Success in college football, perhaps as much as or more so than any other human endeavor, is path-dependent. College football is path-dependent in the sense that for the vast majority of teams (your Alabamas and Clemsons aside), success is borne of a cyclical process of development. When a coach takes a job, he begins implementing his recruiting strategy, targeting the type of talent he needs, and raising the overall talent level of his team. As players from the old regime phase out, the new unit raises the tide of the entire team, and building off each year's incremental success, most programs reach a plateau when a mass of the newly imported talent become upperclassmen.
OFI: The Returning Talent Index
