The second of the single season coaches from last year is Bobby Petrino as head coach at Western Kentucky. Petrino has since moved to Louisville as head football coach. So like I did yesterday, I will look at the Hilltoppers under the one season with Petrino at the helm using the Complex Invasion College Football Production Model.
In Petrino's only season as head football coach, the Hilltoppers finished
the regular season at 8-4. Yes, Western Kentucky was eligible to play in a bowl game, but were not invited. In fact they were the best team left off of the invited list for bowl games last year.
Western Kentucky played
against an "easier" strength of schedule
(SOS) as compared to the "league" average. An easier SOS is when the team's SOS
is greater than one standard deviation of the "league" average. Only 15.2% of the teams last season
played a SOS that was considered "easier".
Western Kentucky's best game was a
victory over #44 ranked Navy and was the only victory over teams ranked in the top half of the league rankings. Four of their victories came against teams ranked 100 or higher. Western Kentucky lost two games to teams in the top half (South Alabama and Louisiana-Lafayette). Western Kentucky's worst game was a loss to #91 ranked Tennessee.
Overall, the Hilltoppers had the #36 ranked
team with the #46 ranked offense and the #39 ranked defense.
Analysis of 2013 NCAA FBS Head Coach Changes
Arkansas State and Bryan Harsin
Army and Rich Ellerson
Vanderbilt and James Franklin
Penn State and Bill O'Brien
UMass and Charley Molnar
Boise State and Chris Petersen
Texas and Mack Brown
Washington and Steve Sarkisian
Wake Forest and Jim Grobe
Wyoming and Dave Christensen
Eastern Michigan and Ron English
Florida Atlantic and Carl Pelini
Miami of Ohio and Don Treadwell
UConn and Paul Pasqualoni
USC and Lane Kiffen