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.
The all-time record win streak is 47 games, set by Oklahoma from 1953-57 and ended by none other than your Notre Dame Fighting Irish. There are a few other pre-WWII streaks (even pre-WWI streaks) behind them, and then Miami’s 2000-02 run. Which really just highlights how stupid good those Miami teams were.
Which reminds me of another favorite bit of trivia: who was the last team UCLA basketball lost to before starting their 88 game win streak, and who was the team who ended it?
Hint: same team 😉
I thought I heard somewhere that we were the last team to beat OU before the streak began as well.
Also, Miami absolutely beat OSU in that game. There was not even the slightest PI on that play. Their streak should be 42, when they lost to VT in 2003.
We were, Juicebox. One of Leahy’s last (and as usual, great) teams — Dan Shannon had the “tackle heard around the world.” My folks were at that game and loved it. And then snapping their streak, just one year after they beat us 40-0. We really had a pretty good squad in 1957. The game was in Norman, but on national TV, and the students all left campus and marched and sang all the way downtown.
I was fortunate enough to have been at the last game UCLA lost before their streak started (a loss to ND in my freshman year) and to be at the game that broke their streak (a loss to ND in my senior year). That 71-70 game was incredible.
I remember us winning and breaking the Oklahoma streak. And we were mediocre that year. Amazing upset.
I think the two best college football teams since I started paying attention (~1997) were 2001 Miami and 2002 Miami.
Wow, that review of the top 25 players after 5 games was…interesting? sad? It seems like the only players on offense who are consistently respectable are Mayer, Kyren, Davis, and possibly some love toward Alt who has held up as a freshman being thrown in there.
How do you all think this affects Kyren’s decision to go pro or not? Seems like leaving early is the preferred route for talented RBs, but is his draft stock tumbling because of this o-line?
I would venture to say that this should not affect his stock much, if at all. There will be plenty of film of him in action for scouts to see that he still has the same strengths: elusiveness in the hole, falls forward for extra yards, blitz pickup, pass catching out of the backfield. His one weakness: doesn’t have elite breakaway speed
Any scout worth his salary will be able to confirm all of these things whether the OL is good or bad this year.
I agree. I kinda wonder how high Kyren’s stock as an NFL RB will be. The speed like you said. He’s very elusive in the open field and great at making cuts, but he’ll have less time and space in the NFL to do that. So, for that regard, I could see him in the mold of a 3rd down back who is a good pass blocker and can catch the ball, that could be a good path for him to take. So in a weird way this year will still be very valuable for him to show “hey I can catch 40+ passes and help there”.
Either way, to the OP’s point, there’s no decision on stay or go, as far as what makes sense for his career perspective. He’s got to go. Putting an extra year of miles on his card isn’t going to help his stock all that much. He’s been a major D1 starter for 2 full seasons, has a 1000+ yard year, has put all he needs to on shape to be about as good as he’s going to be, especially for that position’s relative lack of value in the NFL.
Yea I’m with you on this. It doesn’t affect his stock at all. Everyone can see the OL is just not that good. The only reason it COULD affect his stock is if people start to judge that the OL last year was just amazing and somehow he is too much a product of that great line (I’m not saying that’s true. I’m just saying that’s the way his stock falls. Obviously every back is a product of his line but Williams has some special skills running the ball too.)
I wonder if he’d transfer to a team with an oline to improve his draft situation. Not hurting him isn’t the same as lifting him.
He’s gonna transfer to a team that gives him a paycheck