The year-two effect: Evidence and antecedents for second season success in NCAA division I football

In recent years, it has become common for media members and other college football affiliates to associate a program’s turnaround with the Year-Two Effect, a phenomenon whereby an NCAA Division I football program is expected to make large improvements during a head coach’s second season in charge. However, like many of the mass media’s sport truisms, this phenomenon has gone untested and unexplored in the broader realm of empirical literature. Given the big business that is modern day college football, where revenues have reached the billions of dollars, and tens of millions are being spent on coaching salaries, bonuses, contract extensions, and buyouts, further examinations into the Year-Two Effect, its causes, and its implications are warranted from both the analytical and economical perspectives. Using two-way fixed effects panel regression models to analyze 11 seasons (2007-17) of data for 114 NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) programs, this study found support for the Year-Two Effect’s existence, particularly in situations where coaches were replacing a prior coach that had been fired for on-field performance reasons. In addition, teams also tended to significantly improve their recruiting rankings and commit fewer turnovers during a head coach’s second season at the helm.