College Football, Florida Gators

Coaching quality: The Case against Kirby Smart (and for Dan Mullen)

Kirby Smart is a great recruiter, but an average coach. Dan Mullen is an average recruiter, but a great coach.

Both fan bases may view that characterization as a swipe, but it’s true based on objective data.

Support my daughter by buying her book. Aimed at ages 3-8, it has a Gator family defeating Florida’s rivals to accomplish their goals together.

I’ve written a lot about recruiting, both because it is important and because it is the one area that if Mullen could improve, I believe he’d win at a championship-level consistently. Though without truly elite recruiting, Mullen makes things fun for me because it forces the question of whether coaching or recruiting is truly the difference maker.

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Smart helps force the question in the other direction. There’s no doubt that he is an elite recruiter, on-par with his mentor Nick Saban. That has paid off the past three seasons as Georgia has won the SEC East three straight times and has one SEC Championship.

And while Georgia fans might rue as bad luck the blown coverage against Alabama in the National Championship Game two years ago, the truth is that you can find plays in that game – and others – where Smart has made the wrong coaching decision.

It turns out, that shows up in the numbers.

If you’ve spent any time on Twitter, you’ve probably seen a meme showing that Mark Richt’s first four years at Georgia produced one SEC Championship and a 42-10 (.808) record. That same meme points out that Smart’s record in his first four seasons is 44-12 (.786), also with one SEC Championship.

But forget about Richt’s first four years, Smart’s .786 winning percentage is only slightly better than Richt’s last four seasons (.755). I think it’s a valid question to ask whether Smart is just Richt but with slightly better players.

That shows up if you look at how Smart has fared using ESPN’s FPI.

Average recruiting rank against average ESPN FPI ranking for a group of SEC head coaches. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)

This is a list of SEC coaches who showed up on 247Sports list of the 25 best coaches in college football. But what I’ve done is looked at how they’ve recruited (since 2011) versus how their teams have performed.

What you see is that Mike Leach and Dan Mullen are the only coaches who have outperformed their recruiting ranking. Kirby Smart ends up third from the bottom. And yes, this is impacted by his first season in Athens, but that excuse hasn’t drug Mullen down, now has it?

But let’s compare Smart to Richt. From 2011-2015, Richt averaged a national recruiting ranking of 8.4, but his teams finished with an average FPI of 12.0, better than Smart’s 13.0. Meanwhile, Mullen’s predecessor’s had a recruiting average of 10.0 and an FPI of 28.1 while Mullen has a recruiting average of 12.5 with an FPI of 10.0 in his two years at Florida.

Still not convinced Mullen is superior at developing and getting talent to perform?

For the 2016 and 2017 seasons, I examined how often teams with more talent win against more talented and less talented opponents. Here’s the result.

How teams of varying talent (as measured by the 247Sports roster ratings) faired against more and less talented opponents in 2016 and 2017. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)

Teams with Smart’s talent profile (1-10) win against more talented teams 38.5 percent of the time and against less talented teams 78.9 percent of the time. Teams with Mullen’s talent profile (20-30 at Mississippi State and 10-20 at Florida) win much less often.

But that’s not what’s happened in real life.

Kirby Smart and Dan Mullen’s records against more talented, less talented and top-25 talented opponents. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)

Since 2016, Smart has put up an oh-fer against more talented teams while Mullen has won 50 percent of his games. Mullen has actually out performed Smart against less talented teams too, though Smart has won those games at an acceptable clip.

But the thing that shocked me when I compiled these numbers is the last column. Both Smart and Mullen have identical 17-10 records against teams with top-25 talent (according to 247Sports roster rankings). That’s in a situation where Smart had more talent than 25 of his 27 opponents while Mullen only had more talent than 5 of his.

It also includes two years where Mullen was at Mississippi State. In those seasons, Mullen went 6-7 against Top-25 talent. With the talent upgrade he’s enjoyed at Florida, he’s 11-2 against Top-25 talented teams since becoming a Gator while Smart is 9-5 during those seasons.

So maybe Georgia just faced more difficult opponents? Nope.

Since 2016, Mullen has lost to only one team with a talent ranking outside of the top-10 (Ole Miss, ranked 18th in 2017). His other losses have come to the big boys: Alabama, LSU, Georgia and Auburn. The average talent ranking of his losses: 5.3

Meanwhile, Smart has lost to four teams outside of the top-10 (Tennessee (14), Florida (15) and Ole Miss (16) in 2016 and South Carolina (21) in 2019). The average talent ranking of his losses: 9.8. He’s 2-6 against top-10 talented teams, 0-4 in the last two seasons.

In that same timeframe, Mullen has defeated five teams ranked in the top-10 of the talent rankings (2017 LSU (6), 2018 LSU (7), 2018 FSU (5), 2018 Michigan (8), 2019 FSU (6)). Smart has only defeated one top-10 talented team in the same timeframe (2016 Auburn (7)).

The average talent ranking of wins for Mullen is 14.5 against 14.7 for Smart.

Takeaway

None of this takes away the fact that Georgia has now won three straight against Florida, two against Mullen. It turns out, Smart’s teams are able to flex their muscles against teams with slightly less talent than them.

But even the playing field, and Smart immediately starts to look mortal. In fact, even the playing field and he starts to look like a fairly pedestrian coach.

You can actually see this even further if you look at the 2017 recruiting class. Georgia has had seven players drafted from that class. But Jacob Eason transferred, Isaac Nauta underperformed and only one 3-star recruit (Solomon Kindley) was drafted out of eight 3-star recruits (12.5%).

Again, compare to Mullen’s 2017 class at Florida (which he didn’t recruit). He also had seven players drafted. But four of those players were 3-star recruits: Lamical Perine, Vosean Joseph, Jachai Polite and Jawaan Taylor. All four of them were drafted higher than Kindley.

It’s incredibly frustrating (as a Florida fan) to know that all the numbers point towards having a better on-field coach but getting your butt kicked repeatedly on the recruiting trail. But I’d be equally frustrated as a Georgia fan watching Smart blow the immense talent advantage he has against teams Georgia has no business losing to.

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South Carolina last year is just one example. He has made coaching decisions that cost Georgia dearly each of the last two times they’ve faced Alabama. His team came out completely unprepared against LSU in a 36-16 drubbing in 2018 and looked completely uncompetitive against the Tigers in the SEC Championship Game in 2019.

Now he has to break in a new quarterback, manage a QB controversy now that J.T. Daniels is eligible, and integrate a new offensive system with Covid-19 swirling around the program.

Hall of Fame 49ers Coach Bill Walsh, in his seminal book “Finding the Winning Edge”, stated the following in the very first page of his book.

“Over the years, I have always accepted the fact that one of the most critical roles a coach has is to utilize his players to their full potential. Against equal competition, great coaches are distinguished by their ability to fully utilize the talents of their individual players.”

He’s describing Dan Mullen, not Kirby Smart.

Featured image used under Creative Commons license courtesy Matt Velazquez

 

42 Comments

  1. Bob Wiley

    EXCELLENT piece Will. Thanks for all you do for a starving fan base. Keep it up!

  2. Tom

    Kirby’s created another QB situation at UGA, that I feel its only a matter of time before it becomes just another example of Kirby miss-handling talent. At one point before moving from GA and back to FL, I told some of my die-hard UGA co-workers I felt Kirby was nothing more than just another Mark Richt but on steroids from a recruiting standpoint……..they laughed at me for saying that as just hating on UGA, I believe it was me just being honest about the situation as I saw it then and still today.

  3. JEFF LOPEZ

    Will have you figured out the reason why Mullen can’t recruit on an elite level? Is it him and/or his staff’s lack of ability or desire to recruit? I can’t imagine it is all on the facilities.

  4. Steven Schweiger

    Will:

    Great article. I”d like to send this to every recruit who is torn between Florida and UGA. Why would you even consider UGA?

    • Robert N.

      Mullen has an 8-year head start on Smart as a head coach. How about a relative comparison of each’s first 4 years as the man in charge.

      • Comment by post author

        Will Miles

        Not a bad idea to look at. But I still think it matters more where they are rather than where they may end up 8 years from now.

        • Shadrach

          What matters most is head-to-head. What are those Mullen-Smart splits? What makes me laugh is watching a seasoned, veteran head coach in Mullen make tactical blunders in each of his Cocktail Party losses. Who’s team was better prepared? I think you know the answer to that question.

          • Comment by post author

            Will Miles

            Head to head certainly matters for winning the East. But tactical blunders have been a specialty for Kirby. And not just in his first year, which seems to be the go-to excuse for Georgia fans.

          • Shadrach

            But, but, but…..Nice whattabout-ism there Will. Can’t bring yourself to acknowledge in head to head Kirby has performed better than Mullen. Tough to be a Gator when Smart is at Georgia.

          • Comment by post author

            Will Miles

            Ummm…I’m pretty sure I mentioned in the article that Mullen is 0-2 against Georgia while at Florida. Read some of my other stuff. I’ve been plenty critical of Mullen. And he got outcoached last year against UGA. I don’t think he did two years ago. And the article was looking at the total body of work.

            So I guess you think Orgeron is a way better coach than Kirby?

    • J

      Wins, conference titles, playoff appearances, beating uf on the regular…just to name a few

  5. Peter Brigham

    Punt Kirby, punt!

  6. The Big Dawg

    Mullen is better than Kirby?? The same Mullen at UF who is 0-3 against UGA??? The same Mullen who at MSU got his butt kicked by…. guess who?? KIRBY SMART! Oh.. and by the way… Recruiting at an elite level IS part of what great coaches do!! Taking a TRUE freshman 2nd string QB to the National Championship game is an excellent source of why Kirby is an elite coach! Don’t twist the narrative dude. Until Mullen wins ANYTHING, ANYTHING, he’s nowhere near the level of Kirby! Absolutely Ridiculous!😂😂😂

    • Comment by post author

      Will Miles

      Kirby’s losing against teams he should win. Full stop. Saban doesn’t lose those games, and Mullen doesn’t lose those games either.

      If you actually read anything I wrote non-Georgia, you’d know I’ve been really critical of Mullen’s recruiting. But that doesn’t change the fact that Kirby found a way to out-Muschamp Muschamp last season. That SCe loss was and is inexcusable. The LSU loss in 2018, getting the doors blown off, was inexcusable. The Tennessee hail mary loss was inexcusable.

      • dawgfan1995

        “Kirby’s losing against teams he should win. Full stop. Saban doesn’t lose those games, and Mullen doesn’t lose those games either.”

        I didn’t believe you so I looked at your numbers. And, the numbers clearly support this: Mullen has won 83.3% of his games — 25 of 30 — versus less talented teams. Kirby sucks, though, so he’s only won….81.5% of those games — 44 of 54.

        Wait…that’s only a difference in winning percentage of 1.8%. That’s “Kirby losing” versus “Mullen not losing”? You must have been a history major.

        • Comment by post author

          Will Miles

          Chemical Engineering. The Top-25 talent opponent that he’s always more talented than is the column I’m looking at. When the talent ramps up, he’s winning the exact same amount as Mullen even though Mullen has had less talented teams.

      • CFB 2020 or Bust

        That’s not necessarily true. In your article, many of Kirby’s bad losses came in his first year, which you acknowledge. Take a look at Saban’s first year at Bama. He went 6-6, dropping games to plenty of teams he should’ve beat. Including UL-Monroe.

        I think a lot of that can be attributed to coaching style/philosophy. Saban and Kirby chose to immediately implement their coaching systems in year 1, regardless whether it fit their existing personnel. For example, relying heavily on a man-blocking scheme vs zone-blocking despite having an undersized OL. They did this with the knowledge that maybe it would hurt in the short term.

        I say none of this to discredit Mullen, he’s a great coach, instead to offer a different perspective. Allowing year 1 to bias the data is somewhat misleading. Especially because year 1 for Kirbs at UGA was his very first year as a HC while Mullen’s first year at UF was his 9th. You might not be comparing apples to apples there mate bc since year 1 Kirby has only lost 1 division game in the East. He might be getting the hang of it.

        • CFB 2020 or Bust

          Also, take a first look at Dan Mullen’s true first year as a HC at MSU. He went 5-7 with plenty of losses to inferior teams.

          • Comment by post author

            Will Miles

            There weren’t a lot of teams with inferior rosters to Miss State in Mullen’s first year. Croom did an absolutely attrocious job of accumulating talent.

      • Shadrach

        Was it inexcusable for Mullen losing to UK? Or getting his doors blown off by Smart when he rolled into Athens with his last, ranked and seasoned MSU team?

        Smart has also won a playoff game as an underdog against a Heisman-winning QB leading a record-setting offense. I scanned Mullen’s resume. Nothing close to that Dan’s ledger.

        Be a homer, but be prepared to ultimately acknowledge that Smart is likely the superior coach when it comes to handling all aspects of a program….and beating Mullen coached teams.

        • Comment by post author

          Will Miles

          He had more talent than Oklahoma and it isn’t even close. Win a game against a team with equivalent talent just once and I’ll agree with you.

          • Shadrach

            Tough being a Gator while Smart’s team is running the East.

            Winning. It’s what matters.

            You sound like a sour Georgia fan circa 1996.

          • Comment by post author

            Will Miles

            Or since 1981

          • Shadrach

            Nice dodge of my questions.

          • Comment by post author

            Will Miles

            Kentucky unacceptable but probably necessary to get the players’ attention. The Miss State loss to Georgia in ’17 just reinforces my point. It’s easy to roll into a game with far superior talent and win. As for the homer charge, I suspect we both could be accused of that.

  7. I don’t disagree with Big Dawg: Even as a Gator I have to acknowledge that head to head (UF & MSU, assuming the whole “0-3” bit) Kirby’s kickers Dan’s ass. I love the comparisons and all the positivity for Dan, but he and his staff have NOT looked like they were head and shoulders better coaches in the Cocktail Party. Just a hard cold fact. I hate making excuses. Win on the field or lose with grace/tip your hat to your competitor for having the better team/game plan.

    None the less, so appreciate your writing an analysis Will. Whether it shows Florida in a positive light or not. I for one just have to give Kirby a ton of credit as he reminds me of the effect SOS had on our program: he bleeds for his Bulldogs and it’s showing up in the growth and success of the program. That said, I’m thankful for Dan as I do believe he’s an incredibly talented coach. I just hope he can figure out the talent acquisition issue and show up more fully prepared when next the Gators face UGA.

    • Comment by post author

      Will Miles

      I just think it’s shortsighted to say “Kirby is 3-0 against Dan so he’s better.” Dan clearly had a talent handicap at Mississippi State and has had one at Florida in his two years as well, though some of that is his own making. In a broad spectrum view, he has done more with less while Smart has done less with more. I’d really like to see what Mullen could do with more.

      • JEFF LOPEZ

        I agree, but with his inability to recruit at an elite level, will Mullen ever have more than Smart????

  8. J

    Thanks for the belly laugh……..no one takes MuLLLen over Kirbs, no one.

    • Shadrach

      Will does, because of a stats analysis, not wins. Funny stuff.

      • Comment by post author

        Will Miles

        This is a misrepresentation of my position. I suspect that Smart’s recruiting is going to win out over Florida regularly (and have written repeatedly that I think this). But the ONLY reason Florida has a chance is because you can see games and players being mismanaged in the Georgia program repeatedly. I know what it feels like to know your coach is going to deliver in a big game: big time game plan and going for the jugular when you get even the slightest advantage. Getting conservative in today’s college football is garbage coaching, and Smart has shown that repeatedly.

  9. Jack

    First, let’s take a look at Mullen and Kirby’s actual performance versus Top 25 opponents in the four years you mentioned. These are final rankings, not ranking at time of game (a useless metric). Kirby is CLEARLY outperforming Mullen, even if you compress the comparison to Mullen’s Florida tenure.

    MULLEN
    2016: 0-3
    2017: 1-3
    2018: 2-1
    2019: 1-2
    TOTAL: 4-9 (.308)
    TOTAL SINCE 2018: 3-3 (.500)

    KIRBY
    2016: 1-2
    2017: 4-2
    2018: 2-3
    2019: 4-1
    TOTAL: 11-8 (.579)
    TOTAL SINCE 2018: (.600)

    Again, Kirby is clearly outperforming Mullen against Top 25 competition. Next:

    “So maybe Georgia just faced more difficult opponents? Nope.”

    Um what??? First, the data above clearly shows Georgia has played tougher opponents the last four years. But even if you don’t have that in front of you, how do you possibly believe that Georgia – which has played in three straight SEC championships, a CFP Playoff game, a National Championship, and a Sugar Bowl — hasn’t played tougher opponents? That is willful ignorance.

    Florida fans are desperate to prove that Mullen is a vastly superior “on-field” coach because they’ve come to grips with never outrecruiting Kirby. But the “on-field” results completely fail to back up their premise:
    -Kirby is 3-0 against Mullen head to head (Vegas had all three matchups within a TD or less)
    -Kirby has three division titles, Mullen has zero
    -Kirby has an SEC Championship, Mullen has zero
    -Kirby has a CFP Playoff and Natty appearance, Mullen has neither

    • Comment by post author

      Will Miles

      I didn’t use rankings at time of game. I used talent rankings. Because that has to do with whether he actually is coaching to his talent level, not whether he beat a Missouri team that snuck into the top-25 at the end of the year.

  10. Brian Rodgers

    Wow, that’s the UGA nincompoopery is out in full force. They state the statistics in the face and it just doesn’t matter. Will says he’d like to see what the clearly better coach Mullen could do with more. Me too. I know that UGA fans don’t want to see what Kirby can do with less. It’d hurt their feelings too much.

  11. Marlon

    The recruiting rankings vs fpi on kirby is deliberately skewed by his first season as a head coach ever, take that out and he’s much better. You managed to do a great job of cherry picking stats that make mullen seem better. Mullen is a very good coach but I think you’re fooling yourself with this stuff.

    • Comment by post author

      Will Miles

      Mullen took over a 4-7 Florida team in 2018 and delivered a top-10 FPI performance. Kirby took over a team that went 10-3 (19th FPI) the year before and finished 8-5. He’s 0-4 against top-10 talent the past 2 years. He is a hell of a recruiter, but I don’t have to cherry pick stats to find areas where his on-field record is suspect.

  12. Mike Wood

    Excellent article.

    A thought of mine. Last year it seemed like the Georgia QB played awful, then the UF game played awesome. Why I don’t understand. But it seemed to me he played his very best game in Jax. It does seem that Kirby intends to win that one game. I hope Mullen can find a way to change it. This is certainly the year. If we play football.

    • Comment by post author

      Will Miles

      Florida couldn’t get any pass rush and Fromm took advantage. Grantham didn’t want to blitz because he didn’t trust his safeties in coverage. The blown coverage again Cager was a microcosm of the problem.

  13. Kirby McDerpFace

    DAn MuLLeN iS a WAy bETteR COaCh tHAn KIrbY McDerpFace!!!

    …Mullen proceeds to blow two timeouts within the first 3 minutes and 18 seconds of the UGA game. On a drive that ended in a failed 4th down conversion on the UGA 40. It was also revealed that UF offensive personnel had the wrong wrist bands. All this coming after a bye week…

    Mullen is a better Offensive Coordinator than Kirby. I think everyone would concede this point. But Head Coach is much more than x’s & o’s (manager, recruiter, motivator, etc.). In that regard, Kirby is lightyears ahead of Mullen as a head coach.

  14. Brandon

    Anyone with a cursory understanding of statistical analysis is shaking their head at this article.

  15. Robert

    I have a question for you Will that I havent heard addressed from anyone yet regarding UGA and would like you opinion. With UGA changing there offense, do you think their defense takes a hit? Everyone is predicting this year to be the best defense Kirby has ever had. But history shows in most cases when these type of teams change to faster paced offense the defense usually takes a hit. Even Bama hasnt found the same success on that side of the ball since converting. I think we could see the same type of thing happen with uga. I was wondering if you had looked I to this at all wotg your data.