Interesting post here exploring the subject of how much of an advantage a bye week gives to P5 head coaches with four-plus years at their current post.
Answer: not much.
Of the same 28 Power head coaches mentioned above, only 7 (or 25%) have a better record coming off a bye week than they do in conference play.
It means that 75% of the most entrenched Power head coaches have a disadvantage, relative to their league record, after a week off.
With regard to those seven, the author did find one statistical correlation.
Though the seven exceptions appear to be as random as their counterparts with a disadvantage, they are bound by a common statistical thread – not one has a winning record at their current post against ranked opponents.
Petersen is 7-10 vs. the Top 25 at Washington, Kelly is 14-17 at Notre Dame, Malzahn is 14-16 at Auburn, Cutcliffe is 5-20 at Duke, Whittingham is 12-21 at Utah, Kingsbury is 2-18 at Texas Tech and Doeren is 2-11 at NC State.
The bigger the advantage a coach has coming off a bye, generally the lower his record is against the Top 25. Washington’s Petersen, who is 6.5% better after a week off than in Pac-12 play is 41.1% against Top 25 foes. Compare that to NC State’s Doeren who has a 22.5% advantage after a bye vs. a 15.4% record against ranked opponents.
I’d be interested in seeing the flip side to this — namely, what are the records of those P5 coaches against opponents coming off a bye week? (Particularly when it comes to Paul Johnson.)
Get The Picture 
Speaking of Jim Kelly, one of the greatest moments of my Georgia fandom was the realization after the fact (watching the replay) that ND was within an gnats ass of being run out of their own stadium by a Dawg team coming into it’s own. ND was worn out by the start of the 4th. To a point, I was ready to skip Samford and get to Missy State, Little Larry was much quieter than normal after the ND game.
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I want to know what they’re counting as a bye week. Because unless I’m missing something, Ohio State has had one by week a season under Meyer, and he has never lost after one. The only way I can see that they’re arriving at the number is by including bowl breaks, which are nothing like bye weeks.
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He never lost after a bye at Florida either, in case you’re wondering.
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And yet, he’s still a penis with ears.
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Of course. I just wanted to figure out what they were counting, and he was the first example. Saban, for what it’s worth, was 6-2 at LSU and is 10-4 at Alabama. What does it all mean? Without looking at who teams were playing after byes and comparing relative success against such teams on regular weeks, probably not much.
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Nothing wrong with your research. Just restating my opinion. 🙂 I couldn’t help myself.
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“Statistically, the higher ranked team does better coming off of a bye week.” – Mr. CFB
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“It means that 75% of the most entrenched Power head coaches have a disadvantage, relative to their league record, after a week off.”
No it doesn’t. If 25% have a better record after a bye, then 75% have an equal or worse record. And some of those worse records are probably so close to the normal % as to be statistically insignificant and the result of small samples.
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Haha, your conclusion wouldn’t get very many clicks though. Gotta make your articles a little more edgy.
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If the school is putting the bye week in front of the most difficult opponent, then of course their record in that game is going to be worse than in conference games as a whole. Bye weeks aren’t randomly placed on schedules.
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Part of this may be nobody schedules LA Tech after a by week. The cupcakes are weighted into the overall average, but the teams played after a bye week are generally better (I do not have a stat to back that up.)
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Different coaches have different philosophies on bye weeks and you should see those lead to different results.
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This seems counter-intuitive. Certainly, ALL of these coaches couldn’t be deciding to put Faton Bauta into the starting lineup during a bye week.
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