Coaches / Head coach / Ossie Solem
Career
64
not coaching now
Rating—recent
Peak73best 5 yrs
Career64whole career
confidence
Ossie Solem
Head coach, 1936–1942
Headline rating: as head coach. Every role he has been rated in is below.
Chemistry
—
index in development
Seasons here—
Programs2
Stints3
Career path
Head-coaching stints since 1936; assistant roles since 2016
As head coach
Rating—Peak73Career64
1936–1942 · 7 seasonsRecord 30-21National titles 0Great seasons 0 (top ~7% of all teams that year)Career: too early to rank all-time (8+ seasons as a head coach)
- Rating 73: his whole career, recent seasons weighted most, measured as how far his teams stood above their era, crediting him with half of what each program already was when he arrived (about the share that, historically, follows a coach to his next job), fading as the program becomes his own.
- Peak 73: best five-season stretch, 1937–1941 at Syracuse (21-14), taking over one of the weakest programs in major college football.
- Won big at one of his 2 programs (Syracuse).
Rating = who he is: his whole head-coaching career (since 1936), weighted toward recent years — how far his teams stood above their contemporaries, how much he lifted programs, his great seasons and titles. Form = the last two seasons. Career = the all-time ranking number.
| Season | Team | Record | Season rank | vs contemporaries |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1945 | Syracuse | 1-6 | #72 (wartime) | -1.21 SD |
| 1944 | Syracuse | 2-4-1 | #67 (wartime) | -1.51 SD |
| 1942 | Syracuse | 6-3 | #43 | +0.17 SD |
| 1941 | Syracuse | 5-2-1 | #39 | +0.34 SD |
| 1940 | Syracuse | 3-4-1 | #58 | -0.16 SD |
| 1939 | Syracuse | 3-3-2 | #57 | -0.10 SD |
| 1938 | Syracuse | 5-3 | #57 | +0.05 SD |
| 1937 | Syracuse | 5-2-1 | #49 | +0.13 SD |
| 1936 | Iowa | 3-4-1 | #42 | +0.27 SD |
Season rank = his team among all major-college teams that year; vs contemporaries = how far above the average team (in standard deviations).