[NU Sports] Fitz!

[John Labbe]

With our wins over Michigan and Illinois, Fitz now has a winning record of 19-17 as head coach.  Whether we win or lose our bowl game, he'll finish the season with a winning record as head coach.

The last time an NU head coach finished a season with a cumulative winning record as head coach of the Cats was 45 years ago, when Ara Parseghian walked out of Evanston with an overall record of 36-35-1 after beating Ohio State in his last game as coach of the Cats.

To look at the statistics another way, Fitz currently holds the best winning percentage (52.8%) of any head NU football coach following at least 5 games as coach since Bob Voigts held a 52.9% winning percentage just after his win over Indiana on October 25, 1952, over 55 years ago.

For you record-book junkies, the "finished the season" and "5 games" conditions are only minor technicalities.  Francis Peay, Randy Walker, and Fitz himself were all 2-1 after their first 3 games (67%), John Pont and Ara Parseghian won their first games (100%), and Alex Agase won his first two games (100%).  After that, all of those coaches held losing records for their entire time at NU (except Ara in his final season at NU).