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 the AV Ranking. Rather than rely on Jeff Sagarin, Anderson …

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, it’s time to stop talking and start showing it on …

“‘Right now, you’re a six and five football team. And guess what, that’s just not good enough. It’s not good enough for you and it’s certainly not going to be good enough for me.” —Charlie Weis

Those words echoed a feeling of hope that the future for the Notre Dame football team was bright and it brought temporary ease to the gruesome year that the …

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 the Hawaii Bowl is any indication, the offensive woes of …

Now that the voting is over, it’s time to present the results.

First, thanks to all who participated. At the time of this analysis better than 200 people cast votes. For each game on Notre Dame’s 2009 schedule voters were asked to select their confidence in a win. Predicting the outcome of the 2009 season via the win confidence of each game is much more …

Expectations for Notre Dame’s 2008 season were high. The majority of the offense returned and the Irish faced a pedestrian schedule. But after the two consecutive disappointing offensive seasons, many are grasping for answers. A 3-9 campaign followed by an underwhelming 7-5 season can cause even the most ardent fan to forget about quarterback Brady Quinn and the promising offense head coach Charlie Weis led …

Whether you saw the Blue-Gold game live or followed along with the reviews, the Irish have had a relatively eventful off-season. A solid recruiting class headlined by defensive stalwart Manti Te’o preceded three coaching changes. Rumors emerged from Spring practice sessions highlighting quarterback Jimmy Clausen’s continued development, defensive lineman Ethan Johnson domination of one-on-one drills and strong play from a deep secondary. Even the 2010 …

With the Blue-Gold game over and the football team taking time-off until June, the staff of Clashmore Mike sat down to determine several key players in this year’s team. Some are needed for the Irish to have a great season. Others have been named as players to watch and are expected to put up record numbers for the team or to emerge as high-profile players. …

The 2009 Blue-Gold Game at Notre Dame Stadium threatened to turn into a snooze-fest for the fans and it appeared, for a significant number of those in attendance, that this ended up being the case. As numerous publications and pundits cautioned before the game, it can be futile to infer too much about the status of a team following a spring scrimmage, but surely there …

“…the day to day consistency. We’ll flash that we know how to do it at times and then we’ll not do it another time. So the consistency of doing it over and over are things you harp on.” – Frank Verducci

If you’ve read my previous article, you’ll notice that, at times, I love playing devil’s advocate. I wrote that article as much for other …