A study of SEC head coaches: 10 takeaways from the last 5 years

Want your school to land a bevy of four- and five-star recruits?

The solution may be as simple as paying your head coach millions of dollars and putting together an intimidating schedule.

SDS teamed with the sports marketing program from Samford University’s Brock School of Business to analyze SEC coaching data from the last five seasons, including salary, strength of schedule, wins, recruiting class rankings, total offense, total defense and F+/-.

The biggest finding: large head coaching salaries hold a strong correlation to highly-rated recruiting classes.

Alabama’s Nick Saban, the highest-paid coach in college football, has produced Top 5 recruiting classes the last five years. Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin, he of the $5 million salary, ranked sixth in recruiting last season.

Here are the 10 takeaways our data revealed:

1. As a head coaches’ salary increases, so does his team’s likelihood of wins, recruiting class rank and total defense rank.

2. The salary of a head coach is most strongly correlated with his ability to build a strong recruiting class. Of all the things we looked at that correlate to higher salaries, recruiting class success was the strongest by far.

3. A high salary for a head coach is NOT associated with strong total offense. Thus, higher head coaching salaries does NOT necessarily translate into more points on the scoreboard.

4. A high salary for a head coach is associated with strong total defense. Thus, higher head coaching salaries DO translate into fewer points allowed.

5. Strength of schedule is NOT associated with total offense rank, total defense rank or wins. This is very surprising!

6. Strength of schedule is positively associated with recruiting class rank, indicating that the best players tend to sign with the schools that play the toughest schedules.

7. Not surprisingly, total number of wins is strongly correlated with recruiting class rank, total offense rank and total defense rank.

8. Total offense rank is a better predictor of number of wins than is total defense rank. This flies in the face of the“defense wins championships”  philosophy.

9. Recruiting class rank is not associated with total offense rank. However, it is associated with total defense rank.

10. There is no correlation between total offense rank and total defense rank. Thus, the old adage, “the best defense is a good offense” is not born out with our data.