Bob Pruett
Now
Career arc
Bowls and playoffs: 5-2
1997Motor City BowlL 31-34
1998Motor City BowlW 48-29
1999Motor City BowlW 21-3
2000Motor City BowlW 25-14
2001GMAC BowlW 64-61
2002GMAC BowlW 38-15
2004Fort Worth BowlL 14-32Stats
Big games
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
0-1 against his rivals. Just 1-2 against Larry Blakeney.
Signature games
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
How he plays
Run/pass mix, by field position
Called about what the situation called for.
129 run and pass snaps at Marshall, 2004–2004, his own games, one row per offensive coordinator. Each cell is how much more often he passed than the rest of FBS did in the same situation (field zone, down, distance, score, quarter, same season), in percentage points. Play-by-play starts in 2004, so his earlier seasons there aren’t in it.
Pass rate, stint by stint
Where each stint’s offense sat between run-first and pass-first, and how far it moved from one season to the next, against the FBS-wide average of 41% pass. The band is that stint’s real season-to-season range, not a fixed-width box.
Building the roster
Three numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
Roster ownership
Roster ownership
of his 2004 roster arrived on his watch — 32 of 32 players. Nobody is left from before he was hired.
This coach's entire tenure (1997-2004) predates 2021, when transfer-portal tracking begins in this database. Portal usage cannot be measured for this tenure at all -- this is not the same as '0% portal'.
“His own” means the player arrived while he was head coach; “inherited” means a predecessor brought him in.
Where he recruits
is his biggest recruiting state: 7 of 43 signees (16%) across his 2002–2004 classes on record (his tenure ran 1997–2004), drawn from 17 states in all. Next: KY (4).
53% of his signees come from WV and its 5 border states (KY 4, OH 4, PA 3, VA 3, MD 2).
Off this map: 3 signees to the west (CA 3).
The map counts signed recruits across his tenure; the distance figures cover his current roster, transfers and walk-ons included. Two different groups, kept separate on purpose.
The NFL pipeline
The NFL pipeline
players drafted into the NFL off his teams here. None can be traced to who brought them in — there’s no roster record for these players here. 3 went in the first round.
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | R6.32 | Johnathan Goddard | Linebacker |  Detroit Lions | Estimated |
| 2004 | R2.22 | Darius Watts | Wide Receiver |  Denver Broncos | Estimated |
| 2003 | R1.07 | Byron Leftwich | Quarterback |  Jacksonville Jaguars | Estimated |
| 2003 | R3.20 | Chris Crocker | Defensive Back |  Cleveland Browns | Estimated |
| 2003 | R4.25 | Steve Sciullo | Offensive Tackle |  Indianapolis Colts | Estimated |
| 2002 | R7.32 | Chris Massey | Center |  St. Louis Rams | Estimated |
| 2001 | R2.20 | Paul Toviessi | Defensive End |  Denver Broncos | Estimated |
| 2000 | R1.18 | Chad Pennington | Quarterback |  New York Jets | Estimated |
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | R2.12 | Rogers Beckett | Defensive Back |  San Diego Chargers | Estimated |
| 2000 | R3.26 | Doug Chapman | Running Back |  Minnesota Vikings | Estimated |
| 2000 | R6.09 | James Williams | Wide Receiver |  Seattle Seahawks | Estimated |
| 1998 | R1.21 | Randy Moss | Wide Receiver | Minnesota Vikings | Estimated |
| 1998 | R5.25 | John Wade | Center |  Jacksonville Jaguars | Estimated |
A pick counts toward his tenure when the player’s final college season was one he coached, a checkable rule rather than a claim about who developed the player. A blank note means the player is on a verified roster and arrived on his watch. “Estimated” means no roster record, so the final season is assumed to be the year before the draft.
Career
Coaching career
The arc of his career is on Now.
Steady no large move in either direction on our stature ladder
1st-best Marshall tenure of 11 by the numbers.
Followed Sonny Randle (1979–1981) · succeeded by Mark Snyder (2005–2009).
| Season | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||||||||
| Record | 10-3 | 12-1 | 13-0 | 8-5 | 11-2 | 11-2 | 8-4 | 6-6 | |
| Postseason | L bowl | W bowl | W bowl | W bowl | W bowl | W bowl | — | L bowl | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||||||||
| Offense | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 8 | |
| Defense | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 48 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||||||||
| 1st-down pass% | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 39.4 | |
| Red-zone pass% | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 33.3 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
All-time wins
Wins at programs this site tracks, 1936–present — one consistent count for every coach, not each program’s own historically reported total.
2nd all-time at Marshall