Give us some mo’, Mo’!

Last week, upon the shoulders of Mo’ Crum, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish collided with victory with all the awkwardness of a 6th grade math clubber playing pick-up basketball in gym class. It was wonderful, it was glorious, and it was about as non-indicative of actual progress for a football team as any win could be. Yes, ND went into Bible Belt Conservatism mode offensively once an attacking ND defense knocked out UCLA’s one and only QB, but that’s just one of a multitude of bizarre circumstances, not the least of which is UCLA’s coaching ineptitude, that make that game so difficult to measure.

Now, going against a top 10 team in BC, things will be much more clear. From all we can tell, BC has a backup QB or 2 on scholarship, and their team hasn’t shown any tendency to suffer schizophrenia against any of their previous opponents. If ND shows true progress, this game can and should be competitive, giving ND a real chance to win. Despite the lack of recruiting efforts by certain coaches over the years, BC probably doesn’t have the same level of talent that ND does. Granted, BC is a veteran, disciplined squad with some extremely talented individuals, but over the entire spread of a roster, BC probably isn’t as talented as ND and probably hasn’t faced a team this year as talented as the Irish. Of course, with all that talent, if the Irish don’t show significant progress, BC will likely blow out ND.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve investigated a few metrics for the Irish:

• First, we looked at the ND kickoff teams to figure out just how bad they really are and how much they’re really costing the Irish.
• Next, we investigated the “ND Sack Bonus,” or just how much the poor performance of ND’s O-Line QB Protection improves the day of opposing defenses
• And then we looked at the execution of positive, negative, and really, really negative plays by the Irish offense.

Those 3 items provide pretty good numbers by which we can continue to measure ND’s progress, but we’re gonna need some mo’:

• Win: Always a great indicator. If you’re winning, you’re probably getting better, unless of course you’re coached by Ty Willingham.
• 3rd down efficiency - defense: Coming in with a national ranking of #95, ND’s allowing a miserable 44% of opponents’ 3rd downs to be converted to 1st downs. This against the 109th (GT), 14th (PSU), 13th (UM(s!)), 30th (MSU), 65th (PU), and 86th (UCLA) ranked teams in offensive 3rd down efficiency.
• 3rd down efficiency - offense: With a success rate that reminds me of the African American football player grad rate at Michigan (sucks!), Notre Dame is 118th in offensive 3rd down efficiency thus far against teams that rank 47th (GT), 12th (PSU), 81st (UM(s!)), 72nd (MSU), 18th (PU), and 1st (UCLA) in defensive 3rd down efficiency.
• Penalties: ND is currently ranked 91st in fewest penalties received (7.83/game) and 84th in fewest penalty yards received (63.17/game). If ND can limit themselves to 4 penalties, it will go a long way towards helping get a win against BC.
• Score: Duh, but look closer. ND is ranked 118th in scoring (11 ppg). So it would only take 2 TDs to bring the average up. We’ll set the bar higher: 25+ points will indicate real improvement against the #21 scoring defense in the country in BC (18.3 ppg).
• Pass Offense: BC is giving up 290+ yards a game in the air. Of course, they also have to defend a ton of passes because they tend to get on top of their opponents pretty quickly. If ND can get 240 yards of passing, that’ll be significant progress.
• Pass Defense: Meanwhile, ND’s pass defense is ranked #4 in the country, giving up just 49.07 yards a game. We’ll define progress here if Boston College achieves fewer than 270 yards passing.
• Rush Defense: Probably the biggest reason for the lofty #4 pass defense rating? The abysmal rush defense. Nobody need pass on the Irish right now while they give up 189.8 yards a game. Give up fewer than 150 yards, and that’ll be progress.

That should provide a pretty good set of items and stats to pour over on Sunday over beers. (I recommend Goose Island’s Harvest Ale. A perfect match for the changing weather.) Keep in mind, just because we’re still looking for “progress” outside of simply winning, that doesn’t mean we don’t think the Irish can win. Like I said before, ND is definitely, by leaps and bounds, the most talented team BC has faced this year (with the possible exception of Georgia Tech). And even though a ton of all that talent is very young, the young guys are also half way through their freshman or sophomore years.

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