Welcome back to the latest edition of Five Wide Fullbacks as we revisit our Top 25 Irish players from the pre-season, tackle Notre Dame’s rushing performance, discuss bowl projections, rank the remaining opponents, and ponder when Alabama will lose next, if ever again.

Let’s get the ball, put our head down, and pick up 3 yards like any good fullback.

1) Through 5 games, who are the biggest misses on the 18 Stripes Top 25 Notre Dame players for 2021?

I’ll break it down into 3 tiers: Appropriately ranked, players who have surprised in a good way, and players who have not lived up to expectations.

Hamilton (1), Kyren (2), Mayer (3), MTA (6), Hinish (11), and Davis (16) were appropriate to what we ranked in my belief. That this list isn’t longer doesn’t feel like quite the indictment on our prognostication abilities but rather a team that hasn’t played very well on the whole.

Cam Hart (21), Jayson Ademilola (17), and Isaiah Foskey (14) are the good surprises and would be ranked much higher today.

Drew White (4), Jarrett Patterson (5), Kevin Austin (7), Chris Tyree (8), Clarence Lewis (9), Blake Fisher (10), Marist Liufau (11), Jack Coan (13), Cain Madden (15), Jordan Botelho (18), Jack Kiser (19), Braden Lenzy (20), Zeke Correll (21), Houston Griffith (22), Josh Lugg (23), and Rylie Mills (25) would all be shuffled back either due to performance or injury. My goodness, just look at that list of players!

Players who would make the current top 25 would include: Justin Ademilola, Howard Cross, and JD Bertrand. Overall, not a real promising look at the current roster because it’s been really disappointing, especially offensively. Like, you could put Justin Ademilola, a backup edge rusher, in the top 10 right now and that wouldn’t be crazy.

2) Can you rank the remaining 7 opponents for Notre Dame from easiest to most difficult?

First, here is the remaining schedule with the current SP+ rankings in parentheses:

@ Virginia Tech (33)
BYE
USC (14)
UNC (11)
Navy (112)
@ Virginia (56)
Georgia Tech (62)
@ Stanford (64)

Looking back at my opponent preview from back in June I had these opponents ranked as follows: Navy, Georgia Tech, Virginia, Stanford, Virginia Tech, USC, with North Carolina being the toughest.

The Tar Heels and USC have already lost twice each so the toughness at the top of this group looks far less intimidating. Interestingly, Virginia Tech has already beaten UNC and Stanford has already beaten USC. Is that enough to move either up in the pecking order?

Stanford (please God win this game) and Georgia Tech have made some real improvement from last year and are likely to be much tougher games than we anticipated during the summer. However, due to the bye game coming up I’d be tempted to switch Virginia Tech and USC on my list, especially given Notre Dame’s recent history at home against the Trojans and a suspect USC defense.

3) Currently, the Irish are flirting with the rushing per game yardage from the disastrous 2007 season. The 2021 team will beat the mark of 956 yards in 12 games from 2007, right?

I think we’ll be okay to get over 1,000 yards on the season (I feel dirty typing this) due to a few reasons. For as bad as the pass blocking has been this season the 2007 team lost nearly 300 yards from the quarterbacks. That was due to sacks and absolutely no rushing ability behind center.

If we see Drew Pyne get a bunch of starts the lack of rushing will go away and he’ll probably take 10 fewer sacks because of his mobility. Add in what hopefully could be some improvement from the offensive line and we should see the bleeding of yardage minimized moving forward.

Looking at things from the running backs, it’s UGLY right now for 2021. James Aldridge (3.8 YPC), Armando Allen (4.0), and Robert Hughes (5.5) struggled mightily but Kyren Williams and Chris Tyree are combining to average 3.5 yards per carry through 5 games. With a bowl game included, our once All-American hopeful tailback Kyren is on pace for just 751 rushing yards.

4) Assuming Notre Dame fails to make the College Football Playoffs are there any post-season bowl games worth caring about for the Irish?

There’s good news and bad news. Let’s start with the bad in that the Orange Bowl is in the rotation for the College Football Playoff semi-final this year so unless the Irish improve dramatically they will begin to get squeezed out of the NY6 bowl picture. You have to think that 1-more loss absolutely keeps Notre Dame out of the major bowl picture, similar to 2019.

The good news is that the ACC looks like a tire fire at the top of league so the Irish should have access to maybe the top tier bowl available if, for example, the ACC champion has 2 or 3 losses. Although, you could argue the ACC bowl offerings kind of suck anyway. The Citrus Bowl could be an option if a Big Ten team makes the semi-final Orange Bowl, but that’s unlikely.

Right now, Brett McMurphy is projecting Notre Dame to face Texas in the Cheez-It Bowl which is just about as good as it could get should Notre Dame lose 1 more game. If the Irish are 10-2 or 9-3 I think most of the bowl projections will have them facing a team with 4 or 5 losses.

5) Is the modern-era winning streak in play for Alabama football?

Is it weird that for as dominant as Alabama has been I thought they’d have some longer winning streaks during the Saban-era? I think it’s a combination of forgetting Winning (Consecutively) is Hard™ and the bar has been set so incredibly high in Tuscaloosa that even amazing stats can feel ho-hum for them.

Here are the longest winning streaks for Alabama under Saban:

26, 2015-16
19, 2019-current
19, 2009-10
17, 2017-18
15, 2012-13
13, 2011-12
12, 2007-08
11, 2017
9, 2010-11
8, 2019
7, 2014

If Alabama wins out until the SEC Championship, where they’d presumably face Georgia and the stiffest test of the season, their current streak will rise to 26 games matching their current record under Saban. Then, Saban would be 2 wins away from tying Alabama’s school record. Here are the longest winning streaks since I’ve been alive:

Miami, 2000-02, 34 games
Miami, 1990-92, 29 games
Florida State, 2012-14, 29 games
Clemson, 2018-19, 29 games
Nebraska, 1994-96, 26 games
UCF, 2017-18, 25 games

Let’s imagine Alabama repeats as undefeated National Champions. They’d join that mid-90’s Nebraska program as the only school to repeat without a loss since the 1950’s and then have their sights set on that Holy Grail of Miami’s modern winning streak.

With this timeline, the Tide would have to get past a week 2 road game at Texas next year, beat what looks like an improving Arkansas program in Fayetteville in week 5, with a home game against Texas A&M the following week for the 35-game winning streak record. The odds are against them but it also feels completely attainable.