SPORTS

How does Petrino do against power opponents?

Jeff Greer
@jeffgreer_cj
Louisville head coach Bobby Petrino watches his team during a scrimmage game on Saturday at Papa John's Cardinal Stadium. (By David Lee Hartlage, Special to the C-J) Aug. 16, 2014.

The Wall Street Journal posted a very interesting chart on Tuesday detailing how college football's 65 "power conference" coaches have fared against Top 25 teams over their careers.

Now if you're new to this, power conferences include the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC, and there are 64 teams in those five leagues. The 65th coach in this exercise is, of course, Notre Dame's coach Brian Kelly.

You might be surprised by some of the results:

* Louisville's Bobby Petrino is 14-17 vs. Top 25 teams and 4-5 against 'em when coaching the Cards. UK's Mark Stoops, in his second year as a head coach, is 0-5. Indiana's Kevin Wilson is 0-6.

Note: U of L football spokesman Rocco Gasparro has Petrino at 3-6 vs. ranked opponents during his time at Louisville.

* Florida State's Jimbo Fisher is the only ACC coach with a winning record against Top 25 teams. Pseudo ACC member Notre Dame has Brian Kelly at the helm, and he's 15-11 vs. the Top 25 and 7-7 with the Irish.

* Frank Beamer by far has the most wins, with 43. But he also has the most losses, with 50.

* Only two ACC coaches, Syracuse's Scott Shafer and BC's Steve Addazio, are winless vs. Top 25 teams.

* Maryland coach Randy Edsall is a whopping 1-24 against Top 25 teams.

* Other rough records of note: Penn State's James Franklin is 1-8; Kansas coach Charlie Weis is 4-20.

Let's run through the ACC coaches' records against Top 25 teams. It's borderline NSFW, but only 13 of the 65 coaches have winning records vs. Top 25 opponents in the first place.

I listed them by coach, career record vs. the Top 25 and then their record vs. Top 25 opponents at their current schools:

Coach Career Current
Steve Addazio (BC) 0-4 0-2
Dabo Swinney (Clem) 9-13 9-13
David Cutcliffe (Duke) 8-25 2-13
Jimbo Fisher (FSU) 9-5 9-5
Paul Johnson (GT) 7-20 7-12
Bobby Petrino (Lou) 14-17 4-5
Al Golden (Mia) 3-11 3-6
Larry Fedora (UNC) 2-8 0-4
Dave Doeren (NCST) 1-3 0-2
Paul Chryst (Pitt) 3-4 3-4
Scott Shafer (Cuse) 0-3 0-3
Mike London (UVA) 3-6 3-6
Frank Beamer (VT) 43-50-1 43-50-1
Dave Clawson (WF) 1-7 0-0