Trivia Tuesday – FBS Head Coaches

There are 128 FBS schools that will be playing football this fall, but there are 129 FBS schools with head football coaches due to the rather odd, one year hiatus being taken by UAB – fodder for another blog.

Today’s Trivia Tuesday focuses on the 129 Head Football Coaches currently leading the programs at those 129 FBS schools. Just let me remind you that the information provided here is solely based on SOD’s limited research capabilities as powered through the Internet. The information is based on what SOD was able to ascertain through Internet searches and is only as accurate as that data allows. If you find any information to be inaccurate, we would love to know what the truth really is. Thanks.

TRIVIA QUESTION #1.  How many FBS Head Coaches are coaching at their Alma Mater? How many can you name?

TRIVIA QUESTION #2.  What college has produced the most FBS Head Coaches?

TRIVIA QUESTION #3.  What is the most popular position played by Head Coaches in their collegiate careers?

TRIVIA QUESTION #4.  Who is the FBS Head Coach that played baseball in college, but not football?

TRIVIA QUESTION #5.  Who are the 5 current FBS Head Coaches who have been coaching the same school they are now with for 15 years or more? (Not counting 2015.)

BUFFER ZONE
You can join the SOD CFB College Football Poll by submitting your Top 25 to sodcfb@yahoo.com. Our Pre-Season Top 25 are:

ANSWER #1.  15. There are 15 FBS Head Coaches, including 3 who are new to their team this year, coaching at the same college where they attended college. They are: Terry Calhoun (Air Force); Scott Satterfield (Appalachian State); Bryan Harsin (Boise State); John Bonamego (Central Michigan); Ruffin McNeill (East Carolina); Paul Haynes (Kent State); Jim Harbaugh (Michigan); Pat Fitzgerald (Northwestern); Mike Gundy (Oklahoma State); David Shaw (Stanford); Kliff Kingsbury (Texas Tech); Matt Wells (Utah State); Sean Kugler (UTEP); Frank Beamer (Virginia Tech); Paul Chryst (Wisconsin).

ANSWER #2.  Iowa. There are 5 FBS Head Coaches that list Iowa as their Alma Mater. They are: Bret Bielema (Arkansas); Bob Diaco (Connecticut); Dan McCarney (North Texas); Bob Stoops (Oklahoma); Mark Stoops (Kentucky). Four Head Coaches list Alabama as their Alma Mater. Three Head Coaches come from BYU, Kent State and West Virginia.

ANSWER #3.  QB. 39 of the 129 FBS Head Coaches list QB as the position they played in college. A couple of them list QB as one of two positions they played. DB is the next most popular position played by FBS Head Coaches, followed by WR then LB.

ANSWER #4.  California’s Head Coach, Sonny Dykes, played baseball at Texas Tech.

ANSWER #5.  Frank Beamer (Virginia Tech, 28 years); Bill Snyder (Kansas State, 23 not-consecutive); Bob Stoops (Oklahoma, 16); Kirk Ferentz (Iowa, 16); Gary Patterson (TCU, 15). Both Gary Pinkel, at Missouri, and Mark Richt, at Georgia, are entering their 15th year as the Head Coach at their respective schools.

Pipelines to the NFL

I realize that with the start of the Free Agency period yesterday this is a fluid situation, but SOD took a look at every NFL Team’s active roster to see if there was any evidence of a “pipeline” of sorts from one college team to one NFL Team. What we found is not too surprising.

Most NFL teams, of course, have a pretty diverse mixture of players from all over the place. Atlanta, Baltimore, and Cleveland, in fact, had no more than 2 players from the same school listed on their active roster on 3/10/2015. Fourteen other teams had no more than three players from the same school listed as part of their player profile. But, 1 team had 7 players who played on the same college team in their collegiate career; can you guess which NFL Team and which college has this connection?

Think of a NFL Team with a head coach who recently came over from a successful college program. That’s right – the Philadelphia Eagles have 7 players on their active roster who played college ball at Oregon. Like I said, not surprising.

No other team has any more than 5 players from the same school. Cincinnati has 5 players each from Alabama and Georgia – could make for a fun locker room following a certain SEC football game. Dallas lists 5 players from Oklahoma State on its roster; Arizona has 5 former Clemson players on its roster; and, with Russell Wilson listing the Badgers as his collegiate tie, Seattle has 5 from Wisconsin.

Colleges that have placed 4 players on the same NFL team include: Utah with 4 players at Miami; Illinois and Rutgers each have 4 players on New England’s roster; Stanford has 4 Cardinal currently listed on Indianapolis’ roster; there are 4 players from Miami-FL playing for Jacksonville – makes sense; there are currently 4 players from Tennessee playing for Kansas City; 4 Orange from Syracuse are listed as New York Giants; Notre Dame has 4 each with Minnesota and Detroit; USC also has 4 players with the Vikings; the Crimson Tide has 4 ex-Alabama players listed on Green Bay’s active roster; and, 4 players from Auburn are currently getting paid to play for St. Louis.

Based on the high numbers of players some of the big-time schools have playing in the NFL, you would expect to see some clumping on NFL Teams just through the law of averages, but, for the most part, they are pretty evenly spread throughout the league. The further Chip Kelly gets removed from his personal ties with the players from Oregon, you might expect to see that one existing, prominent “pipeline” start to dwindle.

So, no real surprises, but it was fun looking into it.

Trivia Tuesday – Power 5 Conferences

In recent years, there has been a lot of shuffling of College Football Conferences. And, if you believe Some Other Dude, there is more yet to come as we advance upon the age of the Mega-Conferences. But, SOD wonders, how well do you know the history of the current Power 5 Conferences?

THE TRIVIA CHALLENGE

Name the original teams in each of the current Power 5 Conferences.

THE BUFFER ZONE

THE ANSWERS

The Atlantic Coast Conference.  Even though we appear to be headed to 16 team Mega-Conferences, back in history there was an even mega-er conference; the Southern Conference.  The Southern Conference, at one time, consisted of 23 teams and eventually splintered into other, smaller conferences.  One of those splinter conferences was the ACC which officially formed as a conference in 1953.  The 7 charter members of the ACC were: Clemson, Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, South Carolina and Wake Forest.  Only South Carolina no longer calls the ACC home as they eventually joined the other splinter conference with former Southern Conference brethren.  Link to information source.

The Big 12.  The history of the Big 12 is a little more convoluted than that of the other conferences.  The Big 12 itself wasn’t formed until 1994 when teams from the Big 8 merged with teams from the Southwest Conference.  The Big 8 Conference was originally chartered in 1907 as the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association and eventually became known as the Big 6 and then grew up to become the Big 8.  The original members of this conference were: Iowa (two-timing with the Big Ten), Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Washington University in St. Louis.  Only Kansas remains as a current member of The Big 12.  Link to information source.  The Southwest Conference was first formed in 1912, consisting of: Arkansas, Baylor, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Rice, Texas and Texas A&M.  Baylor, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas remain as current members of the Big 12.  Link to information source.

The Big Ten.  The name “The Big Ten” was actually not officially incorporated until 1987, but the conference referred to as the Big Ten has been around since 1905.  The original conference was made up of 7 teams in what was known as the “Intercollegiate Conference Athletic Association”.  In 1917, when the conference had expanded to 10 teams, it was labeled the “Big Ten” by members of the media.  The original members of this so-called Big Ten Conference were: Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Purdue, University of Chicago and Wisconsin.  Only the University of Chicago is not a member of that conference today.  Link to information source.

The Pac 12.  The Pac 12 Conference started off as a little seedling conference that eventually grew up into the Pac 12.  Forming in 1916 as the Pacific Coast Conference, its original members stood at only 4 schools: California, Oregon, Oregon Agricultural College (later known as Oregon State) and Washington.  All four schools still remain in the conference today.  Interestingly, Idaho and Montana were one time members of this conference and the conference was disbanded and re-assembled in 1959 due to a pay-for-play scandal.  The re-formed conference was called the Athletic Association of Western Universities, commonly known as the Big 5. After growing once again, the conference started being referred to as the Pacific 8 in 1964 and officially became the Pacific 8 in 1968, the Pac 10 in 1978 and the Pac 12 in 2011.  Link to information source.

The SEC.  The SEC preceded the ACC in splintering away from the huge Southern Conference when 13 schools left in 1932 to form their own conference.  The 13 schools that made up the first version of the Southeastern Conference were: Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, LSU, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Sewanee (University of the South), Tennessee, Tulane and Vanderbilt.  Georgia Tech now resides in the ACC; Tulane, although still an FBS school is no longer a member of a Power 5 Conference; and, Sewanee, after having decided to de-emphasize sports in 1940, currently competes in Division III athletics.  Link to information source.