[NU Sports] Cardiac Cats

[cherron604 at aol.com]

Saw a statistic in the News-Gazette that looked interesting:

http://www.illinihq.com/news/football/2009/11/14/rossows_big_ten_report_hail_jim_tressel

specifically:

"NERVES, Northwestern. Wildcats improved to 23-6 in games decided by seven points or less since 2000."

Are we in more games decided by seven or less ?  Or do we just do better in those games ?

So I rounded up some history

                               games      % of all 
Coach       games     within 7     games     win    loss   tie   win %
Hanley         66           23             35%      10       9      4     43%
Waldorf       101          44             44%      15      22     7     34 %
Voigts          73          31             43%       13     17     1      42%
Saban           9            2              22%        0        1     1       0%
Ara              72          31              43%       13      17    1      42%
Agase          91          27              30%       12      14     1     44%
Pont            55          17              31%        7       10            41%
Venturi         33           4              12%          1       2      1    25%
Green          55            9              16%         6       3            67%
Peay           66           19              29%        6      11      2    32%
Barnett        81            32             40%        16    15      1    50%
Walker        83            30             36%        20     10            67%
Fitz             48            18             38%        13      5            72%

So we seem to have about as many tight games as before (except Saban and Pont/Venturi/Green, when there were too many blowouts).  But our last three coaches have been outstanding at winning those games.

To correct the stat, it looks like we were 22-7 in those games since 2004, this win brought us to 23-7(77%).  Equally impressive is that we are currently 33-15 (69%) in those games since 1999 (Randy Walker's first year)

Chuck Herron   Tech '85