like 4.5 years.

If you’ve got options — and a family with kids who want to stay in the same school system — Oxford, Miss., and Lexington, Ky., shouldn’t be your choice. Coaches there barely survive three years, on average. Then again, barring a major scandal, one would think Hugh Freeze has built up quite a bit of equity at Ole Miss, having increased the team’s win total in each of his first four seasons.

Interestingly, the Gators have hired just 21 coaches in history, while the Wildcats have hired a whopping 38.

Alabama, which hired a string of Mikes before Nick Saban — DuBose, Price and Shula — has burned through head coaches in rapid succession at a few points in history and ranks in the middle of the pack. That’s despite Saban heading into his 10th season with the Tide.

Missouri was a tumultuous place before coach Gary Pinkel arrived in 2001. Of course, Pinkel stayed with the team through the 2015 season, retiring as the school’s all-time winningest head coach.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the tenure of Barry Odom. At 39 years old, even in 2016, he’s young for an SEC head coach. But the last Mizzou coach to reach double digits on the job prior to Odom was Dan Devine (1958-70).

AVERAGE HEAD COACHING TENURE FOR EVERY SEC TEAM ALL-TIME

Despite winning 18 games the last two seasons, Mississippi State still ranks last in the SEC in wins per season all-time, just a fraction behind Kentucky and Vanderbilt. But even factoring in the longer schedule, it gives coach Dan Mullen’s performance some perspective. He’s managed to get the Bulldogs into the top 25 on a regular basis, which is no small task within the history of that program.

LSU may be the most impatient program in the SEC, historically speaking. The Tigers are the only conference member to average at least 6 wins per season and also rank in the bottom half of the league in average coaching tenure.

That shouldn’t surprise you if you listened to talk radio anywhere near Baton Rouge last season, or if you kept up with the novella between the administration and coach Les Miles toward the end of the schedule. But LSU has won 6.4 games per season, on average, just behind Georgia and Florida and fifth-best in the SEC. Yet LSU hires a new coach in less than four years, on average.

On the other end of the spectrum, Vanderbilt historically has been very patient with its football coaches. The Commodores win 4.7 games per year, on average, next-to-last in the SEC by a fraction. But Vanderbilt head coaches get about 4.5 years to hold the best football office in the athletic building, ranking fifth in the SEC.

In other words, losing on the field at Vandy doesn’t equate to losing your job as a head coach right away. So, Derek Mason, replicate last year by winning a pair of SEC games and you surely will stay put into 2017.