It’s been 21 seasons since Notre Dame last won the national championship, and college football has certainly evolved during that time. The Associated and United Press Championships have been replaced by the Bowl Championship Series (BCS). Recruiting has changed focus to the talent hotbeds of California, Florida and Texas. Two tight end, I-backfields have been […]

The stat gurus at Football Outsiders have released the most recent edition of their off-season annual—Football Outsiders Almanac 2010—complete with an introductory explanation of some new and innovative statistics, 2010 projections for every college football team in the Football Bowl Subdivision, quarterback and recruiting rankings, and a brief history of conference realignment. In conjunction with […]

The Pythagorean expectation—brought into the sports vernacular by baseball statistician Bill James—in its most simplest form is a tool used to describe how “lucky” a baseball team was in a given season. By comparing runs scored versus runs allowed, James was able to derive a relationship between winning and scoring margin, and thus could show […]

While the defense may be a bigger problem, one of the primary concerns for many Irish fans is the spread passing offense of new head coach Brian Kelly. Kelly makes no secret of his offensive goal, he wants to be aggressive and vertical, scoring on every possession. As such, he favors the pass over the […]

Disclaimer: The following is not intended for betting purposes. Similar to last year, the final AV Ranking values (see the values in the table below) will be used to predict the BCS bowl game winners against the spread. The BCS games are as follows: Rose Bowl presented by Citi: Ohio State vs. Oregon Tostitos Fiesta […]

Notre Dame head coach Charlie Weis’ failure was evident long ago. His lack of experience with the college game and as a head coach made him unable to anticipate future problems and incapable of implementing changes to correct them. His list of shortcomings is long and condemning, but painfully reiterating what the on-field product clearly […]

If the ESP determined the National Championship Game participants, it would be all but a done deal. Unless Texas loses to Nebraska in the Big 12 Championship, they will face the winner of the SEC Championship game which pits Alabama and Florida for the second consecutive year. TCU and Boise State have had great runs, […]

The national title picture is becoming more and more clear. Unless something dramatically changes, it will be Texas against the winner of the SEC in the national championship game. The ESP has Alabama number one and Florida number two, while the BCS has the two teams in reverse order. This disparity is largely due to […]

There was quite a bit of shuffling at the top of the ESP this week (as always a comparison to the BCS is here). Florida dropped a spot after a rather unconvincing win over South Carolina while Alabama jumped two spots to take over at the top. Texas remained number two with TCU, Cincinnati, Boise […]

Iowa’s loss to Northwestern dropped them out of the top five in the ESP while the other top teams largely remained the same. Florida or Alabama have to lose at least one game, but—with few exceptions—the remaining top five teams have favorable schedules for the remainder of the year. For comparison purposes the BCS results […]