Clashmore Mike

A Clashmore Mike Roundtable: Signing Day 2011

Jonathan Hunn — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 08:03:12 +0000

When Brian Kelly was hired to coach at Notre Dame, one of the biggest and most legitimate questions Irish supporters had was his ability to recruit on a national level. If Brian Kelly and his staff showed nothing else on National Signing Day, they responded to fans’ worries with an emphatic “yes,” and did their best to put those questions to rest…for now.

On Tuesday, Kelly and his staff inked the #10 ranked class by Rivals.com and the #8 ranked class by Scout.com. But what they accomplished, beyond rankings, was nothing short of remarkable. Kelly vowed to focus on defensive recruits, and that he did. However, Kelly and his staff also recruited exceptionally on the offensive side of the ball.

Our job, as Notre Dame fans and writers, is mainly to predict what will happen in the months and years to come. The problem with predicting how athletes will do at the next level of competition is that, even with a slew of statistics and videos, forecasting how a collegiate or professional career will turn out means that you are like Carnac the Magnificent, but without the punchline. With that in mind, this roundtable article featuring all of the contributing members of Clashmore Mike will focus only slightly on prediction and more on reaction and evaluation.

Following a brief rundown of all 23 commitments to the 2011 class (see table below), are a series of comments/observations followed by each member’s thoughts.

2011 Recruiting Class

Position	Name	Height	Weight	Scout	Rivals
Quarterback	Everett Golson	6'0"	170 lbs.	#15 QB	#16 QB
Running Back	Cam McDaniel	5'10"	192 lbs.	#33 RB	NR
Wide Receiver	George Atkinson III	6'2"	190 lbs.	#30 RB	#7 ATH
Wide Receiver	DaVaris Daniels	6'2"	175 lbs.	#23 WR	#21 WR
Tight End	Ben Koyack	6'5"	242 lbs.	#1 TE	#7 TE
Tight End	Troy Niklas (DL)	6'7"	240 lbs.	#8 OT	#24 OL
Offensive Line	Conor Hanratty	6'4"	295 lbs.	#31 OT	#38 OL
	Matt Hegarty	6'5"	280 lbs.	#11 OT	#6 OL
	Nick Martin	6'4"	270 lbs.	#39 OT	#66 OL
Defensive Line	Brad Carrico	6'6"	287 lbs.	#64 OT	#52 DE
	Chase Hounshell	6'5"	255 lbs.	#97 DE	#59 DE
	Aaron Lynch	6'6"	240 lbs.	#2 DE	#3 DE
	Stephon Tuitt	6'5"	270 lbs.	#10 DE	#2 DE (SS)
	Tony Springmann	6'6"	275 lbs.	#66 DE	#39 DE
Linebacker	Ben Councell	6'5"	220 lbs.	#32 OLB	#5 DE
	Jarrett Grace	6'3"	235 lbs.	#14 OLB	#24 LB
	Anthony Rabasa	6'4"	233 lbs.	#50 DE	#11 DE
	Ishaq Williams	6'5"	242 lbs.	#4 DE	#2 DE (WS)
Defensive Back	Josh Atkinson	6'0"	185 lbs.	#46 CB	#41 DB
	Jalen Brown	6'1"	180 lbs.	#52 CB	NR
	Matthias Farley	6'0"	194 lbs.	#82 CB	NR
	Eilar Hardy	6'0"	172 lbs.	#12 S	#15 DB
Kicker	Kyle Brindza (P)	6'1"	219 lbs.	#1 K	#17 K

Which commitment of this class was the biggest win for Kelly and his staff?

Andrew: Troy Niklas. There are higher rated players in this class that received more publicity, but at 6’7″ Niklas has the potential to become an elite left tackle. Not only did the Irish coaching staff beat out hometown USC for the nephew of USC/NFL greats Bruce and Clay Matthews, but they also had to fight off basically the entire Pac-10, Florida, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Tennessee. Niklas possesses the size and athleticism to play tight end or defensive end, but he looks to have the frame to safely add more weight and make the transition to the line.

Brian Kelly has experience taking an elite athlete and bulking him up into a left tackle: 2007 first round draft pick Joe Staley originally came to Central Michigan as a tight end, but Kelly reportedly had Staley add 80 pounds to his 6-5 frame during Staley’s freshman year. Staley was starting at right tackle by his sophomore year and then switched to left tackle during the remainder of his CMU career. According to a 2007 article on Staley:

“Joe always put the team first,” Staley’s offensive line coach and current Cincinnati assistant coach Jeff Quinn said. “When we came and put the spread offense in, he was excited because he thought he would get the chance to be bigger part of the offense as a tight end. We approached him and told him that team needed him at right tackle. That wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but he knew it was best for the team and he made the change, and he embraced the change.”

Nobody outside of the Irish coaching staff knows for sure what position Niklas will eventually play, and he could very well end up at tight end or defensive end. But, at least to me, Kelly’s history combined with Niklas’ frame, elite cohort, and the ability to fill a critical need with a little extra weight speaks of a potential future at left tackle.

Andy: Stephon Tuitt. There are so many blue chip recruits in this class—not to mention a host of players which have tremendous upside and are exciting in their own right—that it’s difficult to point to one as the largest victory. But Tuitt’s commitment turned de-commitment and subsequent re-commitment not only secured Kelly’s staff a high-profile player and outstanding talent, but the story of Notre Dame redoubling it’s efforts and the tremendous amount of chutzpah involved was also broadcast around the country on ESPN. A huge recruit and an equally large marketing win for the university and program.

Anthony: There are a host of ways to define “biggest.” Is it a recruit with the star power and notoriety of Jimmy Clausen? Is it a game-changing athlete like Michael Floyd? For me it wasn’t a singular recruit, but rather the type of recruit Kelly landed that Notre Dame simply hadn’t secured in the past.

Ishaq Williams, Stephon Tuitt, and Aaron Lynch are dynamic front-seven defenders with athleticism to spare. Williams is the tweaner of the trio, a long, rangy player that can man the outside linebacker position or play in a three-point stance and come off the edge. Lynch is a dominant pass rusher with an extremely explosive first step. And Tuitt is simply a man amongst boys. These three players will open up the playbook by allowing defensive coordinator Bob Diaco to get pressure with only three and four defenders.

Jon: Ishaq Williams. He’s probably already one of the most athletic recruits in this class, but the fact that he was able to enroll early into school and participate in off-season conditioning with the rest of the team really makes him a huge part of this class.

The outside linebacker/defensive end hybrid position has been painfully pedestrian in recent years with Brian Smith and Kerry Neal not performing up to their potential and hopefully Ishaq Williams will be able to rectify that. Considering the physical demands that the position puts on a player, it’s critical that the position be filled by someone who has the strength to rush the end, but also the speed and athleticism to drop into coverage to cover a tight end or a running back out in the flat. Ishaq has that athleticism and, with the added fact that he enrolled early, it makes him the most important piece of this class.

Which commitment is the most likely to have an early significant contribution on this team?

Andrew: Ishaq Williams. He’s an early enrollee who will have an entire spring and summer to bulk up in coach Longo’s strength and conditioning program while he learns how to be an outside linebacker in the 3-4. You will have to go back a long way to find an Irish linebacker prospect as physically gifted as Ishaq: 6’5″ and 245 pounds with the frame to put on more weight while maintaining an elite burst. He looks like a prototypical weakside NFL linebacker and will likely move to the line when Notre Dame is in a 4-3 look. Outside linebacker was an area of weakness for the Irish much of last season; Kerry Neal and Brian Smith are moving on, and it remains to be seen how Darius Fleming and Steve Filer will be used. Prince Shembo and Justin Utupo will also be in the mix. None of these players have Williams’ upside, however, and the battle for both outside linebacker positions is going to be interesting to watch this spring and summer.

Andy: While Ishaq Williams is the odds-on bet to see a fair amount of playing time in his rookie campaign, history has informed us that the most likely contribution by true freshman will come as a member of special teams. And Lord knows the Irish can use some help in the return game. Bennett Jackson was clearly not the long-term answer Kelly was looking for last season and I would put my money on George Atkinson III to lend his incredible speed and nose for the end zone to kickoffs and punt returns.

Anthony: The safe pick is one of the dynamic front seven defenders like Williams, Lynch or Tuitt. But I think the most significant contributor in the early going will be a defensive back. The Irish don’t have depth to spare in the secondary as the departure of Darrin Walls leaves only Robert Blanton and Gary Gray as experienced players on the edge. Harrison Smith, Jamoris Slaughter, and Zeke Motta have all proven capable of manning the backend but having only five experienced defenders leaves very little margin for injury and likely means there will be playing opportunity for some of the younger players. Lo Wood has a year of experience in the system, but hasn’t exactly drawn rave reviews, so athletic newcomers like Josh Atkinson and Matthias Farley may be thrust into action in the early going.

Jon: Aaron Lynch. Another early enrollee, Lynch is the star of this class. Even though Ishaq Williams is probably the most important recruit of this class, Lynch may end up being the best and, like Williams, Lynch will have the ability to participate in off-season workouts, which should bulk up his frame a bit.

The only thing Lynch has going against him, that Ishaq Williams does not, is that he is entering Notre Dame at a position that already has two returning starters (Ethan Johnson and Kapron Lewis-Moore) and with a class that features six defensive ends. However, Lynch’s sheer athletic ability and his knack for getting by blockers should have him making early and significant contributions to this year’s defense in a back-up position behind Johnson and Lewis-Moore.

Which commitment will be an unheralded contributor by the end of his career (not highly ranked, but makes significant impact)?

Andrew: Tony Springmann. He’s an Indiana kid that looks like a stereotypical orange-haired Irishman and could end up playing one of a number of key positions. He has the size to play an interior line position either as an offensive guard or as a nose tackle/defensive tackle. He’s one of those players who you may forget is on the roster for a few years because there’s already some depth at the positions he’s best suited for. But two or three years down the road, Springmann could be an unheralded starter that grows on Irish fans.

Andy: Matthias Farley. Already well suited to the physical aspects of college ball, Farley is joining a fairly depleted unit and has a real opportunity in a year or two to be able to make an impact. He’s only been playing football for two years—which Kelly sees as a positive—and was rated as a Top 25 safety by MaxPreps. Whether he ends up there or at defensive back, Matthias has the athletic ability and attacking mentality to become a solid contributor on the defensive side of the ball.

Anthony: Nick Martin. Martin may not have generated the same fanfare as his older brother (and current Irish left tackle) Zach, but he looks every bit the part. Nick has the frame to add more weight and plays with good physicality, but it is his footwork that really set him apart. The younger Martin works very well in space and a few years in coach Longo’s strength and conditioning program should allow him to fill out and reach his potential.

Jon: Everett Golson. He may be the prototypical quarterback that Brian Kelly is looking for to run his offense. From all accounts, he has great accuracy and is quick on his feet. Like any quarterback, there will be a transition phase for Golson from high school to college, but the fact that he enrolled early in school bodes well for his physical and mental development.

Going into the spring, it will be interesting to see just exactly where Golson falls on the depth chart. Crist probably has the upper hand on the starting job and, because of his stellar performance in a reserve roll, Tommy Rees will probably be the main backup. The question for the future is if Golson can pass Andrew Hendrix on the depth chart and, maybe, make a run for the starting position once Crist graduates. If this happens, Golson could be a Tony Rice-type quarterback for the Irish in the future.

What do you think of Kelly’s defensive-minded philosophy for recruiting, and how do you think that panned out for the class?

Andrew: What’s amazing is how closely Kelly stuck to the goals he outlined at the 2010 signing day. Kelly said this year’s class needed to improve the size and athleticism of the front seven, and then went out and recruited a bunch of tall athletic players. The difference between Kelly and Weis when it comes to recruiting appears to be this: Kelly has a plan. He clearly has physical requirements, or prototypes, that players must meet before Kelly will consider them for a position—his comments about how Harrison Smith would have never been considered a linebacker in his eyes, for example.

Weis didn’t care if a player fit any specific type of mold and figured he could “gameplan” the team around what he had. There was no consistency to the types of players he brought in, and I think that stems from Weis’ background with the Patriots. By this I mean the Patriots took players whom they felt were simply good football players and figured out how to build a scheme around them later, whether it be pint-sized possession receivers like Deion Branch and Wes Welker, or tall, rangy wide receivers like Randy Moss; a smaller but versatile running back like Kevin Faulk or a big bruising runner like Corey Dillon. I don’t think Weis would have recruited a class that was this consistently full of similar types of players because he doesn’t have the kind of foresight or ability that Kelly has to build a system and then develop players to fit it.

Andy: This was the year of the defensive end, but I think analyzing this class by looking at individual players’ projected positions is a bit of a fool’s errand. Kelly loves to recruit based on the measurables first—speed, size, and versatility—and in that regard Kelly himself views this as a great class. I am inclined to agree. I also believe that Kelly has much more confidence in his offensive acumen and wanted to shore up the defense by paying particular attention to the defensive line in this class. Let’s be honest though, Koyack, Golson, Daniels, Atkinson III, McDaniel, and possibly Niklas at TE is not a bad skill position class. No true 5-star recruits to get the headlines, but Kelly is very confident he can work with that group’s athletic abilities.

Anthony: It was a bit of hit and miss. As Andrew alluded to above, Kelly hit a home run at his primary target position—defensive end. Lynch, Tuitt, Brad Carrico, Troy Niklas, Chase Hounshell, and Tony Springmann all either have the ability to contribute right away or have tremendous upside. Williams, Anthony Rabasa, and Ben Councell also round out defensive front recruiting as dynamic playmakers.

But recruiting along the defensive front was only part of what this class needed. Following the 2011 season the Irish project to have no corners and only two safeties with any meaningful game experience. Furthermore, Wood is the only scholarship corner (minus Bennett Jackson who is making a position switch) on the current roster to fill in for the departing Gray and Blanton. Kelly needed to land quality and quantity in the secondary and missing out on recruits like Wayne Lyons and Bennett Okotcha may prove tough to swallow down the road. This has to be a high-target position in next year’s class.

Of course, if the front-seven recruits pan out and play to their potential, a strong secondary may not be needed.

Jon: While Kelly did commit to a more defensive-minded recruiting approach, the numbers suggest otherwise. Kelly and his staff recruited 12 defensive players this season, but he also recruited 10 offensive players and one special teams player. So while he did put an emphasis on defense, the numbers of recruits are almost split evenly between offense and defense.What numbers can’t quantify, however, sheer talent can.

Lynch, Tuitt, and Williams are all star players and will contribute in a significant way in the future. Eilar Hardy and Jarret Grace are also highly ranked in their position and have a good chance of contributing significantly at the next level. Manti Te’o was the best linebacker when he signed with Notre Dame and Lynch, Tuitt, and Williams all have the potential to produce like Te’o did when he came to Notre Dame. What’s spectacular is that all three of those players came in the same class. Bravo.

What positions should Kelly and his staff focus on for next year?

Andrew: Next year it’s imperative that the Irish bring in the so-called “skill athlete” types. Defensive back depth was already a concern entering the 2011 season, so much so that Bennett Jackson is switching to corner. It didn’t help that 2011 corner prospect Okotcha defected to Oklahoma at the 11th hour. The Irish also need some depth at running back and wide receiver, so it’s highly likely that Brian Kelly will be recruiting skill players that have the versatility to play both offense and defense. If Notre Dame’s 2011 class was the year of ”big skill,” 2012 will be the year of the skill athlete.

Andy: Skill players are the obvious targets next year, with running back, defensive back, and wide receiver obviously in most demand. At least one 5-star recruit at RB and WR is a virtual must and if Kelly can improve Notre Dame’s record this season and give himself some momentum I will be anxiously awaiting what he can do to land recruits in 2012.

Anthony: I echo Andrew’s input. Defensive back, running back and wide receiver are the primary targets, and the Irish need at least one game-changer at each position. You can never take a year off in recruiting at any position but Kelly has secured enough solid players in the defensive front seven and front five on offense that they can be lower priority in the near future. Missing out on a “true” running back in this class, the graduation of wide receivers Michael Floyd, John Goodman, and Deion Walker after the 2011 season, and the aforementioned lack of secondary depth all point to the skill positions as the primary recruiting targets of 2012.

Jon: Running back, wide receiver, nose guard, corner back, and safety are all major concerns for next year. Losing Savon Huggins was a big blow to the offensive side of this recruiting class. Although the Irish will probably be alright without him, his absence makes it imperative that the Kelly and his staff land a Top 10 running back next season. Along with that, the Irish only netted two, maybe three wide receivers this season and one receiving tight end. This position will also be crucial next season.

On the defensive side of the ball, while this was an epic defensive-based recruiting class, there are some glaring holes, mainly in the secondary. Because of the lack of depth at cornerback, Bennett Jackson must move to that position. And with Gary Gray and Robert Blanton graduating after next season, the depth at cornerback will be slim-pickin’s. Landing a couple high-profile cornerbacks and a safety will be paramount to ensure that the Notre Dame secondary doesn’t return to the same form it had a few years ago.

As recruiters, what did you learn about Kelly and his staff this year?

Andrew: That they’re not afraid to get down and dirty and fight in the recruiting trenches. Between stories of Diaco showing up at Ishaq Williams’ house at 4:00 in the morning with donuts and coach Kelly appearing at the then-decommitted Stephon Tuitt household on less than 24 hours notice to “answer questions” concerning Georgia Tech’s negative recruiting tactics, it’s clear that the Irish staff is in the recruiting game to win. It was refreshing to see the Notre Dame fighting off poachers and re-winning battles after too many years of the Weis regime seemingly giving up on any player that decommitted.

Andy: Kelly’s staff will out-hustle anyone and they work incredibly well as a team. It’s hard for me to be more positive and upbeat about this year’s class and the staff’s response to adversity and recruiting on a truly national level. Every assistant coach is pulling weight on the recruiting trail and the focus and organization in who they pursue and what physical characteristics they’re looking for is very encouraging.

Anthony: They’ll go head-to-head and work as hard as anyone. Diaco is a growing legend, wide receivers coach Tony Alford is an excellent recruiter in his own right, and secondary coach Chuck Martin more than pulls his weight. Additionally, Kelly’s staff has shown a marked departure from that of former head coach Charlie Weis’ “if they’re looking, we’re looking” mantra. The latter seemed to produce more negatives than positives and Kelly and his staff aren’t afraid to battle to the end for every recruit they value. The dividends in this class alone—Lynch, Tuitt and Williams—are ample evidence that this approach works.

Jon: What I learned about Kelly and his staff is probably along the same lines as what he learned about himself in the process:

When you’re recruiting nationally, you’re going into everybody’s home base and you’re taking their kid and that’s difficult…it requires a tenacity, it requires an attention to detail, and it requires a great deal of resources on Notre Dame’s part to fight that fight.

Along with the fact that Kelly and his staff did a remarkable job luring high-talent players to Notre Dame, what amazed me was the amount of players that they poached from other schools. Not necessarily stealing recruits that were committed to other schools, although that did happen, but the amount of players that also had offers from other schools, including USC, Florida, Alabama, Miami, and other high-profile schools.

Notre Dame was 8-5 last year, which by Notre Dame standards is a sub-par season. I am almost slap-happy thinking about what kind of recruiting classes Kelly and his staff would be able to sign if the Irish could form some sort of consistency on the field. Time will tell, but if Kelly and his staff could reel in a #8 ranked class, think what they could do if they won a BCS game or a National Title. Chuck Martin, Bob Diaco, and Brian Kelly all have shown the knack for getting high-profile recruits to Notre Dame, let’s just hope they can do it on a consistent basis.

Finally

We’ll wrap up this monster post with two videos a video from CBS Sports regarding the 2011 recruiting effort (CBS removed one of the videos, our apologies). Enjoy!

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This article is © 2007-2012 by De Veritate, LLC and was originally published at Clashmore Mike. This article may not be copied, distributed, or transmitted without attribution. Additionally, you may not use this article for commercial purposes or to generate derivative works without explicit written permission. Please contact us if you wish to license this content for your own use.

Tradition Is a Guide, and Not a Jailer

Jonathan Hunn — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 07:33:00 +0000

National Signing Day has come and gone and Notre Dame football fans around the country continue to recover from the hangover of the one last hurrah before the inevitable off-season lull. Broken only briefly by a short-lived Spring “dog and pony show” in which only die-hard fans trek to Notre Dame Stadium to brave the unpredictable northern Indiana weather and catch a glimpse of what next year could bestow, the off-season provides little opportunity for discussion other than fantasy-based prognostication. Most of these superfluous discussions center around how Notre Dame football is progressing into the future or still holding onto the past. Topics such as future schedules, the hiring and firing of coaches (whenever applicable), new players, and the general hindsighting of what could have been or what could yet be fill news outlets, magazines, newspapers, blogs, and living rooms around the country.

While most headlines between the end of December and the end of January center around recruiting, last Sunday, Eric Hansen of the South Bend Tribune provided us with this little gem of an interview with Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick. And while his article mostly centers around the future of Notre Dame athletics, towards the end of the interview the discussion hones in, albeit briefly, on the football program and the condition of Notre Dame Stadium, namely the condition of the field and whether or not a “video board” (read: Jumbotron) should be installed and used during football games or other events such as graduation.

While the discussion about the installation of a Jumbotron isn’t as prevalent among fans as, say, Notre Dame’s Independent status, or if future schedules should be as tough as they are, most traditionalists adopt the position of not making any significant changes to the way Notre Dame has always done things: the same is true on the issue of electronics and artificial field turf.

Installing a screen that projects advertisements, neon lights, and graphics, and something that may further obstruct the view of the “Word of Life” mural on the front of the Hesburgh Memorial Library, has many “traditionalists” squirming in their seats. However, the other side of the aisle believes that the installation of a Jumbotron or, probably even more importantly, the installation of artificial turf or field grass in the stadium serves to keep Notre Dame up to speed with the current pace of college football.

The tradition at Notre Dame is second to none. However, this same tradition, especially as it pertains to football, was forged in the belief that the University should be the first and the greatest. Many of the traditions that fans embrace regarding Notre Dame football were established by its forefathers as cutting-edge philosophies. They did not react to others changing college football, they initiated change. And as Notre Dame, as a University, has walked the political tight-rope between change and tradition, this is something that its supporters have lost sight of.

To say that Notre Dame shouldn’t implement changes to its facilities, scheduling, coaches, or operations is to say that it should undermine the philosophies of those icons that helped mold Notre Dame Football into what it is today. We have been gripping tightly to the traditions themselves, rather than honoring the attitudes that established those traditions in the first place.

If Knute Rockne or Frank Leahy were coaching the Irish today, would they want a Jumbotron, new turf, or scheduling format changes? Who knows? Jumbotrons and artificial turf, in the grand scheme of things, are fairly small potatoes and shouldn’t be at the top of Jack Swarbrick’s to-do list. And the problems that deserve to be addressed within Notre Dame’s athletics, and football in particular, are far more worthy of his attention than electronics and synthetics.

Notre Dame fans themselves aren’t overly unwilling to give things up, or accept changes in things that they have an emotional attachment to. The real problem in this debate lies in some fans failure to see why those things to which they have an emotional attachment were established in the first place.

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This article is © 2007-2012 by De Veritate, LLC and was originally published at Clashmore Mike. This article may not be copied, distributed, or transmitted without attribution. Additionally, you may not use this article for commercial purposes or to generate derivative works without explicit written permission. Please contact us if you wish to license this content for your own use.

How Good Are the Irish? A Year-End Offensive Statistical Review

Anthony Pilcher — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 22:34:17 +0000

It may be head coach Brian Kelly’s first year at the helm, but positive change is already tangible.

While the 2008 and 2009 Irish squads finished 1-8 in November, this year’s unit went 3-0. It isn’t time to anoint Kelly the next Lou Holtz or Ara Parseghian, but Notre Dame played its best football down the stretch without several critical players such as quarterback Dayne Crist, running back Armando Allen, wide receiver Theo Riddick, tight end Kyle Rudolph, inside linebacker Carlo Calabrese, and nose guard Ian Williams who all missed at least one game due to injury.

But Kelly’s troops weren’t just undefeated, they were dominant. The Irish displayed a toughness and physicality led to a November winning streak where Notre Dame outscored their three opponents by a margin of 75-22.

If that wasn’t enough, the decisive victory over the Miami Hurricanes in the Sun Bowl was the explanation point on the season. The Irish dominated through the three meaningful quarters of play with an advantage in plays (20), yards (116—including an 85-yard advantage on the ground), first downs (6), turnovers (+4), and explosive gains (4 big gains, 116 big play yards). The result was a 30-3 score at the end of the third period, a far more accurate representation game’s outcome than the 33-17 final score.

The upward team trajectory combined with the return of a host of starters on both sides of the ball has many Irish fans excited about 2011. But before looking ahead, a review of the past is in order. This is the first of a two-part installment detailing the offensive and defensive performance of the Irish. This offensive analysis appropriately benchmarks the statistical production, providing value and ranking information on several pertinent metrics, and outlining underlying trends that contributed to the overall performance.

Benchmarking Notre Dame’s Performance

Consistent with previous assessments (2009 year-end offensive and defensive analyses, 2009 mid-year offensive and defensive analyses, and 2008 year-end offensive and defensive analyses), the statistical performance detailed here will be benchmarked to the competition.

There are a host of reasons benchmarking is valuable, but the primary one is quite simple: an examination of a team’s performance, without consideration of the competition against which that performance was generated, excludes a huge source of variance.

Here, performance ratios (or PR’s) will be used to account for the quality of competition (additional information on PR’s can be found here). Performance ratios are not entirely perfect, but do provide insight into how the opposition can skew a team’s performance and form the basis for the Team Performance Ratio (TPR) of the AVR.

A Tabular Description

The tables below contain 36 statistical metrics divided into five categories: miscellaneous, offensive efficiency, and total, rushing, and passing offense. This data will be supplemented with more detailed information aimed at understanding underlying factors that contributed to the high-level performance.

The pertinent statistics for each category are presented in tabular form and include the numbers for Notre Dame and the averages of their 13 opponents.

Each table has six columns (the miscellaneous table is void of PR’s):

Statistic — The statistical metric
Notre Dame — The value of 1. for the Irish offense
Notre Dame Rank — The rank of 1. for the Irish offense
Opponent Average — The average defensive value of 1. for Irish opponents
Opponent Average Rank — The average defensive rank of 1. for Irish opponents
PR — The PR of 1. for Notre Dame—values greater than zero indicate the Irish are performing above the average level of their competition, values less than zero are indicative of below average performance (Notre Dame ranked 64th in offensive TPR in 2010).

The stats presented here are from the NCAA statistics website and are accurate as of January 10, 2011.

Definitions and Disclaimers

The following disclaimers and definitions are pertinent to this discussion:

Definition: An explosive—or big—gain is a run of 15 or more yards or a pass of 20 or more yards.
Definition: Down and distance situations are defined as follows: short—less than three yards for a first down/touchdown, medium—between three and seven yards, long—greater than seven yards
Definition: Open downs are those where a run is equally as viable as a pass, e.g. 1st and 10, 2nd and medium, and 3rd/4th and short. Closed downs are those where a pass play is “needed” for a chance to convert a first down/touchdown, e.g. 2nd/3rd/4th and long.
Definition: A successful play is one that achieves the following gains: 1st down—40 percent or more yards needed for a first down/touchdown, 2nd down—60 percent or more yards, 3rd/4th down—100 percent of yards. Expressed differently, a succesful play is one that maintains an open down situation on the following play on play series that begin with 1st and 10.
Definition: A meaningful possession is one that occurs when the outcome of the game is still in doubt (defined by score differential and number of remaining possessions), and excludes drives where the quarterback takes a knee to preserve a victory.

For reference purposes, the following are links to the statistical recaps for each 2010 Irish opponent (Purdue and Miami in absentia): Michigan, Michigan State, Stanford, Boston College, Pittsburgh, Western Michigan, Navy, Tulsa, Utah, Army and USC.

Possession, Penalties and Turnovers—One Out of Three Ain’t As Bad As It Seems

Time of possession stunk, but is it a meaningful metric? The (penalty) discipline was good. Turnovers must improve for the Irish to reach their ceiling.

Miscellaneous

Statistic	Notre Dame	Notre Dame Rank	Opponent Average	Opponent Average Rank
Time of possession	27:56	105	30:24	54
Penalty/game	4.5	7	5.7	52
Penalty yds/game	40.9	15	50.4	57
Turnover margin	1	51	3	45

There was a lot of talk prior to the season about Kelly’s offensive approach and how it didn’t seek to manage the game via ball control. Many were fearful that operating at a fast pace and scoring quickly would leave the defense on the field far too long.

True to his form, Kelly didn’t maximize possession. The Irish ranked in the bottom 15 of the country with 27:56 in time of possession. Furthermore, Notre Dame only enjoyed a possession advantage against WMU, Army and Miami, the last being the most skewed time of possession game of the entire season.

But, in reality, losing the time of possession battle is only important if a team is also behind in play differential, and Notre Dame ran more plays than their opponent in seven of 13 games (1.4 more plays per game). Additionally, the Irish offense averaged 2.47 plays per minute while opposing offenses averaged 2.18. In other words, the Irish defense had more time to rest between plays than did their opponents.

Former head coach Charlie Weis’ teams were never terribly undisciplined, but Kelly’s squad really minimized penalties. The Irish ranked 7th in penalties per game and 15th in penalty yards per game. Not only was Notre Dame not racking up infractions with any frequency, they also weren’t committing many penalties of the 10 and/or 15-yard variety.

Unfortunately, however, the discipline didn’t translate to the turnover department where the Irish were only +1 on the season (51st in the country). Notre Dame won the turnover battle seven times in 2010, but were on the other side of the ledger in several close losses including Michigan (-3), Michigan State (-2), and Tulsa (-2). Most of the damage came in the form of interceptions, Irish ball carriers only lost eight fumbles on the season (25th ranked), while Crist, Nate Montana, and Tommy Rees combined for 16 interceptions (99).

The most damaging aspect of the turnovers was the points opposing offenses were able to generate from them. The offense surrendered 24 turnovers that resulted in average starting field position near midfield and resulted in 69 points (2.9 per turnover, 5.3 per game). The defense was able to force 25 takeaways and turn them into 64 points (2.6, 4.9), but eight turnovers and 27 points off them came against the Broncos and Hurricanes. Excluding these two games the Irish faced a huge turnover deficit, forcing only 17 takeaways that turned into 37 points (2.2, 3.4) compared to allowing 69 points off 23 turnovers (3, 6.3), i.e. almost a touchdown per game surrendered off turnovers.

Regression In the Efficiency Department(s)

Down efficiencies regressed. Red zone opportunities are down. Red zone efficiency was eerily similar to 2009.

Offensive Efficiency

Statistic	Notre Dame	Notre Dame Rank	Opponent Average	Opponent Average Rank	PR
3rd down efficiency	38.3	73	40	64	-0.04
4th down efficiency	45.4	82	52.9	65	-0.14
Red zone appearances/game	3.5	71	3.3	48	0.06
Red zone efficiency	83	49	80.4	52	0.03
Red zone TD efficiency	56.5	87	56.9	55	0

Third down efficiency declined slightly from 41 percent in 2009 to 38.3 percent this season. A breakdown of the situational third down efficiency (percentage of third downs/conversion rate):

3rd and short—23.9/62.8
3rd and medium—18.9/52.9
3rd and long—57.2/23.3
3rd and more than three yards—76.1/30.7

Compare the values above to the situational third down efficiency for the Irish defense (36.5 percent conversion rate, 28th ranked):

3rd and short—33/62.7
3rd and medium—26.1/34
3rd and long—40.9/16.9
3rd and more than three yards—67/23.5

In other words, converting in unfavorable situations wasn’t the problem—the Irish offense moved the chains at a higher rate than their counterparts in every situational category. But facing 3rd and medium-to-long distances occurred far too often, something that speaks to poor first down execution (see below for more detail on this).

Red zone efficiency was almost identical to last season, despite Kelly’s strong track record at Cincinnati. To compound the problem, red zone appearances per game were also down from 4.2 in 2009 to 3.5 this year. Virtually the same red zone efficiency coupled with fewer opportunities at least partially explains the dip in scoring production.

Goal-to-goal play, however, did improve. The Irish offense scored on 20 of 26 (76.9 percent) goal-to-go opportunities in 2010 compared to 15 of 25 in 2009 (60). Kelly’s squad notched eight goal-to-go rushing touchdowns (out of 11 total) and 12 passing scores to combine for 20 of 39 offensive touchdowns in goal-to-go situations. Part of being a strong play-caller is creating and taking advantage of high-probability scoring opportunities, and Kelly certainly improved over Weis in this area.

Perhaps more impressive was the execution improvement in these situations. Over half of the goal-to-go plays in 2009 went for zero or negative yardage compared to only 38.9 percent in 2010—with three new starters in the front five. Additionally, Kelly’s quarterbacks completed 60.7 percent of their passes in goal-to-go situations compared to 37.5 percent last season—with a first-year starter (Crist) and true freshman (Rees) under center, not the uber-accurate Jimmy Clausen.

Part of the reason for the improved performance lies in the play-calling. While Weis’ shifted from a pass-happy, spread attack in the open field to a run-first, heavy formation offense inside the 10-yard line, Kelly’s play-calling approach didn’t change. Counting sacks as pass plays, the Irish run/pass split overall (44/56), outside the red zone (44.4/55.6), and in goal-to-go situations (44.4/55.6) was virtually identical. There is something to be said for consistency in approach, and, in this case, it translated into solid goal-to-go scoring production.

A Fairly Pedestrian (Total) Offense

Rankings fall in the middle of the pack with PR’s around zero. Failing to capitalize on early scoring opportunities and poor execution on first down were the primary culprits.

Total Offense

Statistic	Notre Dame	Notre Dame Rank	Opponent Average	Opponent Average Rank	PR
Points/game	26.3	67	24	47	0.09
Touchdowns/game	3.2	76	3	48	0.04
Plays/game	68.8	53	67.4	56	0.02
Yards/game	379.7	61	364.5	52	0.04
1st downs/game	20.1	54	19.5	56	0.03
Yards/play	5.5	63	5.4	57	0.02

Notre Dame, from a total offensive production standpoint, was a mediocre unit. A quick glance at the rankings in the table above shows a range from 53rd to 76th, with a mean value of 62. Moreover, all of the PR’s are just over zero, indicating that the Irish produced near the rate opposing defenses typically allowed.

From a construction standpoint, Kelly largely favored the pass over the run (more on this below), with 33.3 percent of the total yards coming on the ground (96th in the country) compared to 66.6 percent of total yardage via the air (25). The first down and scoring trends are the same. Just over 34 percent of first downs came on the ground (102) compared to 58.2 percent through the air (20), while 28.2 percent of offensive touchdowns were rushing scores (117) compared to 71.8 percent passing (4). And, as noted above, eight of those 11 rushing touchdowns came in goal-to-go situations when calling a run play is virtually a no-brainer.

But being a pass-heavy offense doesn’t necessarily translate into average production. So, why where the Irish so pedestrian? For one, replacing over 70 percent of the scoring and yardage output—i.e Clausen and Golden Tate—isn’t easy. But there were certainly other issues, namely failing to take advantage of early scoring opportunities and poor execution on first down.

Notre Dame received the opening kickoff in 12 of their 13 games (USC was the lone exception), but only scored four times—all touchdowns—to open the game. On an aggregate basis, the Irish only generated a third of the possible opening possession points. For a unit that puts such a premium on receiving the opening kickoff, that is a relatively low return.

Moving the ball wasn’t really the problem, mistakes were. Including only meaningful drives, the Irish offense gained 42.6 percent of their available yards, but surpassed that mark on seven of 12 opening drives. Five opening drives, however, were punts (average 21.4 percent of available yards), one ended in an interception (93.2), and two others ended in a turnover on downs (62.5). In other words, three Irish possessions gained an average of 72.7 percent of available yards but failed to generate a single point.

Slow starts aside, the bigger problem was first down play. The Irish averaged 5.7 yards per first down snap (64th in the country) including a paltry four yards per carry (87) and 7.5 yards per pass attempt (66). This clearly had a negative impact on the poor third down efficiency detailed in the section above, but it also impacted the ability to sustain drives and put points on the board.

Including only meaningful drives, Notre Dame averaged 8.4 first down yards on touchdown drives and eight yards on scoring drives (touchdown and field goal), but only 3.2 yards on non-scoring possessions. Minimal first down gains lead to unfavorable down and distances on third down, and, as noted above, the Irish struggled mightily with situational third down offense.

And the problem was not one of play-calling, it was one of execution. A breakout of the first down production by possession type (run/pass/total/average yards to go on third down):

Touchdown—6.6/9.8/8.4/5.8
Scoring—6.6/9.2/8.0/6.5
Non-scoring—3.0/3.4/3.2/8

Additionally, the first down successful play percentages for touchdown (57.5 percent), scoring (55.4), and non-scoring (36.7) possessions further reinforce the contribution effective first down execution played on the overall success of the offense.

The Offensive Focus Was Not Running the Ball

The rushing attack wasn’t the focus of the offense, but (when called upon) performed quite well…although explosive rushing plays continue to be problematic.

Rushing Offense

Statistic	Notre Dame	Notre Dame Rank	Opponent Average	Opponent Average Rank	PR
Attempts/game	31.8	109	35.5	42	N/A
Yards/game	126.6	92	139.4	45	-0.09
Yards/attempt	4	77	3.9	49	0.01
Fumbles	8	25	12	34	0.48
Attempts/fumble	51.8	56	45.6	45	0.13
TFL allowed/game	5.3	39	6	60	0.12
1st downs/game	6.8	97	7.7	47	-0.1
Touchdowns/game	0.8	109	1.2	39	-0.31

Despite playing with two young and/or inexperienced quarterbacks, Kelly’s play-calling focus was not running the football, and the numbers back it up. The run/pass production for yards, first downs, and scoring mentioned above highlight a trend that is further supported by the rankings for rush attempts (109), yards (92), first downs (97), and touchdowns (109) per game, all of which fall in the bottom quarter of the country.

Additionally, the overall run/pass split (46.3/53.7) ranked 104th as the offense was run-heavy in only five games, and three of them—Utah, Army and Miami—came with Rees at quarterback. In fact, Kelly practically reversed his approach with Rees taking snaps. The Irish run/pass split from Purdue through Tulsa was 41.4/58.6 but switched to 58.8/41.2 over the final four games.

The efficiency and effectiveness followed the play-calling. Notre Dame averaged 29.7 attempts, 113.4 yards (3.8 yards per carry), and 6.7 first downs per game on the ground in their first nine outings compared to 36.8 attempts, 156.3 yards (4.3), and 7.3 first downs per game in their last four.

What makes the trends puzzling is the level of production when a run was called. Again, counting sacks as passes, the Irish averaged 4.4 yards per open down carry, 4.4 yards per first down rush, and 4.9 yards per attempt outside of the red zone. What was missing, however, were big plays.

Notre Dame ranked 77th in 10-plus yard rushing gains and 49th in 20-plus yard running plays. Given the relatively few opportunities to reel off a big gain, these numbers appear respectable. But a comparison to last year’s low-production rushing offense shows otherwise.

The 2010 offense generated 26 explosive rushing gains that totaled 614 yards (23.6 yards per carry). Expressed differently, Irish backs ripped off a 15-plus yard gain once every 15.9 attempts. Compare these numbers to 2009 when the offense generated 25 big rushing gains for 494 yards (19.8 yards per carry), i.e. one every 16 attempts. The 2010 per-carry average is nearly four yards higher, but the frequency of explosive rushing gains is virtually identical, as is the per-carry average without big plays—2.7 yards per carry in 2010 compared to 2.8 yards per carry in 2009.

Plenty O’ Passing, But Not A Lot of Efficiency

Kelly was quite clearly a pass-first play-caller, and the front five protected quite well, but the efficiency simply wasn’t there. Big play production took a dip as well.

Passing Offense

Statistic	Notre Dame	Notre Dame Rank	Opponent Average	Opponent Average Rank	PR
Attempts/game	37	22	31.9	69	N/A
Completions/game	21.9	27	19.2	72	N/A
Yards/game	253.1	34	225.1	66	0.12
Yards/attempt	6.8	75	7.1	61	-0.03
Yards/completion	11.5	75	11.8	58	-0.02
Interceptions	16	99	15	41	-0.07
Attempts/interception	30.1	71	29.9	44	0
Sacks allowed/game	1.5	38	2.1	50	0.27
Attempts/sack allowed	24.1	26	16.1	54	0.49
1st downs/game	11.7	29	10.4	74	0.12
Touchdowns/game	2.2	20	1.6	62	0.36
Completion %	59.2	58	59.9	69	-0.01
Pass efficiency	129.3	75	128.4	61	0

Simply stated, Kelly likes to throw the ball. The 2010 offense attempted 37 passes per game (22nd ranked) compared to 37.3 last year (19). And this with a first-year starter and true freshman taking snaps.

Despite all the passes, the efficiency, and even the effectiveness to a lesser extent, are hardly reminiscent of last season when the Irish fielded one of the nation’s most prolific air attacks. The loss of Clausen and Tate (along with three new offensive line starters) essentially precluded a repeat performance, but ranking 22nd in attempts per game, 75th in yards per attempt, 58th in completion percentage, and 75th in pass efficiency, speaks to relatively poor execution. Stated differently, throwing the ball so often with so little return isn’t a great option.

The front five played extremely well considering the youth and inexperience of first-year starters Zach Martin, Braxston Cave, and Taylor Dever. Notre Dame ranked 38th in sacks allowed per game at 1.5 and 26th in sacks per pass attempt at 24.1, both marks better than last year when the Irish fielded a mostly veteran offensive line. The attempts per sack were also better than the 2008 unit which allowed only 22 sacks.

But while these two sack metrics are impressive in their own right, they loom even larger after accounting for the competition. The PR’s in both categories (0.27, 0.39) indicate that the Irish offensive line limited their opposition to well below their usual sack production. No where was this more on display than in the Sun Bowl. The Hurricanes entered the contest averaging 3.1 sacks per game (6th in the country) but failed to record a single quarterback takedown against Notre Dame.

The Irish also performed well notching scores through the air. Notre Dame ranked 20th in passing touchdowns per game, again performing at a much higher level than their defensive competition (PR of 0.36). Some of the passing touchdown production was the result of the frequency of the throws, but improvement in the red zone also played a big part.

The Clausen-led 2009 offense notched 15 passing scores inside opponents’ 20-yard line while Kelly’s 2010 unit generated 18—primarily due to improved efficiency. Irish quarterbacks completed 62.5 percent of their red zone pass attempts in 2010, compared to 45.2 percent in 2009. Additionally, Crist and Rees combined for a 175.8 passer efficiency while Clausen only managed a 139.8 mark.

In addition to a dip in the efficiency and effectiveness of the passing offense, the big play production also fell. Weis’ 2009 unit notched a big play through the air every 9.3 pass attempts compared to 11.7 in 2010. Additionally, Clausen and company averaged nearly five yards more per big pass play and almost a yard per attempt more excluding explosive gains.

How About Some Possession Metrics?

Stat guru and Notre Dame fan Brian Fremeau (you can follow him on twitter @bcfremeau) of BCF Toys and College Football Outsiders was nice enough to provide some input on the Irish offensive possession-based efficiency using some components of the Fremeau Efficiency Index (FEI). A few highlights (metric, value/ranking—explanation):

Offensive FEI, 0.122/42—Opponent adjusted success rate of maximizing offensive possessions
Offensive Efficiency, -0.046/64—Unadjusted value of offensive drive success, i.e. the drive-ending scoring value of the offense divided by the expected value (based on starting field position)
Offensive 1st Down Rate, 0.655/75—Percentage of offensive possessions resulting in at least one first down
Offensive Available Yards, 0.44/66—Drive yardage gained divided by yards available
Offensive Explosive Drives, 0.152/37—Percentage of drives that averaged at least 10 yards per play
Offensive Methodical Drives, 0.131/64—Percentage of drives with at least 10 plays
Offensive Strength of Schedule, 0.094/36—Likelihood that an elite offense (two standard deviations better than average) would have an above average (unadjusted) offensive efficiency against every opposing defense on the schedule
Offensive Points Per Possession, 2.12/62—Points scored per meaningful drive
Offensive Field Goal Efficiency, 0.751/3—The field goal efficiency measured by the value of a kicker (in points per attempt) over an average kicker accounting for the percentage of field goal points contributed by the offense, drive starting field position, and the kicker.

Overall, the possession-based efficiency numbers stackup very closely with the play-by-play-based metrics above. However, the Offensive Explosive Drives ranking and bipolar first down production on touchdown/scoring vs. non-scoring possessions indicates is a need for consistency. In other words, when the offense clicks, it really clicks. But a lack of consistent execution was the rule, not the exception.

What Is Needed Going Forward

Given the change that occurred last off-season, as well as the injuries to key personnel, Kelly’s first offensive unit performed fairly well. The Irish lost their two most prolific offensive players in recent memory, had three first-year starters on the offensive line, implemented a new scheme with virtually an entirely new coaching staff, and lost several critical offensive players to injury, yet still managed to be an average offensive football team.

Many (myself included) struggle to understand why the game plan was so pass-heavy with a new scheme, inexperienced/young quarterbacks, and new starters in the front five, but, in some regards, the Irish actually threw the ball better than last season when they had one of the most polished quarterbacks and explosive wide receivers in Notre Dame history. There weren’t many areas where the Irish offense excelled, but there was marked increase in passing efficiency in the red zone and in goal-to-go situations. Given the importance of these high-probability scoring situations, this improvement should not be understated.

The off-season will undoubtedly bring about an interesting quarterback competition, with as many four signal callers vying for the starting spot. But the balanced, more conservative offensive approach in the last four games is evidence that Notre Dame—provided the dominant defensive play continues—can beat quality opponents without exceptional production from the quarterback position.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement, there certainly is. Consistency is the name of the game moving forward, and it needs to manifest itself in two primary metrics: turnovers and first down.

If Kelly wants a BCS caliber team, improvement in turnover margin is a must. From 2000 to 2009 eight of the 10 BCS champions were +6 or better in turnover margin and nine ranked in the top 30. Moreover, the average turnover margin for these 10 title winners was +14.2. The 2010 Irish defense did their part generating 25 takeaways, but 24 turnovers is far too many and cost the Irish at least one game this season.

Additionally, more production is needed on arguably the most critical down in football. When the players executed Kelly’s spread scheme, Notre Dame consistently produced on first down, faced manageable distances on third down, moved the ball well, and extended drives. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen with enough frequency.

In summary, Kelly’s inaugural offense hardly set the world on fire. But given the situation, a top-flight performance wasn’t a realistic expectation. If the front five continue to play with physicality and the unit continues to gel as a team, the rest will take care of itself. An off-season of fast-paced, rep-heavy practices should improve consistency, and the return of wide receiver Michael Floyd provides a dependable option for any of the potential quarterbacks. Couple that with a vastly improved Irish defense, and you arrive at a recipe for a double-digit win season in 2011.

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This article is © 2007-2012 by De Veritate, LLC and was originally published at Clashmore Mike. This article may not be copied, distributed, or transmitted without attribution. Additionally, you may not use this article for commercial purposes or to generate derivative works without explicit written permission. Please contact us if you wish to license this content for your own use.

2010 Elite Selection Playoff: Final Rankings

Anthony Pilcher — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 02:41:22 +0000

Editor’s note: The previous week’s results can be found here: week 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7 and 6.

The dust has settled on the 2011 season, and the Auburn Tigers came out on top. It was quite the turnaround for head coach Gene Chizik. Auburn finished the 2009 season in relatively pedestrian fashion. The Tigers compiled an 8-5 record, including a dubious 3-5 mark in conference play, edged out Northwestern in their bowl game, and finished the year ranked 34th in the AVR.

But behind the arm—and, perhaps more importantly, feet—of Cam Newton, Auburn reeled off 14 consecutive victories and hoisted the national championship hardware for the first time since 1957. Detractors of the BCS system can and will argue that TCU was cheated out of a shot to play for the title, but there is virtually no argument about which team had the more impressive resume.

Auburn played the 14th most difficult AVR strength of schedule (SOS), TCU the 95th. Sagarin notes a similar trend—the Tigers faced the 13th most difficult SOS while the Horned Frogs faced the 76th toughest slate of teams. Moreover, Auburn ranked first in quality wins/losses (QWL), i.e. they beat more AVR top 25 teams than any other squad in the country.

TCU had a great year and was a great team, but what they accomplished during the season pales in comparison to the gauntlet of teams Auburn went through on the road to Glendale. Additionally, the Tigers played and won one more game than the Horned Frogs. Although that doesn’t seem like much, when that game is a conference championship against a quality opponent, it makes running the table far more difficult.

The final season’s rankings (ESP, AVR, and top 10 AWP, SOS, TPR, MOV and QWL) are published in the tables below. There is plenty of information to scour and digest, but here are a few highlights:

The top 10 teams in the AVR are Auburn, TCU, Boise State, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Oregon, Stanford, LSU, Oklahoma State, and Wisconsin. As was noted throughout the year, several played weak schedules. The Horned Frogs, Ducks, Cardinal and Badgers all faced a slate of competition that ranked in the bottom half of the FBS and only Auburn, Oklahoma, and LSU played a schedule ranked in the top 15.
Comparing the final ESP and BCS rankings yields some interesting observations. One, two teams in the top 25 of the final BCS standings—West Virginia and Hawaii—do not appear in the top 25 of the ESP. Instead, Tulsa and Maryland round out the ESP top 25.
And two, the average ranking delta between the ESP and BCS is 2.68 spots with a standard deviation of 1.7. The two ranking systems only agreed exactly on two teams—Auburn and Stanford—with six other squads—Oregon, TCU, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Nebraska, and South Carolina—sitting only one place apart. Florida State (6 spots different), Arkansas (5), Michigan State(5), and Alabama(5) were the largest deltas.
While the ESP and BCS mostly agree on the teams in the top 25, if not entirely on their exact placement, the AVR and Sagarin have more disagreement. Six teams—Mississippi State, North Carolina State, Iowa, USC, Arizona State, and Florida—appear in the Sagarin top 25 but not in the top 25 of the AVR. Instead, the AVR puts Michigan State, Nebraska, Utah, Northern Illinois, Tulsa, Hawaii, and Notre Dame in the top 25.
As might be expected, there is also larger aggregate disagreement between Sagarin and the AVR. The average ranking delta between the two is 3.88 with a standard deviation of 2.51—both higher than the respective values for the ESP and BCS. The two ranking systems agree on Auburn at number one and LSU at number eight, but fail to match the relative placement of any other teams. The largest disparities include Stanford (7th in AVR, 2nd in Sagarin), Alabama (13th, 5th), Oklahoma (4th, 10th), Mississippi State (not ranked, 11th), Nevada (11th, 16th), North Carolina State (not ranked, 18th), Notre Dame (25th, 19th), and Iowa (not ranked, 21st).
The Irish rank 25th in the AVR with the 1st ranked SOS, 22nd ranked QWL metric, 42nd ranked adjusted win percentage (AWP), 42nd ranked margin of victory (MOV), and 32nd best team performance ratio (TPR). The Irish finished the season ranked 64th in offensive TPR and 18th in defensive TPR. Notre Dame ranked 62nd in the latter category in 2009, and the 44-spot jump was the largest of any team from last season to this year.

Elite Selection Playoff (ESP)

Rank	Team	AP Poll	Coaches Poll	AV Ranking	Points
1	Auburn	1	1	1	1
2	TCU	2	2	2	0.96
3	Oregon	3	3	6	0.88
4	Ohio State	5	5	5	0.84
4	Stanford	4	4	7	0.84
6	Oklahoma	6	6	4	0.826
7	Boise St	9	7	3	0.786
8	LSU	8	8	8	0.72
9	Wisconsin	7	8	10	0.706
10	Oklahoma St	13	10	9	0.613
11	Alabama	10	11	13	0.586
12	Nevada	11	13	11	0.573
13	Arkansas	12	12	12	0.56
14	Michigan St	14	14	15	0.466
15	Virginia Tech	16	15	16	0.413
16	Missouri	18	18	14	0.373
17	Florida St	17	16	18	0.36
18	Texas A&M	19	21	17	0.28
19	Nebraska	20	19	19	0.266
19	Mississippi St	15	17	27	0.266
21	South Carolina	22	22	21	0.173
22	Central Florida	21	20	29	0.146
23	Utah	NR	23	20	0.12
24	Maryland	23	24	32	0.066
24	Tulsa	24	NR	23	0.066

AV Ranking (AVR)

Rank	Team	Points	Strength of Schedule	Quality Wins/Losses	Adjusted Win Percentage	Margin of Victory	Team Performance Ratio
1	Auburn	1	14	1	2	10	6
2	TCU	0.899	95	26	1	2	3
3	Boise St	0.898	58	20	3	1	1
4	Oklahoma	0.873	7	2	8	12	12
5	Ohio State	0.867	55	85	7	4	2
6	Oregon	0.866	81	11	3	3	9
7	Stanford	0.858	78	59	3	5	4
8	LSU	0.833	12	12	10	24	15
9	Oklahoma St	0.829	35	16	9	11	11
10	Wisconsin	0.807	73	10	10	8	7
11	Nevada	0.803	113	8	6	7	26
12	Arkansas	0.802	9	4	17	18	14
13	Alabama	0.794	19	9	19	6	5
14	Missouri	0.779	23	6	19	17	13
15	Michigan St	0.779	62	14	12	38	24
16	Virginia Tech	0.761	60	19	15	16	8
17	Texas A&M	0.729	5	5	26	30	27
18	Florida St	0.707	25	66	22	21	18
19	Nebraska	0.704	61	3	22	15	28
20	Utah	0.698	70	82	16	20	44
21	South Carolina	0.694	6	7	34	34	16
22	Northern Illinois	0.676	117	85	13	9	17
23	Tulsa	0.675	106	59	17	25	25
24	Hawai`i	0.674	85	13	22	14	20
25	Notre Dame	0.674	1	22	42	42	32

Adjusted Win Percentage (AWP)

Rank	Team	Points
1	TCU	1
2	Auburn	0.997
3	Oregon	0.931
3	Boise St	0.931
3	Stanford	0.931
6	Nevada	0.926
7	Ohio State	0.915
8	Oklahoma	0.847
9	Oklahoma St	0.846
10	Wisconsin	0.839

Strength of Schedule (SOS)

Rank	Team	Points
1	Notre Dame	1
2	Oregon St	0.951
3	UNLV	0.913
4	Minnesota	0.848
5	Texas A&M	0.842
6	South Carolina	0.824
7	Oklahoma	0.815
8	Cincinnati	0.805
9	Arkansas	0.791
10	Washington	0.776

Team Performance Ratio (TPR)

Rank	Team	Points
1	Boise St	1
2	Ohio State	0.944
3	TCU	0.925
4	Stanford	0.918
5	Alabama	0.917
6	Auburn	0.904
7	Wisconsin	0.861
8	Virginia Tech	0.861
9	Oregon	0.86
10	Iowa	0.829

Margin of Victory (MOV)

Rank	Team	Points
1	Boise St	1
2	TCU	0.956
3	Oregon	0.934
4	Ohio State	0.872
5	Stanford	0.847
6	Alabama	0.834
7	Nevada	0.816
8	Wisconsin	0.814
9	Northern Illinois	0.808
10	Auburn	0.774

Quality Wins/Losses (QWL)

Rank	Team	Points
1	Auburn	1
2	Oklahoma	0.663
3	Nebraska	0.648
4	Arkansas	0.609
5	Texas A&M	0.542
6	Missouri	0.529
7	South Carolina	0.459
8	Nevada	0.45
9	Alabama	0.448
10	Wisconsin	0.431

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2010 Elite Selection Playoff: Week Fourteen

This article is © 2007-2012 by De Veritate, LLC and was originally published at Clashmore Mike. This article may not be copied, distributed, or transmitted without attribution. Additionally, you may not use this article for commercial purposes or to generate derivative works without explicit written permission. Please contact us if you wish to license this content for your own use.

Evaluating the Irish: Act II

Jonathan Hunn — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 01:31:39 +0000

The wise Rocky Balboa said, “It ain’t about how hard you can hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.” After Notre Dame’s stunning loss to Tulsa, it would have been easy for the Irish, who stood at a record of four wins and five losses heading into their bye week, to throw in the towel on the season.

The 2010 season contained many distractions and obstacles for first-year head coach Brian Kelly and his team. Dayne Crist, Armando Allen, Theo Riddick, Kyle Rudolph, Carlo Calabrese, and Ian Williams all had injuries that would keep them out of action for quite some time, some for the remainder of the season. Declan Sullivan’s death at a windy Irish practice and Elizabeth Seeberg’s suicide, in connection with an unnamed fooball player, while tragic, garnered some unwanted criticism and attention for Brian Kelly, Jack Swarbrick, and the University.

However, while it may have been easy for the team, and Irish fans alike, to chalk this season up to the growing pains that typically come with a new head coach, the team persevered to finish the season with four straight wins, including a victory over the University of Miami in the Sun Bowl. Win two out of the last three and make a bowl game—this was the goal of Brian Kelly and the Fighting Irish after their last-minute loss to Tulsa in late October. It was a tall order, but the Irish did one better, winning all three remaining regular season games and besting the Hurricanes.

The biggest question as we take one final look at the 2010 season is, “What if?” The Irish were a handful of plays from finishing the season with three more wins, a 10-2 overall record, and an invitation to a higher-profile bowl game that they may or may not have won.

What if Tommy Rees, Cierre Wood, and Tyler Eifert had not filled in for Dayne Crist, Armando Allen, and Kyle Rudolph as well as they did? What if the Bob Diaco-led defense had continued their mediocre performance of the first half of the season and continued to give up an absurd amount of yards to opposing offenses? The 2010 season could have turned out to look a lot more like 2007, which could have had the most extreme Irish fans questioning the Kelly hire all together.

Thankfully, the season didn’t end that way and Irish fans generally have pleasant things to say about the 2010 campaign. Tommy Rees took over for Dayne Crist midway through the first half of the Tulsa game, leaving most Irish with flashbacks of the game against Michigan where he and Nate Montana both struggled against a subpar defense. And while he certainly played like a freshman in that game, his next four starts all ended up as victories for the Irish. His numbers over the final four games certainly weren’t staggering, throwing for an average of 173.25 yards, 2 touchdowns, and 1 interception in each game, but his ability to pick up the baton that Crist dropped when he was injured against Tulsa certainly made Notre Dame’s prolific late-season surge possible.

Arguably a bigger surprise, the Notre Dame defense, which allowed an average of 393.1 yards per game through the first 9 games of the season, finished the regular season in spectacular fashion, only allowing an average of 233 yards per game. Additionally, during the last 3 games of the regular season, the Irish defense gave up one lone touchdown. And while the statistics for the bowl game against Miami are a bit misleading, the Irish still dominated the Hurricanes in every facet of the game. The Notre Dame defense gave up two more touchdowns in the Sun Bowl, but their dominating performance, and Harrison Smith and Manti Te’o in particular, did very much to quiet, at least temporarily, the reservations that most Irish fans had about the effectiveness of Bob Diaco as a defensive coordinator.

As the team now turns to the off-season, Kelly hits the recruiting trail, and strength and conditioning coach Paul Longo begins to take over the team for off-season workouts, several story lines will be scrutinized by the fans and media alike. Who will be behind center for the Irish against South Florida on September 3rd? Can Dayne Crist recover this off-season in time to reclaim his starting spot from Tommy Rees who, at the very least, has earned the right to compete for the position next year? Can Cierre Wood continue to improve and be an impact player next season as the starting running back? Will Jonas Gray or Cameron Roberson progress enough to challenge Wood for the starting position, or will they provide depth? Will Michael Floyd and Kyle Rudolph declare for the NFL draft? If so, who steps up into the void left by their absence? How will Brian Kelly’s push for defensive recruits affect the team on signing day? What is a reasonable expectation for wins and losses for this team next season?

In his second season at Cincinnati, Brian Kelly led the Bearcats, who had finished the 2007 season with 10 wins, to the Big East title, an 11-3 record, and a spot in the FedEx Orange Bowl. It remains to be seen what the Irish will accomplish in 2011. But the success that Kelly has had as his previous schools, along with the talent and experience that Notre Dame will have next year, and a 2011 schedule that, at face value, doesn’t seem as difficult as this year’s schedule, is the perfect setup for a successful season.

There are still a lot of questions that face this team next year, but if the way that Kelly, his staff, the players, and University overcame several obstacles this season are any indicator of the toughness and resolve in Brian Kelly and this team, the outlook on 2011 seems very bright. Grand Valley State, Central Michigan, and Cincinnati are not Notre Dame and that could mean that success in 2011 might be more diffcult than anticipated, but the fact that those schools aren’t Notre Dame could give this team the advantage they need to be even more successful next year.

Similar Posts:

Evaluating the Irish: Tulsa Golden Hurricane

Evaluating the Irish: Act I

Evaluating the Irish: Navy Midshipmen

This article is © 2007-2012 by De Veritate, LLC and was originally published at Clashmore Mike. This article may not be copied, distributed, or transmitted without attribution. Additionally, you may not use this article for commercial purposes or to generate derivative works without explicit written permission. Please contact us if you wish to license this content for your own use.

Notre Dame vs. Miami: Keys to an Irish Win

Anthony Pilcher — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 23:50:18 +0000

Notre Dame faces Miami in the Sun Bowl New Year’s Eve. The game marks the first meeting between the two teams since 1990 and is a preview of three future contests—a neutral site game at Chicago’s Soldier Field in 2012 and a home/away series in 2016 and 2017.

In many ways the two teams are heading in opposite directions. The Irish enter the game on the heels of an improbable three-game win streak having outscored Utah, Army and USC by a combined margin of 75 to 22 behind a resurgent ground attack and a defense that has allowed only one touchdown—a two-yard drive by the Trojans—in the last 15 quarters of play.

Meanwhile, Miami has dropped three of their last five including a 24-19 loss to a 4-8 Virginia squad and a 23-20 overtime defeat at the hands of South Florida. The late-season slide cost head coach Randy Shannon his job, and offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland will be leading the Hurricanes in the bowl game.

Overall, Miami boasts the same 7-5 record as the Irish with wins over (FCS) Florida A&M, Pittsburgh, Clemson, Duke, North Carolina, Maryland, and Georgia Tech, and losses to Ohio State, Florida State, Virginia Tech and the aforementioned Cavaliers and Bulls. The 12-team slate comprises the 35th most difficult AVR strength of schedule against which the Hurricanes have generated the 48th best offensive TPR and 12th best defensive TPR.

Miami, Version 2010

Stoutland is in his fourth year as the offensive line coach after occupying the same position at Michigan State for seven seasons. It remains to be seen whether Shannon’s dismissal will be a distraction or a point around which the players rally, but improvement in several fundamental areas is needed for the Hurricanes to play up to their potential and Stoutland has his work cut out for him.

Miami averages 8.1 infractions per outing (114th ranked) and racks up 66.9 penalty yards per contest (112). The squad certainly lacks discipline, but—without a doubt—the biggest problem has been turnovers. The Hurricanes rank 117th in turnovers lost with nine lost fumbles and 23 interceptions. The defense has been advantageous forcing 28 takeaways (16th best in the country), but the -4 turnover margin ranks 80th in the nation.

Offensively, Miami has gained nearly 47 percent of available yards with a three and out on only 18.1 percent of meaningful possessions, i.e. they have little trouble moving the ball. But over 22 percent of meaningful drives have resulted in a turnover including eight red zone turnovers in 50 appearances.

Offense

Mark Whipple is in his second year as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach and has 28 years of coaching experience to his credit. Whipple employs a pro-style offense that frequently operates from a two-back set but also spreads the field on occasion.

The Hurricanes have been balanced in their production but are primarily a run-first team with a passing attack built off the ground game. Miami ranks 26th in both rushing yards per game and yards per carry and 27th in yards per completion, the latter a strong indication of the ability to downfield, particularly off play-action. The unit hasn’t been very efficient, ranking 64th in third down efficiency and 90th in red zone touchdown efficiency, and at least part of the problem has been the aforementioned penalties and turnovers. Despite these self-inflicted mistakes, Miami has moved the ball well with 4.2 red zone appearances (38th ranked) and 22.3 first downs (25) per game.

The ground attack is spurred by a three-man backfield rotation of senior Damien Berry, redshirt freshman Lamar Miller, and true freshman Mike James. Berry is the leader and primary starter of the group, but each has at least 66 carries as the three have combined for 1,882 rushing yards and 14 touchdowns at 5.4 yards per attempt. Additionally, all three backs tip the scales in excess of 210 pounds and have the ability to wear down opposing defenses by pounding the ball and rotating fresh legs. Miller and James have performed especially well in the fourth quarter averaging six and 6.5 yards per carry in the final period of play.

Blocking for the three-headed running attack is a big (average 6′-5″ and 316.4 pounds), but relatively young and inexperienced offensive line. The unit endured a bit of personnel shuffling earlier in the year before settling into a consistent starting five that has performed well both opening running lanes and protecting the quarterback.

The anchor of the unit is left tackle Orlando Franklin, a senior and three-year starter with 37 career starts. But the remaining four are all first-year starters who have combined for only 51 starts. Guard Harland Gunn and center Tyler Horn are both redshirt sophomores who have started all 12 games this season as has sophomore guard Brandon Washington. Former Notre Dame recruit and true freshman Seantrel Henderson rounds out the group starting at right tackle over the last nine games of the season.

Stoutland hasn’t officially announced who will start under center but conventional wisdom suggests it will be Jacory Harris. Harris was the starter last season and started the first eight games this year before a concussion against the Cavaliers sidelined him for the remainder of the game as well as the next three contests.

The junior signal caller has earned a reputation for erratic play over the course of his career and the 53.9 percent completion rate, 121.7 passer efficiency, and 10 interceptions he generated in his eight starts did little to dispute it. The alternative is true freshman Stephen Morris whose performance wasn’t markedly different over the final five games (50 percent completion rate, 117.5 passer efficiency, eight interceptions). Morris also suffered an ankle injury during practice this week and may be unable to play Friday.

The primary receiving target for Harris and/or Morris is Leonard Hankerson. The senior wide out has been the leading receiver in each of the last two seasons, catching 66 passes for 1,085 yards (16.4 yards per reception) and 12 touchdowns this year. Hankerson’s size (6′-3″, 205 pounds) makes him a prime target in the red zone and his dependability has made him the preferred option on third down. Junior wide receivers Travis Benjamin and LaRon Byrd form the second and third receiving options combining to haul in 77 passes for 1,093 yards (14.2 yards per reception) and four touchdowns.

See the tables below for an in-depth look at the 2010 Hurricane offense (the Opponent Average and Opponent Average Rank columns refer to Miami’s 2010 opponents excluding Florida A&M).

2010 Miami Offensive Efficiency

Statistic	Miami	Miami Rank	Opponent Average	Opponent Average Rank
3rd down efficiency	39.6	64	38.3	52
4th down efficiency	40	95	55.5	71
Red zone appearances/game	4.2	38	3.5	54
Red zone efficiency	76	99	79.6	47
Red zone TD efficiency	56	90	53.7	40

2010 Miami Total Offense

Statistic	Miami	Miami Rank	Opponent Average	Opponent Average Rank
Points/game	27.1	58	22.2	38
Touchdowns/game	3.5	54	2.7	35
Plays/game	72.7	21	66.9	50
Yards/game	422.6	31	346.6	43
1st downs/game	22.3	25	18.4	44
Yards/play	5.8	40	5.2	44

2010 Miami Rushing Offense

Statistic	Miami	Miami Rank	Opponent Average	Opponent Average Rank
Attempts/game	39.1	38	36.7	55
Yards/game	190.4	26	145.8	49
Yards/attempt	4.9	26	3.9	49
Fumbles	9	51	8	72
Attempts/fumble	52.1	50	65.5	80
TFL allowed/game	4.9	29	5.8	60
1st downs/game	9.8	28	7.8	46
Touchdowns/game	1.6	57	1.2	39

2010 Miami Passing Offense

Statistic	Miami	Miami Rank	Opponent Average	Opponent Average Rank
Attempts/game	33.6	38	30.2	55
Completions/game	17.8	63	16.9	44
Yards/game	232.2	49	200.8	40
Yards/attempt	6.9	70	6.7	44
Yards/completion	13	27	11.9	54
Interceptions	23	119	14	43
Attempts/interception	17.5	119	28.7	44
Sacks allowed/game	1.3	26	2.1	53
Attempts/sack allowed	25.2	23	15.6	55
1st downs/game	11.1	35	8.9	41
Touchdowns/game	1.6	56	1.3	39
Completion %	53.1	108	56	37
Pass efficiency	115.3	70	118.9	44

Defense

The Hurricane defense is led by second year defensive coordinator John Lovett. Lovett is a veteran coach with 19 years of coordinating experience at Ole Miss, Auburn, Clemson and Bowling Green, as well as a reputation for developing standout secondary players and strong pass defenses. The 2010 Hurricanes are no exception.

The Hurricanes operate from a 4-3 base set with a philosophy primarily devoted to two things: pressuring opposing offenses with a vertical, aggressive scheme and forcing turnovers. Miami ranks 2nd in attempts per sack, 1st in tackles for a loss per game, 22nd in attempts per recovered fumble, and 4th in attempts per interception.

Additionally, as is Lovett’s hallmark, the pass defense numbers are especially impressive as the Hurricanes have posted a 95.9 pass efficiency (2nd ranked), allowed a paltry 49.5 percent completion rate (2), surrendered only 5.9 yards per attempt (10), and allowed only seven passing scores (1). The performance in the total and efficiency categories mostly follow suit. Miami has allowed only 317.2 yards (16) and 19.7 points (21) per game, and rank 13th in third down efficiency and 3rd in red zone efficiency.

The defensive unit is led by Colin McCarthy and Sean Spence, two active, veteran linebackers each with three years of playing experience. McCarthy ranked second on the team in tackles and tackles for a loss last season and ranks first and fourth in the same categories this year while Spence ranks 16th nationally and leads the Hurricanes with 17 tackles for a loss. Each have posted at least 100 tackles combining for 206 stops, 26 tackles for a loss, and 3.5 sacks. Rounding out the linebacker corps is Ramon Buchanan with 50 tackles and 5.5 tackles for a loss.

The defensive front, led by end Allen Bailey, has good size (average 6′-4″, 286 pounds) and athleticism. Bailey led the team in sacks and tackles for a loss in 2009, leads the team in sacks this season with seven, and leads defensive linemen in tackles (43) and tackles for a loss (11). Olivier Vernon occupies the other end position while the interior of the defensive line is manned by Marcus Forston and Micanor Regis. Together with reserve linemen (and sometime starters) Adewale Ojomo and Josh Holmes, the Hurricane front four has accounted for 46.5 of the team’s 103 tackles for a loss and 25 of 37 sacks.

The backend of the defense features six players with significant playing time and production. Although not a full-time starter, sophomore safety Ray-Ray Armstrong leads the secondary in stops with 71 including 4.5 tackles for a loss. Armstrong is also tied with fellow safety Vaughn Telemaque and corner Ryan Hill for the team lead with three interceptions. Brandon Harris starts at the corner position opposite Hill, corner DeMarcus Van Dyke also contributes, and safety JoJo Nicolas has started the final eight games ahead of Armstrong. The unit is athletic, particularly Armstrong and Harris, with safeties that play well against the run and corners that can play on an island.

See the tables below for an in-depth look at the 2010 Hurricane defense (the Opponent Average and Opponent Average Rank columns refer to Miami’s 2010 opponents excluding Florida A&M).

2010 Miami Defensive Efficiency

Statistic	Miami	Miami Rank	Opponent Average	Opponent Average Rank
3rd down efficiency	33.7	13	40.1	60
4th down efficiency	40	18	57.1	51
Red zone appearances/game	3.8	71	4	47
Red zone efficiency	70	7	83.4	49
Red zone TD efficiency	39.1	3	57.3	73

2010 Miami Total Defense

Statistic	Miami	Miami Rank	Opponent Average	Opponent Average Rank
Points/game	19.7	21	28.6	58
Touchdowns/game	2.3	15	3.5	60
Plays/game	66.4	43	66.8	69
Yards/game	317.2	16	381.6	59
1st downs/game	16.3	9	19.4	65
Yards/play	4.8	19	5.7	51

2010 Miami Rushing Defense

Statistic	Miami	Miami Rank	Opponent Average	Opponent Average Rank
Attempts/game	41.5	107	38.1	63
Yards/game	170.8	81	170.4	59
Yards/attempt	4.1	60	4.4	57
Fumbles	12	24	9	47
Attempts/fumble	39.1	22	74.9	49
TFL/game	8.6	1	5.5	53
1st downs/game	8	55	8.8	63
Touchdowns/game	1.6	60	1.7	52

2010 Miami Passing Defense

Statistic	Miami	Miami Rank	Opponent Average	Opponent Average Rank
Attempts/game	24.9	5	28.8	69
Completions/game	12.3	2	17.3	65
Yards/game	146.3	2	211.2	64
Yards/attempt	5.9	10	7.4	55
Yards/completion	11.9	58	12.7	54
Interceptions	16	21	11	54
Attempts/interception	18.7	4	35.4	65
Sacks/game	3.1	6	1.9	59
Attempts/sack	8.1	2	15.4	67
1st downs/game	7	3	9.2	67
Touchdowns/game	0.6	1	1.5	64
Completion %	49.5	2	58.8	57
Pass efficiency	95.9	2	131.9	58

Adding It All Up

Offensively, Miami isn’t overly flashy, but they can be effective when things are clicking. The offensive line has played well, Berry, Miller and James are all viable options at running back, and the per-catch averages of Hankerson and Benjamin are ample evidence of the ability to stretch the field. Whipple wants to be successful running the ball, parlay the success on the ground into an efficient and explosive passing attack (a few shots downfield are virtually guaranteed), and mostly task his quarterback with managing the game.

The Hurricane defense is at least a top 20 unit that features a stout front four, active linebacker corps, and athletic secondary. Lovett has a defensive line that can tie up offensive linemen and routinely apply pressure without committing extra defenders, and linebackers that run very well to the ball. Miami is one of the nation’s top units against the pass, on third down, and in the red zone, but the aggressive, vertical nature of their play can leave them vulnerable to a competent rushing offense.

Keys to Winning

Offense

Build an early, sizeable lead. Much of Miami’s undoing has been the play of their quarterbacks. Harris’ poor performance has been well documented while Morris hasn’t been any better. The Hurricanes have the ability to run the ball and are efficient in the passing game when the run is effective, but won’t have the luxury of leaning on Berry, Miller and James and asking their signal callers to only manage the game playing from behind. The Irish must avoid turnovers, be consistent on offense, and take advantage of red zone opportunities in the early going to force Whipple away from his preferred game plan.
Ball protection is critical to a victory. The Hurricanes have certainly had problems with turnovers but the Irish haven’t exactly been immune to coughing up the ball—Notre Dame gave away 69 points off 24 turnovers during the regular season. Miami’s opponents forced 20 turnovers that resulted in 79 points in their five losses, but the Hurricanes reversed the trend in their seven wins turning 23 takeaways into 65 points. The Irish can’t afford to give the ball away to an offense that has been advantageous.
Run the ball…a lot. Miami ranks 10th or better in 11 of the 13 pass defense categories listed in the table above, excels pressuring the passer, has only surrendered seven scores through the air, and ranks 5th in 10-plus yard passes allowed. Moreover, the Hurricane defense held 10 of 12 opponents below their per-game average in passing yards, 11 below their per-attempt average, and nine below their passing efficiency total. The performance against the run, however, hasn’t been nearly as dominant. The Hurricanes rank 81st in rushing yards allowed per game, 60th in yards per attempt, and 101st in 10-plus yard rushing gains. Additionally, Miami allowed six opponents to rush for 150-plus yards, three to rush for 200-plus yards, and six to average four-plus yards per carry. Quarterback Tommy Rees has proven capable of making mistakes and will be facing a defense built to pressure the passer and force interceptions. The apposite offensive strategy is a heavy dose of running backs Robert Hughes and Cierre Wood.

Defense

Stop the run, particularly on first down. For the Irish, this game could come down to one aspect: stopping the run. The success (and failure) of the Hurricane offense has been mostly tied to their ability to establish the run and use it as the basis for throwing the ball. The run/pass splits for Miami in their seven wins are 59/41 overall, 65/35 on first down, and 67/33 on open downs compared to 47/53, 54/46, and 58/42 in their five losses. The production and efficiency on the ground in the winning outings isn’t decidedly different from the losing ones, but the efficiency throwing the ball certainly is—the Hurricanes average a pass efficiency of 142.4 in their wins compared to 87 in their losses. Moreover, stopping the run on first down is vitally important. Miami ranks 12th in first down yards per carry and averages 7.2 yards per first down rush on scoring drives compared to five yards per attempt on non-scoring possessions. Similar to the pass efficiency trends noted above, the first down completion rate on scoring possessions is 75.5 percent compared to 39.1 percent on non-scoring drives. If the Hurricanes are allowed to run the ball effectively on first down Irish defensive coordinator Bob Diaco will be forced to commit an extra defender to the box, make his secondary vulnerable to downfield throws, and fail to place the burden of execution on the inconsistent Hurricane signal callers.
Mind Hankerson on third down and in the red zone, watch the deep ball. Regardless of who lines up under center, Hankerson is the favorite receiving option on third down and in the red zone. The senior wide receiver was targeted on 41 of 125 (32.8 percent) third down pass attempts—almost twice that of the next favorite target—with 24 receptions and 14 first downs. In the red zone the numbers are even more preferential. Hankerson was the target on 19 of 46 (41.3 percent) throws, six of which went for scores. No other receiver has more than eight red zone receptions or one red zone touchdown. Additionally, Hankerson averages 16.4 yards per reception while Benjamin averages 17.5 yards per catch. Both are legitimate downfield threats, and Whipple will certainly try to stretch the field vertically to empty the box.
Avoid goal-to-go situations. Miami has struggled in the red zone but not in goal-to-go situations where their strong rushing attack is a potent weapon. Whipple has called a run on 35 of 45 goal-to-go plays (run/pass split of 78/22) with only three negative gains and 13 rushing touchdowns in 22 opportunities (59 percent). The Hurricane front five and trio of backs are well-suited to run the ball between the tackles—even on a short field—and the Irish defense must avoid these situations.

Prediction

Miami is a team that doesn’t play as well as the sum of their parts. The Hurricanes have plenty of talent but routinely shoot themselves in the foot with penalties and turnovers. With the uncertainty and transition surrounding the program there are plenty of question marks and the outcome of the game could largely be decided by the players’ psyche. Will Stoutland have his troops focused and prepared or will the same things that have plagued the Hurricanes all season continue to be their undoing? If it is the former, the Irish are in for a fight.

The winning formula for Notre Dame is simple: continue the strong, late season defensive play—particularly against the run—and utilize a recently developed downhill running game to exploit the weakness of the Hurricane defense. The team that runs the ball more effectively, takes pressure of their quarterback, and minimizes turnovers will win the game as both defenses will attempt to pressure the opposing passer into making costly mistakes.

Ultimately, the late season trend of the two teams continues and the Irish edge out a hard-fought victory.

Notre Dame 20, Miami 17

Similar Posts:

Blueprint for BCS Championship Success II: Offensive Results

Notre Dame vs. Pittsburgh: Keys to an Irish Win

Blueprint for BCS Championship Success III: Defensive Results

This article is © 2007-2012 by De Veritate, LLC and was originally published at Clashmore Mike. This article may not be copied, distributed, or transmitted without attribution. Additionally, you may not use this article for commercial purposes or to generate derivative works without explicit written permission. Please contact us if you wish to license this content for your own use.

2010 Elite Selection Playoff: AV Ranking Bowl Predictions

Anthony Pilcher — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 23:51:34 +0000

Editor’s note: Special thanks to ESP and AVR co-creator Vincenzo Siciliano for his effort in the work outlined below. He did the analysis, I just made a few observations and wrote up this summary.

Disclaimer #1: The following is not intended for betting purposes.

Disclaimer #2: The following analysis does not include the Army—Navy game last weekend. It is not expected that excluding this single contest appreciably skews the results.

Making the Predictions

Similar to last year and the year before, the final AV Ranking (AVR) point values will be used to predict the bowl game winners against the spread. For historical and reference purposes the weekly ESP and AVR results (including the top 10 AWP, SOS, TPR, MOV and QWL rankings) are linked here for weeks 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7 and 6.

Last season’s predictions were especially strong going 4-1 in the five BCS games and only missing on the Cincinnati—Florida Sugar Bowl contest which had so many extenuating and motivating factors—Urban Meyer’s semi-retirement, Tim Tebow’s last college football game, Brian Kelly leaving Cincinnati for Notre Dame and not coaching in the game, etc.—that any computer prediction of its outcome was mostly useless. Unlike last season, however, this year the AVR predictions have been extended to include all the bowl game matchups.

The Bowl Season Lineup

It’s difficult to believe that there are 35 bowls featuring 70 teams. It seems that the reward of post-season play is diminished when over half of FBS programs receive a bowl bid. The table below lists all 35 bowls starting with the latest and working backwards.

2010 Bowl Season Lineup

Bowl	Home team	Away team	Date	Time (ET)
Tostitos BCS National Championship Game	Oregon	Auburn	Monday, January 10	8:30 PM
Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl	Nevada	Boston College	Sunday, January 9	9:00 PM
BBVA Compass Bowl	Pittsburgh	Kentucky	Saturday, January 8	12:00 PM
AT&T Cotton Bowl	LSU	Texas A&M	Friday, January 7	8:00 PM
GoDaddy.com Bowl	Middle Tennessee St	Miami OH	Thursday, January 6	8:00 PM
Allstate Sugar Bowl	Ohio State	Arkansas	Tuesday, January 4	8:30 PM
Discover Orange Bowl	Stanford	Virginia Tech	Monday, January 3	8:30 PM
Tostitos Fiesta Bowl	Connecticut	Oklahoma	Saturday, January 1	8:30 PM
Rose Bowl Game Presented byVIZIO	Wisconsin	TCU	Saturday, January 1	5:00 PM
Gator Bowl	Mississippi St	Michigan	Saturday, January 1	1:30 PM
Capital One Bowl	Alabama	Michigan St	Saturday, January 1	1:00 PM
Outback Bowl	Florida	Penn State	Saturday, January 1	1:00 PM
TicketCity Bowl	Northwestern	Texas Tech	Saturday, January 1	12:00 PM
Chick-fil-A Bowl	South Carolina	Florida St	Friday, December 31	7:30 PM
AutoZone Liberty Bowl	Georgia	Central Florida	Friday, December 31	3:30 PM
Hyundai Sun Bowl	Notre Dame	Miami FL	Friday, December 31	2:00 PM
Meineke Car Care Bowl	South Florida	Clemson	Friday, December 31	12:00 PM
Bridgepoint Education Holiday Bowl	Nebraska	Washington	Thursday, December 30	10:00 PM
Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl	North Carolina	Tennessee	Thursday, December 30	6:40 PM
New Era Pinstripe Bowl	Kansas St	Syracuse	Thursday, December 30	3:20 PM
Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl	Army	SMU	Thursday, December 30	12:00 PM
Valero Alamo Bowl	Oklahoma St	Arizona	Wednesday, December 29	9:15 PM
Texas Bowl	Illinois	Baylor	Wednesday, December 29	6:00 PM
Military Bowl Presented by Northrop Grumman	East Carolina	Maryland	Wednesday, December 29	2:30 PM
Insight Bowl	Missouri	Iowa	Tuesday, December 28	10:00 PM
Champs Sports Bowl	West Virginia	North Carolina St	Tuesday, December 28	6:30 PM
AdvoCare V100 Independence Bowl	Air Force	Georgia Tech	Monday, December 27	5:00 PM
Little Caesars Bowl	Florida Int'l	Toledo	Sunday, December 26	8:30 PM
Sheraton Hawaii Bowl	Hawai`i	Tulsa	Friday, December 24	8:00 PM
San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl	Navy	San Diego St	Thursday, December 23	8:00 PM
Maaco Bowl Las Vegas	Utah	Boise St	Wednesday, December 22	8:00 PM
Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl St. Petersburg	Southern Miss	Louisville	Tuesday, December 21	8:00 PM
R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl	Ohio U.	Troy	Saturday, December 18	9:00 PM
uDrove Humanitarian Bowl	Northern Illinois	Fresno St	Saturday, December 18	5:30 PM
New Mexico Bowl	Brigham Young	UTEP	Saturday, December 18	2:00 PM

Despite the dilution of reward due to the number of games, there are several intriguing matchups.

The BCS National Championship game features two teams in Auburn and Oregon that have bucked the 10-year national championship blueprint. While the Tigers and Ducks feature run-heavy, high-scoring offensive units neither defense is exceptional (although Oregon does have the 10th ranked defensive TPR).

Ohio State and Arkansas face off in a Sugar Bowl that will feature speed on power. The Razorbacks offense features gunslinger Ryan Mallett throwing to a host of fast, talented receivers while the Buckeyes have the traditional Big 10 build of a power football team on both sides of the ball.

Michigan State heads to Orlando to take on the Crimson Tide with hopes of proving the doubters wrong. The Spartans posted the same record as Ohio State and Wisconsin and even beat the latter head-to-head, yet the Badgers and Buckeyes both received BCS game bids while head coach Mark Dantonio’s troops were left out of the mix.

And, finally, the Irish and Hurricanes meet in the Sun Bowl in what is a preview of a three-game series over the next few years. The game is being built as a renewal of the fierce rivalry from the days when Lou Holtz and Jimmy Johnson roamed the sidelines.

Predicting the Winners and Point Deltas

Using the process described below, the final, week 14 AVR computer model rankings were used to predict the winner and point delta of each bowl contest listed in the table above.

A regression was performed with the final AVR results using only the “bowl equivalent” contests from the regular season. These bowl equivalent games are a subset of the regular season matchups that include only those contests where two criteria are met:

The two participants had a final AVR point value at or above the minimum final AVR point value of all 70 bowl game participants (Middle Tennessee State at 0.365)
The AVR point delta of the two participants was less than or equal to the maximum final AVR point delta of all 35 bowl game matchups (Connecticut and Oklahoma at 0.275)

The resulting data set constituted 277 regular season games.

The table below lists the results of these predictions for every bowl game. The table includes the Vegas favorite and associated line, the AVR point delta (home minus away), the AVR favorite and associated line, and two confidence columns.

The first confidence column (AVR win confidence) represents the percent chance the AVR will correctly predict the winner of the game based on the statistical variation of the 277 data points described above. The second confidence column (AVR Vegas line confidence) represents the percent chance the AVR predicts the favorite will cover the Vegas spread using the same variation.

2010 AVR Bowl Predictions*

Home team	Away team	Vegas favorite	Vegas line	AVR point delta (home - away)	AVR favorite	AVR line	AVR win confidence (%)	AVR Vegas line confidence (%)
Oregon	Auburn	Auburn	3	-0.076	Auburn	4.7	62.7	54.7
Nevada	Boston College	Nevada	9.5	0.268	Nevada	16.5	87.2	68.5
Pittsburgh	Kentucky	Pittsburgh	2.5	0.127	Pittsburgh	7.8	70.4	64.2
LSU	Texas A&M	LSU	1	0.036	LSU	2.2	56	53.3
Middle Tennessee St	Miami OH	Miami OH	2	-0.224	Miami OH	13.8	82.9	79.2
Ohio State	Arkansas	Ohio State	3	0.023	Ohio State	1.4	53.8	45.6
Stanford	Virginia Tech	Stanford	3	0.048	Stanford	3	58.2	50
Connecticut	Oklahoma	Oklahoma	17	-0.275	Oklahoma	16.9	87.8	49.7
Wisconsin	TCU	TCU	2.5	-0.053	TCU	3.3	59	52.2
Mississippi St	Michigan	Mississippi St	6	0.078	Mississippi St	4.8	62.9	46.7
Alabama	Michigan St	Alabama	11	-0.071	Michigan St	4.4	61.9	85.5
Florida	Penn State	Florida	7	0.006	Florida	0.3	50.8	32.2
Northwestern	Texas Tech	Texas Tech	9.5	-0.054	Texas Tech	3.3	59	33.5
South Carolina	Florida St	South Carolina	3	0.056	South Carolina	3.4	59.3	51.1
Georgia	Central Florida	Georgia	7	-0.14	Central Florida	8.6	72.3	85.9
Notre Dame	Miami FL	Miami FL	3	0.059	Notre Dame	3.6	59.8	67.5
South Florida	Clemson	Clemson	4.5	0.017	South Florida	1	52.7	64.8
Nebraska	Washington	Nebraska	13	0.253	Nebraska	15.6	85.9	57.1
North Carolina	Tennessee	North Carolina	2.5	0.097	North Carolina	6	66	59.5
Kansas St	Syracuse	Kansas St	2.5	0.026	Kansas St	1.6	54.4	47.5
Army	SMU	N/A	N/A	-0.019	SMU	1.2	53.3	N/A
Oklahoma St	Arizona	Oklahoma St	6	0.242	Oklahoma St	14.9	84.8	73
Illinois	Baylor	Baylor	2	-0.018	Baylor	1.1	53	47.5
East Carolina	Maryland	Maryland	7.5	-0.143	Maryland	8.8	72.8	53.6
Missouri	Iowa	Missouri	1	0.195	Missouri	12	79.6	77.6
West Virginia	North Carolina St	West Virginia	2.5	0.045	West Virginia	2.8	57.6	50.8
Air Force	Georgia Tech	Air Force	2.5	0.191	Air Force	11.7	79	73.7
Florida Int'l	Toledo	Toledo	2	-0.155	Toledo	9.5	74.3	69.7
Hawai`i	Tulsa	Hawai`i	12	0.077	Hawai`i	4.7	62.7	30.8
Navy	San Diego St	N/A	N/A	0.047	Navy	2.9	57.9	N/A
Utah	Boise St	Boise St	16.5	-0.183	Boise St	11.2	78	35.8
Southern Miss	Louisville	Louisville	3.5	0.128	Southern Miss	7.9	70.7	78.4
Ohio U.	Troy	Troy	1.5	0.06	Ohio U.	3.7	60.1	64
Northern Illinois	Fresno St	Northern Illinois	3	0.096	Northern Illinois	5.9	65.8	57.9
Brigham Young	UTEP	Brigham Young	12	0.115	Brigham Young	7.1	68.8	36.8

* The Vegas line is based on a snapshot value.

A few noteworthy items:

As mentioned above, the largest AVR point delta of any bowl game is the Fiesta Bowl matchup between Oklahoma and Connecticut. This at least partially explains some of the outrage of the Huskies receiving an automatic BCS bid while teams like Michigan State and Boise State have been relegated to lower tier bowls. This also happens to be one of the games where the Vegas and AVR predicted lines most closely agree—both give the Sooners (roughly) a 17-point advantage.
Other games where Vegas and the AVR lines closely match include the Orange Bowl between Stanford and Virginia Tech, the Rose Bowl between the Badgers and Horned Frogs, the Chick-fil-A Bowl between South Carolina and Florida State, the Pinstripe Bowl between Kansas State and Syracuse, the Texas Bowl between Illinois and Baylor, and the Champs Sports Bowl between the West Virginia and North Carolina State. Each of these games had less than a one-point difference in predicted lines.
Vegas and the AVR agree on 25 of the 33 (75.8 percent) predicted winners. The average line difference in the eight games where there was disagreement was 10 points compared to only 1.5 points when both Vegas and the AVR installed the same favorite. In other words, when the two disagree on the favored squad, they do so by a substantial margin. When they pick the same favorite, however, the disagreement between predicted margin of victory is much more modest.
Excluding the Fiesta Bowl the average Vegas line in the other four BCS games is 2.9 points while the average AVR line is 3.1 points. Vegas and the AVR agree on two of these games—both predict Auburn to win the national championship and Stanford to best the Hokies. The AVR gives a slight nod to TCU and Ohio State, but the AVR Vegas line confidence is very low for both. Expressed differently, other than the Fiesta Bowl, the BCS games project to be very evenly matched contests.

So Where Did Vegas (or the AVR) Get It Wrong?

Eight of the 35 AVR predicted favorites have a win confidence in excess of 75 percent, i.e. these AVR installed favorites are a lock to win. These games feature a minimum line of 11.2 points and include the following winners (Vegas/AVR line in parentheses):

Nevada over Boston College (9.5/16.5)
Miami (OH) over Middle Tennessee State (2/13.8)
Oklahoma over Connecticut (17/16.9)
Nebraska over Washington (13/15.6)
Oklahoma State over Arizona (6/14.9)
Missouri over Iowa (1/12)
Air Force over Georgia Tech (2.5/11.7)
Boise State over Utah (16.5/11.2)

Additionally, five games feature AVR Vegas line confidences in excess of 75 percent, i.e. these AVR installed favorites are a lock to cover the spread (nota bene, in two of these contests there is disagreement between Vegas and the AVR as to which team is the favorite). These five matchups include (Vegas/AVR line in parentheses):

Miami (OH) over Middle Tennessee State (2/13.8)
Michigan State over Alabama (-11/4.4)
Central Florida over Georgia (-7/8.6)
Missouri over Iowa (1/12)
Southern Mississippi over Louisville (3.5/7.9)

Vegas believes Bama will win by two scores while the AVR favors Michigan State by just over a field goal. Similarly, Vegas has installed Georgia as a touchdown favorite over Central Florida while the AVR has them reversed at about the same margin of victory. These two games represent the biggest line disagreement among all 35 bowl contests, i.e. something about how Vegas and the AVR have measured these four teams is very different.

The intersection of the two data sets above is where a) Vegas and the AVR agree on the predicted winner and b) the AVR predicts a larger line than Vegas does. This includes Miami (OH) over Middle Tennessee State and Missouri over Iowa. In these contests there is no disagreement about who will win, only by what margin.

Similar Posts:

2009 Elite Selection Playoff: Week Fourteen and BCS Championship Predictions

2008 Elite Selection Playoff: Week Fourteen and Conference Championship Predictions

2009 Season Prediction Survey Results

This article is © 2007-2012 by De Veritate, LLC and was originally published at Clashmore Mike. This article may not be copied, distributed, or transmitted without attribution. Additionally, you may not use this article for commercial purposes or to generate derivative works without explicit written permission. Please contact us if you wish to license this content for your own use.

2010 Elite Selection Playoff: Week Fourteen

Anthony Pilcher — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 03:42:40 +0000

Editor’s note: Be sure to check back for the final installment of the ESP when the final AV Ranking (AVR) will be used to predict the bowl game outcomes. The previous week’s results can be found here: 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7 and 6.

The season ended with three undefeated teams but only two will be playing for the BCS National Championship in Glendale. TCU, once again, is on the outside looking in as Auburn and Oregon will meet January 10th to decide the 2010 season champion.

The top 10 teams in the final ESP rankings look very similar to the BCS with a few exceptions. Auburn, Oregon and TCU hold the top three spots in both but Stanford is 6th in the ESP and 4th in the BCS. Five of the remaining six teams—Wisconsin, Ohio State, Michigan State, Oklahoma, and Arkansas—round out the rest of the top 10 in both rankings. The only major disparity is with Boise State and LSU. The ESP has the Broncos at 7th, the BCS 11, while the BCS puts LSU at 10th and the ESP has the Tigers at 11th.

If there is one team who was left out of the mix for no good reason, it’s Michigan State. The Spartans had the same record as fellow Big Ten conference teams Wisconsin and Ohio State, beat the Badgers in the only head-to-head matchup, and were left out of the BCS despite the other two getting invites to the Rose and Sugar Bowls respectively.

The Irish finished the year ranked 26th in the AVR. Notre Dame played the toughest strength of schedule in the country, ranked 20th in quality wins/losses (QWL), 45th in adjusted win percentage (AWP), 49th in margin of victory (MOV), and 37th in team performance ratio (TPR). The relatively lofty TPR ranking is owed mostly to a defense that improved steadily over the course of the season to finish 16th in defensive TPR. The offense, on the other hand, regressed from 2009 to rank 69th in offensive TPR.

Elite Selection Playoff (ESP)

Rank	Team	AP Poll	Coaches Poll	AV Ranking	Points
1	Auburn	1	2	1	1
2	Oregon	2	1	2	0.986
3	TCU	3	3	4	0.918
4	Wisconsin	4	4	7	0.851
5	Ohio State	6	6	5	0.824
6	Stanford	5	5	8	0.81
7	Boise St	10	10	3	0.743
8	Michigan St	7	7	10	0.729
8	Oklahoma	9	9	6	0.729
10	Arkansas	8	8	9	0.716
11	LSU	11	12	14	0.554
12	Virginia Tech	12	11	15	0.54
13	Missouri	14	14	11	0.527
14	Oklahoma St	16	13	12	0.5
14	Nevada	13	15	13	0.5
16	Alabama	15	18	17	0.378
17	Nebraska	17	16	18	0.364
17	Texas A&M	18	17	16	0.364
19	South Carolina	19	20	19	0.27
20	Utah	20	19	20	0.256
21	West Virginia	22	21	22	0.175
22	Florida St	23	23	23	0.121
22	Mississippi St	21	22	27	0.121
24	Hawai`i	24	25	21	0.108
25	Central Florida	NR	24	25	0.04

AV Ranking (AVR)

Rank	Team	Points	Strength of Schedule	Quality Wins/Losses	Adjusted Win Percentage	Margin of Victory	Team Performance Ratio
1	Auburn	1	25	1	3	10	6
2	Oregon	0.924	102	12	1	3	4
3	Boise St	0.909	62	15	5	1	1
4	TCU	0.907	106	22	2	2	3
5	Ohio State	0.866	60	88	8	4	2
6	Oklahoma	0.865	5	5	10	17	15
7	Wisconsin	0.853	87	10	7	5	10
8	Stanford	0.844	86	88	5	6	5
9	Arkansas	0.843	17	4	14	19	12
10	Michigan St	0.842	72	14	8	25	18
11	Missouri	0.833	30	6	15	18	11
12	Oklahoma St	0.821	32	19	12	13	16
13	Nevada	0.816	113	9	4	7	26
14	LSU	0.813	19	11	15	27	21
15	Virginia Tech	0.796	75	29	10	12	8
16	Texas A&M	0.778	8	3	21	24	17
17	Alabama	0.77	40	7	21	8	7
18	Nebraska	0.76	58	2	19	15	23
19	South Carolina	0.733	6	13	27	30	13
20	Utah	0.726	96	88	12	16	51
21	Hawai`i	0.721	93	17	19	11	14
22	West Virginia	0.688	73	60	21	20	27
23	Florida St	0.678	37	65	27	21	25
24	Northern Illinois	0.661	117	88	17	9	19
25	Central Florida	0.656	115	88	17	14	44

Adjusted Win Percentage (AWP)

Rank	Team	Points
1	Oregon	1
2	TCU	0.991
3	Auburn	0.98
4	Nevada	0.912
5	Boise St	0.909
5	Stanford	0.909
7	Wisconsin	0.901
8	Michigan St	0.892
8	Ohio State	0.892
10	Oklahoma	0.828

Strength of Schedule (SOS)

Rank	Team	Points
1	Notre Dame	1
2	Oregon St	0.891
3	UNLV	0.886
4	Minnesota	0.842
5	Oklahoma	0.794
6	South Carolina	0.789
7	Iowa St	0.761
8	Texas A&M	0.76
9	Illinois	0.751
10	Cincinnati	0.75

Team Performance Ratio (TPR)

Rank	Team	Points
1	Boise St	1
2	Ohio State	0.932
3	TCU	0.913
4	Oregon	0.871
5	Stanford	0.869
6	Auburn	0.864
7	Alabama	0.853
8	Virginia Tech	0.852
9	Iowa	0.839
10	Wisconsin	0.834

Margin of Victory (MOV)

Rank	Team	Points
1	Boise St	1
2	TCU	0.981
3	Oregon	0.965
4	Ohio State	0.888
5	Wisconsin	0.836
6	Stanford	0.831
7	Nevada	0.827
8	Alabama	0.799
9	Northern Illinois	0.796
10	Auburn	0.787

Quality Wins/Losses (QWL)

Rank	Team	Points
1	Auburn	1
2	Nebraska	0.664
3	Texas A&M	0.613
4	Arkansas	0.57
5	Oklahoma	0.569
6	Missouri	0.56
7	Alabama	0.467
8	Iowa	0.457
9	Nevada	0.455
10	Wisconsin	0.42

Similar Posts:

2010 Elite Selection Playoff: Week Nine

2010 Elite Selection Playoff: Week Eleven

2010 Elite Selection Playoff: Week Twelve

This article is © 2007-2012 by De Veritate, LLC and was originally published at Clashmore Mike. This article may not be copied, distributed, or transmitted without attribution. Additionally, you may not use this article for commercial purposes or to generate derivative works without explicit written permission. Please contact us if you wish to license this content for your own use.

Statistically Speaking: Notre Dame vs. USC

Anthony Pilcher — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 02:28:24 +0000

The Irish stopped the Trojans eight-game win streak in dramatic fashion Saturday night. Robert Hughes five-yard touchdown run with 2:23 remaining capped off a physical, run-heavy drive that gave head coach Brian Kelly his second three-game win streak of the season.

Looking back this could certainly be a season of what if’s. What if quarterback Dayne Crist hadn’t been injured in the Michigan game? What if safety Harrison Smith hadn’t tripped on the overtime field goal against Michigan State? What if Kelly had kicked the field goal against Tulsa?

But that would diminish the accomplishments over the past four weeks. Sitting at 4-5 with the beatdown from Navy and the home loss to Tulsa fresh in the players’ minds, the Irish could have folded. They instead used the bye week to dig deep and have played some of their best football of the season over the last three games, particularly on defense.

Diving Into the Numbers

Per the norm, five tables—(1) miscellaneous/efficiency as well as (2) total, (3) rushing, (4) passing, and (5) drive offense/defense—with pertinent statistics for the game against the Trojans are shown below. This data is supplemented with more detailed numbers/analyses aimed at identifying the primary drivers for the performance in each category.

For a historical perspective and reference purposes, the following are links to the statistical recaps of the 2010 opponents: Michigan, Michigan State, Stanford, Boston College, Pittsburgh, Western Michigan, Navy, Tulsa, Utah and Army.

Miscellaneous/Efficiency

Red zone offense was really the deciding factor in this game. Penalties were lopsided in favor of the Irish. Situational defense was average, but third down play was still strong. Situational offense was the best all year but the efficiency was poor despite it.

Miscellaneous/Efficiency Statistics

	ND	USC
Penalties	1	8
Penalty yds	10	47
Avg yds per penalty	10	5.9
3rd downs	15	17
3rd down conv	5	4
3rd down efficiency	33.3	23.5
4th downs	0	3
4th down conv	0	2
4th down efficiency	--	66.7
Red zone appearances	3	3
Red zone scores	3	3
Red zone efficiency	100	100
Red zone TD	3	1
Red zone TD efficiency	100	33.3

When few points are scored and the outcome is decided by a narrow margin, capitalizing on red zone opportunities is critical to winning. Such was the case against the Trojans. Notre Dame scored a touchdown on all three red zone appearances while USC only managed one touchdown—a two-yard “drive” after quarterback Tommy Rees’ fumble—on their three appearances.

But, at least for the Irish defense, the strong red zone performance is nothing new. The Irish have only allowed a touchdown on 42.1 percent of opponent red zone appearances—good for 7th best in the country—and have allowed fewer than two red zone touchdowns in seven of 12 games.

Notre Dame has consistently been good in the penalty department—the Irish rank 9th in penalties per game and 22nd in penalty yards per game—but having only one infraction for 10 yards is an exceptional performance, particularly given the weather conditions. USC didn’t rack up a lot of penalty yards, but many of them put the Trojan offense behind the chains making execution difficult with a backup quarterback.

Defensive coordinator Bob Diaco’s troops played well on third down. USC entered the game converting over 45 percent of their third downs but only moved the chains on four of 17 (23.5 percent) opportunities against the Irish. And it wasn’t because of favorable situational characteristics.

The Trojans averaged 4.7 yards per first down play and five yards to go on third down, and faced three yards or more 64.7 percent of the time. Compared to the opponent season averages for Notre Dame (5.2, 6.8 and 67.5 respectively), these values are right on par. The Irish just played sound football on third down, particularly against the pass. USC head coach Lane Kiffin called a pass on nine of 17 third downs and only one was good for a first down.

For the offense, the situational play was some of the worst all year. The Irish faced an average of 4.7 yards to go on third down—a season-low mark—and needed more than three yards to move the chains on only 46.7 percent of third downs—another season-low mark. Yet, despite these favorable down and distances, Rees and company moved the chains on only a third of their opportunities.

Total Offense/Defense

It wasn’t the worst offensive performance of the year, but it wasn’t far off either. The Irish were able to overcome (points off) turnovers for the first time this season. The strong defensive play of the past three outings continues.

Total Statistics

	ND	USC
Plays	66	68
Yds	296	261
Avg/play	4.5	3.8
1st downs	15	12
TD	3	1
FG	--	3
Pts	20	16
Turnovers	4	1
Negative plays	4	2
Negative play yds	-16	-4
Big plays	3	1
Big play yds	76	34
Big play avg	25.3	34
Big play yds %	25.7	13
Avg excluding big plays	3.5	3.4
TOP	27:58	31:20

The efficient offense on display against the Utes and explosive unit from the outing against the Black Knights was nowhere to be found.

No matter how you slice it, virtually every offensive category is at or near a season-worst value. The 296 yards of total offense is second only to Utah. The 4.5 yards per play is behind only Boston College. The 15 first downs ties for the second fewest. And the three explosive plays and 76 big play yards are third-lowest of the year.

The biggest problem for the offense was turnovers. The Irish had 14 possessions, four of which ended in a fumble or interception. Not only did these giveaways kill drives before they could get started, all four turnovers came before a single first down was generated and resulted in all 16 USC points.

Of course, this is nothing new for an Irish team that ranks 73rd in turnover margin. Notre Dame is +5 in turnover margin in seven wins and -8 in five losses. But more telling are the points off turnovers. The turnover story for the seven wins and losses (turnovers/average resulting field position/points off turnovers):

Wins—10/Notre Dame 46-yard line/25
Losses—14/Opponent 48-yard line/44

The points off turnovers stand out as the largest factors but takeaways also help tell the story. The Irish defense forced 15 turnovers in their seven wins and only six in their five losses. The number of turnovers and average resulting field position appear to be similar in the wins and losses but the contest against USC heavily skews the results.

Excluding the game against the Trojans the breakdown looks decidedly different:

Wins—6/Opponent 39-yard line/9
Losses—14/Opponent 48-yard line/44

To be certain, this was the first time all year the Irish were able to overcome turnovers and the points opposing teams generated from them, and the play on the other side of the ball was a big reason for it.

Defensively, Diaco’s unit continued the strong play from the previous three games. A breakdown of USC’s offensive output (season per-game averages/rank entering the weekend in parentheses):

Pts—16 (32.6/20)
Touchdowns—1 (4.4/22)
Yds—261 (443.1/21)
1st downs—12 (24.5/12)
Yds/play—3.8 (6.1/33)

The Irish held USC to roughly 50 percent of their average output in these categories.

But more impressive is the performance over the past four games. Since being dissected by Navy Notre Dame ranks 7th in points per game, 11th in yards per game, 10th in yards per play, and 4th in first downs per game. That’s at least a top 10 defense going against offenses with average rankings of 30, 41, 42 and 43 in those categories. In other words, the strong defensive play isn’t because of weak offensive competition.

One of the primary reasons for the improvement is limiting big plays. The defense struggled to minimize big plays in the early going, particularly against Michigan and Michigan State, as seven of the first 10 touchdowns came via explosive gains. Since then, and particularly over the past three/four games, the defense has improved dramatically defending big plays.

A comparison of the per-game big play production in the first eight games to the last four (big plays/big play yards/big play touchdowns):

First eight games—4.6/136.4/1.3
Last four games—3.5/84.8/0

And the performance has been even stronger if Tulsa is excluded. Against Utah, Army and USC the Irish have only allowed only 2.3 explosive gains and 54.7 big play yards per game.

Rushing Offense/Defense

The ground attack that came alive against Utah continues to produce. The Irish defense did to the USC running game what it did to Army.

Rushing Statistics

	ND	USC
Att	32	29
Yds	147	74
Avg/att	4.6	2.6
1st downs	8	4
TD	1	1
Fumbles lost	1	0
Negative runs	3	2
Negative run yds	-13	-4
Big runs	2	0
Big run yds	54	0
Big run avg	27	--
Big run yds %	36.7	--
Avg excluding big runs	3.1	--

The last three games have been some of the most efficient for the Irish running game. Notre Dame has averaged 33 attempts, 143 yards, and 4.3 yards per carry over this three-game span, compared to season averages of 30.5, 120.8, and 4. The production may not seem overly impressive, but it has come despite some of the most run-heavy play-calling this season.

Kelly was fairly balanced against USC (run/pass split of 48.5/51.5), but has been decidedly in favor of the run over the last three outings. The Irish play-caller has dialed up a run on 57.2 percent of plays in the last four games compared to throwing the ball on 67.3 percent of snaps in the other nine contests.

Hughes and Cierre Wood have been particularly impressive in the aforementioned three-game span. The two Irish backs have combined for 72 carries, 377 yards (5.2 yards per carry), and 16 first downs.

On the other side of the ball, the run defense has been extremely stout the past four games. Notre Dame has allowed just over 95 rushing yards per game and 2.8 yards per carry against teams that average 200 yards and 4.8 yards per attempt. USC was no exception.

A comparison of the Trojan ground production (season average entering Saturday (rank)/season low entering Saturday/production against the Irish):

Yds—192.4 (26)/108/74
Yds/att—5.2 (18)/3.1/2.6
1st downs—10.6 (21)/5/4

Just like they did against Army, the Irish established new season-lows in every category against a strong running team.

Passing Offense/Defense

Not much going on for either offense through the air.

Passing Statistics

	ND	USC
Att	34	39
Comp	20	22
Yds	149	187
Comp %	58.8	56.4
Avg/att	4.4	4.8
Avg/comp	7.5	8.5
1st downs	7	8
TD	2	0
Int	3	1
Pass eff	97.4	91.6
Big passes	1	1
Big pass yds	22	34
Big pass avg	22	34
Big pass yds %	14.8	18.2
Avg/att excluding big passes	3.8	4
Avg/comp excluding big passes	6.7	7.3
Sacks allowed	1	0

While the running game produced against a very athletic Trojan front, the Irish didn’t fare as well through the air.

In many ways the performance was puzzling. Rees wasn’t frequently pressured, had performed well in his previous two outings against Utah and Army, and was facing a defense that ranked 114th in passing yards per game, 88th in yards per pass attempt, and 95th in pass efficiency entering the weekend.

But Notre Dame posted, by far, their lowest pass efficiency and yard per attempt and completion values of the season, and only recorded one passing gain in excess of 20 yards for only the second time all year. The last of these seems to be the culprit for the overall production but the per-attempt and completion averages excluding big plays were nearly season-low values and well below the season average.

Perhaps even more telling was the hit/miss aspect of Rees’ performance. In the final two touchdown scoring drives of the first half Rees was 11 of 15 (73.3 percent) for 87 yards (5.8 yards per attempt, 7.9 yards per completion). The per-attempt and completion averages won’t blow anyone away, but they are much higher than the overall game values.

Without starting quarterback Matt Barkley, not much was expected from a Trojan passing offense that entered the game ranked 35th in the country at 35.1 pass attempts per game. But that doesn’t mean the Irish defense wasn’t tested through the air.

Kiffin didn’t dial his game plan back much for Barkley’s replacement, as Mitch Mustain threw the ball 39 times with minimal reward. Mustain managed to complete only 56.4 percent of his throws for only 187 yards, 4.8 yards per attempt, and 8.5 yards per completion, the lowest values allowed by the Irish defense since the season opener against Purdue.

Drive Offense/Defense

As was the case for most of the year for the Irish offense, only a few drives were really rolling…but one of those was the final scoring drive that was a thing of beauty. As for the defense, USC didn’t do much even with a short field.

Drive Statistics*

	ND	USC
Drives	14	14
Avg field pos	ND19	USC46
Avg TOP per drive	1:59	2:14
3 and out's	4	3
3 and out's %	28.6	21.4
Avg plays per drive	4.7	4.9
Avg 1st downs per drive	1.1	0.9
Avg yds per drive	21.1	18.6
Yds available	1131	762
Yds gained	296	231
Yds gained %	26.2	30.3

* Values only include meaningful possessions.

Notre Dame faced their worst starting field position of the year—their own 19-yard line—11 yards behind their average starting field position. The result? The lowest percentage of yards gained all season.

Three drives were successful ones that eclipsed six plays and 60 yards while 11 drives resulted in one fumble, three interceptions, six punts, and four three and outs. The biggest difference between these two sets of drives was the success of the ground game and explosive plays.

The production breakdown for these two sets of drives:

Successful—30 plays, 218 yards, 7.3 yards per snap, 8.9 yards per rush attempt, 3 explosive gains for 76 yards, 12.6 yards per first down rush, 13 first downs, 100 percent of available yards gained
Unsuccessful—36 plays, 78 yards, 2.2 yards per snap, 2 yards per rush attempt, 0 explosive gains, 2.3 yards per first down rush, 2 first downs, 8.5 percent of available yards gained

The run/pass split of the two drive sets wasn’t demonstrably different (43.3/56.7 for successful possessions, 50/50 for unsuccessful ones) and the completion percentage wasn’t dramatically different either (56.7 for successful, 50 for unsuccessful). But the production on the ground—particularly on first down—really determined which drives ended in touchdowns.

And this was no more true than on the final scoring drive, one that will be remembered for a long time. The Irish took 3:55 off the clock by marching 77 yards in only seven plays with play-calling that even the most devoted pass-happy offensive mind would love:

Pass, Floyd, gain of 11
Run, Wood, gain of 26
Run, Hughes, gain of 6
Run, Hughes, gain of 12
Run, Hughes, gain of 13
Pass, Floyd, gain of 4
Run, Hughes, gain of 5, touchdown

That’s five runs for 62 yards—good for a whopping 12.4 yards per carry. When the Irish needed it most, their front five came alive and senior Robert Hughes bulled his way into the end zone. A fitting reversal after the Trojans owned the trenches in each of the last four meetings.

On the other side of the ball USC’s four scoring “drives” looked like this: 19 plays, 43 yards, 2.3 yards per play, and two first downs. If USC didn’t start these four possessions with average field position at the Irish 23-yard line (and with none outside Notre Dame’s 28-yard line), it’s unlikely they would have scored at all.

Recapping the Game

The Irish played far from a perfect game. The offensive performance was one of the worst all year, Rees looked like the true freshman quarterback he is, the four turnovers proved extremely costly, and special teams were far from great—the missed extra point was bad but the Irish also lost 14 yards in field position via exchanged punts and 13 yards via kickoffs.

But that just speaks to how well the defense played. The four USC scoring drives started on an extremely short field but only averaged 10.8 yards and generated 16 points.

In other words, for the first time all year, Notre Dame was able to overcome self-inflicted mistakes, catch a few breaks, and pull out a win. And after all that has happened this season, it was nice to see some luck for the lads in blue and gold.

The common theme of the past three wins has been a relatively productive and mostly efficient running game paired with stout defensive play. The lines on both sides of the ball are playing their best football of the season and the team is undoubtedly more mentally and physically tough than they were earlier in the year.

Moreover, the Irish are certainly a better team in November than when they started the season, even playing with a true freshman quarterback and without a host of critical personnel. To his credit, Kelly stuck with his plan, stayed consistent in his approach, and developed his team into a hardworking, tough unit. They are far from an elite squad, but this group could have easily folded after Navy and Tulsa. Instead, they ripped off three wins to become bowl eligible and end the year with a healthy amount of momentum.

Similar Posts:

Statistically Speaking: Notre Dame vs. Western Michigan

Statistically Speaking: Notre Dame vs. Michigan State

Statistically Speaking: Notre Dame vs. Michigan

This article is © 2007-2012 by De Veritate, LLC and was originally published at Clashmore Mike. This article may not be copied, distributed, or transmitted without attribution. Additionally, you may not use this article for commercial purposes or to generate derivative works without explicit written permission. Please contact us if you wish to license this content for your own use.

2010 Elite Selection Playoff: Week Thirteen

Anthony Pilcher — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 05:32:28 +0000

There was some shuffling atop the polls and the AVR this week as three teams—Boise State, LSU, and Oklahoma State —in last week’s ESP top 10 lost.

The Broncos fell one spot in the AVR but fell more sharply in both the AP and Coaches Polls dropping five spots in the former and seven in the latter. LSU dropped from 6th to 13th in the AVR, from 5th to 11th in the AP, and from 6th to 12th in the Coaches Poll. Oklahoma State fell five spots in the AVR and Coaches Poll and seven in the AP Poll.

Oregon moved up two spots in the AVR with their convincing win over Arizona and jumped Auburn for the top spot in the ESP. The Ducks sit atop both pools and are second in the AVR while the Tigers are 1st in the AVR and second in the polls.

TCU, the only other undefeated team, is in third place in the ESP and in both polls but 0.001 behind Boise State in the AVR mostly due to the 101st most difficult strength of schedule. The margin between the Ducks and Tigers (0.014) is far less than that between the Horned Frogs and Tigers (0.068) suggesting that TCU would need quite a bit of help to get into the BCS National Championship game. Since the Horned Frogs have no more remaining regular season games, it will require an Oregon loss to Oregon State or Auburn losing to South Carolina in the SEC Championship for TCU to have a shot playing for the championship.

The victory over the Trojans nearly pushed the Irish into the top 25 of the AVR. Notre Dame moved up for the third consecutive week, this time from 37th to 28th. The Irish retained their first place strength of schedule ranking, dropped two spots down to 21st in quality wins/losses (QWL), moved up seven spots to 47th in adjusted win percentage (AWP), rose two spots in margin of victory (MOV) to 48th, and dropped two spots in team performance ratio (TPR) down to 41st. The defense continues to rise in the TPR, now ranked 16th in the country, while the offense fell from 68th to 71st with the lackluster performance against USC.

Elite Selection Playoff (ESP)

Rank	Team	AP Poll	Coaches Poll	AV Ranking	Points
1	Oregon	1	1	2	1
2	Auburn	2	2	1	0.986
3	TCU	3	3	4	0.918
4	Wisconsin	4	4	6	0.864
5	Ohio State	6	6	5	0.824
6	Stanford	5	5	10	0.783
7	Boise St	9	10	3	0.756
8	Michigan St	7	7	9	0.743
8	Arkansas	8	8	7	0.743
10	Oklahoma	10	9	8	0.689
11	LSU	11	12	13	0.567
12	Missouri	15	14	11	0.513
13	Virginia Tech	12	11	18	0.5
13	Nebraska	13	13	15	0.5
15	Oklahoma St	16	15	12	0.472
16	Nevada	14	17	14	0.445
17	Alabama	17	19	17	0.337
17	Texas A&M	19	18	16	0.337
17	South Carolina	18	16	19	0.337
20	Utah	21	21	20	0.216
20	Florida St	20	20	22	0.216
22	Mississippi St	22	22	25	0.121
23	Northern Illinois	24	23	23	0.108
24	West Virginia	23	24	24	0.094
25	Hawai`i	25	NR	21	0.081

AV Ranking (AVR)

Rank	Team	Points	Strength of Schedule	Quality Wins/Losses	Adjusted Win Percentage	Margin of Victory	Team Performance Ratio
1	Auburn	1	35	1	3	13	8
2	Oregon	0.925	103	11	1	3	5
3	Boise St	0.914	55	16	5	2	1
4	TCU	0.914	101	29	2	1	3
5	Ohio State	0.871	56	83	8	4	2
6	Wisconsin	0.861	91	10	6	5	7
7	Arkansas	0.856	17	4	13	19	13
8	Oklahoma	0.853	7	8	13	17	16
9	Michigan St	0.853	69	12	8	26	19
10	Stanford	0.85	87	83	4	6	4
11	Missouri	0.841	24	5	17	18	12
12	Oklahoma St	0.829	31	19	10	10	15
13	LSU	0.813	23	14	17	28	25
14	Nevada	0.81	113	9	6	7	26
15	Nebraska	0.801	78	3	13	11	17
16	Texas A&M	0.791	5	2	21	25	21
17	Alabama	0.781	34	7	21	9	6
18	Virginia Tech	0.773	86	42	13	12	10
19	South Carolina	0.763	27	18	21	21	11
20	Utah	0.725	97	83	10	15	52
21	Hawai`i	0.717	83	17	20	16	14
22	Florida St	0.711	53	83	21	20	22
23	Northern Illinois	0.703	119	83	10	7	18
24	West Virginia	0.683	71	58	26	24	27
25	Mississippi St	0.651	47	24	31	43	28

Adjusted Win Percentage (AWP)

Rank	Team	Points
1	Oregon	1
2	TCU	0.996
3	Auburn	0.987
4	Stanford	0.912
5	Boise St	0.908
6	Nevada	0.904
6	Wisconsin	0.904
8	Michigan St	0.895
8	Ohio State	0.895
10	Oklahoma St	0.829

Strength of Schedule (SOS)

Rank	Team	Points
1	Notre Dame	1
2	Washington	0.88
3	Minnesota	0.863
4	UNLV	0.841
5	Texas A&M	0.804
6	Iowa St	0.801
7	Oklahoma	0.787
8	Oregon St	0.787
9	Illinois	0.753
10	Washington St	0.752

Team Performance Ratio (TPR)

Rank	Team	Points
1	Boise St	1
2	Ohio State	0.936
3	TCU	0.923
4	Stanford	0.887
5	Oregon	0.874
6	Alabama	0.866
7	Wisconsin	0.855
8	Auburn	0.852
9	Iowa	0.851
10	Virginia Tech	0.826

Margin of Victory (MOV)

Rank	Team	Points
1	TCU	1
2	Boise St	0.969
3	Oregon	0.959
4	Ohio State	0.903
5	Wisconsin	0.849
6	Stanford	0.843
7	Nevada	0.814
7	Northern Illinois	0.814
9	Alabama	0.81
10	Oklahoma St	0.755

Quality Wins/Losses (QWL)

Rank	Team	Points
1	Auburn	1
2	Texas A&M	0.719
3	Nebraska	0.689
4	Arkansas	0.686
5	Missouri	0.59
6	Iowa	0.545
7	Alabama	0.537
8	Oklahoma	0.532
9	Nevada	0.51
10	Wisconsin	0.477

Similar Posts:

2010 Elite Selection Playoff: Week Eight

2010 Elite Selection Playoff: Week Twelve

2010 Elite Selection Playoff: Final Rankings

This article is © 2007-2012 by De Veritate, LLC and was originally published at Clashmore Mike. This article may not be copied, distributed, or transmitted without attribution. Additionally, you may not use this article for commercial purposes or to generate derivative works without explicit written permission. Please contact us if you wish to license this content for your own use.