Howard Schnellenberger
Now
Career arc
Bowls and playoffs: 6-0
1980Peach BowlW 20-10
1983Orange BowlW 31-30
Louisville
1990Fiesta BowlW 34-7
1993Liberty BowlW 18-7Florida Atlantic
2007New Orleans BowlW 44-27
2008Motor City BowlW 24-21
Report card
Below the median offense — 38th percentile.
Florida Atlantic, 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.
6-2 against his rivals at Miami. Nobody he faced three or more times there has a winning record against him.
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.
4-5 against his rivals at Louisville. Winless in 3 tries against Bobby Bowden.
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 at Oklahoma.
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.
Just 1-5 against Rick Stockstill.
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.
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.
10-8 against his rivals. Just 1-5 against Rick Stockstill.
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.
2,773 run and pass snaps at Florida Atlantic, 2005–2011, 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
Four numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
Followed him here
Louisville→
Oklahoma1995Players who transferred from his old program to his new one through the portal in the same year he made the move. Name-matching across data sources misses some, so every count is a floor, not an exact number.
Roster ownership
Roster ownership
of his 2011 roster arrived on his watch — 118 of 118 players. Nobody is left from before he was hired.
This coach's entire tenure (2004-2011) 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: 55 of 58 signees (95%) across his 2004–2011 tenure, drawn from 4 states in all. Next: AR (1).
- median hometown distance
- 106 mi
- within 100 mi
- 48%
- within 500 mi
- 90%
- beyond 1,000 mi
- 4%
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.
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | R6.03 | Alfred Morris | Running Back |  Washington Redskins | Estimated |
| 2011 | R3.05 | Robert Housler | Tight End |  Arizona Cardinals | Estimated |
| 2010 | R6.07 | Rusty Smith | Quarterback |  Tennessee Titans | 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.
Builder meaningfully raised a program that wasn't one · Inheritor inherited a power and neither built it higher nor let it collapse · Steady no large move in either direction on our stature ladder
6th-best Florida Atlantic tenure of 9 by the numbers.
Succeeded by Carl Pelini (2012–2013).
| Season | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||||||||
| Record | 9-3 | 2-9 | 5-7 | 8-5 | 7-6 | 5-7 | 4-8 | 1-11 | |
| Postseason | — | — | — | W bowl | W bowl | — | — | — | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||||||||
| Offense | — | 15 | 28 | 51 | 76 | 84 | 5 | 6 | |
| Defense | — | 65 | 60 | 52 | 40 | 2 | 43 | 20 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||||||||
| 1st-down pass% | — | 37.7 | 52.4 | 46.9 | 47.6 | 47.9 | 43.2 | 44.0 | |
| Red-zone pass% | — | — | — | 42.3 | 49.6 | 47.1 | 38.2 | 50.0 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | — | — | — | 26.7 | 28.6 | 31.4 | 34.8 | 31.8 | |
Followed Gary Gibbs (1989–1994) · succeeded by John Blake (1996–1998).
13th-best Louisville tenure of 15 by the numbers.
Followed Bob Weber (1980–1984) · succeeded by Ron Cooper (1995–1997).
| Season | 1985 | 1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||||||||||
| Record | 2-9 | 3-8 | 3-7-1 | 8-3 | 6-5 | 10-1-1 | 2-9 | 5-6 | 9-3 | 6-5 | |
| Postseason | — | — | — | — | — | W bowl | — | — | W 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 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
9 NFL Draft picks: Ernest Givins (1986), Bruce Armstrong (1987), Carwell Gardner (1990), Ted Washington (1991), Browning Nagle (1991), Ray Buchanan (1993), Deral Boykin (1993), Joe Johnson (1994) + 1 more
8th-best Miami tenure of 20 by the numbers.
Followed Lou Saban (1977–1978) · succeeded by Jimmy Johnson (1984–1988).
| Season | 1979 | 1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | ||||||
| Record | 5-6 | 9-3 | 9-2 | 7-4 | 11-1 | |
| Postseason | — | W bowl | — | — | W 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 | — | — | — | — | — | |
13 NFL Draft picks: John Swain (1981), Lester Williams (1982), Fred Marion (1982), Bob Nelson (1982), Jim Kelly (1983), Mark Cooper (1983), Mark Rush (1983), Tony Chickillo (1983) + 5 more
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.
1st all-time at Florida Atlantic
Was he good?
Only one of the usual three angles is measurable for this era — raised the program.
+14.3 pts at Miami · #130 of 1290 · top quarter