Mike Jacobs
Also coached below FBS: Mercer Bears 2024–25
Career arc
As of Fri Oct 23
- Last gameW 34-14 at Eastern Michigan Sat Oct 17
- This season5-2
- On track for9-3 regular season
- Nextvs. Western Michigan Sat Oct 24
- Stature46th of 138 FBS programs
Saturday: vs. Western Michigan
Sat Oct 24, 12 pm ET CBS Sports Network · Western Michigan is 5-2 · First meeting between Jacobs and Lance Taylor as head coaches · Toledo’s chance to win: 55% (the site’s model)
No headlines named him in the last 7 days
Offense: 49th of 138 per play. Defense: 54th.
5 games left
- Sat Oct 24vs. Western Michigan (5-2)CBS Sports Network55%
- Wed Nov 4at Sacramento State (1-6)97%
- Wed Nov 11vs. Massachusetts (4-3)87%
- Fri Nov 20vs. Bowling Green (2-5)
90% - Fri Nov 27at Ohio (5-2)54%
Percent: Toledo’s chance to win, from the site’s model. Records are through today. Networks as announced; the rest are set closer to kickoff.
How the season got here
Where Toledo stood among 138 FBS programs by stature after each game (1st is the highest; the CFB Zeitgeist ledger).
- Oct 12–18W 34-14 at Eastern Michigan0 headlines
- Oct 5–11L 8-23 vs. Buffalo0 headlines
- Sep 28–Oct 4W 39-24 at Ball State0 headlines
- Sep 21–27 · rebuiltW 41-16 vs. San Diego State0 headlines
- Sep 14–20 · rebuiltW 49-48 vs. Temple0 headlines
- Sep 7–13 · rebuiltW 63-10 vs. Central Connecticut1 headline · 92nd of 138Mike Jacobs gets 1st win at Toledo with 63-10 blowout of Central Connecticut State
Toledo Blade
Each week as this page showed it at the time. Weeks marked rebuilt came before this page existed: they were built afterward from only what was known by the end of that week.
Watch the biggest plays from Toledo’s games, ranked by how much each moved the chance to win.
5 stories about him in the last 60 days
Sat Oct 24: Western Michigan
from 3 outlets
Mike Jacobs gets 1st win at Toledo with 63-10 blowout of Central Connecticut State
Toledo Blade Sep 12 · 1 outlet
What they’re talking about
Win2 stories
7 stories about him this season
from 5 outlets
Mike Jacobs gets 1st win at Toledo with 63-10 blowout of Central Connecticut State
Toledo Blade Sep 12 · 1 outlet
What they’re talking about
Win2 stories
Could another school hire him? What has he said?
Stories are headlines grouped by what they are about, counted through Oct 23.
In his own words
Awaiting signal — no quotes collected from this staff yet this cycle.
Hires into jobs like this
Hired into 33–34, National Program II. Rough match, not calibrated yet — ranked on what the job inherited alone. Coaches hired into this same job aren’t used as comps.
- Tim Beckman20095–7-3.7
- Tom Amstutz200110–2+1.1
- Gary Pinkel19915–5+0.7
- Nick Saban19909–2+1.7
- Dan Simrell19826–5-0.5
- Chuck Stobart19772–9-4.8
- Jack Murphy197112–0+4.5
- Frank Lauterbur19632–7-5.2
Poach watch
This winter
Our poach model, on his record so far, the win chances for every game he has left, his program, his pay and his background. Ranked against the 137 FBS head coaches this season. The zone words describe the market’s interest; none of them says he is leaving.
What drives his number
The biggest factors in his profile, each against the typical FBS head coach today. The games he has left are priced into the number, not listed here.
- ▼ LowerHis first season at Toledo
- ▲ HigherNo record for him here before this season · his first year in the job
- ▲ HigherHis team is 5-2, outscoring opponents by 12.7 points a game
How good is this number? It ranks a head coach who leaves for another head-coaching job ahead of one who stays 78 to 82% of the time, and its average came within a point of the share who actually left. What it can’t do
Tested on every FBS head coach from 2012 through 2025, each season scored by a model fit only on the seasons before it. From three games on, given one coach who left for a head-coaching job elsewhere or an NFL coordinator job and one who stayed, it ranked the one who left ahead 79 to 82% of the time; in a season’s first two games, 78%. Its average chance came within a point of the share who actually left. It counts a move a coach makes while he still holds the job; when his school ends it, that doesn’t count, even if another school then hires him.
- The live number prices the games he has left with the power model’s ratings from this season. The test priced them with each team’s rating from the season before, because ratings made during past seasons were not kept, so this live version could not be replayed.
- Programs new to FBS have no FBS record before this season in the data it reads, so their coaches are scored without one.
- It is frozen: it learns nothing from 2026 until a deliberate refit.
- A coach hired in December needs his background (age, alma mater, the state he was born in) added before his first game, or he shows as not rated.
Coaching career
Followed Jason Candle (2015–2025).
Brings in smaller-than-position-typical players than most.
Recruits younger transfers than most — more of a development bet.
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.
ATS is his record against the spread: did his team beat the closing betting line, winning by more than it or losing by less? Lines start in 2013; a dash means fewer than 6 of those games had one. One-score games carry no spread record: a big favorite that wins a close game has almost always failed to cover, so that number would say nothing about the coach.
Style position and drift
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.
How good is he so far?
Three numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
His recruiting, really
No class below is fully his yet — every one was inherited or signed mid-transition, so none counts toward a verdict.
Transition — he was hired mid-cycle
Rank is each signing class’s national recruiting rank (#1 is best). Only a class he had a full signing cycle to build counts as his; inherited and mid-transition classes still show here, faded, but stay out of the average.
Roster ownership
Roster ownership
of his 2026 roster arrived on his watch — 57 of 136 players. The other 79 are holdovers from before he was hired.
Of his own players on this roster, 16% came through the transfer portal; the rest are non-portal arrivals (high-school signees, JUCO transfers, walk-ons).
Everyone he has brought in, 2026–2026Counting players who have since left: 16% of the 57 arrivals we can classify came through the 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: 5 of 16 signees (31%) across his 2026–2026 tenure, drawn from 9 states in all. Next: MI (3).
50% of his signees come from OH and its 5 border states (MI 3).
Off this map: 1 signee to the west (CA).
- median hometown distance
- 208 mi
- within 100 mi
- 26%
- within 500 mi
- 67%
- beyond 1,000 mi
- 5%
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.