Yep, it's back baby! Okay, so I harped on this just a bit in the past. Maybe a little. But not too too much. Right right? Heh.
I thought we'd be coming into this year a bit older, a bit wiser. Turns out, I am completely wrong (once in a while, it has to happen i guess).
Phil Steele published 2 pretty interesting pieces in the last couple days on his site, based on his always-solid analysis.
Youth
The first brings the Youth Manifesto back. Damn, how can we STILL be young? Seriously, we've been young for 2 years in a row, and we're STILL young? Doesnt anyone ever age on this team? Are we stuck in some weird time warp where everyone remains a freshman or sophomore?
Not really. You know what it is? In 2007, we were ridiculously young. Younger than almost anybody's ever been. Super duper crazy insane (insane? crazy?) young. In 2008, we were just crazy young. Younger than every team we played, and younger than pretty much any other ND team in history. This coming fall, we'll just be young. Not insane young, but still younger than almost every other team in the FBS.
According to Phil Steele, ND ranks as the 112th oldest, or 8th from the youngest, team in the country this coming season. 112!!! Lord, it never ends!
As a comparison, here's how this year's competition stacks up:
Nevada: 22
Michigan (sucks!): 120 - only team younger than ND! (good luck with that .500 DTK)
Michigan State: 71
Purdue: 74
Washington: 71
Southern Cal: 82
Boston College: 64
Washington St: 17
Navy: 1
Pitt: 10
UCONN: 107 - close!
Stanford: 45
So only 2 ND opponents fall even close to ND in terms of youth. The Manifesto remains applicable. It's alive people, yes, it's alive.
Experience
The second metric that Steele checks out is experience - returning starters, production, etc. And, not surprisingly, ND comes out pretty highly ranked on that metric at #17.
Nevada: 32
Michigan (sucks!): 93 (again, good luck there DTK, buddy, loving my bet odds)
Michigan State: 92
Purdue: 109
Washington: 13
Southern Cal: 90
Boston College: 63
Washington St: 23
Navy: 116
Pitt: 57
UCONN: 84
Stanford: 7
So only the Cardinal (singular, please!) comes out as more experienced than ND. Out of the 2, I'd rather be experienced than old, but it's pretty interesting to note our relative youth to the average team (STILL).
ND will be behind the developmental curve compared to most programs this year. That means more years in the weight room, more years in the program, more years in the system for our competitors. BUT, our guys will have more game experience than most. More pressure-filled moments. More exposure, and more time spent on the field cracking skulls.
And really, Michigan (sucks), MSU, Purdue, USC and Navy are teams filled with newbies. Early in the season, these teams should be relatively vulnerable. Mistakes should, and will, happen for most of these squads. At least for the first portion of the season, and probably for most of it (see: ND 2007). USC has a talent advantage that will help mitigate a lot of those mistakes - dude makes a wrong read, but he's so freaking fast he can catch the opponent WR anyway, etc - so the impact will be less for them.
The chart below highlights how these 2 metrics come together, along with talent. As a program, you wanna be in the lower left corner - older, and experienced. That's a recipe for relative success. I say relative, bc talent and coaching, schedule and luck all play a factor as well. But keeping all those constant, a program is primed for relative success with an older, experienced team. This is exactly what BC was 2 years ago - they weren't great talent-wise, but they had like 40 5th year seniors on that squad that had played for a few years, and they found success. I did my best to sort of bring talent in here, coloring the most talented teams (just a guesstimate, this isn't some tight analysis on star rankings) red, 2nd tier orange, 3rd tier yellow and bottom of the barrel grey (again, estimates just to get a visual in there). You can expect the more talented teams to overcome one weakness or the other, obviously. For ND, we're in a decent spot. We're not the oldest team on the schedule by far, but we're also pretty experienced, and relatively talented.
Course, you didn't need this chart to tell you that, but it's a pretty cool graphic right? And heck, this is what MBA's/consultants do - create charts to tell you what you already knew anyway, so I am fulfilling my role big time.
Pretending like this chart is the only data point we have, we should absolutely WHOMP Michigan (sucks), MSU, UCONN, Purdue and BC. They are set up to SUCK. Throw in Washington because of the lack of talent, and Navy and WSU bc of the same.
USC will be a toss-up bc it's USC, and we should expect decent games from Stanford, Nevada and Pitt. A lot of folks are thinking that Nevada should be a blowout win - by this analysis, it will be one of the tougher games of the year, and if we win it should be a sign of good things to come.
By brendan June 3, 2009 - 4:06 pm
Interesting that Washington State, arguably the worst team on our schedule, has the best combination of experience and age.
Phil Steele has Nevada #35 in his rankings, increasing my nervousness that nothing good can come of that game unless we blow them out.
Pitt and MSU are in the 20-30 range. Presumably we are in his top 20, though that hasn’t been revealed on his blog.
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By The Biscuit June 3, 2009 - 4:20 pm
I am surprised he has MSU that high given that they’re all like 10 years old and haven’t played a down. WSU has by far the least talent, but they are Jrs/Srs/5ths with experience. But experienced and old suckyness is still suckyness. Nevada is a scare game for sure. Even if they end up in the Top 20, the damage of a loss will be too much for this team, Weis, and the fans to handle. It’ll be pandemonium. I bet Steele puts us Top 15.
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By Undrew June 3, 2009 - 6:03 pm
You should re-work the chart so that it uses real values instead of rankings. You’re chart is skewed. You should know this if you have an MBA from U of Phoenix.
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By The Biscuit June 4, 2009 - 3:33 am
Undrew – first of all, let’s not start swinging dicks about education/resume. That’s a battle you’ll lose, and it won’t be close.
Second, there are a few reasons I used rankings instead of the values. 1) It was quicker/easier – Steele has them ranked, and I dont get paid to write here so I’m doing whatever’s quickest/easiest 2) It doesn’t change the story. It accentuates some things, sure, but the story remains the same, and I labeled it as based on rankings, so it’s not like I’m hiding something. 3) This way allows people to compare the x to the y axis. It orients to a single metric, rather than 2 different ones, so you can compare ND’s age on the Y to ND’s experience on the X, so on and so forth. This is the main reason, though clearly your community college edumacated brain didn’t catch that nuance. The only way to use the actuals and do this is to create indices, and that goes against point #1, and you end up with the same “skews” anyway once you go that route. You may not like it, but this is just as legit as showing it in any other way. But, feel free to go start your own blog and do it your way, I’ll be sure to be a regular reader of http://www.snarkybutnotthatbright.com
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By irish64 June 4, 2009 - 7:55 am
Sometimes these analyses make my hair hurt. But, it is interesting. Nevada is not to be taken lightly.
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By david June 4, 2009 - 8:09 am
Biscuit,
Were you “just saying” that Undrew might not be as smart as he thinks?
Thank you biscuit, for being a the ray of truth, light and humor that makes a morning start with a laugh.
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By Bad Kermit June 4, 2009 - 5:47 pm
Undrew – first of all, let’s not start swinging dicks about education/resume. That’s a battle you’ll lose, and it won’t be close.
We meet again, Irony!
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By notredamemike June 9, 2009 - 4:02 pm
I’m a Notre Dame and Ohio State fan. That means I hate Michigan twice as much as any of you. GO IRISH!!
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By The Biscuit June 9, 2009 - 7:49 pm
Mike, that also means that you love Touchdown Jesus and rioting at the same time. It’s an interesting combination – but I fully support your hatred of Michigan (dont forget the sucks!).
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