The Zeitgeist List · coordinators · never a head coach

Greg Mattison.

Defensive coordinator · 3 seasons · 3 stints · 2 programs1 season ranked in the national top 10%

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=659n=400median still in the jobnot a pathMichigan, year 1: 74th percentileMichiganOhio State, year 1: 95th percentileOhio State, year 2: 85th percentileOhio St
Michigan 2014–2014
Ohio State 2019–2020
Median of those still in the job, that year of a tenure. A shrinking pool, not a path.
Ohio State, 2 years
−10.4
95.0 to 84.6 percentile.
Median defensive coordinator
+1.0
first season to last, across 239 stints of 3+ years. 52.3% improve at all.

Every stop on the calendar

YearsProgramWalked intoYear 1BestVs. talent
2014–2014Michiganno record73.873.8—
2019–2019Ohio State48.895.095.0+22.4
2020–2020Ohio State95.084.684.6+14.0

No prior-season record for the first stop (Michigan, 2014) — the data floor starts there.

Ohio State 2020–2020: ranked 95th the year before he arrived, 85th at its best — went backwards.

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