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 2009 Irish offense has been dissected, detailed and summarized. Now it’s time to turn to the other side of the ball. Many (myself included) believed Notre Dame’s 2009 defense would be a large step forward from a 2008 unit that was below average. The Irish returned a host of starters, an off-season coaching responsibility […]

With all of the recent and dramatic change in the Irish football program, the 2009 season seems to be mostly forgotten. There is no bowl game. Sensational quarterback Jimmy Clausen and unanimous All-American and Biletnikoff Award-winning wide receiver Golden Tate have left for the NFL. And Notre Dame head coach Charlie Weis has been replaced […]

The 2009 regular season finale for the Fighting Irish will take place in Palo Alto Saturday. Notre Dame faces a much-improved Stanford team and is trying to avoid a four-game losing streak to close out the season. Doing so will be no small task. This game once looked to be the final hurdle to an […]

With the offensive analysis out of the way, it’s time to focus on the mid-year statistical review of Notre Dame’s defense. But before getting to the numbers some logistical details must be outlined. As was the case with the offense, the individual game performances (Nevada, Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue and Washington) tell part of the […]

Bye weeks are good for many things. For head coach Charlie Weis this week was an opportunity to rest key personnel with injuries, self-scout the first five games, and get the reserves meaningful practice repetitions. For fans it is a chance to reflect on (and potentially readjust) their season expectations and, this year, to get […]

At Clashmore Mike we strive to monitor the college football landscape as a whole, objectively and without bias. While we have a vested interest in Notre Dame, we attempt to view the performance of the Irish via appropriate statistical metrics that benchmark on-field production (irrespective of how said production is measured). One such example is […]