Title/Author:
“Lords of the
Gridiron: College Football's Greatest Coaches” by Matthew DiBiase
Tags:
Football (American), coaching,
history, biographies, memoirs
Publish date:
September 1, 2019
Length:
342 pages
Rating: to
5 of 5 stars (outstanding)
Review:
Sports fans, no matter
which sport, always love to debate about who is the greatest – the greatest
team, the greatest player, the greatest coach, and so on. Author Matthew
DiBiase has contributed to the discussion in hockey with two previous books on
NHL coaches and general managers. These
were both excellent books and he has written another outstanding book in the
same manner, this time ranking the best college football coaches.
The formulas DiBiase
used for his hockey books would not be effective for measuring the success of
college football coaches, mainly because of the extensive changes the sport has
undergone in its 150 year history. Giving some credit to one of the most famous
users of sports analytics, Bill James, DiBiase developed an intricate formula
to account for a coach's successes and failures such as conference and national
championships, bowl records and overall season records. However, because of changes in how some of
these are determined over the years (such as the national champion – pre-AP
polls to AP and Coaches polls to the Bowl Championship Series to the current
College Football Playoff, the current proliferation of bowl games and how the
status of some of them change from 'minor' to 'major' bowl games), the formula
takes some different factors as well so that coaches from all eras of the sport
get a fair shot.
As for the actual
rankings, like with his previous books, DiBiase starts at #1 and works his way
through the top 50. All top 50 coaches
have their accomplishments listed at the top of their chapters, followed by an
excellent short biography or memoir, based off not only extensive research but
from interviews with players, colleagues, family members or the coaches
themselves. It doesn't matter how the information was gathered or which coach
is being portrayed, each chapter is full of good information and entertaining stories.
Coaches from all eras
are honored as one of the top 50 and it doesn't matter when the coach did his
trade, DiBiase gives each one of them about the same amount of writing and that
is especially noteworthy since, of course, it would be more difficult to
capture some of this information on coaches from the earlier decades of college
football. The chapters on some of these coaches such as Fielding Yost and Andy
Smith were just as enjoyable to read as were those about current coaches such as
Nick Saban and Dabo Sweeney. This
reviewer, a Minnesota Golden Gophers fan, was especially grateful to be able to
read quite a bit about Bernie Bierman and Dr. Henry Williams.
One last note about
the book is that the system DiBiase uses to rank these coaches will produce
surprises – most of these surprises will be that some of the most legendary
names in the history of the game will rank lower than many will expect. Whether a coach is ranked #1, #50 or
somewhere in between, the author will give a through and detailed explanation
why before sharing the stories about that coach and that information is very
useful.
College football fans of all ages, school loyalties and level of interest will want to read this book. While it can be used as a reference book and also is one that can be read in small doses at a time, it can also be a page turner that will be hard to put down, as was the case for this reviewer. After reading this book and his two hockey books of equally high quality, a reader should be eagerly anticipating the next book from this author.
I wish to thank Mr.
DiBiase for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
Book Format Read:
Paperback
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