A new coach always leads to a drop in prestige

I'm not sure I understand - I can see in season 68 Milwaukee Engineering went 29-1 w/ a first round exit in the NT.  At the end of that season, their prestige moved from B+ to A-.

In season 69 though, which looks like your first season at the school (or maybe it was SIM coached and just updated to you since you just took over?  History tab has always been kinda hokey) - at any rate, that season they went 15-9 with a 120 RPI and didn't make the postseason at all.  That's the reason the school moved from an A- to a B, not solely because you took over.

It is possible for a prestige move due to a new coach, but it isn't always a drop.  For example, if a successful D1 coach moved down to a D2 school, they'd actually get a prestige bump as a result.

Catawba (DII Rupp) had this 5-year history

Final Four
RU
Elite 8
Final Four
RU

They dropped from a strong A+ to A when a new coach took over.  I questioned WIS about it and they confirmed  that coaching change was the culprit.

As an aside the way prestige is figured at DII and DIII: Current season 50%;  Previous prestige 50%. Since the previous prestige is a cumulation of 3-4 seasons, that makes the current season worth more than 4X any other season.  I feel that's ridiculously too high but that's the way it is. 

season 69 is the current season (hence the I meant to ask this before and expected to have a bit of a down season). Just didnt realize coach changing schools would drop it, especially if coming from another decent program.

thanks for the input guys.

I had just wondered because I remembered coming into the season thinking that switching to a new team that had many open scholarships with a high prestige would pay off and then the prestige dropped  to a B. I know the prestige is not that big of a factor, but I ended up losing a player I was really banking on in a close battle and felt the prestige difference might have mattered.

Either way, good to know for future purposes.

Ah, I see - I didn't look at it long enough to realize that the season was still in progress... just assumed it was over and that was the culprit.

I've never seen it move more than 1/3 of a letter grade, so that's a bit odd.  I'd guess that it was a really weak A- and moved to a high B on the change.  Prestige is really just a letter representation of a numeric value, so likely just on the edge of being a B+.

As the current coach at Catawba in Rupp, I had another drop from A to A- when I took over.  If a coach with no success took over a team I can see it dropping a bit.  However my most recent job as a coach in Rupp using that account was a Div 1 school, and prior to that when I was in Div 2, I was coaching a team that in my final 2 seasons was ranked #1 in the poll and went to the Sweet 16 and then went to the Elite 8 in my final D2 season before moving up to Div 1.  

If a coach has a resume that surpasses the prior coach, team prestige should go up, not down.  If a coach has a resume that is similar to the coach that left, prestige should stay the same.  And then if a coach moves up to that job but has a weak resume (basically a prestige hawk) then the team prestige should drop because they are now bringing on a coach who isn't as qualified as the last guy.    That's how it SHOULD be, but HD doesn't work on should... it is based on SMH type programming