This poll is fascinating. It is almost an even mix, with identical numbers of people thinking that a new coach will do better than Solich compared to the number that think Solich will do better than a new coach. I guess that explains the lack of agreement on anything coaching related.
Of particular fascination to me, it seems that 11 of 24 voters think that if there was a new coach, he would be likely to win a MACC in his first 3 years. Another 8 think maybe he would, and only 5 think it is unlikely. I got to wondering, how does this compare to actual results for MAC coaching hires? I did an analysis for all MAC coaching hires since the year 2000. Focusing only on the core 12 teams that are still in the MAC, I found:
44 Coaches were hired
Of those, only 12 ever won MAC championships (4 won 2, Amstutz, Butch Jones, Doeren, and Carey)
Of the 12 that did win a MACC, 3 of them were coaches that took over a championship team (Babers, Butch Jones, David Doeren).
Of the remaining 9, only 7 won a MACC in their first 3 years.
Looking at it another way, 5 coaches were hired after a team won a MACC, and of those, 3 coaches also won a MACC (Babers,B. Jones, Carey) while one did not (Treadwell) and another has not yet won one (Lester).
Excluding those, that leaves us with 39 coaches who were hired to coach a team that did not win a MACC. Of those, only 7 of them won a MACC in their first three years, about 18%. The coaches who did accomplish that? Here is a list of the coaches who got the job done:
2001 MACC - Tom Amstutz - Toledo (won his first and fourth years)
2005 MACC - JD Brookhart - Akron (won his second year)
2006 MACC - Brian Kelly - CMU (won his third year)
2008 MACC - Turner Gill - Buffalo (won his third year)
2010 MACC - Mike Haywood - Miami (won his third year)
2011 MACC - David Doeren - NIU (won both his first and second years)
2017 MACC - Jason Candle - Toledo (won his second year)
Note: Fleck won a MACC in his 4th year, while Clawson won in his 5th year.
“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” ― Epictetus