Nothing is definitive in what I’m about to describe, but it is suggestive. Conclusion? Level matters, and fit to the circumstance matters at the same level.
The Buffalo Bills’ resurgence reminded me of those great Marv Levy-coached teams of the late 1980s through mid-1990. Eight times in nine years, Buffalo finished first and second in the AFC East. Moreover, the Bills won the AFC Championship four times from 1990-1993 and went to the Super Bowl each of those years.
Levy with QB Jim Kelly (photo, ESPN)
By any measure, Marv Levy was fantastic in Buffalo, going 112-70 as the Bills’ head man and winning nearly two of every three games he coached. But note the wording, “fantastic in Buffalo.” I didn’t write “fantastic NFL coach” because the record suggests otherwise.
People either forget or don’t know that Levy coached in the NFL before his stint in Western New York. Levy was the head man for the Kansas City Chiefs from 1978-1982. There, he had a losing record in three of his five years in KC, and his overall win rate was a bit over 40%.
Marv Levy wasn’t a distinguished college coach, either. I first came across Levy at the college level in 1968 when the West Virginia Mountaineers (my alma mater) played his William & Mary team at City Stadium in Richmond, VA. The Mountaineers shut out the-then Indians (now The Tribe) that day, and W&M finished the year at 3-7. It was Levy’s last year in Williamsburg, where he posted an overall record of 23-25-2. He arrived on the East Coast from the West Coast, where he was Cal-Berkeley’s head coach. There, he had a dismal record, 8-29-3, winning only four games over a three-year stretch, 1960-1962. Overall, Levy went 45-60-5 over eleven seasons at three schools (W&M, Cal, and New Mexico), translating into a season average of 4-5.
Levy left college coaching after serving in Williamsburg (his last college stop) and spent the next four years with three NFL teams as a special teams coach. Then, he got a head coach gig with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. There, he won 58% of his games and won two Grey Cups. The head coaching job with the Bills came next.
Why was Levy successful with the Bills? My guess is that it was the context–a solid owner (Ralph Wilson) and one of the best talent-finding GMs in NFL history (Bill Polian)–coupled with Levy’s personality and approach, which seemed to be a better fit for the pro than the college game.
Courtesy, IUP Magazine
Rest assured that this commentary is not about Marv Levy alone. Recently, two college Hall of Fame coaches, Frank Cignetti, Sr., and Darrell Mudra, passed away. Each man won big at lower-level colleges, but neither was successful at the major college level. Cignetti won 200 college football games during his career, and 180+ were as head coach of the Indiana University of Pennsylvania Indians. Before IUP, Cignetti was head coach of the WVU Mountaineers, succeeding Bobby Bowden in 1976. He went 17-27 over four years and never had a winning season. His WVU record is not HOF-grabbing, but there is also no doubt about this: he was an excellent fit for IUP and had a great career there.
While Frank Cignetti was a head coach at two schools, Darrell Mudra was a head coach at seven schools–two major schools (Arizona and Florida State) and five lower division schools (Adams State, North Dakota State, Eastern Illinois, Western Illinois, and Northern Iowa) over a head coaching career that spanned nearly 30 years (1959-1987, save one year in the CFL when he was 7-7).
Despite longevity, it was a tale of two cities for Mudra when it came to evaluating his performance. He was 15-27-1 at Arizona and Florida State, with only one winning season of a total of four seasons at the helm. But he was nothing but successful at all of his other college stops. Mudra was 56-10-1 combined at Adams State and North Dakota State before heading to Tucson; 39-13 at Western Illinois before leaving for Florida State; and 90-32-2 combined at Eastern Illinois and Northern Iowa after leaving Tallahassee.
Mudra was always a winner at lower-level schools, and he had only one losing season at that level, his first season at NDSU. What explains the difference between what he did at those schools vis-a-vis his numbers at Power 5 schools? In addition to the level difference, my guess is that region mattered. Mudra made a name for himself at Midwest, Upper Midwest, and Rock Mountain-area schools.
Courtesy, Sports Illustrated
I believe Levy, Cignetti, and Mudra were all great head coaches, but “great” needs to be contextualized–better at some levels and locations than others. That makes hiring really difficult; success at one level does not always predict success at another level or another place. A good example is Gerry Faust.
Notre Dame rolled the dice when the school offered Faust the head coaching job in 1981. Faust neither played major college football (he played quarterback for the Dayton Flyers) nor served on a college staff before the call came from South Bend. His claim to fame? He was an incredibly successful high school coach, going 178-23-2 over 18 years at Archbishop Moeller in Cincinnati, OH (average season, 10-1). There, he had seven undefeated seasons and won the Ohio State High School football championship in five of his last six years as coach.
But many analysts bet against Faust being successful at Notre Dame, and his modest record–30-26-1 over five years, average record, 6-5–was better than some predicted. But nobody denies that the high school and college levels are different. Even though Moeller coached at the highest rung of the secondary school ladder, Notre Dame is calibrated similarly at the collegiate level. But was making that “tall climb” from high school to ND the reason? After South Bend, Faust migrated to the University of Akron, where he served as the Zips’ head coach for nine seasons. He was 43-53-3 at Akron with only two winning seasons before retiring.
I could go on because there are many more examples. Think about Rick Pitino’s success as a college coach (684-282) in contrast to how he performed as a pro coach (192-220). You get the picture.
The conclusions shared here reinforce the value of that old saying, “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” Translated: Find the spot where your great gifts match a situation’s great needs. Marv Levy found it in Buffalo, not Cal; Cignetti at IUP, not WVU; Mudra at multiple mid-major schools, not Florida State; and Faust at Moeller, not ND.
Finding where the grass really is green … that’s the ticket.
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Coaching records were drawn from Wikipedia.com.
