Now
Career arc
Bowls and playoffs: 0-2
1998Outback BowlL 14-26
1999Music City BowlL 13-20Report card
Below the median offense — 44th percentile.
New Mexico State, every completed season graded against the whole field, then averaged.
Offense
Each season is his team’s percentile among every team with that stat (the share it beat), averaged over his completed seasons here; a mid-season takeover year and the season in progress aren’t graded. Letters: A+ 90th percentile and up, A 80, B+ 70, B 60, B− 50, C+ 45, C 40, C− 30, D 15, F below.
Stats
Big games
Pick a job to see its years on their own.
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.
2-6 against his rivals at Kentucky. Winless in 4 tries against Jim Donnan.
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.
0-4 against his rivals at New Mexico State. Winless in 4 tries against Dick Tomey.
Signature games
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
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.
2-10 against his rivals. Winless in 4 tries against Dick Tomey.
Signature games
These losses tie at the model's current max -- an editorial pick among a real tie, not a clean ranking.
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.
1,056 run and pass snaps at New Mexico State, 2005–2008, 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.
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.
Season-to-season pass-rate range for all 449 FBS coaching stints with at least three covered seasons, 2004–2025.
Building the roster
Two numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
Roster ownership
Roster ownership
of his 2008 roster arrived on his watch — 25 of 26 players. The other 1 is a holdover from before he was hired.
This coach's entire tenure (2005-2008) 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: 21 of 70 signees (30%) across his 2005–2008 tenure, drawn from 11 states in all. Next: CA (16).
46% of his signees come from TX and its 4 border states (LA 6, NM 5).
Off this map: 2 signees to the east (NJ 2). 3 signees without a plottable hometown location not shown.
- median hometown distance
- 762 mi
- within 100 mi
- 0%
- within 500 mi
- 6%
- beyond 1,000 mi
- 25%
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.
Career
Coaching career
The arc of his career is on Now.
Steady no large move in either direction on our stature ladder
11th-best New Mexico State tenure of 20 by the numbers.
Followed Tony Samuel (1997–2004) · succeeded by DeWayne Walker (2009–2012).
| Season | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||||
| Record | 0-12 | 4-8 | 4-9 | 3-9 | |
| Postseason | — | — | — | — | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||||
| Offense | 19 | 68 | 42 | 27 | |
| Defense | 45 | 36 | 29 | 15 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||||
| 1st-down pass% | 66.1 | 71.6 | 59.4 | 64.7 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 63.6 | 65.5 | 64.4 | 70.0 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | — | 66.7 | 38.2 | 61.5 | |
15th-best Kentucky tenure of 16 by the numbers.
Followed Bill Curry (1990–1996) · succeeded by Guy Morriss (2001–2002).
| Season | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||||
| Record | 5-6 | 7-5 | 6-6 | 2-9 | |
| Postseason | — | L bowl | L bowl | — | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||||
| Offense | — | — | — | — | |
| Defense | — | — | — | — | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||||
| 1st-down pass% | — | — | — | — | |
| Red-zone pass% | — | — | — | — | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | — | — | — | — | |
7 NFL Draft picks: Kio Sanford (1998), Tim Couch (1999), Craig Yeast (1999), James Whalen (2000), Eric Kelly (2001), Marlon McCree (2001), Quentin McCord (2001)
Was he good?
Only one of the usual three angles is measurable for this era — raised the program.
+5.1 pts at Kentucky · #380 of 1290 · middle half