I believe that much can be learned by looking at coaches and programs over the long haul. In fact, I think more of this ought to be done by those making these kinds of decisions, because it would expose some coaches who are, in my opinion, overrated, such as Neuheisel. It also should've showed, I think, by no later than the end of Davie's third year that retaining him was essentially an exercise in futility.

For all coaches starting with Ara, I went back and got total points for and against for the seasons. I report below an average over the coach's career. I also went game by game, and separated all games into those in which a team won by 15 or more points (blowouts for statistical purposes), a team won by 8-14 points (convincing wins, usually), a team won by 4-7 points (within one score) and a team won by 1-3 points (FG or less). These are also career totals. So, for example, Ara was 73-6 in his career in games decided by 15 or more points.

Looking at this is a way of potentially evaluating the degree to which one coach's teams dominated, or didn't, even in apparently otherwise good and bad years.

So, to the data:

Ara:

Average points for: 30.6
Average points vs.: 10.7
Games decided by 15+: 73-6
Games decided by 8-14: 9-5
Games decided by 4-7: 5-5
Games decided by 1-3: 8-1-4

Devine:

Average points for: 24.9
Average points vs.: 13.8
Games decided by 15+: 27-4
Games decided by 8-14: 9-4
Games decided by 4-7: 8-6
Games decided by 1-3: 7-2-1

Faust:

Average points for: 22.9
Average points vs.: 17.6
Games decided by 15+: 18-7
Games decided by 8-14: 6-4
Games decided by 4-7: 2-9
Games decided by 1-3: 4-6-1

Holtz:

Average points for: 32.5
Average points vs.: 18.5
Games decided by 15+: 63-9
Games decided by 8-14: 16-3
Games decided by 4-7: 12-7
Games decided by 1-3: 9-11-2

Davie:

Average points for: 25.4
Average points vs.: 22.1
Games decided by 15+: 15-8
Games decided by 8-14: 5-5
Games decided by 4-7: 8-8
Games decided by 1-3: 7-4

Several things stand out to me. First, it's no surprise that Ara amassed the best win rate (.836) of the bunch. He had it all. His teams dominated and they won more than their share of close games.

An interesting comparison is Holtz and Devine. Their win rates are essentially identical at .765, but Holtz's teams were much more dominant in terms of points. If you look, however, Devine's teams were much better in close games. In games decided by 7 points or less, Devine's teams were an excellent 15-8-1 while Holtz's were a so-so 21-18-1. A guy named Montana might have something to do with Devine's success here, and Holtz's frequent skimping on the place-kicker position might be a factor in the other direction. Holtz's record here is also held down by his snakebit 1986 team that went 1-5 in games decided by 7 points or less.

Davie and Faust also make interesting comparisons. Neither one came close to generating the kind of dominance that Ara, Devine and Holtz had. So, while those 3 were respectively 82-11, 36-8 and 79-12 in games decided by 8 points or more, Faust and Davie were on the wrong end of convincing scores with much more frequency. Faust was 24-11 in such games and Davie a thoroughly unimpressive 20-13.

In fact, in retrospect, it's remarkable that Davie managed to generate a record better than Faust's. Davie, however, turned out to be reasonably good in close games (7 or fewer points) at 15-12 while Faust was a snakebit 6-15-1. Some of this was that Faust was a very bad situational game coach. One suspects that the story about the ND player wanting to adjust the blocking assignments after having had several placekicks blocked by Air Force and being told by Faust to say a Hail Mary instead is just the tip of the iceberg here.

Davie, though, was a bad situation coach, as shown by his frequent bungling of time management issues. Looking back, it's amazing how many of Davie's close wins came against service academies that ND should've dominated. And many of the close losses were clearly games that ND could've won, often leading in the second half.

Interestingly, the evidence was fully assembled after Davie's 3d year that he could not succeed in the long term. Davie's 7-6 first year team outscored the opposition for the year 282-265, his 9-3 second year team outscored the opposition 328-248 and his 5-7 third year team 348-331. A team that outscores the opposition by less than a touchdown per game cannot reasonably expect to have a record as good as 9-3. This piece of almost unbelievable good fortune for Davie was repeated in his 4th year, but it simply is not sustainable in the long run. Even the great Ara was only 9-5 in games in the 8-14 point range; you cannot consistently let teams stay with a score of you and expect to win three quarters of these games. By way of comparison, Holtz's 5-6 1986 teams outscored its opposition by 80 points, essentially the same margin as Davie's two "good teams." Holtz never again failed to outscore his opposition by more than 100 points with the exception of the 6-5-1 team (62 points) and four times he outscored the opposition by more than 200 points, including in his 8-3 bowl-less final campaign. Davie's other three years generated margins of 17, 17 and minus one points. Davie's two good years were, purely and simply, flukes, and the evidence that he could never dominate in a way to win consistently was all there after year three.