[I've updated an older post since this season is complete]
The following is an
analysis of the Blake James era as it pertains to
actual on the field performance from our football team. Although Blake James was appointed as interim athletic director in October, 2012, he wasn’t officially named athletic director until February, 2013.
I will not hold the results of the interim period against him, although they would further tarnish his tenure (we went 3-4 after he was appointed interim AD). Discounting the interim period, we’re left with seven full seasons to evaluate his performance.
An Analysis of the results of 91 Games between 2013-2019
Since 2013, we’ve played 91 football games. During that span, we’ve had three head coaches: (1) Al Golden, (2) Mark Richt and (3) Manny Diaz.
The results of those 91 football games have been pretty “consistent”…
Total Games Played: 91
Overall Record: 55-36 (60%)
Average Overall Record 7.9 – 5.1
Total Conference Games Played: 56
Overall Conference Record: 33-23 (59%)
Average Overall Conference Record: 4.7 - 3.3
Average Finish/Place in the Coastal: 3.2
No matter who we play, we’ve lost ~ 41% of our games. We’ve consistently finished in the middle of the Coastal Division and this division features a subpar group of teams. I examined those 36 losses and I came up with the following:
- 21 (58.3%) were to teams who finished the season unranked.
- 9 (25.0%) were to teams who finished the season ranked in the top 10.
- Our average margin of loss was 13.9 PPG.
- 21 (58.3%) were lost by at least 10 points.
As logic dictates, the better the opponent, the more difficult it is to win. I understand it is difficult to beat top 10 opponents, I can easily discount those 9 losses (this doesn’t mean I find it acceptable to lose those games). With that said, I would like to focus on these 21 losses to unranked teams because that is the point of this analysis.
A competent coach is able to put their players in the best position to succeed. A competent coach is able to limit mistakes. A competent coach is able to out coach inferior coaches and inferior teams. A competent coach is able to perform better in those 15 games. We haven’t had a competent coach during this era. We haven’t had a competent coach in a long time.
At the very least, we should be able to bring in a competent coach. At the very least, a competent coach should be able to win 70% of those 21 games. If we won 15 of those 21 games, we’re looking at an overall record of 70-21 (76.9%). Obviously, a competent coach gives us a better chance to win games against ranked opponents, but that isn’t the point. I am simply pointing out that we’re consistently losing to subpar teams and it is easy to see how we arrived here.
