Hugh Freeze Out at Mississippi

The University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) and head football coach Hugh Freeze have parted ways recently.  While much is being made of the circumstances regrading coach Freeze's departure, I want to look at the football programs productivity during coach Freeze's tenure.

Below is a chart of offense, defense and total production of the Mississippi Rebels football program during Freeze's tenure as head football coach, along with who would be the lowest ranked team during this time period (in purple) and the average team (sky blue).   Mississippi has been trending upward since 2012 except for last season under his tenure. All rankings in this blog come from my Complex Invasion College Football Production Model.  More details about the program under Freeze are after the chart below.

Hugh Freeze (2012 - 2016) [2015 contract]

2012
During Freeze's first year at the helm of the Rebels football team, Mississippi finished the end of the regular season at 6-6 (and were bowl eligible) and defeated to #31 Pittsburgh (38-17) to finish 7-6 overall.  Mississippi played against an "average" strength of schedule (SOS) as compared to the "league" average SOS, meaning that Mississippi was within one standard deviation of the "leagues" SOS.  The Rebels best win was over interstate rival #44 ranked Mississippi State (41-24) in the Egg Bowl, and their worst loss was to #53 ranked Texas by a score of (31-66).  Mississippi had the #45 ranked team in total production with the #48 ranked offense and the #39 ranked defense from the Complex Invasion College Football Production Model. 

2013
At the end of the regular season the Rebels were 7-5 (and were bowl eligible) and defeated #43 Georgia Tech (25-17) to finish 8-5 overall.  Mississippi played against an "average" strength of schedule (SOS) as compared to the "league" average SOS.  The Rebels best victory was against #11 LSU (27-24) and their worst loss was to #47 ranked Mississippi State by a score of (10-17).  Mississippi had the #45 ranked team in total production with the #53 ranked offense and the #53 ranked defense from the Complex Invasion College Football Production Model.

2014
The Rebels again finished the regular season at 9-3 and were bowl eligible, losing to #1 ranked TCU by a score of (3-42).  Mississippi played against a "much tougher" strength of schedule (SOS) as compared to the "league" average SOS, meaning that their SOS was more than two standard deviations below the "league" average SOS.  The Rebels best regular season game was a victory (23-17) over #7 Alabama, and their worst loss was to #31 ranked LSU by a score of (3-10).  Overall, the Rebels had the #16 ranked team with the #39 ranked offense and the #12 ranked defense from the Complex Invasion College Football Production Model.

2015
Mississippi finished the regular season overall at 9-3 (bowl eligible) and defeated by #40 ranked Oklahoma State in their post-season bowl game by a score of (48-20) to finish the season at 10-3.  Mississippi played against an "average" strength of schedule (SOS) as compared to the "league" average SOS.  The Rebels best game again was their victory over #7 ranked Alabama (43-37), and their worst loss was to #48 ranked Florida (10-38).  Mississippi had the #6 ranked team in total production with the #11 ranked offense and the #29 ranked defense from the Complex Invasion College Football Production Model.

2016
At the end of the regular season the Rebels were 5-7, and were bowl ineligible for the first time under Freeze's tenure, while playing against a "tougher" strength of schedule (SOS) as compared to the "league" average SOS, meaning that Mississippi had an SOS between one and two standard deviations lower than the "league" average SOS.  The Rebels best win was over #45 ranked Georgia (45-14) and their worst loss was to #85 ranked Arkansas by a score of (30-34).  Mississippi had the #83 ranked team in total production with the #56 ranked offense and the #93 ranked defense from the Complex Invasion College Football Production Model.

Ranking the Alabama Crimson Tide Under Head Coach Saban

The USA Today recently had an article ranking Alabama over the last ten seasons during Saban's tenure as head coach with the Crimson Tide.  So that prompted me to do the same, except that the Complex Invasion College Football Production Model that I use starts in 2008, so that I will not have anything to say specifically about the 2007 season.  The author of the article (Paul Myerberg) ranks the Crimson Tide teams [by season] as listed below.  I encourage you to read his thoughts in the article linked at the beginning of this blog, and here I will share mine.

Myerberg
2011
2009
2015
2012
2016
2013
2014
2008
2010
2007

First, let me briefly discuss the process about how I came up with the rankings.  To do this, I grabbed all the offense and defense data for all the FBS teams that I use for the Complex Invasion College Football Production Model from 2008 to 2016 and then I ran an offense regression and a defense regression.  I used the coefficient's from the offense and defense (which were all statistically significant and of the correct sign) and multiplied the actual on-field production to get a offense total value and a defense total value.  The higher the value for offense is a better offense and a lower value for defense is a better defense.  Then I subtracted the defense value from the offense value to get the total value.  The advantage here is that we are comparing those nine Crimson Tide seasons using the same "weights" for each season.

Second, I ranked offense, defense and total values since 2008.  Below is my rankings of the Alabama Crimson Tide (in terms of production) overall, with just offense and with just defense.

Total		Offense		Defense
2016		2016		2011
2012		2012		2009
2011		2014		2016
2009		2015		2012
2015		2013		2010
2010		2010		2008
2014		2009		2015
2013		2011		2013
2008		2008		2014

As you can see since 2008, last season's Crimson Tide was the most productive, and the 2008 team was the least productive (excluding 2007 since I don't have that data).  As you can see of the four national championships during Saban's tenure (2009, 2011, 2012 & 2015) that the 2016 team was actually more productive than the others and last year's team would have won except for that last exceptional drive by Clemson, that the 2016 team would also fit in that group.