Wacky Happy Funtime with Useless Statistics

[Dooby]

Last year somebody crunched the numbers for the season records of teams following winless seasons. I think the result was 2.3 victories or something.

Well, I thought I would look to see how teams did two seasons removed from losing seasons; i.e. next year for SMU. They actually don't do too bad. I looked at 16 teams that had winless seasons. Only two teams did worse than the year following a winless season. In both cases, the team was Northwestern. who from '78 to '80 went 0 wins-1 win-0 wins and from '55 to '57 went 0-4 wins-0. The average increase in victories over the season was 1.4 victories.

Of course, none of those teams changed conferences in the middle, either. So that should be taken into account. But statistically, SMU is looking at an improvement of 1 or 2 games.

[Dutch]

do you recall seeing if there was a coaching change at any point in that 3 year period for any of those teams?

[Dooby]

do you recall seeing if there was a coaching change at any point in that 3 year period for any of those teams?

Off the top of my head, I think Houston changed coaches a year after their winless season.