How Good Are the Irish? A Mid-Year Offensive Statistical Review

At first glance the Irish offense seems dramatically improved from a unit that spent last year near the bottom of the country in every meaningful statistical category. A closer look at the numbers, however, reveals a different story.

For example, through six games the Irish stand at 4-2, a far cry from the 1-5 record they held midway through the 2007 campaign. But the competition is at least partially culpable for the improvement in the win column.

The first six games of the 2007 season were against teams that finished the year with an average rank of 41.2 in the AV Ranking. Notre Dame went on to finish the year with the sixth toughest AV Ranking strength of schedule.

Fast forward to 2008 where the first six Irish opponents have an average AV Ranking of 65.3 and a strength of schedule that is only 80th best in the nation. Additionally, Notre Dame’s four wins have come against opponents outside of the AV Ranking top 50 while the two Irish losses have come to teams ranked 30 or better.

This illustrates the importance of appropriately measuring a team’s performance on the field.

In other words, when comparing statistics in football it is imperative to properly benchmark the numbers. Many times a team may exceed in one area only because their opponents are weak on the opposite side of the ball. While numbers can sometimes be skewed by game circumstances, over the course of the year these biases typically wash out.

What follows is a statistical review of Notre Dame’s offense through the first six games of the season. All statistics have been taken from the official Notre Dame football website and/or the official NCAA statistics website. All numbers are current as of 10-20-2008.

Due to issues embedding the tables the rest of the article can be viewed here.