The Assumption Everyone Makes
Open any college football discussion board after the coaching carousel and you will see it: "He's a Saban guy, so expect an elite defense." Or: "he hired from the Dabo tree, so the culture will be player-first."
Coaching trees are treated as gospel. The assumption is simple, spend enough years under a great coach and you absorb their DNA. The methods. The philosophy. The identity.
But has anyone actually measured it?
We have 12-dimension coaching fingerprints for FBS head coaches. Each fingerprint captures a coach's tactical identity across offense, defense, and special teams using percentile scores derived from SP+ data. That gives us a starting place to answer the question quantitatively.
The tool: cosine similarity, the same math that powers recommendation engines and search algorithms. Instead of comparing movies or documents, we are comparing coaching identities.
The Method: Cosine Similarity on 12 Dimensions
Every coach on our Coaching Constellation has a radar chart built from 12 percentile dimensions, things like rushing offense, passing defense, havoc rate, and tempo. If you are not familiar with how we build these profiles, start with What Is Coaching DNA?.
Cosine similarity measures the angle between two coaches' fingerprint vectors. A score of 1.0 means the two profiles point in exactly the same direction, identical tactical identities. A score of 0.0 means they are orthogonal, completely unrelated. In practice, most FBS coach pairs land somewhere between 0.3 and 0.9.
To establish a baseline, we computed cosine similarity for 200 random coach pairs across the FBS:
- FBS baseline average: 0.638
- Standard deviation: 0.229
- Range: 0.156 to 0.994
Any score well above 0.638 suggests a meaningful tactical resemblance. Any score below it suggests the coaches have diverged, whatever their shared history.
The Saban Tree: Who Inherited the Blueprint?
Nick Saban's coaching tree is the most discussed in the sport. Kirby Smart, Steve Sarkisian, Lane Kiffin, Dan Lanning, Mario Cristobal, all worked under Saban at Alabama. All went on to lead Power Four programs.
But did they actually inherit his DNA?
We computed cosine similarity between Saban's fingerprint and each disciple's current profile:
| Coach | School | Similarity to Saban | vs. Baseline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kirby Smart | Georgia | 0.849 | +0.211 |
| Lane Kiffin | LSU | 0.838 | +0.200 |
| Steve Sarkisian | Texas | 0.820 | +0.182 |
| Mario Cristobal | Miami | 0.724 | +0.086 |
| Curt Cignetti | Alabama | 0.625 | -0.013 |
| Dan Lanning | Oregon | 0.533 | -0.105 |
The top three, Smart, Kiffin, and Sarkisian, all sit roughly one standard deviation above the FBS baseline. These are not coincidental overlaps. There is a real, measurable Saban imprint in how these coaches build their programs.
But look at the bottom of the table. Dan Lanning, a coach universally described as "a Saban guy," scores below the FBS baseline when compared directly to Saban. Curt Cignetti, Saban's literal successor at Alabama, barely matches the average random pair.
The coaching tree narrative is more complicated than the headlines suggest.
Smart vs Saban: The Heir Apparent
Cosine similarity: 0.849, the highest of any Saban disciple.
Smart spent nine years as Saban's defensive coordinator. The radar chart shows why the score is so high: both coaches build dominant defenses with strong rushing defense, pass defense, and havoc metrics. Smart inherited the Saban defensive identity almost wholesale.
Where they diverge is on offense. Smart's Georgia teams have been more explosive and more pass-efficient than Saban's later Alabama teams. Part of this is personnel, Georgia has recruited at an unprecedented level under Smart, with 76 draft picks including 20 first-rounders, but part of it is Smart's willingness to let his offensive coordinators innovate within the structure.
The verdict: Smart did not just copy Saban. He took the defensive blueprint, amplified it, and paired it with a more dynamic offense. The DNA is real, but it has evolved.
Sarkisian vs Saban: The Offensive Reinvention
Cosine similarity: 0.820, third among Saban disciples.
Sarkisian's path through the Saban tree is unique. He came to Alabama as an offensive analyst after personal struggles ended his first USC tenure, rebuilt his career as offensive coordinator, and now runs Texas with a playoff-caliber program.
The radar overlay reveals an interesting pattern: Sarkisian retained Saban's emphasis on scoring efficiency and offensive explosiveness but diverged sharply on the defensive dimensions. His Texas teams have been offense-first, layered RPO concepts, aggressive tempo when needed, and a pass-heavy identity that Saban's Alabama teams rarely showed.
With 43 draft picks and 10 first-rounders at Texas, Sarkisian has proven the talent pipeline works regardless of which side of the ball drives the identity.
The verdict: Sarkisian took the offensive half of Saban's DNA and left the defensive half behind. He is running a Saban-influenced program that Saban himself would not have built.
Lanning: The Second-Generation Mutation
Cosine similarity to Saban: 0.533, below the FBS baseline.
This is the most surprising result in the data. Dan Lanning is routinely described as a product of the Saban coaching tree. He was a graduate assistant at Alabama before becoming Kirby Smart's defensive coordinator at Georgia. On paper, he is a direct descendant.
But the numbers tell a different story. Lanning's Oregon teams have developed a tactical identity that looks very little like Saban's balanced, dominant-on-both-sides approach. The radar chart shows the divergence clearly, Lanning's defensive shape has similarities, but his offensive profile and overall balance have drifted far from the Saban template.
Here is the twist: Lanning's similarity to Kirby Smart is 0.908, the highest pair in our entire analysis. Lanning did not inherit Saban's DNA. He inherited Smart's interpretation of it.
This is what a second-generation coaching tree looks like. The DNA mutates with each generation. Smart adapted Saban. Lanning adapted Smart. By the time it reaches the second generation, the original blueprint is barely recognizable, but a new, distinct lineage has emerged.
With 24 draft picks and 4 first-rounders already at Oregon, Lanning's approach is working, it just is not Saban's approach.
The Surprise: Kiffin Is Closer Than You Think
Lane Kiffin's 0.838 similarity to Saban is the second-highest in the tree, and that probably surprises you. Kiffin's brand is high-tempo, pass-heavy, and explosive, the opposite of the perception of Saban-ball.
But coaching DNA captures more than scheme. It measures outcomes, how the team actually performs across all 12 dimensions. And Kiffin's Ole Miss teams, while offense-first in reputation, produced balanced results: strong scoring efficiency, solid defensive metrics, and an overall profile that mirrors Saban's more than most people would guess.
The lesson: do not confuse style with substance. Kiffin looks nothing like Saban on the sideline, but the DNA says they build programs that function similarly.
Beyond Saban: Does the Pattern Hold?
The Saban tree is the most famous, but the question applies everywhere. We looked at a few other mentor-disciple pairs:
Mario Cristobal (0.724) sits above the baseline but well below the top three Saban disciples. His Miami program has developed its own identity, recruiting-heavy, run-oriented, that shares Saban's talent-acquisition philosophy without matching the tactical fingerprint as closely.
Curt Cignetti (0.625), Saban's direct successor at Alabama, lands right at the FBS baseline. He is only one season in, and his fingerprint reflects his previous work at Indiana and James Madison more than any Saban influence. This will be fascinating to track over the next few years, will the Alabama job change his DNA, or will he reshape the program in his own image?
The 2026 Carousel: 32 DNA Transplants
The 2025-26 coaching carousel saw a record 32 new FBS hires. Each one represents a DNA transplant, a coach bringing their fingerprint to a new program.
Some of those hires came from coaching trees with strong DNA inheritance. Others came from outside the traditional power structures. Our data will let us track, in real time, whether these new coaches reshape their programs' identities or get reshaped by the talent and culture already in place.
For a deeper look at how coaching changes affect team performance, read Coaching Change Impact: What the Data Shows.
What This Means
Coaching trees are real, but they are not destiny.
The data shows that the strongest disciples (Smart, Kiffin, Sarkisian) retain a measurable imprint from their mentor. But even the closest match, Smart at 0.849, is not a copy. Every disciple adapts. Some take the defense and reimagine the offense. Some take the philosophy and change the scheme. Some drift so far that the connection is more historical than tactical.
The most successful coaches in the Saban tree are not the ones who replicated the blueprint. They are the ones who took the parts that fit their vision and built something new.
That is what our Coaching DNA data reveals: adaptation, not imitation, is the mark of a great coaching tree.
Explore every coach's DNA profile and see how the trees connect on our Coaching Constellation.
The Edge Report is the blog of Playmakers Edge, where we turn college football data into actionable insights. Follow us for weekly analysis throughout the season.