Willie Simmons
Willie Simmons went 10–9 as a head coach, 2025–2026, at Florida International. Share
- Record
- 10–9 career
- Seasons
- 2
- Schools
- 1
- Final AP top 10
- 0 seasons
- Born
- Oct 12, 1980
- Alma mater
- Clemson 2002
- Best season
- 2025 7–6
Season by season
| Season | School | Record | Bowl | AP final | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Florida International | 7–6 | First Responder Bowl L | ||
| 2026 | Florida International | 3–3 |
Each season links to the team’s season page; bowls and playoff games link to the game.
How his teams did
| Kind of game | Games | Record | Won |
|---|---|---|---|
| Against ranked teams | 1 | 0–1 | 0% |
| Against top-10 teams | 1 | 0–1 | 0% |
| Against rivals | 2 | 1–1 | 50% |
| Conference games | 10 | 6–4 | 60% |
| Bowls and playoffs | 1 | 0–1 | 0% |
| Decided by 8 points or fewer | 5 | 2–3 | 40% |
| At home | 9 | 7–2 | 78% |
| On the road | 8 | 2–6 | 25% |
| At neutral sites | 2 | 1–1 | 50% |
| As our Elo’s favorite | 9 | 7–2 | 78% |
| As our Elo’s underdog | 10 | 3–7 | 30% |
His own 19 games on file, 2025–2026, as played (vacated wins counted, ties as half a win). Ranks are the AP poll going into the game; rivals are the ones either program’s Wikipedia article names; favorite and underdog by our own Elo rating, which reads only scores.
Most-faced opponents
| Opponent | Games | Record |
|---|---|---|
| Jacksonville Stateseries | 2 | 1–1 |
| Florida Atlanticseries | 2 | 1–1 |
| Western Kentuckyseries | 1 | 1–0 |
| New Mexico Stateseries | 1 | 1–0 |
| Bethune-Cookmanseries | 1 | 1–0 |
| Buffaloseries | 1 | 1–0 |
| Libertyseries | 1 | 1–0 |
| Long Island Universityseries | 1 | 1–0 |
Coaching tree
Coached under him (4)
| Coach | With him | |
|---|---|---|
| Frank Ponce | Florida International, 2025–26: assistant head coach and tight ends coach | |
| Jovan Dewitt | Florida International, 2025–26: defensive coordinator | |
| Nick Coleman | Florida International, 2025: offensive coordinator | |
| Zac Roper | Florida International, 2025–26: special teams coordinator and tight ends coach |
From coaches’ Wikipedia infoboxes (CC BY-SA) and each season’s article for its coordinators: an assistant’s seasons at a school count under its head coach in our records; jobs in the NFL and elsewhere, under the head coach whose own article lists the job that year. Names without a page here link to their Wikipedia articles.
How he coached
Simmons’s teams went for it on 35% of fourth downs and on 69% of those where the model said go for it, passed on 50% of plays and took 26.6 seconds a play, 2025–2026.
| Season | Went for it on fourth | When the model said go | Pass rate | Seconds a play | EPA a play | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 13 g | 40 of 116 34% | 68% | 50% | 26.2 | +0.05 | |
| 2026 6 g | 17 of 47 36% | 71% | 52% | 27.4 | −0.04 | |
| All 19 g | 57 of 163 35% | 69% | 50% | 26.6 | +0.02 |
His seasons as a head coach from 2004 on, from ESPN’s play by play: fourth downs where he went for it out of every fourth-down decision; how often he went when SportsDataverse’s fourth-down model said going for it was the better call; the share of his offense’s plays that were passes; seconds of game clock per offensive play (lower is faster); and expected points added per offensive play (EPA, a measure of how much each play moved the offense toward points). The season in progress counts its games so far. SportsDataverse’s coach tendencies, from ESPN’s play by play; the EPA and the fourth-down model are SportsDataverse’s.