In the two losses, most Notre Dame fans would agree that turnovers were the biggest causes of the two losses rather than general performance by the offense or defense. In fact, Football Outsiders valued the 10 turnovers against USF & UM at 55.3 equivalent points. In other words, in the two games we lost by a combined 7 points, we gave away almost 8 touchdown’s worth of points by turning the ball over.

I’ll now pause while we all commence smashing our heads against the nearest hard surface.

Anyway, the charts are back!…with one addition. I added in the average for the teams ranked 6-10. This gives a more realistic bar for ND to strive to achieve.

NOTE: The 2011 stats only have 7 weeks worth of data and are being compared against years with full seasons of data. So there can still be wild variation between week to week. The stats will be more accurate and become more reliable as more games are played and more data about each team is available. But they are interesting enough to look out now.

Offense

Quick overview: 2011 ND = very light blue and all the way to the right. Also, higher = better

As you can see, across the board, Notre Dame has been fairly exceptional on offense. The Irish have been better than not only the 6-10 mean but also the 1-10 average in ever category. Most impressive (or importantly) is the Rush O S&P+. The running game has performed about 23% better than average running game of a top 10 team. Think about the last time we could say that! Another stellar showing for the offense has been the performance on passing downs.

Passing Downs are defined as:

• second down with 8 or more yards to go
• third or fourth down with 5 or more yards to go

The Passing Down S&P+ of 177.4 is the 2nd highest of any top 10 team since 2005 and beaten only by the Cam Newton led Auburn team of last season. It’s a damn impressive stat and one of the biggest reasons ND has been successful on offense. Success on passing downs keeps drives alive which in turn keeps our defense off the field and rested.

Defense

Just sit back and look at that rush D. It’s damn impressive. That Rush D S&P+ of 189.9 means that so far, through 6 games, our rushing defense has been ~29% better than the best rushing D of top 10 teams since 2005. However, I was surprised to realize that ND is actually the 2nd ranked rush D so far during 2011 with Alabama at 241.1 (!) while LSU is 3rd at 174.4. Bob Diaco’s defense has kept up it’s strong play against the run that began in the Tulsa game last season.

On the other hand, as the S&P+ shows, the Pass D hasn’t been ideal. If I had to guess, I’d have to say that a majority of that is from our performance in Ann Arbor. Allowing 300+ yards passing to Denard Robinson given his standard performance in every other game this year severely impacted the numbers. ND’s pass D S&P+ dropped from 138.8 to 123.2 over the bye week as Denard stunk the up joint against Michigan State. Additionally and more worrisome going forward, the Passing D on Passing Downs has not been that good. Some of that could be from Diaco’s ‘Bend but don’t Break’ philosophy that allows works to prevent big plays. And the red zone defense has been extremely stout. Still, it’s an area that the Irish need to do better over the last 6 games. Improving on Passing Downs allows the D to force more 3 & outs and put our explosive offense back onto the field.

Conclusions
Statistically, Notre Dame has been one of the top 10-15 teams in the country on offense and defense. Against Purdue & Airforce, we’ve seen how good the Irish can look when cutting out the turnovers. So while this doesn’t give solace to any of us regarding the USF and Michigan losses, it should give some hope and provide some excitement about the team going forward the next 6 weeks. Then again, if we lay an egg on Saturday night (which isn’t going to happen), none of this matters and I’ll look like more of an idiot than I usually do. But hopes of a BCS game start Saturday night with our asswhooping of Southern Cal. Remember #BeatSC

All stats via of Football Outsiders. Explanations of the stats can be found there too. (Link)

The post Midseason Check-In: To BCS or Not To BCS appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

And weâ€re back! Sooner than expected but DMQ is a harsh task master. Actually, NCAA 2012 was released Tuesday and once I get my hands on it, there goes any productivity in my life. Youâ€re lucky you are even getting this post. However, since Amazon hates me for unknown reasons resulting in my copyâ€s delivery being delayed until today, here you go.

On to the defense! And even more charts. (Charts, if I may say so myself, that are far nicer looking than anything produced on that hack website SubwayDomer.com)

For those who are too lazy to scroll down a couple of posts, we are looking at how the 2010 Irish stack up against the BCS Top 10 from 2005 through 2010 in a variety of stats and what phases of the game ND would have to improve to make a BCS appearance after the 2011 season. (Spoiler! Most of them)

Part 2 – Defense

That graph is much better looking than anything produced for the offensive stats. The 2010 Notre Dame Defense was pretty damn good. We were above the BCS average in 4 of the 5 S&P+ categories. Our overall Pass D was fantastic. Our Rush D, while not as “dominant” as our passing defense, was still above the BCS average. However, as the dents in my remote and the holes in many of your walls can attest, our Passing Down D was the weakest part of our defense last year. Anecdotally, I feel like this was a weakness earlier in the year, and our Dâ€s stellar performance over the last 5 games was mainly due to them improving on getting off the field on 3rd down. If you remember from the post about Offense, Passing Down performance was the biggest weakness. Not really sure if that means anything besides that ND must improve on both sides of the ball (and that watching ND on 3rd down probably took years off my life) but it did interest me.

As you can see below, the tradition stat of 3rd down conversion performance confirms that ND definitely has to improve getting off the field on 3rd down.

For those curious about the outliers, 2009 Alabama, 2009 Texas, 2007 USC, & 2009 Iowa (!) put up some of the better numbers. 2007 Hawaii, and 2009 Georgia Tech managed to account for the worst D performances.

Next, weâ€ll look at how efficient our defense was. DFEI  (as a reminder) is the opponent adjusted. ND performed well under the DFEI measure but unlike S&P+, ND was below efficient. As FEI is drive-based more so than play-based, this makes sense given the less-than-stellar performance on passing/3rd down. Also, the way DFEI is measured, the more negative your DFEI, the better/more efficient your defense was. While not a poor comparatively to the BCS average as the offense was, the Defense does need to improve itâ€s efficiency in 2011. The 2009 Georgia Tech shows up again with that abymsal +.23 DFEI. That defense was just awful but hey, they played in the ACC, had an amazing offense, and well, Paul Johnson.
On FootballOutsiders, DFEI was broken out in to 4 sub categories. This was done for first time for the 2010 so while we canâ€t compare ND against the BCS average, we can dig deeper into NDâ€s performance.

• FD: First Down rate, the percentage of opponent offensive drives that result in at least one first down or touchdown.
• AY: Available Yards, yards earned by the opponent’s offense divided by the total number of yards available based on starting field position.
• Ex: Explosive Drives, the percentage of each opponent offense’s drives that average at least 10 yards per play.
• Me: Methodical Drives, the percentage of each opponent offense’s drives that run 10 or more plays.

ND managed to be ranked 11th in the first 3 categories and 71st in Me. The 71st in Me is somewhat expected given Diacoâ€s Bend but donâ€t Break philosophy. However, that coupled with the 11th in FD was a slightly unexpected result at first glance. Essentially, ND was fairly impressive in forcing 3 and outs (about 40% of the time). Then, on the 60% of the drives that were not a 3 and out, ND gave up a Methodical drive around 25% of the time. Stat Nerd Tangent Over!

Time for graphs stats (or as I like to call it, why opponent adjustments are crucial context)
Letâ€s start with yards per play. Remember, in this section, less is more.

In all 3 measures, and unlike most of the Football Outsider stats, ND was somewhat worse than the BCS average. Opponent adjustments or not, all of us fans would like for these numbers to be more in line with the rest of the BCS teams. Someone with far more time than I could probably break these out pre and post Tulsa so see if the dismal performances against Navy, Skunkbears and Stanford elevated these numbers. While the defense was better than one might remember, it definitely wasnâ€t a BCS caliber defense for those first 7 games.

And if we bring yards per game, the results arenâ€t any better looking.

In looking at both Yards per Game and Yards Per Play, the rush D was farther behind where weâ€d like it to be compared to the Pass D. Giving up 500 yards to Denard Robinson (did you know he doesnâ€t tie his shoelaces?) and ~1,000 yards to Navyâ€s Heisman trophy winning fullback wonâ€t help any counting stats. If we bring back Rush D S&P+, we can see that we are just barely above average. Since Denard and Navy ran all over most teams they faced, our performances, while pathetic, were at least mirrored by other defenses in CFB.  In the end, we need our rush D to continue itâ€s performance over the last 5 games if we want to see a BCS game after the 2011 season.

Notre Dameâ€s defense took a giant leap forward near the end of the season. The last 4 games were some of the most fun some of us had watching games in a long time. If the Irish D can keep up that performance, we could be in for a special year on defense. As Bill C of Football Study Hall/Football Outsiders noted in his 100X more awesome preview (link), we were possibly the top defense in the country over those last 4 games.

The post 2 BCS or Not 2 BCS: That is the Question appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

“College football rating system based on drive-based Game Efficiency data that rewards playing well against good teams, win or lose, and punishes losing to poor teams more harshly than it rewards defeating poor teams. “

Game Efficiency is explained more in depth on his website and at FootballOutsiders. Fremeau uses the FEI as his own ranking system during the year. He releases weekly rankings with Overall FEI plus FEI split between Offense and Defense amongst other various measures.  It provides a nice snap shot for how your teams has performed. Most of the stats have opponent adjustments in them which helps make comparisons easier.  (A deeper analysis of FEI and related stats could be a whole other post)

Every off-season, Fremeau releases his Program FEI which is a 5 year look-back at each college football team. Recent performance is weighted more heavily than performance 5 years ago but it is a good look at how your program has fared recently and what you can expect from your team in the upcoming season.

“With Program FEI, five years of GE data is included instead of just one, and the data is weighted in favor of more recent performances — all games are included, but last year is a bit more relevant than games played five years ago. Program FEI correlates strongly with next year success (.752) and is the foundational metric for annual FEI preseason projections.”

Earlier today, the Program FEI for 2010 was released. Link

To no oneâ€s surprise, Alabama came at #1. To my somewhat surprise, Notre Dame dropped in at #30. I feel like the debacle that was ND football 2007-2009 colors my perception of our 5-year performance.

Anyway, here are NDâ€s Opponents:
#8 – USC
#18 – Pitt
#21 – Stanford
#28 – BC
#29 – USF
#39 – Navy
#40 – Sparty
#42 – BYU
#48 – Maryland
#50 – Michigan
#55 – Air Force
#67 – Purdue

I donâ€t know which ranking surprised me the most. Michigan at 50 being our 3rd “worst” opponent, Sparty below Navy or both Sparty & Navy as “low” as they are.

Additionally, this bolsters Biscuitâ€s piece last night about how our schedule doesnâ€t suck. I donâ€t imagine many teams whose worst opponent is ranked #67.

Links:
Fremeauâ€s Website: http://bcftoys.blogspot.com/
Fremeau on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/bcfremeau
FootballOutsiders: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/
FO Glossary: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/info/glossary

The post Brian Fremeau is Smarter Than You appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.