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Tommy Tuberville & Mike Leach Coaching Comparison



Seems to me no matter how hard we try on DTN if there is a comparison between the last two years results and previous year results it degenerates into a Mike vs Tommy comparison. So instead of dancing all around the issue maybe we should look at actual results of similiar years in their careers and see if it proves anything.

I went back and compared the coaching records of Tommy Tuberville and Mike Leach. I made it easy on myself and looked at a 10 year window in their coaching careers. Tommy coached 10 years at Auburn from 1999 - 2008 and Mike coached at Texas Tech for 10 years from 2000 - 2009. Both BCS conferences and both during essentially the same time frame. I thought about comparing Tommy's first 10 years to Mike's first 10 but that didn't seem fair to me. Tommy was at Ole Miss for 4 years and then moved to Auburn. If I looked at those numbers it would have had him installing his philosophy, coaching staff and recruits at two different schools while Mike only had to do it once. But, on the other side Texas Tech was Mike's first head coaching job & Tommy already had 4 years experience when he went to Auburn. Below is a chart with overall record, conference record & bowl wins/losses. Thought it would make interesting conversation.

Year TT-Overall AU-Overall TT-Conf AU-Conf TT-Bowl AU-Bowl
1 7-6 5-6 3-5 2-6 L N/A
2 7-5 9-4 4-4 6-2 L L
3 9-5 7-5 5-3 5-3 W L
4 8-5 9-4 4-4 5-3 W W
5 8-4 8-5 5-3 5-3 W W
6 9-3 13-0 6-2 8-0 L W
7 8-5 9-3 4-4 7-1 W L
8 9-4 11-2 4-4 6-2 W W
9 11-2 9-4 7-1 5-3 L W
10 9-4 5-7 5-3 2-6 W N/A
Total 85-43 85-40 47-33 51-29 6-4 5-3

I found it interesting during this 10 year time frame they had virtually the same results. I didn't expect to find out Mike was more consistent. His highs weren't as high and his lows weren't as low as Tommy's. Mike had only one double digit win season and Tommy had two double digit win seasons. However, Mike's lows weren't as low with 7 wins (twice) while Tommy had two seasons of only 5 wins. Tommy had a slighly better win percentage in conference while Mike's teams qualified for more bowls. Also found it interesting that Tommy's worst two seasons at Auburn were his first.....and last. So......I don't know if this proves anything......other than they get basically the same results.....with vastly different styles.

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