I wasn’t exactly sure how much information was needed in the update, so I tried to add in any new developments to the original post I made about my story.
There is a famous statistic in college football that since the Southeastern Conference created the SEC Championship Game in 1992, 21 of the 23 coaches who won it played for the title at least once in their first three seasons in the SEC.
With this thinking in mind, I want to explore the characteristics of high school football coaches in the state of Georgia who have made the state playoffs in the last five years and determine on average how long the coach has been at his school. While this is a lot of information, I know this will give me a large sample size to consider and that I have the resources to find these answers.
As I’ve begun to gather the data for this story regarding high school football coaches, I’ve had a lot of luck in making sure my sample size was large enough to be considered. I’ve gathered the playoff teams from classifications AAAAAA down to A private and public schools beginning with last season going back to 2011. With each school, I will find the head coach during that particular season, the number of years at that time, his total number of seasons as a head coach in Georgia, his winning percentage with that school and his overall winning percentage.
The goal from this story is to write something that essentially outlines what makes a high school coach that can take his team to the playoffs. I want to get in touch with several coaches for this story, and I actually think my profile on Jeff Herron is going to be incredibly helpful in this situation. Herron has an impressive coaching tree in that several of his former assistants have gone on to become head coaches. While I contact those coaches to discuss Herron, I can also talk to them about the numbers I’ve found.
My main question is will this be a case like the SEC where a fairly new coach is often the one who can lead his team to success, or is longevity more likely to be the factor that helps a program reach the postseason? Also, how extreme are the coaches who stand out as the outliers among their peers?
Along with the main story that centers on digesting the statistics and hearing from some of these coaches and why this is happening, I will make an infographic both showing this information as well as coaches who fit the profile of the average Georgia high school coach in the playoffs. I also plan to do a sidebar on a coach who stands as an outlier, whether that be a coach who’s been at one team for many more years than his peers or someone brand new to his team.