The Youth Manifesto – Party 3: Total Team Stats
The Biscuit
By now, I’m SURE you’ve thoroughly read, thought about and analyzed Part 1: Offense and Part 2: Defense of the Youth Manifesto. So this post brings it all together.
Sorry DomerMQ, no cake (marzipan?) babies this time.
I’m not going to spend a lot of time commenting on the straight up numbers. It’s not tough to figure out that ND is very young at this point (rated 3rd youngest in the FBS based on the 2-deep roster to start the season, I might add), and these numbers support that. Great. What I found a bit more interesting were the Offense-Defense matchups that the ‘08 schedule featured, and so I’ll dig into that a little post-numbers.
% Underclassmen Starters
| Top 10 & ND | |
| PSU | 5% |
| OK | 18% |
| Alabama | 23% |
| Texas | 23% |
| Tex. Tech | 23% |
| USC | 27% |
| Utah | 27% |
| Boise St | 27% |
| OSU | 32% |
| ND | 45% |
| Florida | 59% |
| ND Opponents | |
| Navy | 9% |
| Purdue | 18% |
| Michigan | 23% |
| Stanford | 23% |
| Syracuse | 23% |
| Pitt | 27% |
| BC | 27% |
| USC | 27% |
| MSU | 36% |
| UNC | 36% |
| Washington | 41% |
| ND | 45% |
Average Months in Program
| Top 10 & ND | |
| PSU | 37 |
| Texas | 32 |
| USC | 31 |
| Tex. Tech | 31 |
| Boise St | 31 |
| OK | 30 |
| Utah | 30 |
| OSU | 30 |
| Alabama | 29 |
| ND | 25 |
| Florida | 22 |
| ND Opponents | |
| Navy | 38 |
| Stanford | 32 |
| Purdue | 31 |
| USC | 31 |
| Pitt | 30 |
| Michigan | 30 |
| BC | 29 |
| MSU | 27 |
| UNC | 27 |
| Washington | 27 |
| Syracuse | 27 |
| ND | 25 |
Average Letters Earned
| Top 10 & ND | |
| OK | 2.4 |
| PSU | 2.3 |
| USC | 2.2 |
| Tex. Tech | 2 |
| OSU | 2 |
| Texas | 1.9 |
| Utah | 1.8 |
| Alabama | 1.7 |
| Boise St | 1.6 |
| ND | 1.5 |
| Florida | 1.3 |
| ND Opponents | |
| Purdue | 2.2 |
| USC | 2.2 |
| Stanford | 2 |
| Pitt | 2.0 |
| BC | 2.0 |
| Navy | 1.9 |
| MSU | 1.8 |
| Michigan | 1.6 |
| ND | 1.5 |
| Syracuse | 1.5 |
| Washington | 1.4 |
| UNC | 1.3 |
The Top 10 and ND’s Opponents, on average, feature underclassmen as starters 26% of the time (~6 out of 22 players are frosh/sophomores). ND is at 45% (10 players). Again, not at all surprising. The match-ups of the very-young Irish O vs. opposing Defenses and the somewhat-young Irish D against opposing Offenses yielded some interesting results though.
Notre Dame Offense vs. Opponents Defense
Excluding SDSU (no stats), Notre Dame’s O faced one team with a defense as young as they are – UNC. UNC’s D was extremely young this year, as was the ND O, and that’s the only time this was really close this year. In every other game, the Irish offense was facing, on average, an older opponent. In some cases, significantly older.
Notre Dame’s Defense vs. Opponents’ Offense
ND’s D faced some opponents on both sides of the slate this year. Three teams’ offenses pretty much mirrored the ND D in terms of age and experience this year – MSU, Pitt and Syracuse. Washington was also close – though older, they have fewer lettermen. Michigan (sucks!)’s and UNC’s Offenses were the only units where ND comes out as relatively older on D. The rest? ND was younger.
So when we net things out, we’re looking at a schedule where almost every game featured an age/experience advantage for our opponent:
| Age/Experience Advantage | |||
| ND Offense vs. D | ND Defense vs. O | Net | |
| Michigan | Opponent | ND | Draw |
| MSU | Opponent | Draw/MSU | Opponent |
| Purdue | Opponent | Opponent | Opponent |
| Stanford | Opponent | Opponent | Opponent |
| UNC | ND | ND | ND |
| Washington | Opponent | Draw/ND | Opponent |
| Pitt | Opponent | Draw | Opponent |
| BC | Opponent | Opponent | Opponent |
| Navy | Opponent | Opponent | Opponent |
| Syracuse | Opponent | Draw | Opponent |
| USC | Opponent | Opponent | Opponent |
Against Michigan (sucks!) we had a pretty even match-up in terms of age/experience and against UNC we held an advantage, but otherwise we were fighting an uphill battle on both sides of the ball in many matchups, against older/more experienced players.
Once again, I believe this is a factor in how the year went. Not an excuse, because we simply should’ve won more games. But it’s a factor.
One last note – I did this on starters simply because it was faster and easier. If you look at 2-Deeps, ND gets even younger. ND’s offensive 2-deep is 64% underclassmen and averages only 1 Letter. 6 Irish backups had not earned a Letter coming into this year. None. So we get significantly younger among these players that do log a lot of minutes. Compare this to USC’s Defensive 2-Deep, which is only 27% Underclassmen, and which averages 2 Letters per player, and that lack of offensive production isn’t so shocking (again, no excuses, just context).
Okay, fine, CREEPY CAKE BABY!!!!
I have no idea why anyone would ever make this, and then ADVERTISE that they make it. Ugh.
Loading ...
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
20 Comments
You keep doing the creepy baby cake thing, and I just can’t wait to see what sort of traffic we get thanks to Google searches.
What’s even more disturbing is that people would want to eat something that looks (very creepily) like their own child. What does that say about a person?
*yawn* Ok, we’re young. Song is old and played out by now. Lets move on, shall we?
trey, you’re not required to read something you find boring. you can choose to skim, or skip entirely!
He’s right. That’s what I do!
1) Did you make this post “Party” 3 intentionally?
2) It looks like you now have some metrics as to what a top 10 team usually looks like in terms of experience.
It would be very interesting to see these numbers compared to a projection of ND at the end of next year. This would require some sizeable WAG’s, but could give us a look into what we can expect for next year.
Dave,
1) yes. BK has no sense of humor, so he missed this and then insults me.
2) we discussed that in the Shoutbox yesterday i think. i’m hoping to get to it before the Holidays…
It is good information but as has been pointed out we were up against pitt, cuse, and UNC; then had a total let down. Yes some of that can be age but several of these kids are winners on many levels, I said it before it comes down to heart and swager and while I agree CW has a lot of work to do in a lot of areas that is something that cant be taught. I have not seen an attitude that this is out house and no one beats us in our house for awhile. Some of that can also be instilled from a coaching standpoint; at the very least it has to start from the coaching staff.
NYND. Hawaii:
9% underclass on D, 37 months in program (ND is 36%)
18% underclass on O, with 32 months on avg in program (ND is 55%)
Compared to us, they are old old old. Couldnt do Letters bc they were missing some of the data on Rivals.
ND Next year:
Offense will improve from 55% underclass to 36% undergrad and from 22 avg months in the program to 28. Plus, we’ll go from starting 3 frosh to likely starting none – all our underclass guys will be sophomores at least.
Defense will improve from 36% to 18% underclass, and from 29 months in the program to 31. Again, all our underclass will be sophomores and no frosh will start.
Team-wide we’ll be 29% undergrad with almost 30 months in the program. That’s down from 45% undergrad this year to 29%. Big drop. Months in the program inches up as well.
Biscuit,
Regarding your previous question on who will step up on the DLine next year, Jappy was quoted recently as saying he’ll be in the mix if not starting next year. Apparently he nearly played this season before the coaches decided against burning a year of eligibility.
That’s Kapron Lewis Moore.
Young guns on the d-line is a good thing…
Biscuit, I DO skim. But when you only post once a week, three straight posts of skimming gets kinda old. You guys usually entertain me, and these stat heavy posts bore me. I want to hear your opinions, not look up stats.
trey, the stats thing is fair. i agree it was 3 stats-heavy posts in a row (not normal for me at all), but i spent a decent chunk of time on them and so wanted to get them posted concurrently to get the ‘manifesto’ completed. i promise my next post will be a stat-less rant that BK picks to pieces. cool?
Biscuit, I think what Trey is saying is, “dance, clown! Dance!”
i assumed he’d call me ‘monkey’ rather than clown, so that’s a compliment in my book. at least you assumed he’d call me human.
Good summary stats on NDNation on this topic:
% of Starts from Frosh/Sophomores:
2008 -37/78 115 or 40% of total (13 games : 7-6)
2007 – 31/65 96 or 36% of total (12 games : 3-9)
2006 – 15/8 13 or 5% of total (13 games : 10-3)
2005 – 2/30 32 or 12% of total (12 games : 9-3)
2004 – 2/57 59 or 22% of total (12 games : 6-6)
2003 – 23/29 52 or 20% of total (12 games : 5-7)
2002 – 1/29 30 or 10% of total (13 games – 10-3)
[...] became “Youth Manifesto Month.” Biscuit and I kept fighting. BK made light of the situation. And then I wrote a [...]
waterfield financial internet financing dedts helplines over the web…
impugn tacitly,helps senatorial electrocuted …
Leave a Reply