Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/145833
Under the Dome "He gained so much knowledge seeing the game last year from a different perspective. He got a chance to sit back and look at it, and when he came into the game he did things that he didn't do the years before. His ability to get the ball out of his hands, keep plays alive, and no he's not Everett Golson, but he learned so many things." — Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly talking about starting quarterback Tommy Rees in an interview on ESPN Radio "He made a mistake, he got kicked out of school, he lost the chance to play football at Notre Dame this fall. And you know what? He's not giving up. … Basically, he's a kid who blew it — and he knows how to fix it. By looking inward. What a novel concept." — Matt Hayes of Sporting News on Everett Golson's season-long suspension for academic issues "This exile into college football's abyss shouldn't be about working on footwork and learning how to find the right receiver. This seven-month banishment from the game should be used to get his life and priorities in order. This is a time when Golson should come to the conclusion that something like this will never happen again. There are no shortcuts in life." — Al Lesar, South Bend Tribune Charting The Irish Which Ranked Team Has The Toughest Schedule in 2013? Notre Dame typically bills its coast-to-coast schedule as one of the country's toughest. This year, among their ranked competition at least, the Irish are backing up their claims. Notre Dame ranks sixth among top-25 teams in our strength of schedule metric. Using Lindy's Sports ranking of all 125 Football Bowl Subdivision-level teams, we calculated the average opponent rank of each team in the top 25. Oklahoma faces the toughest average schedule despite not playing a single team ranked in the top 10. Georgia and LSU each play three top-10 teams this season, but balance that out with some lesser competition elsewhere. Louisville has the easiest path this year. The Cardinals face six teams ranked 88th or lower. The Irish will battle five teams in the top 25 this season. Games against Temple (109) and Purdue (83) dropped them out of the top five in our schedule strength poll, though. Strength Of Schedule Team Avg. Opp. Ranking No. 15 Oklahoma (41.1) No. 3 Stanford (41.4) No. 18 Texas (44.9) No. 22 TCU (45.8) No. 12 Florida (46.1) No. 14 Notre Dame (46.5) No. 9 South Carolina (47.3) No. 8 LSU (47.6) No. 23 UCLA (49.2) No. 6 Georgia (50.6) Playing The Very Best Team Top-25 Opponents (Top 10) Florida 5 (3) LSU 5 (3) Notre Dame 5 (1) TCU 5 (1) Oklahoma 5 (0) 4 (3) Georgia UCLA 4 (2) Stanford 4 (1) Texas 4 (0) South Carolina 3 (2)