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 […]

Part 2 of this series of articles will cover the effects of scheduling and the benefit that playing home games have on a program, and how these areas have affected Notre Dame. While Part 1 focused on the player impact on a program, recruiting and development—something the coach and his staff have greater control over—this […]

Notre Dame opens the 2009 season Saturday by welcoming Nevada to South Bend. For many this is the “make it or break it” year for head coach Charlie Weis. Two consecutive disappointing campaigns have exhausted all the leniency from the overachieving Irish squads of his first two years. Weis made several changes in the off-season: […]

Notre Dame’s season opener against Nevada is right around the corner and a seemingly eternal off-season can’t end soon enough. Fans seem tired of attempting to produce logical explanations for the last two years: a disastrous 2007 season and an underachieving 2008 campaign. Head coach Charlie Weis’ said it best at Notre Dame’s media day, […]

The beginning of Fall practice marks the end of a long off-season for Notre Dame football. After limping through the second half of the 2008 campaign, questions surfaced about head coach Charlie Weis’ job security. Despite this, the Irish coaching staff hauled in a solid—albeit not great—recruiting class, and subsequently underwent several coaching changes. If […]

Notre Dame has concluded their regular season, and a reflection on the Irish offense’s progress (or lack thereof) is warranted. The mid-year numbers are here, and this analysis was performed in similar fashion by benchmarking against the competition. Facing the 73rd toughest AV Ranking strength of schedule, the Irish only managed to go 6-6. But […]

Disclaimer: the following is not intended for betting purposes. As promised here and here, this week the AV ranking will be used to predict the Big 12, ACC, and SEC conference championship games. Forgetting for the moment that the AV Ranking would have put Texas in the Big 12 championship over Oklahoma, these conference championship […]

pro⋅gres⋅sion Pronunciation [pruh–gresh–uhn] – noun 1.    the act of progressing; forward or onward movement. 2.    a passing successively from one member of a series to the next; succession; sequence. Progression—in football, it’s used to describe two things. First, it’s used to describe the mental and physical process a quarterback goes through on a passing play […]

For the third time this season, and second at home, the Fighting Irish squandered a double-digit lead to lose the game. The first two times this occurred against average competition. Against Syracuse, Notre Dame’s implosion took place against an obviously less talented opponent at home on senior day. Make no mistake about it, Syracuse isn’t […]

The Irish welcome Syracuse to South Bend for their home finale this weekend. The Orange come in as a decided underdog against an Irish squad that hasn’t met many fans’ expectations this season. The Orange are anything but stellar themselves. Syracuse averages fewer than 300 yards of total offense per game, with 133.4 coming through […]