Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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14 NOV. 20, 2021 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED UNDER THE DOME Julia Andreach — Tennis T h e s o p h o m o re f ro m Rochester, N.Y., won all three of her singles events at the Bonita Bay Classic Nov. 5-7 in Bonita Springs, Fla. And- reach went against singles opponents from Colorado, Purdue and host school Flor- ida Gulf Coast and handled them all. She also notched a doubles victory over a FGCU pair with teammate Meghan Coleman, a sopho- more from Indianapolis. Notre Dame notched 12 total victories in the meet. Solag Bakich — Hockey The junior forward from Dallas tallied three points in two games against Holy Cross Nov. 4-5. Notre Dame beat the Crusaders 5-2 in the first game and 4-1 in the sec- ond. Bakich had a goal and an assist in the former and an assist in the latter to bring his season-long point total to nine (three goals and six assists). That trailed only junior forward Max Ellis' 11 (five goals and six assists) through eight games. Jack Lynn — Soccer The senior forward from St. Louis is a ma- jor reason why Notre Dame advanced to the ACC Cham- pionship Game for the sec- ond time in program history. Lynn scored his eighth goal of the season and assisted on another goal seconds later to give Notre Dame a 2-0 victory over No. 5 Pitt Nov. 10. The Irish snapped Pitt's 19-game home winning streak and won for the ninth time in the last 10 games. Charley Niego — Volleyball The senior outside hitter from Chicago re- corded five service aces in a 3-0 road win over North Carolina Nov. 5. She also fin- ished second on the team in kills with nine. The vic- tory was Notre Dame's sixth straight win in straight sets. Through 23 matches, Niego led the Irish with 27 service aces this season and ranked second with 260 kills behind soph- omore Aubrey Hamilton (263). TOP TOP OF THE CLASS OF THE CLASS Irish student-athletes excelling on the field and in the classroom ✦ GIMME FIVE Notre Dame was one garbage-time drive away from putting forth the best defensive effort in head coach Brian Kelly's 12-year tenure in the 34-6 victory over Navy Nov. 6. The Fighting Irish only allowed 184 total yards against the Midshipmen. That's the fourth-best mark of the Kelly era and only 22 yards behind the No. 1 figure of 162 that was set in a 45-3 victory over Pitt last season. The performance against Navy was impressive on many levels. For starters, Notre Dame hadn't allowed that few total yards in the annual rivalry game with Navy since giving up a mere 182 in 1994. The Irish also only allowed one completion of 18 yards, which was the fewest passing yards allowed to any opponent since at least 1996. Navy only averaged 3.2 yards per play. If a team aver- aged that mark over the course of the entire season, it would rank dead last in the FBS. Southern Mississippi had the fewest yards per play average (3.88) this year through Week 10. Navy only mustered 11 first downs. Again, that would be the worst mark in that category over the course of this entire season. New Mexico ranked last in that statistic through Week 10 at 14.7 first downs per game. Notre Dame was about as stout defensively as it could have possibly been. The Midshipmen's 3.0 yards per carry average was particularly impressive considering they ran it 55 times. Of those 55 attempts, only three went for 10 or more yards. And one of those was a 32-yard reverse that was nothing more than a gimmick play. Here are the five best defensive efforts by total yards allowed during the Kelly era: Rk. Opponent (Year) Yards Allowed Score 1. Pittsburgh (2020) 162 W, 45-3 2. Texas (2015) 163 W, 38-3 3. Army (2010) 174 W, 27-3 4. Navy (2021) 184 W, 34-6 5. Boston College (2019) 191 W, 40-7 — Tyler Horka CHARTING THE IRISH ONLY GEORGIA TOPS NOTRE DAME IN THIS ANALYTICAL STATISTIC The consensus top-10 ranking and 8-1 record next to Notre Dame's name through Week 10 of the col- lege football season are impressive. Perhaps, though, they are not nearly as impressive as the Fighting Irish's "wins above average" figure according to analytics guru Brian Fremeau. He created the Fremeau Efficiency Index (FEI) to gauge how teams fared in a plethora of categories. Wins above average compares actual wins to expected wins an average team would have against the same schedule. For instance, a score of 0.00 would indicate a perfectly average team. Notre Dame had a score of +4.45 through Week 10. Only Georgia's mark of +4.87 was better. Notre Dame has fared quite favorably in many of Fremeau's metrics this season. Through Week 10, the Irish were one of just five teams with five or more wins against FEI top-60 opponents. The Irish also had the fifth-highest percentage odds (38 per- cent) of winning the remainder of its games. Only Georgia (87 percent), UTSA (60), Alabama (58) and Cincinnati (46) had better odds according to the FEI. Notre Dame has done everything it has needed to do to have a successful season outside of beat- ing Cincinnati. It hasn't always been pretty, but advanced metrics say the results have been pretty impressive. — Tyler Horka Notre Dame put forth one of its best defen- sive efforts in the history of the Brian Kelly era in limiting Navy to 184 total yards in a 34-6 victory Nov. 6. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER WINS ABOVE AVERAGE THROUGH WEEK 10 ACCORDING TO FEI Rk. Team Wins Above Average 1. Georgia +4.87 2. Notre Dame +4.45 3. Alabama +4.13 4. Michigan State +4.01 5. Oklahoma State +3.98 6. Oklahoma +3.95 7. Ohio State +3.71 8. Michigan +3.58 9. Oregon +3.40 10. Wake Forest +3.33