success for post-Rockne HC's at ND. Leahy, Devine, and Holtz won major bowls at other programs before winning titles at ND. Parseghian got N'western to its only #1 ranking in program history and he did very well @ Miami U.

Brennan, Faust, Davie & CW had no experience as a CFB HC. TW was 44-36 at the Farm (including 2 narrow wins over Davie ND teams that could've gone the other way). He was the only ND HC w/ prior CFB experience between 1997-2009.

BK's pre-ND tenure was roughly consistent w/ his ND tenure. His pre-ND record in top tier bowls was 100% consistent w/ his ND record.

Perhaps Freeman will defy past trends. I do note that he's the only ND HC to hold a lead in the 2d half of a top-tier bowl since 1/1/96.

Leahy, Parseghian, Devine, or Holtz.

There is no correlation between prior FBS head coaching success and future success in the modern game. However, you could argue that you need said success at Notre Dame specifically. Even there, though, I would say that's a case of correlation not equaling causation. Can anyone point to why you need that experience specifically at Notre Dame to win big versus, say, USC, Georgia, Clemson, etc?

If Kirby Smart came here instead of Georgia, does anyone doubt he'd be doing an outstanding job in South Bend?

The fact of the matter is that unless you're hiring someone like Saban or Meyer(not at all realistic at this point) anyone you hire is a gamble. Including those with decades of experience at the FBS head coaching level.

However, I don't think it is comparable to Davie, TW, or Weis. I felt only disgust for Davie, and zero confidence in Willingham and Weis. I feel much more confident with Freeman. Well, now we will see.

Dabo Swinney, Kirby Smart, Ryan Day, Lincoln Riley (at Oklahoma), Luke Fickell (unless you count his interim year at OSU, which I don’t really), Mike Gundy, Dave Aranda, Kyle Whittingham, Jimbo Fisher (at FSU, national champions). The head coaching experience group would include Saban of course and then I guess Harbaugh, Campbell, Kelly, Kiffin, Franklin, Ferentz (for three years at Maine in the early 90s, which isn’t much), Mack Brown and Cristobal? To me, the former group looks better than the latter overall. I’m possibly/likely forgetting some coach(es) on either list.

There have also been plenty of hot shot coaches that had success at Group of 5/lower Power 5 schools as head coaches who then failed as head coaches at more prestigious Power 5 schools (Tom Herman, Charlie Strong, Dan Mullen, Justin Fuente, Rich Rod, Hoke and our own Al Golden [who I think was a great DC hire for many reasons, including, ironically, his experience/lessons from failure at Miami], just to name a few).

To support a flimsy point.

You included more tha
several coaches who are far from "top tier".

Good grief.

I named all the coaches who could reasonably be considered the best in the game at the moment, and *then* listed if they are first-time coaches or have previous experience.

Go ahead and tighten the list. Obviously Saban’s at the top. He of course had experience prior to Bama (and LSU). But I think Swinney, Smart and Day would be in most top-five lists. They’re all first-time head coaches. I was overinclusive in my initial list, but if anything, if you tighten the list, the only “elite” current head coach with previous experience is Nick Saban.

If you want to say it’s not fair that I’m only including current college coaches and leaving out others like Meyer, Tressel, Carroll, etc., then that’s fine (although Bob Stoops from that generation was also a first-time head coach). From the current crop of what most would consider the best coaches in the game, about half, if not majority, are first-time head coaches.

It’s not a flimsy point. The point is simply that you don’t need to have previous head coaching experience to win/contend for a championship.

Since 2000, seven of the thirteen coaches who have won a title came to their teams having never been a head coach at the FBS level.

One could say that you have the same odds of striking gold by gambling on a newbie than you would by trying to go the route of experienced head coach.

For starters, who are we considering to be top tier right now? Saban is clearly #1(in history, not just now). Meyer is out of the game now but he would be #2. Then Dabo and Kirby. After that? It’s a lot more unclear.

So if the idea is that there are only 4 elite coaches right now, then 50% of them were first time HCs. If we expand it to the top 20 or so, it’s about 40% or so.

I don’t think it’s a ridiculous premise to say “first time head coaches have about the same rate of success as ones who have been head coaches previously”.

I’d take the chances of an unproven first time head coach to be great over an experienced head coach who has shown no indications of greatness.

The rating wasn’t specific to Freeman - I think I’d put a 4 next to any first time head coach. Though maybe a 3 for one with no major college recruiting experience.

As favorable to Freeman.