On Notre Dame: A lot has been said lately about the need to focus on improving the running game drastically this offseason. Some have even said to the point of 200 yards per game and above. I don't necessarily think that's true. Let’s look at every season going back to 1995 (excluding 1998 because weirdly UND doesn’t have cumulative season stats for that year); a time spanning Weis, Ty, Davie, and the last two seasons of Lou. Four coaches, four coaching styles (for better or worse), and over a decade of football. By looking at yards per game, and a net win count (Wins-Losses, ties count for a half a loss), one number seems to arise as a Maginot Line of sorts for a successful season – at least offensively.
400 yards. It doesn’t necessarily matter how you get there, but reaching 400 yards or more per game has resulted in a significantly better net win count than under 400 yards. Admittedly, there are two clear exceptions to this rule in Ty’s “smoke and mirrors” first season in 2002 and Matt LoVecchio’s starting season in 2000.
Lou did it by rushing over 200 yards per game in ’95 and ’96. Ten years later, Weis passed significantly more, but still got around there this first two seasons (with, somewhat fittingly, a disappointing 2006 season coming in just under 400 ypg)
What does it all mean? Don’t expect 200 yards rushing per game. Weis doesn’t need to get 200 yards per game under his system and honestly it would be a crime to not utilize the talent in our starting 3 wide receivers – two potential All-Americans in Tate and Floyd and what will be a highly contested 3rd spot this season by talented but unproven players. At running back, simply a load of talented unproven players.
Do, however, hold Weis and this ’09 team to a standard of reaching at least 4.0 yards per carry. Taking last season’s stats and subbing the dismal 3.2 yards per carry out with a respectable but far from great 4 yards per carry puts the team at about 135 rushing yards per game and – more importantly – 380 total yards per game, or about two more screen passes per game from 400. 4 YPC is not some insurmountable number to achieve in one offseason, it is a baseline. Also, I fully expect the passing game to continue to improve as it’s players age.
The quick version: Based off previous years, a 400 YPG offense combined with even an average Notre Dame defense will generally result in 9-10 wins. This can be achieved simply by a marginal increase in passing productivity and – more significantly – averaging at least 4 YPC. While an historically bad schedule may allow some leniency in these numbers, that is counteracted by the generally held assumption (on NDN at least) that 9 wins just won’t cut it.
4 comments:
I really wish they would join a conference.
Only you would turn football into graphs and math problems... You really are a character in Big Bang Theory... haha
Word Verification:Cousnu
-at least it looks like it could actually be a word.
It seems intuitive that you would actually need more passing yards due two facts:
1. Passing stops the clock more, so you need to be more successful at passing because you're using less of the clock.
2. Passing turnovers (int's) seem to result in more frequent big returns than rushing turnovers (fumbles).
Any stats on whether this theory plays out on the big scale?
wv: flataly - an Italian's statement of finality on a topic
Two main reasons why I focused on the need for more rushing yards/game:
1.) The rushing portion of the offense has been downright terrible for the past two years (and not great in Weis's two years prior to that even), while the passing game has ranged from bad (07)to best in the nation ('05). So I figure, work on the thing that is the most consistently crappy, thus the most room for improvement.
2.) Being able to establish a respectable rush gives an offense the ability to control the clock. Also, literally the entire "passing game" will be back next year, and still be juniors at the oldest. Plenty of time for improvement from experience.
Also, it's kind of hard to see this on a "big scale" in college football with all the various schemes. Navy's option offense won't have near the same stat's as Florida's spread. That said, it does seem like the USC's and Florida's of the world commonly average higher than 400 ypg and have a near 50/50 split of rushing:passing, at least on a yardage scale.
Florida without Tebow though, that will be interesting to see....
-----
And I'm fine with the independent status. I also know that there is probably absolutely nothing I can say that will change your opinion, so agree to disagree. The GOOD news is that I don't get too worked up about stuff like that anymore, so you aren't going to take any years off my life saying that as you may have a few years ago :)
-----
And yes, that show slightly creeps me out and I don't exactly find the funny parts funny... more just awkward haha
Post a Comment