Since today is a day for predictions here at HLS, let’s try to predict what shade of yellow narratives our friends in the press will conjure about us all too soon.

2013 Will be the Season When the Luck Runs Out for the Irish

Has any college football program ever built a less convincing 12-0 regular season?  The two highly improbable overtime victories were just part of comic opera that saw the Irish stumble and fumble their way to 12 wins that could have gone either way up to the very last second.  It is safe to say that Notre Dame’s much-vaunted 12-0 could just as easily have been 0-12.  And that poses a troubling question: Who exactly helped the Irish in the critical moments when they “miraculously” fell into specious victory after specious victory?  While the highly superstitious (and some would say, religiously fanatical) Notre Dame fan base points to a discredited former entity known as god, sources within several conferences are 80% certain that the luck of the Irish really is green – as in greenbacks.  As in there will soon be a push to investigate not just the patently bribed officials from the Stanford and Pittsburgh games, but all the referees, umpires, linesmen, and judges, many of whom are known either to have family in the State of Indiana, or to have actually stayed at hotels in or near South Bend itself.

Irish Need to Shake off Demons before they Shake Down Thunder

After a shaky 12-1 season, plagued by scandal after scandal, Notre Dame needs to place the focus back on the football field if the Irish hope to do better than their usual 6-6 and meaningless bowl appearance.  The perjurious Heisman campaign built on a non-existent dead woman (about whom Notre Dame’s administration has shown scant concern) is as nothing compared to the massive cheating scandal that felled the only player with any talent on their offense, quarterback Everett Golson.  The unseemly haste with which the administration sacrificed Golson makes it clear that the plagiarism, ghost test-takers, and handing out of answer sheets to football players before exams, goes much deeper than just this individual, according to a highly placed source who is 80% certain the entire team is involved.

Internal Strife at Notre Dame Likely to Undermine Irish Season

Notre Dame football may have returned to glory last year, with an undefeated regular season and an appearance in the national championship game; but the notoriously fickle (and some would say, religiously fanatical) Irish alumni have already written Brian Kelly’s obituary.  It’s not just that he conducted a half-year-long affair with the Philadelphia Eagles – a flirtation that began before Notre Dame’s plane even touched down in Dublin.  It’s that Kelly, the scion of a famously corrupt Boston political dynasty, has spent more time recruiting cronies inside the Notre Dame administration than he has recruiting mediocre-to-poor high school players.  What is the purpose of all of Kelly’s Machiavellian machinations within the gilded administration building: He wants a new stadium – one big enough and flashy enough to match his outsized ego.  Knute Rockne’s push to get the intransigent and old fashioned alumni of his day to allow the construction of the very stadium now in danger drove Rock to an early grave.  Now the grandsons and great-grandsons of the Judases of 1930 are sharpening their knives for Kelly who, though successful on the field, has committed the Cardinal Sin at Notre Dame: he has threatened the field itself.

In the Emerald City of Irish Football, Who’s the Phony Wizard?

Shakespeare had some disparaging things to say about lawyers, but at Notre Dame one lawyer is essential to the Irish taking the field.  How is it that star quarterback and Irish darling Tommy Rees managed to avoid an almost certain grand jury indictment for attempted murder of a police officer?  How is it that a century-old contract to play Michigan suddenly developed an escape clause that just happens to benefit Notre Dame to the tune of tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue for Michigan?  How is it that a football powerhouse can get away with robbing a talented young scholar-athlete, just beginning his college career, of an entire year of eligibility, just because he forgot to dot an “i” and cross a “t” on a meaningless form letter?  Meet Jack Swarbrick, the man who wields the law like a shillelagh.  The amazing Mr. Swarbrick is the “wizard” behind the curtain in each of these underhanded – though technically legal – maneuvers to keep a gasping Notre Dame in the national conversation for yet another year.  But sources close to a bar association are 80% certain that Swarbrick isn’t even a lawyer, since he admitted in the press conference where he whitewashed Notre Dame’s shameless attempt to capitalize on the death of a fictional California woman, that he’s ‘not allowed to practice law anymore’.  An uncharacteristic slip for the cagey Swarbrick.

Notre Dame Gives Underage Players Alcohol  Every Week

In violation of State, Federal, International, and most important, NCAA law, the University of Notre Dame, founded and maintained by a secretive cult of foreign priests, reportedly gives wine to football players under the age of 21 at least once a week.  A source from the Soviet-sounding “Notre Dame Campus Ministry” reports that he’s 100% certain that any football player or student of the Catholic faith can be plied with wine daily, and that this occurs on a massive scale in student dormitories every Sunday night.  The source wanted very much to be named in this article, but the authors prefer to keep his name anonymous so that he can avoid retribution by the Notre Dame alumni who many believe to be religious fanatics.

Irish Drop Michigan in order to Add Perennial Creampuffs Florida State and Virginia Tech

Dangerously Overweight Squirrels Cause Many to Question Notre Dame’s Commitment to Proper Rodent Care

 How Long Will Notre Dame be Allowed to Exploit Downtrodden and Poverty-Stricken Irish Americans with Racist Leprechaun Mascot?

And just you wait – it’s only a matter of time before one of these sports writers discovers the unspeakable scandal that we’ve been covering up and keeping quiet for a very long time now…

Notre Dame Keeps Physically Disabled Bell Ringer Imprisoned in Church Tower

EFS CSC

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This is a rock. We have a golden dome with Jesus’ mom on it. C’MON!

Here’s why.

Let’s take a look at a few data points to evaluate the order here:

1. Performance against the same opponents
2. Absolute Stats
3. Opponent-Adjusted Stats
4. Overall SOS (stealing this from Tex’s post earlier this week)

So, first:

1. Performance against the same opponents

Both ND and K-State played Miami and Oklahoma, and both teams won those games. But they didn’t win by the same margins. This is probably the ‘fairest’ comparison of the two teams we’ll get as they are the exact same opponents. The results of a comparison favor ND.

ND-OK: 30-13
KS-OK: 24-19

ND beat Oklahoma by 17 points for score ratio of 131%. KS beat Oklahoma by less than a Touchdown, a differential of 5 points or 26%. ND scored more points against Oklahoma and gave up fewer. This is clearly a superior performance by ND against the same team.

ND-MI: 41-3
KS-MI: 52-13

Here the story is more mixed as ND scored fewer points but also gave up fewer. On a percentage basis KS put up 3X or 300% of Miami’s points. But ND put up almost 13X or 1300%! C’mon now, folks!

But even if you call that a tie it’s pretty clear that ND outperformed K-State against the same competition. Say whatever else you want, but ND wins this test. ADVANTAGE ND

2. Absolute Stats

This is the one place where K-State looks better than ND, and it’s almost entirely on the offensive side of the ball. When we look at rankings of Passing and Rushing Offense (Yards), Points For and Points Against, ND only wins in the last category. And that’s where the perception that K-State is ‘better’ sets in. Here are national rankings in those categories:

KS ND

PASS 82 89
RUSH 18 30
POINTS 5 72
AGAINST 21 2

So K-State wins Test 2 but that brings us to Test 3 which pretty much negates it…

3. Opponent-Adjusted Stats

The problem with the previous view is that it completely ignores who they’ve played. And while K-State clearly has better offensive stats, ND has played a slate of teams with MUCH better defenses. And that matters. A lot.

Looking at the Combined S&P/FEI rankings on FootballOutsiders.com, which accounts for the quality of the teams played, we get a very different story.

KS ND

OFF 11 4
DEF 15 4

ND is better at both offense and defense once the competition is taken into account. ADVANTAGE BACK TO ND. Which brings us to point 4, competition.

4. SOS

See, when two teams have the exact same record, this is where the rubber meets the road. Look, if I am 100-0 in boxing and only fought 5th grade girls (or BC students – ZING!) you might not be intimidated. If I was 100-0 and took down heavyweight pros, it’s a different story. But somehow poll voters ignore this. ND is undefeated. So is K-State. BUT ND HAS PLAYED A HARDER SCHEDULE ACCORDING TO EVERYONE!

From Tex’s post earlier this week, here are the various SOS rankings for K-State and ND respectively:

KS: 30 40 13 16 33 AVERAGE = 26.4
ND: 25 8 10 7 16 AVERAGE = 16.2

So ND goes undefeated against the 16th most difficult schedule and K-State does the same against the 26th and somehow K-State is better than ND? WHAT KIND OF CRACK IS BEING SMOKED HERE?

Summary:

ND performed better against the same teams, ND has better opponent-adjusted stats, and ND played a more difficult schedule and has the same record. ND is #3 folks, plain and simple.

All K-State has over ND is style points (because people love offense), ND hatred in the general populace, and ND pulling off some close Ws in OT. But I find that much less compelling than all of the data here.

So that’s that. Now, on to Oregon…

BEAT BC!!!

The post The Absurdity of K-State Above ND appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

So the first You’re So Predictable poll of the season is…

The post You’re So Predictable: Opening Weekend FAIL appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

What sort of ratio of wins-to-2010-draftees would that represent? Go ahead and throw your guesses down in the comments. Iâ€ll think on it a bit more and throw mine in there as well, but Iâ€m having trouble dividing by zero.

And remember, we found that, in the 31 seasons studied, the average number of wins for a season per draftee in the following year was 1.75.

So with that in mind, and the 2009 season approaching quickly, we ask…

The post You’re So Predictable: 2010 Irish Draftees appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Silky coiffed Bea Arthur waves “So long” to an indifferent crowd of well-wishers.

Soon after the cancellation of her hit sit-com Golden Girls, Arthur found her way to another passion: Notre Dame football.  Assuming a nom de télévision, Arthur worked alongside former USC quarterback and elf Pat Haden to bring her wry wit, astute observations, and rich, vanilla timbre to homes across America for many years.

We will miss her soulful eyes, her shimmering neck scarves, and the way she’d seamlessly weave a reference to the upcoming episode of “My Name is Earl” into game action.

Gone too soon.  Gone…. too soon.

The post A passing in the Notre Dame/NBC family appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

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Who’s with me?

The post You’re So Predictable: Loser Mentalities appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

This week, Notre Dame faces the best running back on the 2008 Schedule: LeSean McCoy. A man so talented, he can make Dave Wannstedt appear non-stupid on occasion (if and only if Dave remembers to just give LeSean the damn ball). A talent so great he gets 4, count ’em, FOUR capital letters on his roster listing. A football player so awesome that he could well send this Irish defense, ranked in the top (ha!) 90 of rushing defense this week, plummeting to the 100s by Sunday.

So with that in mind, we ask…

Remember to wrap up, damn you. WRAP UP!

The post You’re So Predictable: Best Running Back We’ll See All Year appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Also pathetic: Last week Washington started the first drive of the game with a delay of game penalty. It was mind blowing. It was stunning. And if you were a Notre Dame fan, you were just surprised they didn’t also get hit with a penalty for too many men on the field because you know all too well that delay of game penalties to start drives are just part of the game when your coach is Ty Willingham. This is something you know. This is something I know. This is something that most of the college football world does not know.

So, knowing what you know, we ask…

The post You’re So Predictable: Poor Game Management appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

This week, we’ve got some match-ups that are so uninteresting that we actually have to look at the Vegas point spreads to find some intrigue.

Last week, some of you did pretty well, guessing that Vandy is a great pretender. This week, we ask…

The post You’re So Predictable: Spreadable Spreads appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.