ACC History in Numbers: Coaching Heroes and Zeroes

The first two parts of our ACC History in Numbers previewed the birth and ascension of the ACC as a football conference from 1953-2009. Through all the number crunching I wanted to bring out the most important factor in every ACC team's record in conference: the head coach. Today's history compares all of the ACC head coaches all time.

Top 10 All Time Winners and Losers

As expected, Bobby Bowden has a dominating presence the list. He has 32 more wins than the secondmost (George Welsh) and has 79 more wins than the ACC's active leader in wins (Frank Beamer). At Beamer's current pace of 6.33 wins/year, it would take 12 and a half more years to catch Bowden's record. I'm not sure if Beamer wants to coach until he is 75. Georgia Tech's best rep on the all time list is 15th (George O'Leary with 36 conference wins).


These 10 guys account for all the ACC's national titles. It's a pretty impressive list. Bobby Ross' numbers are actually a little skewed as he struggled mightily his first couple of years at Tech (finishing 15-18-1 in ACC play at Tech).

Hiring Practices

The above chart may be a little confusing but it basically details how well a coaching hire outperformed his predecessor or underachieved compared to his predecessor in ACC play. The chart on the left indicates "good hires" while the chart on the right indicates "bad hires." Sadly, most of the guys on the right followed legends in their respective programs. And here's the interesting fact about good versus bad hires. There have been 40 coaches hired in the ACC history that did not exceed their predecessor's winning percentage in ACC play. There have been 39 coaches hired in the ACC's history that exceeded their predecessor's conference winning percentage. And Chuck Amato is the lone wolf who matched his predecessor's winning percentage. Basically, every good hire has a bad hire to make up for it.

Georgia Tech Head Coaches

I factored in GT's 8 games against ACC teams from 1978-1982 even though they didn't count as conference games just because I felt like Pepper Rodgers deserved to be included (these games aren't counted in previous charts). I think it's odd to see Bobby Ross' record so low but it really shows the amazing job he did in rebuilding our program.

Any thoughts?