Although last night's four-overtime loss to North Carolina A&T was disappointing to say the least, I'm convinced more than ever that a coaching change is not the answer. That was my position when Doug Martin was forced to resign in 2010 and that is still my position today. Of course Martin's critics will claim Kent State winning the MAC East title in 2012 is proof that changing coaches is the solution, but they forget to acknowledge the success of Darrell Hazell's 2012 team could not have been achieved without Martin's recruits. Now Hazell is in his fourth year as Purdue's football coach and has won a total of six games in his first three years. With yesterday's 38-20 loss to Cincinnati, there is a good chance he won’t see his fifth season in West Lafayette (see link below).
As Hazell is finding out, winning football games at Purdue is not an easy task. Most fans would agree that rebuilding a once strong football program should take less time than one buried in mediocrity. But at Miami, a school rich in football tradition, Chuck Martin is struggling to bring the Red Hawks back to respectability. The former Notre Dame offensive coordinator was expected to turn Miami's program around but after yesterday's 21-17 loss to Eastern Illinois, even his most ardent supporters are having doubts.
But whether you are at Purdue, Miami, or Kent State, the decision to fire head football coaches for poor team performance is not always the answer. Research to back this claim can be found from the University of Colorado at Boulder study.
The summary of the research states, "Professors studied the records of college football teams that replaced a head coach for performance reasons between 1997 and 2010. They found that when a team had been performing particularly poorly, replacing the coach resulted in a small, but short-lived, improvement in performance after a change. The records of mediocre teams -- those that, on average, won about 50 percent of their games in the year prior to replacing a coach -- became worse."
The statistical findings "suggest that the relatively common decision to fire head college football coaches for poor team performance may be ill-advised."
The statistical analysis doesn't mean there are no exceptions, Scott Adler said. Some teams that replace their coach do perform better -- but the same can be said about teams that do not replace their coach. "What our findings demonstrate is that, on average, replacing a coach in an attempt to boost performance is not a winning proposition," he said.
"Our findings have important practical implications for the high-stakes environment that is contemporary college football," the authors write. "When a college football team's performance is disappointing, the first and often only remedy administrators, fans and sports writers turn to is firing the coach. This is usually an expensive approach to solving the problem.
"Despite the fanfare that often accompanies the hiring of a new coach, our research demonstrates that at least with respect to on-field performance, coach replacement can be expected to be, at best, a break-even antidote."
No one wants to win more at Kent State than Coach Haynes. In the NC A&T post-game conference, you can see how upset he was with his team's performance. Clearly, the terrible pass interference call made against junior cornerback Demetrius Monday helped deny the Flashes the win but Haynes didn't use that as an excuse for the loss much like last year's double-overtime loss to Marshall when the Herd was aided by a terrible targeting call on Najee Murray in the end zone.
I realize I may be in the minority, but as long as Coach Haynes continues to represent the values of Kent State University, I will defend and support him as long as he is our football coach.
http://www.jconline.com/story/sport...ck-progress-evident-purdue-football/89916550/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121116124601.htm
As Hazell is finding out, winning football games at Purdue is not an easy task. Most fans would agree that rebuilding a once strong football program should take less time than one buried in mediocrity. But at Miami, a school rich in football tradition, Chuck Martin is struggling to bring the Red Hawks back to respectability. The former Notre Dame offensive coordinator was expected to turn Miami's program around but after yesterday's 21-17 loss to Eastern Illinois, even his most ardent supporters are having doubts.
But whether you are at Purdue, Miami, or Kent State, the decision to fire head football coaches for poor team performance is not always the answer. Research to back this claim can be found from the University of Colorado at Boulder study.
The summary of the research states, "Professors studied the records of college football teams that replaced a head coach for performance reasons between 1997 and 2010. They found that when a team had been performing particularly poorly, replacing the coach resulted in a small, but short-lived, improvement in performance after a change. The records of mediocre teams -- those that, on average, won about 50 percent of their games in the year prior to replacing a coach -- became worse."
The statistical findings "suggest that the relatively common decision to fire head college football coaches for poor team performance may be ill-advised."
The statistical analysis doesn't mean there are no exceptions, Scott Adler said. Some teams that replace their coach do perform better -- but the same can be said about teams that do not replace their coach. "What our findings demonstrate is that, on average, replacing a coach in an attempt to boost performance is not a winning proposition," he said.
"Our findings have important practical implications for the high-stakes environment that is contemporary college football," the authors write. "When a college football team's performance is disappointing, the first and often only remedy administrators, fans and sports writers turn to is firing the coach. This is usually an expensive approach to solving the problem.
"Despite the fanfare that often accompanies the hiring of a new coach, our research demonstrates that at least with respect to on-field performance, coach replacement can be expected to be, at best, a break-even antidote."
No one wants to win more at Kent State than Coach Haynes. In the NC A&T post-game conference, you can see how upset he was with his team's performance. Clearly, the terrible pass interference call made against junior cornerback Demetrius Monday helped deny the Flashes the win but Haynes didn't use that as an excuse for the loss much like last year's double-overtime loss to Marshall when the Herd was aided by a terrible targeting call on Najee Murray in the end zone.
I realize I may be in the minority, but as long as Coach Haynes continues to represent the values of Kent State University, I will defend and support him as long as he is our football coach.
http://www.jconline.com/story/sport...ck-progress-evident-purdue-football/89916550/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121116124601.htm
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