RIP COACH HOLTZ

[South jones]

Coach Lou Holtz. Has passed away. He was 89. Good man good coach.

[Jaxcat]

My brother informed me of an interesting fact about Holz: he is the winningest coach, by winning %, for THREE programs - Arkansas, NC State and Notre Dame. That's pretty darn impressive.

When he was doing color commentary and predicting the outcomes of games, I always thought it was funny that he seemingly ALWAYS picked ND, AR and SC to win their games, regardless of their opponent (he coached at all 3, of course). He increasingly relied on homespun schlock after a while, but was still entertaining for the most part.

A lot of people had nothing but good things to say about him, although a long while back a few former players suggested the staff at ND made pretty obvious suggestions that a particular player had to get 'bigger and much stronger' in a very short time or wouldn't see any action on the field. Probably just sour grapes for players who weren't quite good enough but there was definitely some accusatory claims about PEDs when he was at ND, none of which were every verified (or even investigated to my knowledge).

[bthaunert]

My brother informed me of an interesting fact about Holz: he is the winningest coach, by winning %, for THREE programs - Arkansas, NC State and Notre Dame. That's pretty darn impressive.

When he was doing color commentary and predicting the outcomes of games, I always thought it was funny that he seemingly ALWAYS picked ND, AR and SC to win their games, regardless of their opponent (he coached at all 3, of course). He increasingly relied on homespun schlock after a while, but was still entertaining for the most part.

A lot of people had nothing but good things to say about him, although a long while back a few former players suggested the staff at ND made pretty obvious suggestions that a particular player had to get 'bigger and much stronger' in a very short time or wouldn't see any action on the field. Probably just sour grapes for players who weren't quite good enough but there was definitely some accusatory claims about PEDs when he was at ND, none of which were every verified (or even investigated to my knowledge).

While I'm sure your brother is a nice guy, his stats are off. Holtz won .765 of his games at ND. Of guys that coached 5 or more years at ND, that places him 6th. At NC State, he is second among coaches that coached 5 or more years and he's also second at Arkansas.

[Jaxcat]

I forgot to mention that the ND distinction was only for coaches who coached for 125 games or more. That may explain that one. The NCSt one, he's gotten some bad info (bad info from the internet? WHAT.....?).

Thanks for the clarification. And, at times, he IS a nice guy. Other times, like all of us, he's a raging a-hole.