TCU’s transformation from 4-8 to 11-1 has earned Gary Patterson about every coach of the year award known to man. He’s won the AP and coaches’ Big 12 Coach of the Year awards, as well as national coach of the year awards from the Home Depot, CBSSports.com, an ESPN poll among his FBS peers, and a few others that assuredly popped up in the last few minutes.
Though it’s a well known fact that a coach of the year award is really just a gold star for the year’s biggest overachiever, TCU did not own 2014’s biggest improvement alone. No, the Frogs shared the distinction with Air Force and Western Michigan, yet Broncos head coach P.J. Fleck won the MAC Coach of the Year while Falcons head coach Troy Calhoun lost out on the Mountain West Coach of the Year award to Colorado State’s Jim McElwain.
Regardless, Calhoun would much rather take a seven-win improvement over a piece of hardware.
Courtesy of UTEP’s sports information department, here are college football’s biggest transformations from 2013 to 2014:
TCU: +7 (4-8 to 11-1)
Air Force: +7 (2-10 to 9-3)
Western Michigan: +7 (1-11 to 8-4)
Memphis: +6 (3-9 to 9-3)
UTEP: +5 (2-10 to 7-5)
N.C. State: +4 (3-9 to 7-5)
California: +4 (1-11 to 5-7)
Louisiana Tech: +4 (4-8 to 8-5)
Utah: +3 (5-7 to 8-4)
West Virginia: +3 (4-8 to 7-5)
Nevada: +3 (4-8 to 7-5)
Kentucky: +3 (2-10 to 5-7)
Mississippi State: +3 (7-6 to 10-2)
South Carolina, meanwhile, dropped five wins from 11-2 to 6-6, and Fresno State did the same, falling from 11-2 to 6-7.