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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cuyahoga Falls Eers_rivals" data-source="post: 131691232" data-attributes="member: 1759980">WVU Coach Don Nehlen is in the College Football Hall of Fame with a 60.9% winning percentage in 30 years.That’s 202-128 W-L.NINETY coaches in the College Football Hall of Fame had better winning percentages than Don.It’s not disrespectful to note that, just letting the numbers do the talking, not by making irrational claims because Don is a nice guy, which he is.I have great respect for what Don did for my alma mater when he came from Bowling Green after being an assistant at Michigan.But 90 of the 214 coaches inducted by 2014 did better than Don. 124 did worse. That pretty makes him average among Hall of Fame coaches. Which is not chopped liver. But not close to Bear Bryant or Nick Saban or Woody Hayes territory.Both of Don’s undefeated regular seasons, in 1988 and 1993, came mostly against inferior competition. In 1988 only TWO defeated foes had winning records; in 1993, only FOUR did. So that meant WVU faced 9 teams having bad seasons in 1988 and 7 teams were sub-par in 1993.So the 1988 and 1993 best seasons under Nehlen were against 17 losing teams and 6 winning teams. Level of competition helped as much as talent in blue and gold.In 1993 Pitt was 3-8, Rutgers 4-7, Temple 1-10, Miami, Boston College and Syracuse 9-3 and Syracuse 6-4. Non-conference foes were Maryland 2-9, Missouri 3-7-1 and Eastern Michigan 4-7.In 1993 WVU beat Miami before a still-record Mountaineer Field crowd of 70,222 en route to the Big East title.The 41-7 Florida bowl beatdown I can’t explain. It was the reverse of WVU's 38-35 Sugar Bowl surprise of Georgia in the 2005 season when the Mountaineers shot out to a 28-7 lead in the 1st 17 minutes, then held on by its fingernails while being out-scored 28-10 by the Bulldogs the rest of the game. WVU just didn't do against Florida what Georgia did to almost turn it around.In 1993 WVU quarterback Jack the Snake Kelchner threw 174 passes, completed 110 for 1,688 yards and 12 touchdowns, only about 1 TD pass per game. OK, but not stupendous.Robert Walker ran for 1,250 yards, averaging 5.8 yards per carry. Pretty impressive.And the defense had Aaron Beasley, who was a beastly Beasley as a defensive back even as a sophomore in 1993, so good that he played defense in the NFL for 9 seasons and had 24 interceptions, 10 forced fumbles and 4 fumble recoveries. The Pottstown (PA) pow! guy in 1994 led the nation with 10 interceptions (of his 19 while at WVU, the 2nd highest career total for a Mountaineer).Keeping it in perspective among WVU coaches, and I know people get irate when I post numbers they don’t like and get angry at me instead of the numbers speaking about winning WVU career percentages:1. Clarence “Doc” Spears 80.8%2. Bill Stewart 70%.3. Rich Rodriguez 69.8%4. Jim Carlen 64.6%.5. Bobby Bowden 61.8%.6. Don Nehlen 61.4%7. Art “Pappy” Lewis 60.2%.8. Dana Holgorsen 59.8%That makes Don 6th in career winning percentage at WVU. The numbers are indisputable, no matter how much you don’t like them. No matter what you say or think, it’s Spears, Stewart, Rodriguez, Carlen, Bowden, Nehlen, Lewis and Holgorsen in that order.Live with it. Twist it any way you want. It’s not me talking. It’s the numbers shouting. Listen instead of yelling at me.</blockquote>

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