Bellotti won the Fiesta Bowel, owns 4 10-win seasons, 2 conference titles and beat the best UW team since the 1991 squad.
I know it's fun to call him "Mediocre Mike" around here, but he'd be either the best or second best coach in the league if he were coaching in the PAC now.
He's mediocre compared to Kelly, but so is everyone else in this league and most of college football save Saban or Urbz.
1 outright conference championship and 1/3 of a conference championship in 14 years on the job (11 of those 14 years in a ten team conference) makes him nothing but mediocre.
1 top 5 finish in 14 years on the job makes him nothing but mediocre.
1 meaningful bowel win in 14 years makes him nothing but mediocre.
A worse conference winning percentage than Jim Lambright makes him nothing but mediocre.
He's mediocre Mike because he was mediocre.
Best coach in the conference if he was coaching today my ass.
Your better than this.
To me "Mediocre" is a C. "Good" is a B, and "Excellent" is an A.
Coaching in the league kind of sucks right now. There's no Carrolls, Harbaughs, un-burned out Tedfords, kings of Poop Island, or good Dennis Ericksons right now.
Bellotti was a B coach with a couple of B+ years. He got good results from the talent he had, usually overperformed his recruiting, and learned from his mistakes.
At major conference programs, Bellotti and Peterman have averaged about 9 wins per season, and Bellotti did it with one fewer game than Peterman, for the most part.
Bellotti had one losing record in 14 seasons at a program that had finished below .500 in 18 of the previous 30 years before he became head coach.
And Peterman's finished top 25 7 times, same as Iron Mike, over roughly the same amount of tim.
So who in the league would be better? Peterman? Shaw? the Pirate?
Peterman and Shaw are probably better than Iron Mike but not be a super-wide margin, and Shaw is Shaw. We're going to see what Peterman is really made of over the next 2-3 years.