In his first year Willingham took a 5-6 team from the prior year and went 10-2 in the regular season. In his first Holtz took a 5-6 team and went 5-6. Clearly therefore Willingham had the more impressive first-year performance, right? True, but actually the similarities between their first-year performances are much stronger than one might think. And given that Holtz restored N.D. to a dominant position by his third year, the similarities probably ought to be seen as a good thing.

The difference in records between the teams is attributable entirely to performance in close games. Holtz's 1986 team was 4-1 in games decided by more than 7 points but only 1-5 in games decided by 7 points or fewer. Willingham's 2002 team was 5-1 in games decided by more than 7 points but 5-1 in games decided by 7 points or fewer. Both teams got thrashed once on the road by an apparently superior foe (Alabama in 1986 and U.S.C. in 2002). Had each team been 3-3 in close games, then Holtz's 1986 team would've been 7-4 and Willingham's 2002 team would've been 8-4.

None of this is to take anything away from the 2002 team's performance in close games, though. Winning close games is an important component of success at N.D. and Willingham has always been a good close game coach. Willingham at Stanford was an impressive 21-14-1 in such games, so going 5-1 this year was unusually good, but 4-2 would've only been about average for him, so Willingham would've been expected to go 9-3 in any event. Holtz was a less impressive 21-18-1 in close games at N.D., which is one of the reasons that his win rate of .765 was not as good as Ara's .830. Ara was 13-6-4 in these close games. Had Holtz been as good as Ara in close games Holtz would've had roughly another 5 wins which would've taken his career win rate over .800.

Holtz's teams were statistically more dominant than Devine's, but Devine essentially matched Holtz's .765 (Devine was .764) because Devine was a masterful 15-8-1 in close games. Actually, Faust's teams were in some respects nearly as good as Devine's except that Faust was a horrible 6-15-1 in close games. Had Faust matched Devine's proficiency in close games Faust would've been, say, 14-7-1 in such games, and his career win rate would've been a much more respectable .675 (he would've been 38-18-1 instead of 30-26-1). Davie's record in close games was actually over .500, but his teams were so weak that he was still mired under .600.

Now, to move away from record and look at point differentials, Holtz and Willingham look much more similar. Let's look at the improvement from 1985 (Faust's last year) to Holtz's first year.

1985
Points scored per game: 20.9
Points allowed per game: 21.3
Differential: -.4

1986
Points scored per game: 27.2
Points allowed per game: 19.9
Differential: + 7.3

Now the Willingham improvement:

2001
Points scored per game: 19.4
Points allowed per game: 19.5
Differential: -.1

2002
Points scored per game: 23.7
Points allowed per game: 15.8
Differential: + 7.9

Interestingly, Holtz got the largest chunk of his improvement from point production while Willingham split it almost equally between point production and point defense. Some of this, of course, was because of the defense's proficiency for scoring, but there were real improvements in the offense. This year N.D. averaged about 2.25 offensive touchdowns per game, while last year that figure was only about 1.9. Some of the scoring gap is narrowed a little by the fact that Setta was 15-17 on field goals in 2001 but only 12-23 in 2002. Had Setta kicked as well this year, N.D. would've averaged another 2 points per game, taking it to 25.7.

Similar improvements took place in the per-play yardage statistics, though again Willingham was slightly superior.

1985
Yards per rush: 3.7
Yards allowed per rush: 3.5
Yards per pass: 6.8
Yards allowed per pass: 6.7

1986
Yards per rush: 3.8 (better by .1)
Yards allowed per rush: 3.1 (better by .4)
Yards per pass: 8.5 (better by 1.7)
Yards allowed per pass: 6.9 (worse by .2)

2001
Yards per rush: 3.9
Yards allowed per rush: 3.5
Yards per pass: 5.1
Yards allowed per pass: 6.9

2002
Yards per rush: 3.5 (worse by .4)
Yards allowed per rush: 2.9 (better by .6)
Yards per pass: 6.9 (better by 1.9)
Yards allowed per pass: 5.8 (better by 1.1)

Again, the similarities predominate. Both made huge improvements in the passing attack. Holtz made a slight improvement in the rushing attack, while under Willingham this is the one statistic that went the wrong way, though the difference between 2001 and 2002's rushing attack is entirely attributable to Holiday's diminished rushing production as he went from 4.3 per carry in 2001 to 2.2 in 2002 (largely because of more sacks and fewer designed runs for him). But note that even run-oriented Holtz really couldn't get the ground game on track his first year, though in 1987 he had it up to a quite reasonable 4.5 per carry.

While Holtz's defensive improvements were slight (and pass defense actually went slightly the wrong direction), Willingham and his staff made gigantic improvements to the defense.

In terms of how far away Notre Dame stands now, national championship teams playing a schedule of roughly N.D.'s caliber need to have a scoring margin of 17-20 points per game (O.S.U. this year is about +17 per game). In Holtz's second year, he took the scoring margin to just over 10 ppg and then in 1988 it was just under 20 ppg (19.8). Notre Dame under Willingham this year made more than a touchdown per game (actually 8 ppg) improvement. It will take a minimum of another 8 ppg improvement (and probably more like 10 ppg) to get N.D. seriously in the hunt. If Willingham continues to follow roughly the same path as Holtz, he should a strong major-bowl team in 2003 and a national championship caliber team in 2004.