<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Three more wins and <a href="https://twitter.com/CoachBrianKelly">@CoachBrianKelly</a> will be the only ND coach to ever have 5 straight 8+ win seasons to start their career. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Torbinformed?src=hash">#Torbinformed</a></p>— oak (@oaknd1) <a href="https://twitter.com/oaknd1/status/519593944649187328">October 7, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Since the odds of ND achieving at least 8 wins this season is very high, Kelly is on track for historical greatness. That's no mean feat in South Bend.
What a Bullshit stat!
Monk would be proud that some ND Assistant SID thinks 8 wins in a 13 game year, (or 8-5 season, a 61.5 Winning Percentage which Kelly has done twice), represents "historical greatness". What next, Participation Trophies for a 3-9 season?
No ND coach before 1989 ever had the chance for an 8-5 record (season plus a bowl game) as
ND had never played 13 games in a season before 1989. ND has only played 13 games in a year 10 times out of 126 years.
Holtz had 13 games in a year only twice. First in '89 because ND was in the preseason Kickoff Classic. (I was at Giants Stadium when ND routed UVA.) The second time was in '91 when ND got a bonus game for travelling to Hawaii.
By 1997 the NCAA permitted 12 game schedules allowing about half the coaches in Division 1 could get to 13 games even Bob Davie had one 13 game season. Willingham only had 1, Weis had two.
Winning 8 games is NOT a mark of distinction unless you're only playing 8, 9, or 10 games in the year.
In the 12 years when Rockne coached at least 8 games he won 8 or more 75% of the time. Actually he only had one 8 win season in those years going 8-1-1. More to the mark of historical greatness he only lost more than 2 games in a season once, 5-4 in 1928.
He won 19 in a row after that with
5 UNDEFEATED SEASONS in his career.
Hunk Anderson won 75% of his games the first two season. In 1930 when he dropped to 3-5-1 despite his defense allowing only 8.9 pts/game . His career mark dropped to .629 and he was fired. Since then all coaches below that mark have been terminated. Terry Brennan was terminated with winning 64% of this games which on a 13 game basis would represent 8.3 wins/year.
Jesse Harper won 86.3% of his games but only won 6.8 games a season but he only averaged 8 games a year PLAYED.
Layden won almost 77% of his but only didn't average 7 wins in a 9 game year.
Leahy won 85.5% of his games in 13 season (11 ND plus 2 at BC) he only lost more than 2 games once and had
7 UNDEFEATED SEASONS. He went
4 YEARS WITHOUT A LOSS and averaged one loss a season at ND while facing a tough schedule with no FBS caliber teams. That in not just a mark of "historical greatness" that IS historical greatness.
Ara won 83.6% of his games at ND.
In 11 years he lost more than 2 games just ONCE.
What that assistant SID should have written was something like:
After opening the first two seasons with identical 8-5 records for a .615 winning rate, which is historically unacceptable at Notre Dame, Brian Kelly is approaching the career rate of success of Layden, Holtz, and Devine.
In the last 31 games, Kelly has coached ND to a 26-5 record, an 83.6% rate of success comparable to the truly great ones, Harper, Rockne, Leahy, and Parshegian.
In a 13 game year:
13-0= 1.000
12-1 = 0.923
11-2= 0.846
10-3= 0.769
9-4= 0.692 (BELOW ND's .734 Historical Success Record with the recent 2 decades run of mediocrity)
8-5= 0.615
ND Historical Winning Percentage
1917 Harper Resigns .782
1930 Rockne's Death .820
1933 Anderson Terminated .805
1940 Layden Retired .800
1953 Leahy's "Retirement" .809
1958 Brennan Terminated .795
1963 Kuharich/Devore .764
1974 Parshegian's Retirement .774
1980 Devine Retires .774
1985 Faust Terminated .759
1996 Holtz's "Retirement" .759
2001 Davie Terminated .750
2004 Willingham Terminated .743
2009 Weis Terminated .734
2011 Kelly's back to back 8-5 seasons .731
2014 Kelly (as of 10/4/14) .734
