Two things determine the kind of a start a head coach’s tenure gets off to: what he brings in, and what he inherited.
Take Urban Meyer as an example. What he brought in was a stellar coaching staff. To date, five of the nine assistant coaches went on to become head coaches. Not just that, but four of the five had good runs at least one other place: Charlie Strong has the best win percentage of all Louisville coaches since 1913, Dan Mullen has the same for post-1950s coaches at Mississippi State, Steve Addazio has the second-most bowl appearances among Boston College coaches, and Doc Holliday coached the most games of any head man in Marshall history.