In what has been a ridiculous week in coaching news, three of the biggest legends in the sport of football have left their respective teams.
Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll and Alabama head coach Nick Saban have all left the teams that they made famous, with at least one of the three (Saban) poised to never coach again.
Since 2000, there have been 24 Super Bowls and 24 college football national championship games. The trio of Saban, Carroll and Belichick have coached in an astounding 22 of those games and won 15 of them. That's 46% of all championships this side of the millennium. Carroll, of course, famously coached USC during its heyday in the mid 2000s.
This data is courtesy of my colleague Evan Abrams.
Carroll, Belichick and Saban are 923-415-2 straight up (69%) over that same timeframe and are 712-593-35 (55%) against the spread (ATS). Simply put: if you had blindly bet $100 on the spread for each of these coaches over the last 24 years, you'd be up a total of about $6,000.
And that's despite this trio's propensity to be large favorites throughout their careers. As -7 favorites or higher, the trio is profitable at 302-249-9 ATS (55%) and 496-64 straight up (89%).
- Belichick: 146-24 SU (86%), 90-76-4 ATS (54%)
- Saban: 221-19 SU (92%), 132-105-3 ATS (56%)
- Carroll USC, 80-9 SU (90%), 49-40 ATS (55.1%)
- Carroll NFL, 49-12 SU (80%), 31-28-2 ATS (53%)
In all, Belichick ranked first out of 150 eligible coaches in his ATS record over the last 20 years. Carroll's NFL stint ranked No. 18 out of eligible coaches.
Meanwhile, Saban ranked eighth out of 625 eligible college football coaches at his ATS record since 2004.
