A Statistical Look at Ralph Friedgen's Last Five Years

by Ben Broman on Oct 19, 2009 8:48 PM EDT in Football Comment 10 comments

As Ralph Friedgen's job security gets closer and closer to absolute zero, you'll hear a lot of arguments both for and against firing Ralph. One of the primary arguments against the termination will surely be Ralph Friedgen's past performance. I won't argue against his first three years - can't complain about 30 wins - but his last five years have been a completely different story.

Actually, his team has averaged a ranking in the top half of all FBS teams in just three of the nine categories I measured (passing offense, rushing offense, total offense, passing defense, rushing defense, total defense, scoring offense, scoring defense, turnovers), none of which were actually in his specialty as an offensive coach. It seems like the only things he's done even averagely in the past five years wasn't even his work, but his defensive coordinator's.

In fact, the supposed offensive genius' team has finished in the top half of rushing offense zero times, the top half of passing offense just twice (though the second time, this year, isn't done yet), total offense just once, and scoring offense not even one time. Yikes.

On top of that, his most successful year in terms of the record was in 2006, when he led the Terps to a 9-4 record and a win in the Champs Sports Bowl. Surprisingly, that year wasn't any better statistically than the losing record years; in fact, it was worse than some of the surrounding years.

If they weren't successful statistically, that must mean luck played a big role, right? Maybe that's why Maryland hasn't seen the best of luck lately; it's gotta even out eventually. But you can bet Ralph wouldn't say his team was worse than the teams they beat that year.

Here's the numbers sadly statted; the number of teams in the NCAA I-A (or FBS) division is in parentheses:

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Not pretty, is it? Ralph's a great guy, but he hasn't been lighting the world on fire; in fact, the only thing that he's been able to do with any measure of consistent success in the past five years seems to be letting his defensive coordinators coach.

It's also worth noticing that the turnovers aren't a one year deal, like some have said. In fact, outside of 2007, Maryland has finished in the bottom 35 of turnover margin every year since 2004. That's not on the players.

Now, if you don't believe Ralph Friedgen's past performance is a reason for termination, then this did nothing. But then I'm not sure exactly what you're basing his performance on, because it's clear, statistically and in terms of the record, something has stopped clicking since 2003.

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Comments

That is the best argument to date

I have disliked all of the coach bashing on several blogs I follow for various teams. Usually the arguments are weak, and not backed up by anything. A guy drops a critical pass or throws an interception and people blame the coach. To me, that is just frustrated emotional crap. This article however, was thoughtful and showed a real trend. Backing up your argument with facts and long term, large sample statistics, ………….nice.

Gary Williams for President!
Put Rose in the Hall of Fame

by terp12 on Oct 19, 2009 9:09 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Thanks

Much obliged.

by Ben Broman on Oct 19, 2009 10:17 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Scary Facts

I appreciate your fact-based analysis. What really scares me is that the coach-in-waiting is calling the offensive plays, and it is unclear that Don Brown and the improving defense will hang around with a coaching change, especially when the defense is (currently) out-performing the offense. This could be bad for a while.

by Terp75 on Oct 19, 2009 10:55 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

The reality is Ralph is not going to get fired and Ralph is not going to leave before his contract is up. If Maryland was a private school things might be different. But as a public institution he’s not going to be bought out of his contract. The better question to ask …will things be any better with Franklin or will there be a continuation of the present course? Will Franklin clean house and bring in a completely different group of assistants? Will Franklin continue to call the offensive plays when he becomes Head Coach? Will Maryland football ever be seen on espn or espn 2 again or will the Terps be the internet team?

by fkterp on Oct 20, 2009 11:25 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Yes - more than a trend

What upsets me more than anything – and losing my respect for Ralph – is that he cries about injuries and youth – when the team has been like this for years. Where is the old creed – the next guy has to step up – no excuses. Nope, not here – he laments about the issues that happen to EVERYONE! Last year – Cincinnati had to play with 4 QB’s and had a great yr…. Cincinnati!!!! But here – lose a CB and oh no! How can we move on?Maybe Ralph needs Locksley to recruit and Taaffe and Blackeney to coordinate – b/c ever since those guys left – Ralph has been exposed – left to whine about everything but his performance.

by peerless on Oct 20, 2009 12:10 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Little correlation to winning and losing

The most important set of statistics are our win/loss records. I tried to correlate this data with those records. For example, our best W/L year of the ones listed was ‘06 when we were 9-4. It was sandwiched between two losing seasons, 5-6 in ’05 and 6-7 in ’07. Do these statistics provide an indictation of why we went from 5-6 to 9-4 and then to 6-7? In ’05, we were at 69 in Scoring O, 55 in Scoring D, and 85 in TO. In ’06, we were 74, 51, and 90. In ’07, we were 89, 24, and 24. This means we were roughly the same in these categories in both ’05 and ’06 but improved from 6-7 to 9-4 in W/Ls. Then, in ’07, we actually improved significantly in two categories but went to 5-6. If the data correlates with wins and losses, the correlation is very subtle. I don’t think it provides much insight to what has occurred with the program.

by wmterp on Oct 21, 2009 5:30 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Actually, that's kind of the point

We’ve been consistently bad stats-wise. You can only win so much with terrible stats. The good seasons were outliers, not actually caused by good play. If they were, at least one of the categories would see a big jump.

by Ben Broman on Oct 22, 2009 8:03 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Broman, we did see a big jump in two categories in '07 and still dropped to 6-7.

Even if 9-4 and 8-5 were outliers, you would expect some change in ’07 from the norm which was one game under .500, i.e., 5-6 and 5-6. Scoring O dropped that year to 86 from 74 but we had big improvements in both Scoring D and TOs. Still we were one game under .500. Using your hypothesis, it means we were lucky in ’06 and unlucky in ’07, and lucky again in ’08. Are you throwing out ’07 as an outlier as well?

Sorry, it is interesting but not a convincing argument to me.

by wmterp on Oct 22, 2009 11:02 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Good point

You could still spin that, saying the wins were lucky and then, with an improved team and no luck, he was unable to capitalize, but I won’t. In 07, the jumps came defensively, and we actually regressed offensively. A slightly above average defense and a terrible offense isn’t enough to win games with no luck.

Agree to disagree.

by Ben Broman on Oct 23, 2009 3:29 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs