Usually, when we talk about a head coach who overachieves or underachieves, we basically mean a coach whose AP poll rankings don't match his program's recruiting rankings.

This is understandable, but unsatisfactory. Part of a coach's job is to recruit. If a program has a lot of talent, that coach succeeded at that part of his job. Losing a game because of a lack of talent is just as bad as losing one for any other reason, unless we're talking about a true underdog that will never be able to land top talent, no matter the coach.

For example, Urban Meyer doesn't get named 2014 Big Ten Coach of the Year for going undefeated in conference play despite QB injuries; the honor goes to Jerry Kill, whose Minnesota finished the regular season 8-4, but 0-3 against ranked teams. OSU's supposed to win, because it has all those recruits. Never mind that Meyer's staff recruited many of those recruits and had been coaching them for three years at that point.

Let's look at another way of judging which coaches overperform or underperform. Bill Connelly used math (explained here, with full rankings for every FBS head coach over the last decade) to figure out which coaches are able to squeeze the most wins (or losses) out of games, based on what actually happened on the field, not on high school scouting or preseason polls or fan emotions.

I think it's a lot more interesting. Here are the top 25 overperformers:

Coach Years Wins difference per year 1 Ken Niumatalolo 8 1.08 2 Bill Snyder 8 0.94 3 Gus Malzahn 4 0.94 4 Dave Christensen 5 0.91 5 Mark Hudspeth 5 0.89 6 Matt Campbell 4 0.81 7 Pat Fitzgerald 10 0.8 8 David Bailiff 9 0.79 9 Rich Brooks 5 0.71 10 DeWayne Walker 4 0.68 11 Tom O'Brien 8 0.66 12 Mack Brown 9 0.66 13 Les Miles 11 0.63 14 Kyle Flood 4 0.58 15 Urban Meyer 10 0.58 16 Gary Pinkel 11 0.57 17 Paul Johnson 11 0.56 18 Frank Solich 11 0.56 19 Rickey Bustle 6 0.54 20 Mark Dantonio 11 0.52 21 Jim McElwain 4 0.51 22 Bo Pelini 7 0.51 23 Turner Gill 6 0.5 24 Gene Chizik 6 0.48 25 Steve Sarkisian 7 0.46

And here's the list you don't want to be on:

Coach Years Wins difference per year 25 Derek Dooley 6 -0.45 24 Bobby Hauck 5 -0.47 23 Greg McMackin 4 -0.47 22 Mario Cristobal 6 -0.48 21 Randy Shannon 4 -0.48 20 Pat Hill 7 -0.5 19 Ron Zook 7 -0.5 18 Curtis Johnson 4 -0.51 17 Mike MacIntyre 6 -0.51 16 Paul Chryst 4 -0.52 15 Norm Chow 4 -0.52 14 Gary Andersen 7 -0.53 13 Bob Toledo 5 -0.53 12 Rich Ellerson 5 -0.54 11 Mark Snyder 5 -0.55 10 Houston Nutt 7 -0.56 9 Dave Wannstedt 6 -0.57 8 Hal Mumme 4 -0.59 7 Doug Martin 9 -0.6 6 Joe Glenn 4 -0.62 5 Phillip Fulmer 4 -0.62 4 Tyrone Willingham 4 -0.86 3 Steve Addazio 5 -0.87 2 Kevin Wilson 5 -0.96 1 Todd Dodge 4 -1.28

Winning 11 games at Navy or nearly making a BCS title game at Kansas State requires dumping out drawers, cracking open safes, digging under basements and knocking out walls in search of wins. So I suspect any metric used to evaluate the most game-changing coaches would have Niumatalolo and Snyder up high.

Some of those names might surprise, and some might give us a chance to review some coaches.

For example, we're conditioned to think of Steve Sarkisian as a dud because of "Seven-Win Steve" and the USC fallout, but he turned an 0-12 Washington into an annual bowl presence and was a non-disastrous 18-12 on the field with the Trojans. Mack Brown on the good list? Sure. Look at what Texas was before he showed up.

And since this number is looking at what happened on the field, not at a coach's performance in relation to media or fan expectations, it feels like a solid step toward evaluating a large part of what these coaches are paid for. Maybe a stat like this could get us close enough to figure out what stats can't figure out, and maybe a large part of that incalculable stuff is coaching.

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Elsewhere

A Virginia Tech QB's cousin was one of three police officers killed in Baton Rouge. RIP.

Alabama could field an entire defense of nothing but five-stars, if it wanted to.

Meanwhile, this will probably be the arrest that actually costs the Tide a star offensive lineman against USC.

Christian McCaffrey enjoyed Yelling Stanford Meme Man as much as you did. Phew!

Bill C team of the day: Northwestern, which remains in search of a 10-win season that actually feels like a 10-win season.

Commits of the weekend: adding four-stars were Bama, Notre Dame and Washington.

Certainly, several college football things make the cut for Sports Moments Made Better By Including Surprise Pokemon. We're almost done with Pokemon content, probably.

OK, last Pokemon thing today: UW's Chris Petersen compares his program to the mobile game, seeing as the Huskies get more inexplicably popular and higher-ranking by the second.

The Solid Verbal's series of college football game shows is now making deals.

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