How the ratings work

The SABAN rating

At the heart of our analysis is the SABAN rating, a comprehensive metric that translates coaching performance and talent acquisition into a single number: how many points per game a coach adds compared to the average coach.

Importantly, the SABAN metric adjusts for the strength of the opponent’s roster and coaching staff, and for each program’s resources (enrollment and stadium size), so a coach isn’t credited for advantages that come with the job. Success against tougher opponents carries greater weight.

Intuition behind the SABAN metric

The SABAN rating captures the number of points a coach adds, on average, on every drive compared to an “average” coach, scaled to a typical game’s worth of drives. An average coach, by definition, would have a SABAN rating of 0, meaning their team performs as expected. A rating of +5 means the coach is adding about five points per game above average.

Over the course of a season, those advantages accumulate, potentially making the difference in tight matchups. Conversely, a negative SABAN rating indicates a coach is underperforming relative to expectations.

This metric isn’t just about theory—it directly connects a coach’s decisions to on-field outcomes. By incorporating offensive and defensive performance, roster quality, program resources, and the strength of the opposition, the SABAN rating provides a clear, fair measure of coaching impact.

A foundation of rigorous analytics

The SABAN rating is powered by two statistical models: one for on-field coaching performance and another for talent acquisition.

• Evidence-weighted ratings. The on-field model is a Bayesian regression. It learns from the data itself how far to trust each coach’s record, so a coach with a few seasons of drives is pulled toward average while a long track record speaks for itself. Every rating comes with its own uncertainty.
• Meaningful football only. Ratings are built from every drive of the 2015–2025 seasons, weighted equally, with garbage time removed. Blowouts that are already decided don’t tell us much about coaching, so they don’t count.

These foundational principles ensure that our Coaching and Talent Ratings reward sustained evidence, not small samples or noise.

Coaching ratings

Coaching Ratings focus on how well a coach manages in-game decisions to impact performance. By analyzing Expected Points Added (EPA) on each drive, we measure how much a coach improves their team’s ability to score points (offense) and limit opponents (defense).

• Offensive coaching. Higher scores indicate the coach is increasing scoring opportunities above what an average coach would achieve with the same roster. This includes play-calling, scheming, and game management.
• Defensive coaching. Higher scores indicate the coach is suppressing opponents’ scoring more effectively than a typical coach. This includes strategies to neutralize opposing offenses and adapt to game situations.

Offense and defense add up to a net coaching score: the total value a coach adds during games.

Talent ratings

Talent acquisition is as critical as coaching decisions. Our Talent Ratings measure how well a coach builds a roster that exceeds the program’s historical expectations.

This metric starts with a baseline—what we expect a school’s talent level to be based on past recruiting success. We then calculate how much the coach surpasses this baseline, incorporating both traditional recruiting and transfer portal activity.

To make this meaningful, we multiply the talent surplus by position-specific coefficients derived from our model. These coefficients show how improvements at specific positions (e.g., quarterback, offensive line) affect the team’s EPA per drive. This ensures the Talent Rating reflects the real on-field impact of a coach’s recruiting efforts, not just the raw star rankings of incoming players.

The SABAN rating system

The SABAN rating (Systematic Analytics of Both Ability and Net-talent) integrates Coaching and Talent Ratings into a single figure that reflects a coach’s holistic influence on a program. Total = Offense + Defense + Recruiting.

The higher the SABAN rating, the more a coach is elevating their team’s performance relative to the average coach. Adjusted for opponent strength and program resources, it simplifies a coach’s value into one comprehensive number, making it an invaluable tool for assessing potential hires or evaluating existing leadership.

Season by season

Coach pages show each head-coaching season on its own. A single season is a small sample, so those numbers are noisier than the career rating, which pools every season and is pulled toward average when the evidence is thin.

Limitations

The rating credits the head coach for the whole staff: a great coordinator’s work shows up in the head coach’s number. Ratings are best read as an evidence-weighted measure of how much better a coach’s teams play than their roster, resources, and schedule would predict — a rigorous prior for evaluating coaches, not a verdict.