Nautical Signals | by Jay

Full review, odds, sods, and everything else post-Navy in a bit. For now, here's a little something to get your day started.

Since Navy last beat ND in 1963 -- just prior to Ara taking over -- here's the average margin of victory over USNA, broken down by coach. The Navy MOV is a pretty good indicator of overall ND coaching success:

coach	games	avg MOV	high	low
Parseghian	11	30.1	49	8
Holtz	11	29.2	43	15
Devine	6	21.2	33	6
Faust	5	19.2	38	1
Davie	5	18.0	31	4
Willingham	3	9.3	18	3

Navy, by the way, was nationally-ranked only once when we played them over that span (they were #11 in 1978).

Anyway, note the three coaches who did not average at least 20 points per win. More significantly, consider this: Davie and Willingham in their 8 years combined had more single-digit wins (4) than the other four coaches in their 33 years combined (3).

Charlie's inaugural MOV over Navy, although an obviously limited statistical sample, is nevertheless an encouraging 21 points.