An argument cannot be formulated to support the idea that the Irish have not vastly improved as a football team in 2008 over their 2007 performance any more than it can be argued that it makes sense for Starbucks to begin selling “Signature Hot Chocolates” for 50% more to consumers who already have no business buying 30 cents of hot chocolate for 3 bucks in this economy. That said, we’re curious about just how good the Irish have become, so we do what we always do, Pinky. We plan to take over the world. We crunched numbers.

We took a look at various “major statistics” for every opponent ND has played in 2008. What qualifies as a “major statistic?” Pretty much whatever we could arbitrarily decide upon and find time to dig into in the last few days. If we had interns, this blogging thing would be so much easier. But if we had interns, we’d have to bang our head against a wall every day over the way the interns call their parents to let them know what they’re doing every moment of the day. Note to potential, hypothetical interns: My parents haven’t known what I had for lunch since 1995. Your parents deserve the same. Get off the cell-phone!

Anyway…

We took the major stats for each opponent, then figured out what those stats would look like had they never played Notre Dame. This helped us figure out what we think is a better base-line of how good or bad a particular opponent is in a particular facet of the game.

First, a glossary:

The George Bailey Stat: The George Bailey Stat is a statistical representation of a ND opponent’s performance had ND never existed.

And now some stats:

Here’s a bunch of stuff we’ve learned from this exercise in bullet-point form:

• In the first 3 games, ND only managed to “outperform” the George Bailey Stat in 2 or 3 statistical categories per game. (highlighted in gold)
• In the last 3 games, ND outperformed the George Bailey Stat in at least 6 statistical categories.
• To this point in the season, George Bailey Stats would result in ND’s opponents being ranked, on average, as…
  • 74th in Pass Yards Defended
  • 71st in Pass Yards Defended
  • 77th in Pass Yards Gained
  • 74th in Rush Yards Gained
  • 67th in Points Allowed
  • 77th in Points Scored
  • 89th in Total Offense
  • 82nd in Total Defense
  • 78th in Turnover Margin

  Yow.

• ND has managed to outperform the George Bailey Stat in defending the pass (our opposition’s passing offense numbers) in only 1 game (MSU).
• ND has managed to outperform the George Bailey Stat in defending the rush in the last 3 games
• Playing Notre Dame has, to this point, meant a 44 yards “bonus” to ND’s opponents in the passing game, but only a 5 yard bonus in the rushing game. So where is the Irish defense’s true weakness?
• The best George Bailey Stat Rankings of ND’s opponents are…
  • Pass Yards Defended: SDSU at 6th (ND outperformed the GBS by 86 yards and had to)
  • Rush Yards Defended: Stanford at 34th (ND underperformed the GBS by 32 yards)
  • Pass Yards Gained: Purdue at 36th (ND underperformed the GBS by 118 yards)
  • Rush Yards Gained: Stanford at 23rd (ND outperformed the GBS by 36 yards)
  • Points Allowed: UNC at 31st (ND outperformed the GBS by 6 points)
  • Points Scored: UNC at 43rd (ND “outperformed” by .16 points, or, really, ND matched George Bailey)
  • Total Offense: Purdue at 69th (ND underperformed the GBS by 102 yards)
  • Total Defense: UNC at 46th (ND outperformed the GBS by 138 yards)
  • Turnover Margin: MSU at 36th (ND underperformed the GBS by about half a turnover)

  So ND outperformed the GBS in 5 of the 9 categories when facing the best of their opposition in each category.

• The worst George Bailey Stats for ND’s opponents are…
  • Pass Yards Defended: Stanford at 107th (ND outperformed George by 87 yards)
  • Rush Yards Defended: SDSU at 119th (ND underperformed George by 219 yards)
  • Pass Yards Gained: Michigan (sucks!) and Stanford at 109th (ND underperformed the GBS for UM(s!) by 92 yards, and underperformed the SU GBS by 51 yards)
  • Rush Yards Gained: SDSU at 119th (ND underperformed the GBS by 24 yards)
  • Points Allowed: SDSU at 111th (ND underperformed the GBS by 16 points)
  • Points Scored: SDSU at 108th (ND outperformed the GBS by 4 points)
  • Total Offense: SDSU and UM(s!) at 113th (ND underperformed vs SDSU by 78 yards and UM(s!) by 113 yards)
  • Total Defense: SDSU at 113th (ND underperformed by 113 yards)
  • Turnover Margin: Purdue at 101st (ND outperformed by .16 turnovers, or, essentially, matched the GBS)

  ND underperformed in 7 of the 9 statistical categories against the worst opponent in each category. Essentially, they sort of help teams that do things poorly do those thing better.

If anything can really be garnered from this data, it’s that ND has actually improved throughout the season. Against stiffer competition, the Irish managed to outperform the George Bailey Statistics in 6 or 7 of the 8 statistical categories in each of the last 3 games after barely even flicking George in the ear against the hapless SDSU Aztecs and Michigan (sucks!) Wolverines. That’s certainly encouraging. Also a reason for hope: 6 of the worst GBS stats are held by SDSU, so even though ND has thus far managed to make the worst statistical performers perform better, at least they got most of that out of the way in the first game of the season.

I do have some concerns, however. The fact that the Irish are only, on average, outperforming the GBS in 2 statistics (passing yards and points scored) is a real problem. And the inconsistency game-to-game is rather interesting. It seems to point out that the Irish don’t do well in consistently making a team “one dimensional.” It also seems to point out that this young team finds at least one facet of the game within which to really fall apart game-to-game.

The biggest single statistical concern has to be the performance of the Irish Pass Defense. And yes, I know a “better” measure is the pass efficiency defense, and if you’ve got time to create a GBS for that, send it our way for much glory and exultation. But the opposition pass yards, like the English, are too many, and allowing poor teams to pass better than they might normally is a recipe for blue and gold disaster. Without ND, Irish opponents average about 184 yards passing per game, and yet Irish opponents are averaging 231 yards passing, or about 25% more passing yards. Think about it this way: Washington, ranked 57th in passing yards, would project to pass for 258 yards against ND at this rate. The 25th ranked passing team in the country, Purdue, averages 258.1 yards passing a game. Hopefully ND will not make Washington look like a top-25 passing team this Saturday.

Then again, it might not help. Using the same methods of projection, ND should beat Washington 41-17. Washington is really, really bad. Of course, none of ND’s previous competition has been all that good.