Well, this lessons learned session is going to be a little less fun than it seemed at the halfway point, but as promised, here we are to review our preseason predictions now that the regular season has wrapped up. The bowl game could change things slightly, but I don’t think it would make a big difference anywhere. And in any case, we made these predictions about the regular season, so, uh, there.
Big Picture Stuff
What will Notre Dame’s 2017 regular season record be?
- 10-2 or better: Staff, 25%; Readers, 26%
- 9-3: Staff, 17%; Readers: 43%
- 8-4 or worse: Staff, 58%; Readers: 31%
Kudos to our brilliant readers for nailing this one. The interesting thing here is that the actual regular season record met or exceeded expectations for 75% of the staff and 74% of the readers – and yet it still feels massively disappointing. I think that mostly relates to how the season went down; at 7-1 after pummeling USC and NC State, we all subconsciously revised our preseason predictions. I think many also considered a 2-1 record against Georgia, USC, and Stanford to be one measure of a successful season, and of course we didn’t hit that.
What’s your biggest concern heading into the season?
- Defensive line depth chart: Staff, 67%; Readers: 37%
- Safety depth chart: Staff, 0%; Readers: 24%
- Defensive fundamentals: Staff, 8%; Readers: 11%
- 2016 hangover: Staff, 17%; Readers: 2%
In hindsight… WHAT THE HELL WERE WE THINKING? Given their performance over the last month of the season and the questions about them all the way back in camp, it’s pretty mind-boggling that the staff wasn’t more concerned about the safeties. Nick Coleman was a lifesaver this year (more on that below), and Mike Elko did a good job of hiding them overall, but they eventually got exposed. Interestingly, the leading concern for both staff and readers, the defensive line, ended up being not a concern at all. In fact, you could make a very reasonable case for them as the best unit on the defense and third best on the team behind the offensive line and running backs. Elko and the much-maligned Mike Elston deserve credit for that.
Superlatives
Who will be Notre Dame’s offensive MVP?
- Josh Adams: Staff, 33%; Readers, 42%
- Brandon Wimbush: Staff, 25%; Readers: 32%
- Equanimeous St. Brown: Staff, 33%; Readers: 11%
- Mike McGlinchey: Staff, 8%; Readers: 8%
- Quenton Nelson: Staff, 0%; Readers: 6%
- Tony Jones: Staff, 0%; Readers: 2%
Despite the late season fade and nagging injury issues, Josh Adams was clearly the team’s offensive MVP this season. Big Q probably deserved to be second on this list – maybe even first. ESB was almost a non-factor, mostly through no fault of his own, and Wimbush was a game-wrecker when he was on but wildly inconsistent. And who voted for Tony Jones??
Who will be Notre Dame’s defensive MVP?
- Nyles Morgan: Staff, 67%; Readers, 92%
- Daelin Hayes: Staff, 17%; Readers, 4%
- Drue Tranquill: Staff, 8%; Readers, 4%
- Julian Love: Staff, 8%; Readers, 0%
Morgan was a bit of an engima this season. He was solid, certainly, and occasionally excellent, but he didn’t emerge as the year-long dominant force many expected him to be. Hayes played well, but not well enough to merit MVP consideration. I think it says something about the performance of the defense as a whole – in a positive way, stop snickering – that it’s hard to pick someone out. I would probably go with someone not on the preseason radar: Te’Von Coney, who led the team in tackles (99) and tackles for loss (12.5). 18s writer ndroyalsfan pointed out that Coney had the season many of us thought Morgan would, which is a good way to sum it up.
Julian Love definitely deserves honorable mention at least, with a school-record 17 PBUs, 3 interceptions, and 2 touchdowns. Jerry Tillery belongs in the conversation as well; from the DT position, he led the team in sacks (4.0) and hurries (10), was tied for 2nd in TFLs (8.5), and was 6th in tackles (52).
Who will provide the play of the year?
- Brandon Wimbush: Staff, 33%; Readers, 32%
- Equanimeous St. Brown: Staff, 17%; Readers, 30%
- Alize Mack: Staff, 25%; Readers, 4%
- Josh Adams: Staff, 8%; Readers: 17%
- CJ Sanders: Staff, 17%; Readers: 6%
A couple of Wimbush’s long runs against Boston College were strong contenders, but with fewer highlight moments as the year went on he can’t snag this one. Poor ESB was one of the main victims of Wimbush’s accuracy issues and had very few chances to show off his ability. Alize Mack… Look, I like the kid. Let’s not go there. CJ Sanders never had that big special teams moment that some of us expected.
But for 10 weeks, Josh Adams was the best running back in the country, and he gave us a new splash reel every week. For me, I’ll take his back-breaking 84-yard jaunt against USC as the play of the year.
Which freshman will have the biggest immediate impact?
- Brock Wright: Staff, 42%; Readers, 13%
- Isaiah Robertson: Staff, 42%; Readers, 20%
- Kurt Hinish: Staff, 8%; Readers: 15%
- Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa: Staff, 8%; Readers, 2%
A few other guys came up too, but all with relatively small percentages of the vote. I think this is an easy one; MTA blew away the competition, emerging as a legitimate front line player at a critical position.
Over/Under Fun
Wins in first 6 games: 5
Result: Push. Damn it. 52% of the staff and 61% of the readers took the over.
Average team rushing yards in Brian Kelly’s tenure: 2,127
Result: Waaaaaay over, 3,349. 92% of the staff and 89% of the readers took the over. We’re wicked smaht. The 2017 edition of the Fighting Irish rolled up 24% more rushing yards than Kelly’s previous high in 2015; in fact it’s one of the best rushing performances in the history of Notre Dame football, albeit with a rather substantial standard deviation.
Average team passing yards in Brian Kelly’s tenure: 3,272
Result: Waaaaaay under, 2,110. 92% of the staff and 59% of the readers took the under, which was a smart play. The Irish racked up (?) 27% fewer passing yards than Kelly’s previous low in 2012. I don’t really feel like tracking it down, but even without the research it feels safe to say that it was one of the least prolific Irish passing attacks ever. Damn it (again).
Average team sacks in Brian Kelly’s tenure: 24
Average team tackles for loss in Brian Kelly’s tenure: 70
Average team interceptions in Brian Kelly’s tenure: 12.6
Results: Sacks, under, 22; TFLs, over, 75; INTs, under, 10. The staff voted for the over on each item, 58%/58%/67%, respectively, while the readers also took the over on each, 68%/72%/56%. After nine games the defense seemed well positioned to push for the line in sacks and interceptions, with 20 and 10, but those stats faded in the final three games. On the other hand, they stayed strong in TFLs, recording the second best number of the season against Stanford (9) and the fifth-best against Miami (5). There’s a reasonable opportunity to beat the sack average and inch closer to the interception average with a solid bowl game performance as well, which is fair since these averages include bowl performances.
While we’ve eschewed comparisons to 2016 generally speaking, it’s worth noting that these disruption stats are all up from last year – +8 in sacks, +14 in TFLs, and +2 in INTs. And that a year after registering 3.0 sacks total, the defensive line this year logged 15.0, and four of the top five sackers were DL. I like Mike Elko’s chances to improve the defense further in 2018 as he undoes more BVG-era damage.
Josh Adams rushing yards: 1,100
Result: Comfortably over, 1,386. 50% of the staff and 54% of readers took the over. Adams logged the best individual rushing season under Kelly and the third best season in school history, behind only Vagas Ferguson and Alan Pinkett. He needs 51 yards in the bowl game to pass Ferguson’s 11-game total.
Equanimeous St. Brown receiving yards: 1,000
Result: Sad trombone, 468. 50% of the staff and 63% of the readers took the over. Even with a new QB, this seemed like an easy mark for a guy who put up 961 yards in a year that we didn’t even have a football team. Sadly, with that new QB going through much more growing pains than even the most pessimistic fan expected, St. Brown didn’t even make it halfway to the line.
Brandon Wimbush rushing yards: 400
Result: Obliterated, 765. 58% of the staff and 67% of the readers took the under. Whoops. Wimbush had Tony Rice’s 884-yard record in sight before going into a bit of a shell after hurting his off hand against Wake Forest. Even so, he had a historic season running the football. He also ran for half a yard more per carry than Rice did, and still has an outside shot at getting the record on fewer attempts than Rice had in 1989.
Nyles Morgan tackles: 110
Result: Under, 83. 25% of the staff and 75% of the readers took the over. This line was ambitious, but still a touch behind final-season Jaylon Smith and Manti Te’o’s production. It seemed reasonable. Instead, Morgan actually took a small step back from last year’s 90 tackle performance, while Coney emerged next to him. In a sense it’s unfortunate that everyone expected Morgan to be all-world, as he was very good and it felt a little disappointing. The captain will be missed, though, no matter what the numbers are.
Daelin Hayes sacks: 8.5
Result: Under, 3.0. 67% of the staff and 70% of the readers took the under. In hindsight this line too was overly ambitious; Hayes looked good early but faded as the season went on, which we should’ve expected from a guy who saw his first extended action in almost three years.
Defensive and special teams touchdowns: 4.5
Result: Under, 2. 67% of the staff and 57% of the readers took the over. I set the line with an eye on Kelly’s average of 4.3. Sanders never could quite break free on kick returns, punt returns were mostly an exercise in futility, and Julian Love was the only defensive scorer on the season.
Possessions vs. Navy: 10.5
Result: Under, 7. 80% of you and 83% of the staff took the over. This line is the delineator between blowouts of and close games with (or losses to) Navy. We had seven meaningful possessions. We won 24-17. QED.
Occurrences of “grit” in press conference comments: 50
Result: Not sure, but let’s say over. 58% of the staff and 57% of the readers took the over. I think we were about 70% of the way to the line in the bye week; given that Kelly had even started to use “grit” in the opponent section of his preview pressers, I think we can pretty safely bet we went over.
Dreaded Votes of Confidence handed out by Jack Swarbrick: 1.5
Result: Under, 0. 67% of the staff and the readers took the under. Wise play.
Observer ads taken out by disgruntled alumni: 0.5
Result: Under, 0. 50% of the staff and readers took the under here. Or the over, if you prefer. The unders win, but I think it might have been by a nose – there’s a non-zero probability that somebody somewhere was firing up PowerPoint in the fourth quarter of the Stanford game. Worth pointing out here that the season is not yet over.
Prop Bets
Which coordinator will have the biggest impact in 2017?
Mike Elko was the unanimous choice over Chip Long in both surveys. While both units faded in the last few games, the defense held up better. I realize this may be a mildly controversial position, given that they allowed 32 points per game over the final three, but they were put in horrible spots by the offense over and over and did reasonably well. The offense, on the other hand… In the big picture, while Long did an admirable job with the offense, Elko took a defense that was much farther away and made it above average in short order. Elko is the winner here.
Who will start at free safety against Temple?
93% of the staff and 91% of the readers took Nick Coleman over the field, based largely on positive practice reports from spring and fall camps.
Who will start at free safety against Stanford?
67% of the staff and 54% of the readers took Coleman to keep his job all year. Coleman wasn’t the second coming of Hayseed – not yet, anyway – but he was a revelation as an integral part of the defense all season. Did you know that he played the third most snaps among defensive players, behind Love and Tranquill and ahead of Morgan? How many times do you remember him getting burned? I’ll wait. On the flip side, how many times do you remember him coming up on a nice run fill, or chasing a runner down to limit a long gain?
Who will lead the team in touchdowns?
75% of the staff and 54% of the readers took Josh Adams over the field. Since Autry Denson capped off his record-setting career in 1998 with 15 touchdowns on the ground, only four Irish players have hit paydirt via the run more times than Adams did this season; unfortunately for him, one of those four was Brandon Wimbush, who logged a spectacular 14 rushing scores. That’s the most for anyone since Denson and the most ever by an Irish quarterback, shattering the previous record of 10 set by Deshone Kizer. There have been a few other recent seasons with as many or more multi-purpose TDs, most notable among them Golden Tate’s 18 in 2009 (15 receiving, 2 rushing, and 1 punt return).
No matter how you slice it, though, Wimbush had an amazing year in the run game. He even has an outside shot at being the first non-kicker to lead the team in scoring since Tate’s absurd 2009 – he currently has 86 points while Justin Yoon has 90. He would need to go off in the bowl game, but it’s possible.
Who will lead the team in sacks?
58% of the staff and 59% of the readers took Daelin Hayes over the field. Hayes wasn’t far off, tied for second with Drue Tranquill and Khalid Kareem at 3.0 sacks each; it was the once-mercurial Jerry Tillery who paced the team, though, with 4.0 sacks from the interior. As noted above, he also recorded 10 hurries, so he was a pain for opposing passers all season.
Who will lead the team in interceptions?
92% of the staff and 82% of the readers took the field over Julian Love. I TOLD YOU NOT TO SLEEP ON JULIAN LOVE! (Please ignore my predictions of rampant success against Georgia, Miami, and Stanford and take this as evidence of my clairvoyance.) Love not only led the team in picks, he was fifth nationally in interception return yards with 153 and tied for second nationally in interception return TDs with 2.
Wrapping Up
Well… If you told us preseason that we would be 9-3 and ranked #15 heading into championship week, I think we all would’ve signed up for that. Yet the way the last few weeks unfolded makes that very position extremely difficult to swallow. Maybe we expected too much too soon, or overlooked some key flaws a little too easily; still, there’s definitely a sense that Lucy pulled the ball away again. So much of how the offseason will feel rides on the bowl game result now. Will we see the Notre Dame team that dominated almost everyone for the first 8.75 games, or the one that flopped around to varying degrees over the last 3.25 games? I cautiously hope for the former, but fear the appearance of the latter. Yay, Irish football!
As Christmas appears on the horizon, I’ll close this by wishing you and yours a happy holiday season. Let’s enjoy the ride for the next few weeks, log some quality time with family and friends, and then hopefully close out the year in style with a big bowl win.
Great write up and review.
With the exception of the 2012 BCS game, I think this will be the most important bowl game since Kelly took over. A loss will mean a long, painful offseason. A win might help ease the pain of the last 2 losses.
Meh. While a loss would definitely be another negative data point, I’m not sure that a win in a mid-tier bowl moves the needle that much. While it might be something like the Music City Bowl against LSU (perhaps even against the same team), in that it helps with some subjective feelings of hope for next year, it’s hard to see a win meaning much in the long run.
I mean, if Wimbush came out against, e.g., LSU, and threw 80% completion percentage and then after the game revealed that he had been working with a sports psychologist and has gotten over a case of the yips or something, there’d be reason to think the needle has moved. But, short of that, winning one of those Orlando bowl games will probably be a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But that doesn’t mean the game isn’t meaningful, because *losing* one of those bowl games would be quite bad, as Hitman says.
Or if he came out and let everyone know it turns out he is actually left handed!
There’s something I ought to tell you. I am not right-handed either.
Well, if he uses his right…legacy is over too quickly. It’s the only way he can be satisfied
I’m loving the Princess Bride diversion. However, given how the scene went, I’m a bit concerned about casting Wimbush in Inigo’s role. Just saying.
Because you don’t want a 6 fingered man to murder his father?
Well, that, and in a more short-term view, Inigo lost the fight in which he revealed that he started with his off hand. It’s a results oriented business, you know, even if everyone loves the character.
Yeah, but the other guy was also left-handed. There’s no way that every DB we have played is also secretly left-handed!
Lefties only account for 10% of the population. So given 48 starting DBs, that means we should have faced 5 lefties, this season. I will allow that only 43 of the DBs we faced would have to be lefties, because they would have been smart enough to have 5 righties pretend to be lefties, so we weren’t suspicious that ALL players were righties (only 6% chance). But for the other 43 DBs to all be lefties is a .1e-43 chance. INCONCEIVABLE!
6-fingered lefty CBs are better at breaking up passes. More surface area and all that
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
But even though he is nearly killed, in the end, he rises up and does avenge his father. He even becomes the Dread Pirate Roberts after all is said and done. He rides off the ultimate winner
No spoilers!
I agree. Winning would not mean much. Losing would be terrible, especially if it is a bad loss, like Stanford or Miami.
If we get trounced is that support or not for removing Kelly?
10 wins in a season has to mean something. I would think it would help with recruiting too. I think it will be siginifigant.
I actually don’t remember Nick Coleman playing at all this year. On the one hand that’s great because that means he wasn’t at the center of some really bad plays of getting beat. On the other hand it also means he didn’t make many positive plays. On the whole, steady and unspectacular play from a safety is a huge improvement for us.
Brendan, thanks for taking the time to review the predictions – it helps a little to put things in perspective, especially after the train-wreck ending to the regular season.
One quick idea for a future article (especially for the LONG offseason) – a detailed comparison of recent Stanford to recent ND (Stanford is a school that has similar restrictions as ND, but seems to be outperforming ND). This could include breaking down recruits (rankings, stars, which positions are highest stars, etc), strength of schedule, unique teams in schedule that cause hangovers (e.g., Navy), quality wins, home vs. road performance, restrictions in recruiting, etc. In other words, in what ways have ND and Stanford been similar and in what ways are they different? Also, what could ND learn from what they are doing? Just an idea.
Thanks, and an interesting idea. Let me give you a quick summary off the top of my head:
– We out-recruit them substantially. We both tend to get our highest-rated recruits on the OL.
– Our schedule is generally tougher than theirs, although by how much varies from year to year.
– They have no unique teams that could cause hangovers, and their biggest rival (Cal) is perennially awful.
– I’m not sure about their road performance, but they’re very, very good at home.
– They’re probably more selective academically in recruiting but it’s very nearly impossible to fail out there. Consider that they’re theoretically more rigorous than ND, and yet they’ve never had a significant player with an eligibility issue in the Harbaugh/Shaw era.
I think they’re better at making life less stressful academically for their players by allowing them five years to graduate instead of pushing to get it done in 3.5, and I think ND would be well advised to follow suit. The rest of it, I don’t think there’s anything they’re doing that’s particularly remarkable or worthy of emulation.
But you’re right, it could be an interesting topic for an offseason post. I’ll keep it in the inbox!
That bit about allowing the players to spread their courseload is a huge difference and would be a step in the right direction for us without causing people to go crazy over “lowering our standards”.
How many academic ineligibility issues have we had? Add to that the unknown of how much deterioration occurs on the field due to struggles with the coarseload distracting players?
I think this is one of the key differentiating strictures ND places on the program, with a net negative impact on team performance.
I’m pretty sure the turf was installed to combat how much deterioration occurs on the field.
Concur. Kiwifan. I had not thought about this angle/
I think Shaw just plain outcoaches Kelly in this series. He has his number.
I just threw up in my mouth
Avg composite recruiting ranking:
past 5 classes: ND – 11 / Stan – 24, however, if you exclude 2013 where ND was 5 and Stan was 52, then it is ND – 12 / Stan – 16
Avg Sagarin SoS:
ND – 21/ Stan – 14
Interesting tidbit. Stanford beats a bunch of good Pac12 teams, but they somehow sneak through bowl season every year with really easy opponents. Other than ND (sometimes a good win, sometimes not), here are the P5, non Pac12 teams they have beaten. Tons of ACC foes.
2017 – ND, no bowl yet
2016 – K St, UNC
2015 – Iowa
2014 – Maryland
2013 – None
2012 – Duke, Wisconsin
2011 – Duke
2010 – Wake, VT
Nice research. I think that’s another important factor in the differences of ND/Stanford is the protections of a conference probably make it a little easier to guide into better bowl position. I know no one really likes to debate independence and it’s a bigger issue than I really care about, but it’s probably easier for Stanford to get to 9-10 wins and be impressive when 2/3 their games are relatively easy-ish games against overmatched conference teams.
Pseudo-joining the ACC kind of kicks Notre Dame down this path since they get 2-3 relatively easy games per year against non-powerhouse ACC teams, but 5 “conference” games is barely half of the normal 9.
Then again, sometimes conference championships can do more harm than good (lol Big12), so there’s pluses and minuses for both situations.
I’ve started thinking about joining a conference myself, too. Posted my thoughts over on TOS about it. There actually do seem to be more positives for joining the ACC than there are to being Independent. As a non-alumn, I’ve never been as die hard about this subject as many others on here. I really just care about this football team dominating and it kind of appears the conference route is more preferrable
There’s no such thing as being “a little bit pregnant” but that’s how it feels agreeing to play 5 ACC games a season. If we could know for sure that the playoff is expanding to 6 or 8 teams in the near future, then fine, staying independent seems a lot more viable. As it is, seems like it will take about perfection for ND to crash a 4-team playoff when there’s 5 power conferences to begin with.
This is all strictly from the narrow perspective of “best way to be a national football powerhouse in the modern day landscape” and not all the factors for the complete debate, which obviously change the calculus.
I’ll start worrying about lack of a conference keeping us out of the playoff if we’re ever in contention after Thanksgiving weekend.
I know he’s quoted a lot, so this isn’t a shot at you, but I don’t really trust Sagarin’s SOS ratings – there are too many things in there that seem wonky to me. Admittedly that’s a very subjective test, but still, I prefer FEI. If you go by FEI SOS, ND’s average ranking in the eights seasons of the Kelly era is 27.3 and Stanford’s is 28.1, so essentially a wash. However, we have five seasons better than our average, while they only have two – 2012 and 2013. While they weren’t necessarily lower than us every other time, their average ranking is significantly bolstered by those two seasons. On the other side, our SOS has a lot more variation in it.
Here are the rankings for us/them year-by-year:
2017 – 5th/42nd
2016 – 65th/42nd
2015 – 3rd/36th
2014 – 54th/31st
2013 – 14th/6th
2012 – 10th/8th
2011 – 27th/29th
2010 – 40th/31st
Aside from 2012/13, their annual rankings are all between 29th and 42nd, which is probably an insignificant spread. There might be something that helps them there in terms of consistency – facing roughly the same level of schedule every year, rather than swinging back and forth unpredictably.
Also, 100% agree that they’ve gotten lucky with bowl game opponents. 2015 Iowa should’ve been our freaking game, man.
Also also, I should say that I stand corrected on my off-the-top-of-the-head conjecture about SOS – thank you for digging into that further.
I’m not a big fan of Sagarin. I just didn’t realize FEI did SoS. He was the only one I knew did. I like FEI way more for sure. Excellent info.
One thing that is cool (also very weird) about the FEI SoS, is that our 3 hardest schedules are also our 3 best seasons. Kind of makes BKs highs and lows particularly disparate.
I bet being in a conference accounts for why their SoS is way more consistent (similar to what hooks said), because 8 of their opponents all play each other and essentially balance out to .500.
Agreed on both points. Like, how in the hell did Kelly go 4-8 against the worst schedule he faced? And how did he go 10-3, 9-3, and 12-1 against the three hardest?
Also, I’ll just point out once again that going 9-4 in 2013, including wins over end-of-season #3, #19, and #21, with a full season of Tommy Rees at the helm against FEI’s 14th hardest schedule, was pure sorcery. That might actually have been Kelly’s best coaching job at ND.
I wonder if there is some self-fulfillingness happening here. Like our opponents faced a better ND, meaning that when they beat us in those years, it makes them better than when they beat us in other years. That doesn’t seem likely given 129 teams. But hmmm.
I kind of said this on another post:
Brian Kelly:
2012: faces the 10th sos, plays for a NC.
2013: faces the 14th sos, loses starting qb before a snap, handles it masterfully.
2014: hires an idiot at DC but nobody really figures it out because the entire team gets hurt for the last 7 games.
2015: faces the 3rd sos, loses starting QB and starting RB early on and goes 10-3. Overcomes the idiot at DC for the most part; but now everyone knows he’s an idiot except Kelly, who was understandably fooled by BVG’s wondrous cookie duster.
2016: Idiocrocy II: The Notre Dame Football Experience. I swear I think at one point BVG had Yoon on the island in man-to-man against Texas.
2017: Idiot gone, faces the 5th sos, goes 9-3 (hopefully 10-3), misses 10-2 by a couple points.
Almost sounds as if, when Kelly doesn’t have to overcome the failings of a complete disaster of a DC, the man can coach. Of course, having a complete disaster of a DC in the first place falls on his head, so there’s that too. But then again, is there no leeway for growing pains for a man coming from GVS, CM, and Cin? The man came to the great ND and did what he knew: he tried to re-enact GVS with his coaching staff. So, when he lost Diaco, of course he hired BVG, and then tried to become CEO of the football team and let his asst. handle things. It didn’t work, and last year he finally admitted he was wrong in that approach, overhauled the staff, and turned things around. Maybe it’s too little too late for some; I’ll accept that. But from a 10000 ft view it seems that, when his entire team isn’t getting hurt or ruled academically ineligible, and when he has the right asst. coaches in place, the man wins.
Well written assessment. However, do you attribute the whole “sucks in big games” issue just to external accidents like hurt players? What about Miami and Stanford this year? No real excuses for performing that poorly in those two games. Interested in your reply.
I don’t think Kelly sucks in big games. Remember – he also whooped USC and MSU this year (and, though I’m not allowed to say this, but he also beat NC State). I think Brendan had a comment on one of the articles that debunked the idea that Kelly is bad in big games. I mean, in 2013 he beat MSU ……. with Tommy Rees at QB (and I say that with love, because I really liked TR…….people may recall me sticking up for him in the past). He DOES win big games, just not all of them (and maybe not even most of them). He also tends to PLAY more big games then other teams. Alabama played ONE truly big game this year………and lost. I think a lot goes into football. Maybe the spotlight was too bright for some of these kids during the Miami game and it got to them. I think they were gassed too. I also think there’s a luck factor: maybe the ball just came off wimbush’s hand funny on one of the picks in the Miami game (it certainly looked awful – has nobody every slipped when doing something under pressure?) and then there was no stopping the bleeding. ND was winning 20-17 against Stanford when the wheels came off …… in 3 minutes and 36 seconds. That says player mental lapse and bad luck, to me, not bad coaching. I know, some will say: it’s up to the coach to make sure that there are NO mental lapses. But please. They’re kids. The stakes are high. The guys on the other side are talented too. Sometimes sh!t just happens and you can’t get your arm around it. At the end of the day, I think they’re a very good, talented, well-coached, but flawed football team. I think they have a good coach (who is learning as he goes, but is honest, hard working, smart, and even impressive at times) and a team with a lot of talent and character. When they are on, they’re badass and can beat any one (I believe that); but they fall apart sometimes too. Not because they don’t have a good coach, but because they’re human. Personally, I like it. I’m not sure why everyone has this affinity for being Alabama and having the pick of all of the best recruits (and coaches for that matter), no academic challenges or restrictions, and being favored in every damn game. It’s like some sort of weird sports fan insecurity: “I want all of the advantages and to win every game by 60pts so I can go around bragging to all my friends who like other teams and I can also discuss the ND football team as if I’m parsing the intricate flavors of a gourmet meal.” Ugh it’s a little gross. LOL. I like the scrappy teams. I like being a little bit of an underdog. I like the idea that ND can beat the p!ss out of the mighty… Read more »
“I think this is an easy one; MTA blew away the competition, emerging as a legitimate front line player at a critical position.”
Robert Hainsey, forever overlooked! (Sorry to nitpick)
Great recap of the early season picks.
Good call. That’s probably a 1A/1B situation (I think MTA is 1A), but they’re both way, way ahead of #3.
Good one, I should’ve given Hainsey some love. I’m giving MTA a bonus because RT was less position of dire need than DT this year, but you’re right, he did yeoman’s work as well and positioned himself to start next year. I agree with nd09hls12’s 1A/1B designation; to steal and Orwellism, they’re equal with MTA slightly more equal.
Fair enough. Is there a snap count somewhere accessible? I feel like Hainsey played 300+ more snaps, though perhaps I’m off. If so, I would favor a semi-starting RT over the 4th in the rotation DT who ended up with 7 solo tackles. Either way, both great seasons, and credit to MTA for doing what until months ago most thought it would be Ewell doing as a frosh. If the snaps were closer to even, I’ll consider they were pretty equal-ish.
“Observer ads taken out by disgruntled alumni: 0.5”
With no sense of self-awareness, had the team gone 11-1 they would have bought an ad as a congratulation for their efforts to bring back the running game and better defense, as they were the only group able to diagnose these issues to address.
If you read through the public forum on one of the other sites, you will notice that some individuals have attempted to raise money again. We may need to wait until about 2/1/2018 before closing the book on this particular prop bet.
Not sure where to put this. What are the chances Tennessee rehired Butch Jones because literally no one else will take the job? http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/21619935/dave-doeren-remain-nc-state-their-head-coach-talking-tennessee-taking-program
Now that it’s been almost a week, I’ll just leave this here for perspective.
In a total vacuum, who would be happy with 9-3 against a schedule featuring 10(!) bowl teams and 4 teams playing for a conference championship?
That’s one way to frame it, but certainly picks some rosy stats.
An alternative, perhaps more objective way to frame it: if somebody had said in August that we would have the #14 team in S&P+, would you take it?
I think the answer to that question is “eh, probably not, sounds like purgatory/The Gray Zone”. I said in August the worst-case scenario for the season was 8-4 with a 17ish S&P+ (which was basically our S&P+ projection), so this is at least a little better than that. But, still: distinctly worse or distinctly better would have at least move the program forward one way or the other.
Another way of putting it: re-doing this season next year ought to get Brian Kelly fired.
(Not that he shouldn’t have been fired last year.)
Strange, why would we care what that stat is over how many wins we have? Nobody hands out a National S&P+ Championship.
This shouldn’t be very difficult to understand:
1. While we’re in contention to win a national title, wins take on more importance than where we stand in predictive/advanced rankings (whether S+P+, FEI, Vegas lines, etc).
2. Even when still in contention, but with games remaining, those things still matter because they suggest your ability to continue to advance towards a national title. Wisconsin and Miami care because it suggests the odds of them winning 3 games as large underdogs is very low, even though they’re basically playing in quarterfinals this weekend.
3. Once you are not in contention anymore, those things become the vast majority of what matters because they are more predictive than W/L record. If Wisconsin or Miami doesn’t win this weekend and misses the playoff, their fans and coaching staff should be viewing them similar to how we viewed the 2012 ND team after they got stomped by Alabama: a flawed team who was good but overachieved via close wins and turnovers, one that was top 10 good but not as elite as is required.
Why do we care about S&P+ more than some generic rosy argument about playing 10 bowl teams? Because the rosy argument is being used to suggest we were thisclose to being thisclose to having a shot to win it all. The predictive analytics would tell you that even heading into the Miami game, we were likely not of the level of quality that is/was needed to get through Miami/Stanford/2 playoff games. And THAT matters a whole lot when judging this program.
Yet in the end, coaches don’t get fired because fans don’t like the advanced stats. They get fired because they don’t win enough.
As for ND going into the Miami game, other than sleep walking on defense vs WF (while our offense continued to run up and down the field), my lying eyes told me this was a powerful team. They ran into a buzz saw in Miami, a team most responsive to its in-game fan clamor—-it’s almost like cocaine to them, so they clobbered us.
Then a sluggish but winning game vs Navy, followed by the 3 minute meltdown vs Stanford. I wonder if the post Navy effect struck again.
Back to the main point, we demolished what’s turned out to be a pretty good USC tam and got demolished by a pretty good Miami team. I think advanced stats are interesting but mostly irrelevant when predicting high intensity, emotional arch-rival games, especially when home field is taken into account.
If those stats are too rosy for you how about this: ND beat 6 teams with winning records. Only Clemson had more with 7 and UGa was the only other team with 6. ND’s top 5 wins were all in the top 42 of F+. Only Clemson and get this…Wisconsin had a 5th win rated higher.
Like the post above, that’s all cherry-picking. S&P+ factors in the strength of our schedule and how we performed against it. So, with our schedule and performance factored in, we’re the #14ish team in the country. It’s, you know, fine. Not very good, not bad, fine/acceptable as an average-y season.
Given that ND hired our assistants on two year deals and Swarbrick was saying left and right that Kelly would be here a couple years, that type of season shouldn’t get him fired. But if things don’t improve next year, an equivalent season should.
You guys can hate Kelly and not try to drag everyone else down about this season. Whether or not Kelly should be fired does not change any of the stats these guys mentioned, while 1-year removed from 4-8.
I agree that this season was much better than 2016. Huzzah!
It’s amazing that people trot out the “Kelly improved from 4-8” line as a defense, without realizing that it’s Kelly’s fault we had such an awful 2016 record in the first place.
My comment has absolutely NOTHING to do with BK. I would rather him be fired at this point, but again, that is completely unrelated to my comment.
ND went 4-8 last year. That is a fact that cannot be changed. ND had a good season this year, irregahdless of who the coach was/is/will be, especially when you take into account that the team sucked last year.
Please don’t let your hate from BK turn into wanting ND to be worse, or belittling a good season, just because that will make it more likely to get fired. Or if you do let your hate for BK turn you into an NDNer, don’t let it spill over into trying to convince people that this was somehow not a good season.
besides liking your sentiment, rec for irreghadless.
Gosh, I thought the players on the field contributed greatly. My bad.
I’m not sure how a top 15 result to a season – either in the polls or advanced stats rankings – counts as a failure, regardless of context. That seems to be the argument you’re making, unless I’m missing something here. Am I happy with it? No. Do I think we left a lot on the table? Yes. Does the play over the last 3.5 games give me some concerns? Abso-freaking-lutely. Do I count the season as a complete miss? No.
Also, let’s say we win the bowl game and have a similar season next year. I agree that it would be in that “purgatory” level, and do nothing to dispel the notion that Kelly can get us to the hump but not over, but do you really think Swarbrick should fire Kelly after consecutive 10-win seasons? The Notre Dame job would be more toxic than Tennessee’s is right now.
I know we haven’t won the 10th game yet this year, but the fact that the 10th win is potentially out there doesn’t seem to have entered into your calculus, so I’m assuming it wouldn’t change your opinion if it comes to pass. Is your bar for “keep his job” next year then 11 wins?
Very well put, I agree all the way.
I second that motion.
I didn’t call the season a failure, I called it a “[n]ot very good, not bad, fine/acceptable as an average-y” season.
I would say, though, that if it’s two straight S&P+ 14ish (basically, the 13-15 range) seasons would mean that we’ve probably won 17-19 games over two years, which is purgatory. I would deem that a failure of the 2016 retention decision, because if we’re not genuinely competing for national championships – or at least seeming like the school is trying hard to compete for national championships, which to a not-insignificant degree requires not being content with 17-19 wins over those two years – what’s the point, really?
So, yes, if we have another season like this next year I think they could/should fire him, and in describing the thought process behind the fining use some (slightly better stated) version of “while these two years have not been a complete disaster, and after we had given him ample opportunity and made plenty of changes in order to increase the odds of success, it has become apparent that this head coach was not going to get us over the hump.”
If we annihilate LSU in a bowl game and then go a legit 10-2 and win a big bowl game next year, those are two different seasons than what I’m describing (in no small part because we’d probably be around 12 in this year’s S&P+ and then top-10 next year). However, if we beat Iowa State by a touchdown in the Camping World Bowl and then go 10-2 next year but are a lucky 10-2 (which, to make the S&P+ stats work out and finish around 14 would probably mean we get blown out in those two losses, so let’s say that’s losing big to Michigan and USC and squeaking by Stanford and Florida State), then yes, I’ll still think it’ll be time to cut the cord, even with two 10-win seasons back-to-back. I recognize, though, that’ll be a lot harder to do and probably wouldn’t be done.
“or at least seeming like the school is trying hard to compete for national championships, which to a not-insignificant degree requires not being content with 17-19 wins over those two years – what’s the point, really?”
The college football playoff rankings for Notre Dame this season from Week 9-13: #3, #3, #8, #8, #15. Reasonable folks can disagree on what exactly it means to “compete” for a national championship, but I find it weird to be dismissive about the state of this season as a whole.
Should they have to make the playoff to “compete for a national title”? I don’t really think that would be a realistic goal from the start of this season, and now that they’ve lost a few games it’s just easy to pile on because, hey they did lose a few games, can’t get over the hump, ceiling, repeat talking points.
I think there’s a case for importance of “being in the hunt” late in the season, which ND has been for 2 of the 3 last seasons. Obviously it is a factor and demerit to all that they haven’t made a playoff in this span, and that’s worth addressing as well.
Firing a coach after two potential back-to-back 10 win seasons is difficult to comprehend so I’ll just leave it at that. I agree with Brendan that Notre Dame becomes a clown shoes operation like Nebraska or Tennessee real quick with a decision like that.
I think the hypothetical scenario of us going 10-2 with a 13-15 S&P+ ranking next year is very unlikely, as our schedule appears pretty tough. Taking that level of play as a given, more likely it’d be an 8-4/9-3 year, and I’d like to think we’d mostly all be on board with trying to get a new coach after that.
You seem awfully committed to us having a bad year next year. I’d bet you were this year too? Then we actually play the games.
The whole hypothetical scenario predicating this discussion is that we have a similar season to this season next year, so, yes, I am committed, for the purposes of this discussion, to assuming that next year is similar to this year. I did not call this season a bad season; I called it a “fine/acceptable” season for this year.
Two of those in a row coming off of 4-8 (which, again, *we are assuming for the purposes of this discussion*), is insufficient progress to my mind to justify retention given what will be his composite body of work at that point.
As to what I think will happen next year, I don’t know; there are way too many variables. I’m simply saying that, if we are sitting on December 1, 2018 and looking at ND in the 14 slot in the S&P+ then it will almost assuredly be time for Kelly to go.
I won’t go quite that far, but it’s not super far off either.
Since you’re using S&P+ numbers and they’re more stable than generic wins (without looking back to see where we landed in previous years), give me YOUR rundown of where ND should be over the course of a 10 year period with a coach? I have a few of my ideas I’ll post later but would like to see where people land.
For example, something like:
2-3 of 10 years should be in the top X
5 of 10 years should be in the top Y, etc
I haven’t given this a ton of thought, so feel free to throw it back at me if Kelly has already been doing this, but I’d say as a baseline for clear happiness with a coach after 8 years where the coach is coming back for year 9:
2 years in the top 5
2 more years in the top 10
2 more years in the top 18 or so (i.e. a season like this year as the median)
2 grab bag years, but ideally avoiding the 50s or worse (though a bad season like that would of course be more excusable if it was early in the tenure)
I’m gonna repost this at the bottom cause we’re so tabbed in it’s impossible to read.
Not terribly real world in your logic, with respect. See Hooks’ note, it’s logical
Totally. Well put.
I just wish we could be more like Stanford and have David Shaw as our coach. You know? Because if that were the case, then this year we’d be 9-3, ranked between 10-15 in the playoff poll, ranked between 10-15 in the AP, and ranked TWENTY SEVENTH in the S&P+
…………..oh wait…….nevermind
If we had Stanford’s success this decade, nobody (edited: nobody here. TOS is crazy) would be calling for Brian Kelly’s head. This season would be a bad season, rather than clearly one of the better ones – https://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2016/2/29/11125594/ncaa-football-best-teams-decades-history-alabama-fsu-nebraska-oklahoma-michigan
I know we tried to have this discussion on an earlier post, but what about this post is worthy of a downvote? Do people think that people would still be calling for Kelly’s head if the record since 2010 was 85-21 instead of 68-34 and ND was in the top-5 for the decade in S&P+? Do people just not like being reminded that, as a program, Stanford is owning us this decade?
Perhaps I just don’t get the point of downvoting.
Also, to respond directly to MrTgon’s question: given that record and S&P+ differential, yes, of course it would be better to be more like Stanford and have David Shaw as our coach. I can’t even fathom somebody would think differently given their respective records. I know the commenters here are generally positive, but that’s way past positivity into delusion.
Kinda funny that this is a mediocre Stanford (heard that a lot prior to last weekend) and they’re ranked ahead of us and could win the Pac-12 in a few hours. Oh, and they beat us too.
It hurts.
I’m not calling for Kelly’s head, so your first comment doesn’t apply to me. I also am not wishing for us to be Stanford or to have David Shaw as a coach. You’re looking at wins and losses and S&P+. Those are fine statistics to consider (and they should be considered). But they are not everything. Kelly had us playing for a National Championship. Stanford fans are still waiting for that one this decade. Haven’t seen it, though. We did. Kelly brought that. But, I guess that was luck. Losing to Miami and Stanford this year was lack of skill – players and coaching. Going undefeated and making it to the NC was luck. Losing the NC was lack of skill. I get it.
Kelly has overcome a lot of adversity, some of it (ahem BVG) self-inflicted. Some of it not – Golson, frozen four, 2014 injuries.
I like the guy. I think he’s a quality coach.
Also, even from a stats perspective, even with a 4-8 season last year, he’s still 8 on the S&P+ this decade. So the stats aren’t awful either.
So fathom it, brother. I “think differently given their respective records.” Because the numbers only tell part of the story. You can wish for the grass on the other side of the fence. But, not me – Imma smoke this Kelly green sh!t right here! hahaha (just playing with you, bud. No offense meant).
FYI – I didn’t down vote you, but I think the down vote just means “I disagree.” I wouldn’t take it so personally – even if some of the yahoos mean it as such. Thus far, I haven’t generally agreed with your take on things recently regarding Kelly and this team. But nobody can say you don’t put thought into what you write or that your positions aren’t reasonable or are unsupportable. In the words of Tony Gazzo “Some guys hate for no reason, Rock. Capice?”
I consider a top 14 team in the entire country to be a good thing. Would I much rather win a national championship? Of course. I’m fairly content with a top 14 team though. The downward spiral in November bugs the hell out of me though.
But after 8 years of no discernable progress in a consistent direction, how long are we supposed to be satisfied with 8-5 to 10-3, top #15-20 types of finishes? Better than Weisingham? Sure. Good enough? I don’t think so.
That’s fair. I was responding more to this season not being good enough. If we win the bowl game, I want more, but I can settle for that.
This sort of speaks to the point I’ve made for some time now – it’s very hard for the admin to figure out what to do with Kelly because he’s clearly outside the “good ND coach” bucket, but he’s also clearly outside the “bad ND coach” bucket. Before Kelly, every successful Irish coach had a winning percentage of .764 (Devine) or higher, while every unsuccessful coach had a winning percentage of .640 (Brennan) or lower.
Kelly’s ND win percentage? .667. He’s literally in his own bucket. This was better delineated before 2016, when he was at .705, but the general point still stands: He’s not as good as the good guys, but he’s not as bad as the bad guys. The perception of the ND job in the coaching fraternity is that it’s extraordinarily difficult, so I think the most likely outcome if he keeps turning in so-so 9+ win seasons is that the admin is going to keep him around to avoid scaring off quality candidates the next time around.
In a world in which a PSU OC gets $2.7M per to coach Mississippi State, you can’t just count on the prestige of the ND job to weigh enough to pull top talent over their concerns. It’s a tough situation to be in.
I agree it’s a tough situation to be in. That, I suppose, is one of the most frustrating things about the current situation. I am completely confident that we know what there is to know about BK as a head coach. I think his records will continue as they have, and that’s not as good as we want. However, I also agree that finding someone better is not a guarantee by a long shot, and that no matter how much people on NDN may say, driving a Brinks truck up to Nick Saban’s door is not going to make him come here. So my prediction is that Kelly will continue turning in 8-5 to 10-3 type seasons, and will not leave here until he decides to retire, probably having broken some ND records for coaching wins, sadly.
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AGREED! But can’t believe you would say that about Murtaugh.
It takes a big man to admit another man is just that handsome.
Well at least we aren’t Tennessee. Fired their AD today because their coaching search is going so poorly. And they have a more recent National Title than us (although haven’t competed for one nearly as recently). Things could always be worse.
And I’m pretty sure FSU is going to lose Jimbo. That is just so crazy.
Yup!
Holy cow. aTm is not even a lateral move. Does anyone know what happened there? Is it because FSU has been getting worse every year since Jameis left and there was mounting pressure? Did he anger too many people by getting in fights with fans? Did aTm pay him Gruden money?
From reading a couple different places, sounds like Fisher had a mostly old coaching staff whose message went stale and there was pressure from boosters to have staff turnover but he didn’t want to fire his friends (sounds familiar but I can’t figure out why…)
Then whole relationship with the players, croots and boosters fell apart and seemingly deteriorated quickly in the last week with pressure from a bad season having everyone in a foul mood (again, deja vu). Add in Fisher being open to hear about the A&M job, and potentially use as leverage against FSU which soured things even further.
There’s also reports that the whole staff has been coasting and hasn’t talked to ‘croots in a month, with 3 important kids decommitting all in a single day earlier this week (1, a corner, Houston Griffith that ND had an in-home with and sounds like in great position to flip).
Further, I saw rumors that there could be something crazy in his personal life that he wants to get out of Tallahassee and move on. Seems like he may have recently divorced or something along those lines but no one really knows other than things went really bad, really fast and now everyone is seemingly happier for Fisher moving on. Wild times and very soap opera-y.
https://www.tomahawknation.com/2017/12/1/16723758/jimbo-fisher-florida-state-transfer-texas-am
Damn. That is not a low stress life.
Yeah, it’s pretty much if Kelly was refusing to make staffing changes last year because he had a preposterous $40 million buyout and he knew he could flex and do what he wanted since no one could really stop or check him…Then still wanted to flirt with other jobs…All the while not really recruiting and challenging fans to fight while demanding loyalty during a losing season, rubbing his players the wrong way as well. Difficult to imagine such a poop-storm like that. I’ll take a George O’Leary moment instead and then move on with the requisite Catholic guilt, thank you very much.
$75 million over 10 Years can be pretty persuasive. The A&M deal for Fisher.
😂
Ok, I just watched the highlight clip of Jerkovich’s last game. Who wears jersey number 15? He might have to give it up.
I’ve been following him since he’s a Pittsburgh kid and it’s difficult for me to temper excitement. He’s got all the tools and finally looks like the first QB at ND for a while who can both run AND pass the ball, instead of doing one or the other. What a novel concept!
I just did a quick search and google says Wimbush only had 222 pass attempts in his HS career, that sounds way low. Jurkovec had 700+ HS PA and obviously ripped it up, and WPIAL football isn’t bad competition either, so hopefully more indicative of a more advanced thrower. With respect to David and the #BookClub, I’m hoping it’s Jurkovec time by 2019.
How great are these kids with a higher recruiting ranking than him? This guy is a dude.
He didn’t perform well in camps, which is why his ranking got dinged. He’s not a year-round football guy – he took his basketball team to the state finals, I think. He also hurt his finger his junior year and missed the last few games of the season, so by the time summer camps rolled around he hadn’t done much throwing for months. He looked pretty rusty at the Cleveland Nike regional and all the services dropped him.
Which is fine, because when the lights come on…
Wimbush had more attempts than that his senior season, so I’m not sure where that’s coming from. His senior stats and Jurkovec’s senior stats were almost identical, actually.
I hope that somehow he’ll be better than other highly touted QBs we’ve had under BK.
NARRATOR VOICE: He won’t be
To be fair, odds are good that most of his career will not be under BK, so there’s hope!
Wasn’t Golson somehow who could really throw it and could run it? And Wimbush who was more of a thrower who could run? (I mean as incoming recruits.)
Fair points. And, to also be fair Kizer was pretty effective running in college even though he was too big too big that fast.
In one of the replies to replies to replies to replies, I asked what distribution of *pick your ranking metric* over 8-10 years is the “I’m content” bar set at? I prefer S&P+ or some other advanced metric, and strangely enough, Kelly-backers, you should do the same. At minimum, if you’re using wins, remove the bowl game, for the love of god. Beating Rutgers doesn’t salvage a 7 win season anymore than drawing the 5th best team in a NYD bowl (looking at you, OSU!) invalidates a 10-2 season. Sorry, rant aside over.
Nd09hls said in 8 years (now), ideally you end with two years top 5, two more years top 10, two more years top 18-20, and then two years where he can drop below that, but ideally avoiding like, the 50s. That seems reasonable to me. My pick, over 10 years, typed before his answer was going to be:
2-3 years in the top 5, with ideally at least one where you’re top 2
2-3 years where you’re top 10.
2-3 years in the 10-25 range
2-3 years in the 25-40 range.
Where’s hea actually been:
2010: 7 (wait what?)
2011: 10 (really?)
2012: 5
2013: 31
2014: 34
2015: 7
2016: 26
2017: 14
So per the above requirements, as expected were short on req 1, but make up for it in bucket 2. Were also a little short on req 3, sliding one extra season down from bucket 3 to 4.
I’m not sure what my takeaway was from this. Those numbers look markedly different than if do you do them with win totals. Kelly has a 12, a 10 and a a 9 win season, plus a bunch of 8s/7s and a 4. I would not have guessed that he was as close to the metric I’d figured in my head as he is. If I was doing wins buckets like above, I’d say 2 at 11+, 3 more at 9, 3 at 7-8 and 0 below that.
Given the above, there’s no way we shouldn’t fire him if the next two seasons are top 20+. I’m still disheartened that we haven’t had any teams that make it into the small tail and get to top 2-3, but if half of Kelly’s squads land top 10, you keep rolling him out there. That said, another year below 25 in the next 2 and it’s probably time to understand the reality and move on (especially considering that would be 4 out of the last 7).
Are the buckets right? Close? Thoughts?
I had to double-check those 2010 and 2011 rankings because, like you said, really?! But, yes, sure enough, 2010 is right. We were #11 in 2011, though (not that it invalidates the general “wait, really?” thought). FWIW, the above mixes up the rankings in 2013 and 2014 too.
All this is to say (and you already basically said this): if you’re a Kelly supporter, you want to argue on S&P+ grounds, because the advanced stats are much more favorable to him than his record.
I will say, FEI is markedly less kind. We we’re 42nd last year, 10th in 2012, 7th in 2015, and lower in 2010 and 2011 (which matches with eye test and W/L record). By FEI, it indicates that we’ve basically never been close to a title level team, which when you think about actual team quality.
So what does this mean with respect to wins and loses? That we’ve had pretty difficult schedules and so less wins than typically expected for the average quality of team that Kelly has put out there?
It’s a good question…I’ve been thinking about it and don’t really have a good answer. Some of It is randomness luck and bounces of footballs, some of it isn’t weird volatility in schedule strength and some of it is probably just repeated failure in close games. I don’t really know.
I can’t believe I’m cheering for USC in a football game right now.
it just means less – https://twitter.com/BryanDFischer/status/936792538740023296
Its a good thing we beat them or they’d likely have a good shot at the top 4.
This USC, ND, Stanford equation is interesting. We crushed USC. USC semi-crushed Stanford, then beat them a second time last night. Yet Stanford semi-crushed us.
Go figure.
By the way, Shaw went for a td on 4th and goal from the 2 vs going for the sure field goal while down 3 late in Q4. Didn’t make it and lost by 3
To the points about S&P+ above, I wonder if Miami’s having gotten drilled yesterday combined with FAU winning pretty big will push FAU above us(! wow Lane) and push us to 15. We’re just ahead of FAU as is right now – http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaa
Watching that game last night was painful. I would never root for The U (ok, maybe against Michigan), but as Clemson poured it on the ND loss becomes more and more inexplicable. I realize we don’t match up well with Miami, but to lose that badly is troubling.
Still #14 – FAU did indeed jump up (seriously, is Lane Kiffin actually too good for the Tennessee job now?), but Miami cratered to 19 from 12.
https://www.sbnation.com/2017/12/3/16730228/ncaa-football-rankings-2017-130-teams
Bama making it in is a *very* good sign for ND going forward. Hypothetical 11-1 ND now has a legit chance of making it in in any given year.
I concur ! This year’s decision really knocks down that “only conference championsips” argyment.
Well, upon further reflection, that requires making the assumption that the Committee will be consistent year-over-year. That perhaps gives them more credit than they deserve. But, if they do, today was a good day for ND football.
Well, they do actually show some consistency. Picking aOSU last year showed that the eye-test and resume trumped Conference Championship. This year fewer losses trumped CC. Sample size is still small, but i think the evidence might show they’re cognizant of a need for year to year consistency.