ND Haters love to talk about how weak ND's schedule is, was, and always will be.
Lately, ND Fans do a lot of the same.
Both are wrong. So wrong it's practically insane.
Looking at Sagarin's SOS ratings since 1998 shows that the Irish consistently played a very difficult schedule, with the exception of the '08 and '09 seasons (where the Irish just played a schedule of greater than average difficulty that was still no cakewalk, relatively speaking).
Here are ND's SOS Rankings for that time period, 98 to 09:
36, 10, 24, 14, 14, 1, 5, 14, 18, 24, 50, 37.
And this year Steele put us at 17 preseason.
ND AVERAGED the 20th most difficult schedule over that time period. And the 'weak'-est? 50th. 10 spots better than the median if you're only considering FBS programs.
ND takes on tough schedules. A rank of 37 is not an 'easy' or weak schedule. It's in the top 1/3rd! A rank of 50 isn't even 'easy', it's just average. It's less difficult than 17, but EASY is a rank of 90. Easy is what Boise State had last year (rank 96), what Penn State had last year (73), and what Utah had last year (75).
17 is not weak. 17 is not easy. Yes, I agree that some of the matchups this Fall are not all that interesting, but compare the cupcake portion of our schedule to that of every SEC/BigTweleven/Whatever team out there, and you'll see much greater competition across from the Irish than most of those squads. WMU isn't a game that screams matchup of the century, but it's much better than Podunk U. Geez, our 'gimme' game with Navy (it's in quotes bc it's in no way a gimme) is a game against a perennial bowl team. The fact that they're Navy is irrelevant, they're freaking GOOD lately!
ND takes all comers, at least compared to the rest of the teams in CFB. But still, some fans think we should play a schedule of Bama, UF, USC, Miami, Michigan, MSU, BC, Pitt, Stanford, LSU, Navy, Tennessee and that we should STILL go undefeated and take home the MNC. Insane.
I am starting to rant. I leave it at this: this perception of a weak schedule is False. ND's weakest schedule since 1998 was more difficult than 60% of FBS schedules that year. And we average 20th, which means we've faced a schedule that is, on average, more difficult than 85% of FBS teams YEAR IN AND YEAR OUT. I haven't run the numbers, but go ahead and look up SEC teams' schedules. Look up any Tweleven team out there. You'll be hard-pressed to find any team averaging a schedule like that.
Weak schedules my ass.
That is all.
By Pat August 11, 2010 - 1:36 pm
Fans are delusional because the schedules have been modest and yet the team has been at or below .500.
And, while I don’t want to say anything bad about Navy, losing twice in three years to them is a disgrace. Can we stop building them up? We should beat them every year. Period.
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By tjak August 11, 2010 - 2:34 pm
Pat, Just ask Ohio State if they want to face Navy in another season opener. Not saying Navy is a great team, but they are not the divII patsys that Texas, Florida, Ohio State etc,etc. schedule every year.
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By Pat August 11, 2010 - 3:36 pm
Oh, I remember. But OSU still got the job done, even if it was a bit unsightly.
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By tjak August 11, 2010 - 6:29 pm
Whether they won by two or lost by two is not the fricking point. The point is we play a tough squad in Navy and OSU schedules Youngston State.
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By Pat August 12, 2010 - 8:53 am
tjak: Or, more accurately, both ND and OSU scheduled Navy and OSU won and we lost. Winning and losing really is the only point, especially when we are talking about the same team in the same year.
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By tjak August 12, 2010 - 10:16 am
Well done Pat. You figured that winning is the most important thing. Good on you. I could not agree more. However my point that you missed is that Navy is not the cupcake that many of the Notre Dame haters say it is.
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By Pat August 12, 2010 - 11:16 am
tjak: You’re right; the cupcakes are Army, Western Michigan and Tulsa. Over the course of beating Navy 40 some years in a row, there were a number of scares, but ND always got the job done.
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By The Biscuit August 11, 2010 - 1:52 pm
Pat, do you really feel like an SOS average of 20 is ‘modest’? That’s insane. The only ‘modest’ year was ’08. Yes, we should beat Navy every year. But not because they’re some cakewalk team. Just because we should be that much better. Look at Navy’s results over the past few years.
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By Pat August 11, 2010 - 3:35 pm
That’s since 1998 though. No one cares that in 2003 we may have had the most difficult schedule. Here we are four coaches later, and three of them weren’t all fired because the schedule was too tough (although Davie maybe did try to imply that). The last three years — with, yes, I’d say modest SOS — we’ve gone 3-9, 7-6 and 6-6. I just don’t consider those poor showings a reflection of tough, unwieldy schedules.
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By The Biscuit August 11, 2010 - 5:28 pm
37 and 24 aren’t modest. Those are challenging schedules (top 1/3rd), unless you think only those in the Top 20 have challenging schedules. It’s not an excuse for the performance, I’m just highlighting the fact that ND, across a season, plays stiff competition. Fans are delusional because they think that ND should play Top 20/Big Time matchups every week, and still win all the time. They may be depressed bc of the sub-par results though.
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By Pat August 12, 2010 - 9:01 am
Biscuit: But the last three seasons are among the leanest schedules in the last ten years and the team went a paltry 16-21.
I don’t think our views are worlds apart, but I don’t think I’m delusional in thinking the schedule has been conducive to us winning more than we have.
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By The Biscuit August 12, 2010 - 2:17 pm
but you’re confusing performance with the difficulty of the schedule. yes, i think we should win more than we have lately. no, i dont think the schedules have been easy or relatively weak.
the last 3 fully played seasons averaged to 37. that is not ‘lean’. it’s weaker than the previous 7 or 8 years, but those years we had one of the toughest runs in all of CFB. i think we should aim to be in the 30s or 40s, so I like the last 3 years vs the previous 7.
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By E-Man August 11, 2010 - 1:55 pm
The argument I hate the most is from my LSU friends who defend their NC schedule because “well, the conference is sooooooo hard”. Please. Sure, there are some world beaters in the SEC, but there are a few paper tigers in there too.
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By TLNDMA August 11, 2010 - 2:16 pm
LSU being 8 & 8 the last two years in conference, could be on their way to “paper tiger” status. It’s a big year for The Hat, the pressure’s on.
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By SDI August 11, 2010 - 2:14 pm
It would be interesting to see what the SOS was for the past 10 or so NC teams. That would give a better idea of what ND should be shooting for when scheduling. Too high above that would probably mean no NC, too low would make ND look like it’s trying to cream puff it’s way to the NC.
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By The Biscuit August 11, 2010 - 2:32 pm
I will look into that SDI. Good idea. One to note: 2 years ago Bama was 1 game away from the MNC. Their SOS? In the 80s.
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By The Biscuit August 11, 2010 - 3:11 pm
Done. See new post.
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By SDI August 11, 2010 - 2:38 pm
That tells me either they played some horrendous cream puffs, or the SEC is overrated or maybe both. Because if that league is as good as everyone claims, how in the world could you have a SOS of 80?
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By The Biscuit August 11, 2010 - 2:44 pm
hmmm, i am looking back at the MNCs and the BCS games of the past few years and I mustve been off – Bama was 28 two years ago. Sorry, going back to try to find why I thought that. May not have been Sagarin, but I cant see how the difference would be accounted for. Maybe I was thinking of Boise…huge difference! I’ll figure it out.
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By The Biscuit August 11, 2010 - 2:52 pm
My bad, that was 07 Kansas not 08 Bama. Kansas was ranked 74th in SOS that year, finished #2 after a BCS bowl.
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By rocket89 August 11, 2010 - 3:47 pm
Good post, I was saying the same things earlier this year when I wrote a piece on the myths surrounding ND’s SoS.
I was doing a comparison to the Big Ten mostly. Like you said, Sagarin has ND with an average SoS over 20.6 since 1997.
Michigan is the next closest with 28.1, with five teams in the 30′s, and five teams in the 40′s.
Wisconsin, who should be the poster child for weak scheduling, has averaged a 46.2 since 1997.
Think about that for a second. ND has had one year at 50, one 37, one 36 and every other year in the top 25. And Wisconsin is averaging a 46.2 SoS.
I’d argue that a 10 point difference is equal to about one win. Which means Wisconsin has basically been scheduling three more wins than Notre Dame every year since 1997. That’s why you always see Wisconsin at 9-3 and 10-2 and never feel like they’re ever THAT good.
This year the Badgers roll out UNLV, SJSU, Arizona State, Austin Peay…they don’t play Penn State and their toughest road games are Iowa and MSU.
They’ll cruise to 4-0 (I’m sure they’ll try to say how tough ASU is), they play a tough October (MSU, Minny, OSU, Iowa) and then cruise home in November (Purdue, Indiana, UM, Northwestern.)
It’ll be another year of 10-2 and a SoS that will be no better than their average. If a team like Iowa loses 3 or 4 games…their SoS might fall to 60, 70 or worse.
Now THAT is a weak schedule.
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By Trey August 11, 2010 - 6:52 pm
To play devil’s advocate here(I 100% agree ND plays a legit sked), you can make the argument that ND is only #30 among a div 1 crop that collectively plays weak ass skeds. Basically, ND is the best of the worst. ND only looks like a tough sked because everyone else is sched creampuffs all yr. ND is still crummy.
IMhO, we should have 1-2 USC lvl gms(1 yr have 2, nxt yr have 1), 3-4 among Ark/Tx Tch/UcLA types, 5-6 vs Navy/SMU/Stan, & 2 cakewalks.
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By OderName August 11, 2010 - 11:06 pm
Trey – I made the same point in the previous post. I would love to hop in a time machine and go back the time when men were men and played each other, when this year’s schedule wouldn’t be ranked 17- I’d be willing to bet that it would be more like 50. Unfortunately we have to play the same game as everyone else and scheduling a gauntlet with 4 or 5 top-15 teams pretty much guarantees that we’d end up in the Weedeater bowl most years.
Then again, maybe Jack’s opinion is “F**k it, we’re Notre Dame and we’ll do it right”, judging by the coming schedules, especially the late-80′s-esque 2012 & 2016 schedules. Those may not be smart, but man am I looking forward to those.
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By Pat August 12, 2010 - 9:04 am
The other thing to consider is there are A LOT of D-IA teams, many of whom are completely terrible and virtually irrelevant playing schedules in the 100s. You almost could probably shave off the bottom third in regards to SOS.
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By tjak August 12, 2010 - 10:19 am
The bottom third that Pat refers to contains a top 5 Boise State team. But I guess we could just shave off a team many are calling for to get a bid to the MNC.
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By Pat August 12, 2010 - 11:19 am
That’s a single outlier. There’s still the Troys, the Buffalos and the Louisiana Techs of the world.
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By Pat August 12, 2010 - 11:23 am
Besides, Boise has to run the table to get a shot at a BCS game, let alone the NC game. And they’ve earned respect by winning two BCS games in recent years.
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By BurbankSteve August 12, 2010 - 6:38 pm
Hey Pat – I thought you quit blogging BGS because you guys didn’t have enough time?
I’ll give y’all another two weeks of arguing with Biscuit and Bad Kermit before we see the first “Brett Favre Un-Retire” post back at the old BlueGraySky
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By Bad Kermit August 13, 2010 - 6:26 pm
Hey, I barely post here!
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By The Biscuit August 12, 2010 - 8:42 pm
Agree. And we’re not arguing. We’re just talking about different points. Funny thing is that we actually both agree with one another, and have just been talking around in circles.
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By BurbankSteve August 12, 2010 - 8:45 pm
“Don’t stand so close to me?”
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By Blueprint for BCS National Championship Success V: Measuring the Irish » Archive » Clashmore Mike August 16, 2010 - 3:04 am
[...] comparable, and the same argument can be made for his tenure at Central Michigan. Historically the Irish have played a very strong schedule, and the Mid-American Conference is hardly a juggernaut. This leaves his three years at Cincinnati [...]
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By Blueprint for BCS National Championship Success V: Measuring The Irish » College Football Daily News - Get all your football news on one site August 16, 2010 - 2:02 pm
[...] comparable, and the same argument can be made for his tenure at Central Michigan. Historically the Irish have played a very strong schedule, and the Mid-American Conference is hardly a juggernaut. This leaves his three years at Cincinnati [...]
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