Welcome to 2024.
In years past I would publish a yards per play prediction for each Notre Dame season. Turns out, I forgot to do this for the 2022 and 2023 seasons. Heading into the 2021 season I predicted the team would finish with a +1.07 YPP differential and they would ultimately finish with a +0.87 differential. Not bad. I would’ve been much closer except Oklahoma State dropped 368 yards in the 2nd half of the Fiesta Bowl in another soul crushing big game loss in Fighting Irish history.
Of course, I’m always paying attention to the YPP average throughout the season. Notre Dame started out hot in 2023, cooled off a bit, then finished strong. Nevertheless, where this very traditional old-school stat finished in the modern history of Fighting Irish football is hard to believe.
Top 12 YPP Differential at Notre Dame Since 1964
| YEAR | OFF YPP | DEF YPP | DIFF | RECORD |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1966 | 5.5 | 2.9 | +2.6 | 9-0-1 |
| 2023 | 6.9 | 4.4 | +2.5 | 10-3 |
| 1973 | 5.7 | 3.3 | +2.4 | 11-0 |
| 1996 | 6.2 | 4.1 | +2.1 | 8-3 |
| 1974 | 5.2 | 3.1 | +2.1 | 10-2 |
| 1970 | 5.4 | 3.5 | +1.9 | 10-1 |
| 1967 | 5.0 | 3.1 | +1.9 | 8-2 |
| 1964 | 5.7 | 3.8 | +1.9 | 9-1 |
| 1992 | 6.4 | 4.6 | +1.8 | 10-1-1 |
| 1977 | 5.3 | 3.5 | +1.8 | 11-1 |
| 1993 | 6.3 | 4.6 | +1.7 | 11-1 |
| 1972 | 5.5 | 3.8 | +1.7 | 8-3 |
Notre Dame nearly broke the school record for yards per play differential and yet lost 3 games. What happened? Here are the individual games listed from worst to best with wins in blue and losses in red:
-0.64 Louisville game #7
-0.15 Ohio State game #5
+0.96 USC game #8
+1.20 Duke game #6
+1.26 Clemson game #10
+2.51 Oregon State game #13
+2.96 Wake Forest game #11
+3.07 NC State game #3
+3.23 Pittsburgh game #9
+3.35 Stanford game #12
+3.93 Central Michigan game #4
+4.72 Navy game #1
+6.15 Tennessee State game #2
Can threatening the record all be explained by a lack of schedule strength? Perhaps slightly, but looking at the numbers it doesn’t appear to be a driving factor. Using the FEI ELS schedule strength rating, 2023 came in at 43rd while 2022 came in at 46th overall. So it’s not like Marcus Freeman just walked into a ridiculously easier opportunity this past fall.
A huge thing that jumped out to me is that during the Marcus Freeman era there hasn’t been a YPP game where Notre Dame has been absolutely wrecked and embarrassed. Do we count that as some form of floor raising performance?
In fact, the Louisville loss this past year is the worst YPP defeat of the Freeman era. The ending to that game absolutely sucked but it was a 4-point game in the 4th quarter.
There haven’t been any big YPP losses for Freeman like Cincinnati 2021 -1.68, Clemson 2020 -3.67, Alabama 2020 -3.26, Michigan 2019 -3.15, or Clemson 2018 -3.31 that marred some of the late Kelly-era games.
Now, some would argue Freeman hasn’t really faced a truly elite team yet, they see Tennessee State on the schedule, and argue it is actually all about strength of schedule. Ohio State in 2022 (FEI #2 team) has to qualify (Irish only lost YPP by 0.45) and if they don’t then elite teams pretty much don’t exist most years.
Al Golden is Doing Good Things™
If Freeman has done a good job limiting YPP losses they really turned it up with some big YPP wins in 2023. That NC State game (FEI #35 team) is the type of butt whoopin’ that people might gloss over but that contributes to a really good end-of-season average.
We should probably talk about the Al Golden-led YPP number. The 4.4 figure ties the 2002 Irish defense as the best school YPP mark this century which definitely puts 2023 in some truly elite company. I’d also like to point out that the 2002 offense only averaged 4.6 yards per play–for those who remember it was some truly dark times on that side of the ball.
I will always argue that Notre Dame being stuck in the mud offensively in the late 1990’s into the early 2000’s was a horrendous missed opportunity and terrible momentum killer from the Holtz era.
Losing a game in which you win the YPP battle never feels good. The 2023 loss to Clemson really sticks out as a tough one to swallow. There was a chance to maybe bury Clemson with a 3rd straight loss and instead the Tigers finished 2023 ripping off 5 straight wins and momentum going into the off-season.
It’s the 3rd time in the Freeman era he’s lost while winning YPP (Stanford 2022 and USC 2022 are the others, we really moved the ball crazy well in the latter game to keep it fairly competitive) and the first time since Clemson (yet again, ugh!) in 2015 in which the Irish won YPP by at least a full yard and still loss on the scoreboard.
Late-era Kelly did a good job of avoiding those type of losses. There was a 65-game streak from the start of the 2017 post-season through the 2021 season where none of the 11 losses were YPP losses. However, those types of losses certainly plagued Brian Kelly teams before that. Avert your eyes if you are feeling squeamish today–I now give you all of the losses since 2010 in which Notre Dame won the YPP battle:
Clemson 2023 +1.26
Stanford 2022 +0.18
USC 2022 +0.70
Stanford 2017 +0.21
MSU 2016 +0.05 (4 of these coming in one season!)
Duke 2016 +0.49
Navy 2016 +0.86
Virginia Tech 2016 +0.90
Clemson 2015 +1.82 (Clemson went into a shell nursing a lead but still)
Stanford 2015 +2.29 (damn it all)
Arizona State 2014 +0.52
Northwestern 2014 +0.53
Louisville 2014 +0.56
Pittsburgh 2013 +2.57 (ooooof)
South Florida 2011 +2.98 (aliens)
Tulsa 2010 +0.26
I think the other factor that hasn’t been mentioned is that now some other team gets to struggle with Big Dumb Tommy Rees offense.
Fun thing is Tommy called a great play on the last play of the game. RPO, the RB goes in motion and takes one LB with him, the other LB crashes inside. The right guard pulls and all Milroe has to do is follow him left. Look at the replay, the hole is so big the RG has no one to block!
If the LB doesn’t go with the RB, it’s a swing screen and they still have numbers. All they needed was a decent snap and Milroe not to panic.
If Milroe follows the RG, instead of up the middle, he’s likely tackled for a 2 yd loss by the LB that has jumped into the back field ahead of the RG.
It doesn’t matter if the play call is perfect in a vacuum if the players can’t actually run it effectively, which has been a running theme of Tommy Rees, OC.
It might have worked had it been executed perfectly, but I wouldn’t call it a great play. Michigan’s defense was stacked in the middle of the field and Bama was going to run right into it.
I wonder why they didn’t roll Milroe out and let him decide to run or pass. Maybe they thought that would just get blown up and he’d get sacked.
ESPN showed that play in detail last night. Milroe got a bad snap and then panicked. The play was designed for him to follow his pulling guard to the LEFT. There was only one defender out there, and the pulling guard could have blocked that guy and then Milroe would have walked in untouched. Instead, Milroe had to bend down to get the bad snap, couldn’t look to see how the play was developing, and panicked and ran right up the middle.
I think Michigan knew what was coming. The OLB darted into backfield, I think to take the passing lane to the RB in the flat away. No way that hulking OG gets a block on that OLB, who would have gotten to the QB, behind the line, if the QB went further left.. Maybe things change, if the snap had been better but, it wasn’t and the snaps had been an issue all game.
Way more kudos to the Mich. DC on that play than the Bama OC.
Are you talking the backside OLB over the right tackle? Because if Milroe goes left, no way he’s catching up to Milroe. And the OLB on the left went to follow the RB into the flat, he wasn’t making it back to the hole off left tackle.
I think that’s basically right but there was a LB/S player that came off the left but went pretty deep into the backfield (I don’t he was following the RB). Though if Milroe would have followed his leading guard closely I don’t think that player would have been able to get back in time to make a tackle that would have kept Milroe out of the end zone. The leading guard basically had no one to block.
True the OLB wasn’t following the RB. He was trying to get in the lane of a pass to the RB and then close on the QB. Perhaps Milroe would have beaten the OLB to the LOS. Though he was closing on Milroe as it was and would have been even closer if Milroe had followed the Guard. The OLBs actions make me think Mich. was not fooled by the play.
I guess I think that whatever contact that OLB would have made would have pushed Milroe into the endzone rather than keeping him from it back of the direction and speed he would have been coming from and become Milroe only need a few yards. There was also no one else between the guard and the end zone so there would have been nothing slowing Milroe down from that direction.
Possibly but, you’re not giving the LB much credit. Point being the DC play call was better than the OC play call.
What a crazy stat line to show.
I’d be interested to compare our 3rd down percentage from this year game by game; my current hypothesis is that’s the stat that manifests the hartman+parker+ depleted WR room the most. It felt like in tOSU, Clemson, UL, we were orders of magnitude worse on 3rd down than the rest of the season. And not just 3rd and long because we couldn’t move the ball, but lot of 3rd and shorts got stuffed, see OSU game.
In the Louisville game as well, it felt like they knew every 3rd down play call before it happened, and if you cant get 1 yard on 3rd and 1, you’re totally F’d. I give the lions share of this hypothesis to the play calling, which has been discussed to death, but a QB who isnt a dual threat (4th and 1 boot against OSU, stuffed) and a middle stretch where the WRs didnt get open or missed assignments also led to maddening 3rd downs.
The silver lining though; IF notre dame improves its playcalling, especially on money downs, AND their 3rd down conversion rate improves in primetime games, THEN I conjecture that’s the missing cog into entering the elite tier football conversation.
50% against OSU, damn, I was way off in my brain space.
Although, 9/38 combined against duke UL, USC is pretty yuck, yet we went 2-1 in that span
I often think way back to one of the early BK year posts about like 5-10 things that ND needs to do to crawl back to contender status.
It would be really interesting to take a full look back and see how far we’ve come. I believe some were like win more blowouts and stop getting blown out. Those are areas we have drastically improved and certainly helped contribute to our good ypp diff.
Outside of the marshall and Stanford losses, which I think have much more to do with a first year head coach and no QB/WRs proven, Freeman’s teams have belonged on the field in every game theyve played. Definitely not the case in the kelly era, it felt like they got the pants blown off them once a year in the most primetime of moments.
Uptick in elite recruiting was another one I remember from that list, and it looks like ND has taken a decided step forward there, Freeman’s average recruiting class rankings are all above the highest of any kelly class, AND hes stringing multiple strong classes together, building a deep team across all positions. All these things are making the giant flywheel of success spin slightly more in our favor, it just takes a LOT of effort to manifest the results, but it must be coming; if you keep improving in all areas, then ultimate success will follow.
I think a corollary of this is that (as I think there has been discussion about before) CJ Carr is the most important ND recruit in recent memory. If he’s a big hit – i.e., clear 2025 starter who goes into 2026 as a likely first-round pick, a la Drake Maye level this year – that could really mean that ND takes The Leap under Freeman given all other factors looking favorably. If he is not at that level, it likely isn’t happening until (at the earliest) Deuce Knight develops… which may mean it doesn’t happen under Freeman.
It’s that depth that really showed itself in the Sun Bowl. Although Oregon State was depleted, its defense didn’t lose near as much as the offense, while our offense played with essentially one starter from the regular season offense. Nonetheless, our second team offense ran up over 400 yards!
So looking at YPP difference by itself over the top twelve is not necessarily predictive of wins. I’d be interested in YPP for Washington (a top five offense and playing for the NC) and for Iowa (best total defense).
As far as Iowa’s bowl game against Tennessee, the BIG ranked Iowa as their fourth best team and the Hawkeyes got blown out 35-0. Iowa brought almost their whole team. Of the twelve who did not come, five were injured and the other seven were not significant contributors except for one WR.
Tennessee did not have six starters and six second string players from their two deep per their last regular season game depth chart.
Of the Tennessee starters, those who oped out included their starting QB, the top two RBs, a DE, a NB, a CB, a S. Additionally, second string opt outs due to entering the Portal included a RB, two second string CBs, and the second string RG. Tennessee was clearly a better team even starting so many second stringers.
Tennessee gained 383 yds to Iowa’s 173 total yds. These days I don’t much care about post-season rankings or conference bowl records except for ranking the top ten. Opt outs for the Wisconsin v LSU game may also be similar in losses of starters though it was a more entertaining game.
Iowa 2024 YPP -0.14
Washington 2024 YPP +1.59
Those are truly Insane. Washington’s +1.59 YPP diff (and a 14-0 record so far) is somewhere below our twelfth (1972) top YPP diff from the above list.
What can you say about Iowa’s negative YPP diff of -0.14? When in college football history has a team won ten games with a negative YPP diff? Three of their four losses were by a total of 92-0!!! They were ranked as the 17th best team in the country? The BIG ranked Iowa as their fourth best team for their bowl contracts.
The difference between ND’s and Iowa’s was +2.64 YPP. Until the end of the Michigan – Alabama game, I thought they would join Ohio State, Penn State, Iowa and Wisconsin as BIG bowl losers. That conference needs the lifeblood of the four former PAC schools to have a pulse. Even with all their opt outs, those four all won their bowl games.
The Big 10 was low key trash this season, even more than usual.
The Little BIGs – Rutgers, Maryland, Minnesota and Northwestern – did win their bowl games. Dating back to the ’70s, Ohio State’s bowl record against SEC teams is 2-13.
To be fair to Iowa in the bowl game. That may have been their most yardage of the season.
The 2002 “Return to Glory” offense, woof.
Fun game, who is the worst starting QB of the modern (let’s call it post-Faust) era, minimum 3 starts so no Gary Godsey or Arnaz Battle: Matt LoVecchio? Drew Pyne? Tyler Buchner?
Woof, that’s a depressing game.
Overall, I’d probably say Buchner. He finished his ND career with more INTs than TDs and a losing record as a starter, and no longer plays the sport of football.
IIRC, LoVecchio had a pretty good first season (by Davie standards) and a horrid second season.
Freshman year Brady Quinn completed under 50% of his passes. If I remember correctly, Julius Jones averaged more yards per carry than Quinn did per passing attempt. It still blows my mind that Charlie turned him into a legitimate star. If Davie had coached him, he might have been completing 35% of his passes by his senior year.
Oooof to ACS’s point this is depressing. I don’t recall if these guys actually got 3 starts or not and I didn’t have the time to look it up so going off memory.
Here are my top 3 bottom 3
1)Pat Dillingham – 1 TD to 7 int in 2002
2) Andrew Hendrix
3) Evan Sharpley
Hendrix (and maybe Sharpley?) didn’t get three starts though, right? Worst QB play I’ve ever seen IRL was the second half of the 2013 USC game after Tommy got hurt. But, got that W.
Hendrix only had one, against Stanford in 2011.
I think Sharpley only had two — USC and I want to say Navy? May have been BC. But that season was such a revolving door of QBs it’s hard to remember.
You guys are likely right, I honestly couldn’t remember and they were around so much it felt like they started more games.
Ugh. Dillingham. He definitely tops the list in terms of bad outcomes. That 2002 BC game was about the single worst performance of all time.
His lone touchdown pass was the 7 yard slant to Arnez against MSU. The luck Ty had those first 8 games, heck he may not have made it to year 3 if those first 8 games resulted in the averages.
What a game. Tough decisions.
Pyne’s stats are kind of hilariously good compared to his actual ability. Basically thanks to opponents and sample size. Here are some funny comparisons.
Pyne at ND: 63%, 7.9 Y/A, 3.6:1 TD:INT, 152 rating.
Hartman at ND: 63.5%, 8.9 Y/A, 3:1 TD:INT, 159.5 rating.
Brady Quinn: 58%, 7.3 Y/A, 2.6:1 TD:INT, 134 rating.
Pyne had a better %, TD/INT ratio, and rating than Golson (60%, 41/20, 138 rating), Kizer (61%, 47/19, 147 rating), and Quinn (58%, 95/39, 134 rating).
Carlyle Holiday has to be on this list. He was not a good QB, despite still being one of my favorites thanks to nostalgia and wins. He had one good rushing year as a SO, while being a terrible passer. Then as a JR and SR added surprisingly little on the ground, while still being not a very good passer (but at least not TO prone as a JR). He played in over 30 games, with 477 passing attempts and 278 rushing attempts, and had fewer than 20 total TD (14 passing, 5 rushing).
It was a different era, so hard to compare, but Buchner was much more efficient running and passing (15 TDs on 200 combined passes/rushes), albeit a smaller sample size, than Holiday.
All of that said. Pyne is my least favorite and the QB I was least confident in making a meaningful play against anyone halfway decent. At least Buchner and Holiday (probably the actual 2 worst) could be exciting and made me think there was a chance something good could happen, even if in actuality it was less likely to.
I’m surprised Dayne Crist’s name hasn’t been mentioned. Especially considering his recruiting ranking. 5 star #1 pro style QB
The Pyne era was particularly unenjoyable because you spent the whole time thinking “how in the world did we take this guy’s commitment so early in a recruiting cycle when we were recruiting reasonably well?”
My favorite Drew Pyne play remains when he did a full windup and threw the ball absolutely as hard as he could and underthrew a ball only about 40 yards downfield.
Yeah. It was the pinnacle of having just a terrible QB room.
And then, when the QB ship is starting to right itself (good transfer, good Angeli, Carr/Knight commits), and I think TFR is done punishing me for calling the cops on him a decade ago, he goes and does something like Monday night, and totally ruins football for me all over again.
Pyne’s stats also need to be weighted somehow by the fact that eventually Tommy Rees figured out his skill set was just throw the ball in the direction of a generational tight end talent and let him do stupid things.
You could give Drew Pyne Marvin Harrison Jr. and he wouldn’t be able to get a deep ball to him or hit him on a slant or get him screen. Staring down the TE and then throwing him weak passes over the middle was pretty much all he had.
I never thought of it that way, but Pyne really specifically benefitted from having one of the best players in ND history at catching passes within 10 yds of the LOS, as opposed to amazing WRs who he couldn’t have hit outside the numbers anyway.
Kind of funny to picture him playing on that Bama team with Ruggs, Jeudy, Smith, and Waddle.
I really truly hate even suggesting anyone on this beloved site read this article featuring in part the development of the Skinkbears, but… if you look at his basic argument, could it be that HCMF and our Irish fit this mode? Here is an amended version of the key paragraph.
[Unmentionable hated rival] has evaluated and developed so well that they have taken a roster comprised of uninspiring recruiting classes and built a team that may have more than 15 players drafted in April. That is done through top-notch evaluation in the high school ranks — identifying undervalued players who fit scheme and makeup — and also by attacking the transfer portal and adding players who can come in and contribute immediately
We have to consider that the transfer portal has changed how we evaluate which teams can and cannot win a national title.
https://theathletic.com/5175155/2024/01/03/michigan-alabama-recruiting-rankings/
This is what every team outside of the top 3 or 4 in recruiting rankings thinks it does though. This is what Kelly thought he did with his RKG’s. Until I see Notre Dame actually develop a QB or WR into a legitimate star, like Michigan has done with Roman Wilson for instance, it’s all talk. Hopefully that’s the next step with Denbrock on board!
(I would also note that 20 of their 22 starters were either high school 4 stars or transfers. So it’s not like they’re hitting it big on 3 star recruits over and over, like this paragraph would perhaps make you think)
Yea *transfers* is changing the game with this. It’s easy to take the 3* recruit from some other program who has already developed a decent extent and plug them in as a starter in your program.
This is the point where we recognize that [coach’s name redacted] built Stanford from a losing program in year one, to upsetting Pete Carrol and USC in year two, to finishing #3 at 12-1 in year 3. I’d just to like re-iterate: [redacted] did this at STANFORD!
[redacted] may be a cheater, and he may be an a-hole, but he clearly knows how to identify and coach non-elite talent to playing above their level.
But also, didnt he have Andrew luck whilst at Stanford during the most successful years? And now mccarthy at Michigan, not saying JJ is a first overall, generational player, but he is a dynamic QB who makes key throws when needed.
I think he does get a lot out of his players true, but credit where credits due, his best success has come when he has an exceptional player recruited at a key position (QB). Very similar to Clemson’s run of success tied to Watson into Lawrence at the helm (even when their recruiting numbers werent elite tier), or hurts-tua-mac jones being the most dominant offensive years at alabama.
There were quite a few michigan teams that were competent QB play away from being contenders, and overcoming don brown being their brian van gorder coupled with JJ McCarthy has pushed them to the current run of success.
In summary, I dont think Michigan has non-elite talent, in particular at the QB position.
I’m throwing this out there without any hard facts but I’ve read before that the strength program at Stanford wasn’t on the up and up while he was there so I would put it likely in the camp of some heavy PED usage. Combined with the complete middle finger to all rules at the start of this turnaround with some of their recruiting violations and then obviously the Stallions stuff I don’t think it’s just “developing” and finding fit. Take a look at Clemson, they haven’t been quite the same since the 2018 run when they had some things leak out.