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 […]

The Irish seek their first winning streak of the season in a home game against the Pittsburgh Panthers Saturday. Both teams enter the contest coming off a win but neither are living up to the pre-season hype—Pittsburgh started the year ranked 15th while many Notre Dame fans anticipated a nine-win season. Pitt is a familiar […]

Another week, another close, tough loss for the Irish. Michigan State head coach Mark Dantonio improved to 3-1 against Notre Dame, and the Spartans have won 10 of the last 14 in the series. If it feels like these close, late-game losses are a trend, it’s because they are. Since opening the 2008 season Notre […]

Notre Dame travels to East Lansing Saturday to face their third consecutive Big Ten opponent and annual foe Michigan State. The Irish are coming off a tough loss to Michigan, the second in which a young Wolverine quarterback was the nail in the coffin. It will be imperative for Notre Dame to avoid a hangover, […]

Part 3 of this series of articles will cover the effects that performance in close games and game day management, preparation, and execution have on a program, and how these areas have affected Notre Dame. Part 2 focused on scheduling and the benefit that playing home games while Part 1 focused on recruiting and player […]

I originally came up with the idea of creating “five-year profiles” because I wanted to evaluate the entire Charlie Weis period at Notre Dame on a scale relative to the rest of college football. The thought was that if we could create a snapshot of what the last five seasons (2005-2009) looked like at ND […]

Christmas came early this year in South Bend. Notre Dame squeezed out a victory at the expense of the visiting Spartans Saturday, a game Michigan State had ample opportunity to win. To be certain, the Irish did not win the game as much as Michigan State lost it. All of the strategic coaching decisions favored […]

Notre Dame returns home Saturday to meet Michigan State for its third game of the season. Both teams enter the contest at 1-1 and coming off tough losses. Last week the Irish lost a heartbreaker in the Big House as freshman quarterback Tate Forcier exposed a porous Irish defense. The Spartans, on the other hand, […]