Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Above the Mendoza Line | by Jeff

With the win on Saturday, Charlie Weis managed to stay one step ahead of his two predecessors for at least one more week. Weis, Willingham, and Davie all won their 31st game, and Weis remains slightly ahead of DavieHam with a 20-11 record (vs 19-12 for the other two coaches). Both Davie and Willingham won their 32nd game but subsequently lost four of their next five. So, despite a disasterous season by most measures, Weis still has a very good chance at being ahead of both Davie and Willingham at the end of the season when comparing records after the same number of games.

Weis currently trails Davie in margin of victory (MOV), Weis is +133, while Davie was +148; Willingham was far behind at +31. However, the MOV for both Davie and Willingham dropped by at least 30 points over their next six games. So, Weis should have an opportunity to keep his head above the brackish water mark with a strong showing in the last half of the season.

Coach First 31 Games Win Pct MOV Final Record
Knute Rockne * 27-2-2 .903 +672 .881
Jessee Harper 27-4 .871 +887 .863
Ara Parseghian * 26-3-2 .871 +764 .836
Frank Leahy * 25-3-3 .855 +501 .855
Dan Devine * 24-7 .774 +398 .764
Elmer Layden 21-7-3 .726 +213 .770
Lou Holtz * 21-10 .677 +347 .765
Charlie Weis 20-11 .645 +133 ?
Terry Brennan 20-11 .645 +97 .640
Hunk Anderson 16-9-2 .630 +351 .630
Bob Davie 19-12 .613 +148 .583
Ty Willingham 19-12 .613 +31 .568
Gerry Faust 17-14 .548 +247 .535
Joe Kuharich 13-18 .419 -87 .425

* Won National Championship