Late in Notre Dame's 44-34 win over North Carolina, the NBC broadcast team discussed that the Irish aren't winning pretty or in dominating fashion - they're just winning. It's something of an 18 Stripes motto that, well, winning is hard. Week after week, doing enough to fight off your opponents, especially on nights you don't [...]
Back-to-back night games inside Notre Dame Stadium is on the menu as the pre-season No. 10 North Carolina Tar Heels come to South Bend licking their wounds with 3 losses inside ACC play while they've fallen off the national radar already by early October. It's been an extremely up and down rebuilding project for the [...]
Notre Dame dictated the game from start to finish, but USC was on par or better in efficiency and explosiveness. A massive early turnover (worth nearly 10 points in EPA, expected points added) set the tone, and the Irish dominated the Trojans in cashing in scoring chances to hold Southern Cal at arm's length. The [...]
Earlier in the year, someone asked SP+ creator Bill Connelly about Notre Dame's upward move in his model after their uninspiring win over Toledo. Connelly replied as such: 91% postgame win expectancy for ND, equivalent to about a three-score win. Massive success rate advantage and some bad turnovers luck. SP+ never ever ever says what [...]
Several programs suffered varying degrees of scares this week including Cincinnati, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Oregon from our current top 5 rankings. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Penn State who crashes out of our rankings following a humiliating 9 overtime defeat, at home, to Illinois. Let's take a look at the latest Top 20 [...]
Everyone likes a good road trip. In college football terms it's even better when there's a fun opponent included, nice stadium, welcoming fans, and either a charming campus or lively surrounding neighborhood/town/city. As the OG road warriors, Notre Dame football has been to a lot of places. Some good ones coming up in future schedules [...]
Welcome back to the 18Stripes G5 Top 10. Had a little bit of shakeup this week so let's dive right into the Top Ten. Also Considered: Liberty, Nevada, Northern Illinois, UTEP, Utah State Week 8 Recap Movers and Shakers We have to start our recap with the game on Wednesday night. Fresh off a game [...]
That's 4 wins in a row over USC, as well as the 4th straight home win over the Trojans. Life is good this week. A whole bunch of recruits were in attendance to watch a festive atmosphere in a night game against Notre Dame's main rival. There were some ups and downs, including a late [...]
September 13th, 2021. That's the day that Troy finally returned the Homeric favor and sacked the protagonist of the Greek tragedy that had unfolded in Los Angeles over the last several seasons. It is with profound sorrow that we Irish fans bid farewell to Southern Cal head coach Clay Helton, a fine gentleman who most [...]
With no game last weekend to recap, let's check in on Notre Dame's statistical profile at the midway point of the regular season. In this wild year, what are the Irish doing well to keep winning close games? And where can they find traction to begin pulling away from opponents and increasing the margin of [...]
Last week we went into the action with 13 total undefeated teams and 8 unbeatens among the Power 5 conferences. Heading into week 8 those ranks have been chopped down to 11 undefeated programs as Iowa and Kentucky both fell. That leaves the following unblemished teams from the Power 5: Georgia, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Michigan, [...]
Five Wide Fullbacks returns coming off the bye week and ready for some more Fighting Irish football. But first, we tackle a preview of the NFL Draft, assistant coaching grades, the quarterback controversy, impressive true freshmen, and the desire to coach in Los Angeles or LA the state. 1) The NFL Draft is just over [...]
The first half of this season has been... something. Lots of surprises both good and bad, some recent trend upwards, and very little clarity about the back half. Usually when we do this look-back we can get a pretty good sense of where things are headed, but 2021 is not that kind of year - [...]
We are down to 13 undefeated teams in college football and only 8 from the Power 5 conferences. The biggest news from week 6 was the toppling of Alabama at the hands of Texas A&M. On the bright side, this prevents an unwanted scenario where the Tide and Georgia face off in the SEC Championship [...]
What a wild week, man. And that's without even getting into what happened in our own game... Texas A&M, a week after a comeback that fell short against Mississippi State knocked them out of the Top 25, completed the comeback against erstwhile #1 Alabama - which marked Alabama's first loss to an unranked team since [...]
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