My HD team belongs to an only moderately full D3 conference. This season we only have 5 of the 12 spots filled with human coaches. Right now as things stand, all 5 human teams are on pace to make the NT. And last season we pulled off the same stunt. 5 teams out of a conference making the NT is pretty good, but not amazingly special. But going 5 for 5 among the humans is a pretty neat trick.
I'm guessing that there are other conferences that might surpass mine (Allen - North Atlantic) as consistently getting the highest percentage of human coaches into the NT. But we've been on a pretty good run.
I took the last 15 seasons worth of data (which pretty much matches our conference's "run") and came up with the following:
-- 46* different human coaches have been in the NAC
* For these purposes I'm ignoring 3 that joined Sim AI teams when the free promo came out for the new engine and abandoned their team the very next season. I'm not sure those teams were ever actively coached and even if one was, it was in Sim AI hands before the fruits of any labor would have been seen.
-- 129 total seasons of human coaches; on average there have been 8.6 human coaches in any given season. Only in 2 of the 15 seasons were we completely human coaches.
-- 76 NT bids were awarded to the human coaches. On average, 5.1 bids per season have gone to the NAC. Once there, the conference averages 1.6 wins per appearance ... rounding up and our average NT team makes it to the Sweet 16.
-- 19 PIT bids were awarded to the human coaches and an average of 1.9 wins per appearance.
-- 59% of human coached seasons result in a NT bid. (If we make it 5 for 5 this season, we're up to 60% during the stretch.) During our last 10 seasons, we have a 66% rate of making the NT.
-- 15% of human coached seasons results in a PIT bid.
-- 74% of human coached seasons make the postseason. If you are in the NAC, you've had a 3 out of 4 chance of making the postseason the past 15 seasons.
-- Ignoring the 3 promo coaches that were dead on arrival, we've had 46 coaches in the NAC over the past 15 seasons. 20 of the 46 coaches have made the NT. Another 8 made the PIT. 61% of human coaches (not seasons) made the postseason during their time in the NAC.
This isn't an out of this world run for the conference, but considering the level of turnover in D3 and the fact that in any given season any random coach can show up in our conference, I've been really impressed with how well our conference has faired for quite some time. We haven't been #1 in terms of RPI all that often recently simply because of the number of Sim AI teams. But even when we've been half (or more!) Sim AI we still have kept the conference within the top 3 RPI and are almost never exceeded in NT bids.
I fully expect somebody to be able to post a better conference and eagerly await the post.