11-24-2015, 08:13 AM
Lots of good stuff in here.
One issue that we should remember, that applies much more to comparisons to UDFG and NWU than in-conference, is that these numbers are against different competition. Northwestern plays in a conference that tends to have good defenses and questionable offense, which likely over-rates their defensive prowess and under-rates their offense. I think the broad conclusions on Northwestern still hold.
UDFG is complicated.
Their schedule: Texas (4-6), UVa (4-7), Ga Tech (3-8), UMass (2-9), Clemson (11-0), Navy (9-1), U$C (7-4), Temple (9-2), Pitt (8-3), Wake Forest (3-8), BC (3-8).
How to you think Notre Dame's schedule has been comes down to how you rate non-Power 5 Temple and Navy, I guess along with Power 5 but generally lightly regarded Pitt. There are a lot of wins among the und opponents, but concentrated on those three teams. The wins themselves make most computer models rate und's schedule highly, but at least in general there is a gap between Power 5 and non-Power 5 teams.
In many ways, their best performance was probably the loss to Clemson. Clemson is undoubtedly good and und really controlled much of the play in that game. They outgained Clemson 432-296; without any compensating big returns, etc. The deciding factor in the game was losing the TO battle 1-4; and of course missing on a two point conversion.
The other candidate for best performance is probably the beating they put on Navy the very next week. So, how do you rate Navy?
Both those games were a long time ago. Lately und has been winning rather unimpressively, but winning.
One issue that we should remember, that applies much more to comparisons to UDFG and NWU than in-conference, is that these numbers are against different competition. Northwestern plays in a conference that tends to have good defenses and questionable offense, which likely over-rates their defensive prowess and under-rates their offense. I think the broad conclusions on Northwestern still hold.
UDFG is complicated.
Their schedule: Texas (4-6), UVa (4-7), Ga Tech (3-8), UMass (2-9), Clemson (11-0), Navy (9-1), U$C (7-4), Temple (9-2), Pitt (8-3), Wake Forest (3-8), BC (3-8).
How to you think Notre Dame's schedule has been comes down to how you rate non-Power 5 Temple and Navy, I guess along with Power 5 but generally lightly regarded Pitt. There are a lot of wins among the und opponents, but concentrated on those three teams. The wins themselves make most computer models rate und's schedule highly, but at least in general there is a gap between Power 5 and non-Power 5 teams.
In many ways, their best performance was probably the loss to Clemson. Clemson is undoubtedly good and und really controlled much of the play in that game. They outgained Clemson 432-296; without any compensating big returns, etc. The deciding factor in the game was losing the TO battle 1-4; and of course missing on a two point conversion.
The other candidate for best performance is probably the beating they put on Navy the very next week. So, how do you rate Navy?
Both those games were a long time ago. Lately und has been winning rather unimpressively, but winning.