The Zeitgeist List · Coordinators · Never a head coach

Bob Shoop.

Defensive coordinator · 6 seasons · 3 stints · 3 programs2 seasons ranked in the national top 10%
Own effect on the unit
Defense+0.02not distinguishable from zero
model fit as of 2026-09-04

The tenure clock

Every stop re-aligned to its own first year, so the stops stack instead of scrolling past each other. The gray dashed line is a reference, not a path: each point is the median of whoever was still in the job that year, across every real OC/DC stint since 2014 at that role, and the pool shrinks year over year because surviving to a later year means not having been fired.

100th — best in the country90th — elite — top 10%75th — top quarter50th — national median25th — bottom quarter0 — worst in the countryHis defense’s national rank, by year of tenureYear 1Year 2Year of that tenure, not calendar yearn=730n=430Penn State, year 1: 97th percentilePenn State, year 2: 63rd percentilePenn StTennessee, year 1: 41st percentileTennessee, year 2: 40th percentileTennesseeMississippi State, year 1: 99th percentileMississippi State, year 2: 45th percentileMississippi …median still in the job
Penn State 2014–2015
Tennessee 2016–2017
Mississippi State 2018–2019
Median of those still in the job, that year of a tenure. A shrinking pool, not a path.
Penn State, 2 years
▼ 34.4
97.3 to 62.9 percentile.
Tennessee, 2 years
▼ 1.4
41.0 to 39.6 percentile.
Mississippi State, 2 years
▼ 53.8
98.8 to 45.0 percentile.
Median defensive coordinator
+0.5
first season to last, across 235 stints of 3+ years. 50.6% improve at all.

Every stop on the calendar

YearsProgramWalked intoYear 1BestVs. talent
2014–2015Penn State43.697.397.3▲ 2.9
2016–2017Tennessee76.241.041.0▼ 22.6
2018–2019Mississippi State95.898.898.8▲ 12.4

Tennessee 2016–2017: ranked 76th the year before he arrived, 41st at its best — went backwards.

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