good coaches seem to rise to the top.

I'll use an example of a good coach, horrible human being, Urban Meyer. He was in Bowling Green, then Utah, then Florida and so forth. Except for the pros, he has show the ability to recruit and to coach.

OTOH, we've seen ND select a coach from the high school ranks and fail miserably despite that university having every recruiting advantage.

Yet, luck matters too. A bad injury to a key player can cause a program to lose badly in a year. Mack Brown did great one year and the failed at Texas inexplicably.