Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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14 MAY 2022 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED UNDER THE DOME Julia Andreach — Tennis The sophomore from Rochester, N.Y., earned her first ACC Player of the Week honor April 12 after finishing 2-0 in singles ac- tion and 1-0 in doubles play against Miami and Florida State. She helped the Irish upset the No. 8 Hurricanes 5-2 by knocking off Daevenia Aching 7-5, 6-2 at No. 2 singles. Andreach finished the season with a 13-8 singles record, going 4-3 at the No. 1 and 9-5 at the No. 2 spots. Karina Gaskins — Softball In mid-April, the sophomore infielder from Edison, N.J., was one of 15 position players to be named a top-25 finalist for the 2022 U SA S o f t b a l l C o l l e g i ate Player of the Year award. Through April 25, Gaskins led the ACC in batting av- erage (.433), RBI (53). and on-base plus slugging percentage (1.396). Ad- ditionally, she ranked second in on-base per- centage (.563) and third in walks (37), and was tied for eighth with a team-best 11 home runs. Dylan Jacobs — Track and Field The senior from Orland Park, Ill., was named the ACC Track and Field Per- former of the Week April 19 after he ran a 28:01.94 in the 10,000 meters in the Mt. Sac Relays in Walnut, Calif. Jacobs, who earned All- America status in 2021, crossed the finish line first in the event and set a program record with a time that was the fastest in the NCAA to date this year. Jake Taylor — Lacrosse The junior attackman from Denver made his first career start against then-No. 18 Syracuse April 2 and set a Notre Dame record with eight goals in a 22-6 Irish victory. He had entered the contest with just three career scores. Despite playing in just five of Notre Dame's first 10 contests, Taylor was tied for the team lead in goals with 20 and topped the ACC with an average of 4.0 goals per game. TOP TOP OF THE CLASS OF THE CLASS Irish student-athletes excelling on the field and in the classroom ✦ GIMME FIVE In mid-April, ESPN released its College Football Power Index ratings heading into the 2022 sea- son. Notre Dame was slotted at No. 5, behind the usual suspects Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia and Clemson. According to ESPN, the FPI is "a predictive rat- ing system designed to measure team strength and project performance going forward. The ul- timate goal of FPI is not to rank teams 1 through 128; rather, it is to correctly predict games and season outcomes." Each rating has an offensive, defensive and special teams component. The preseason rating factors in returning players, previous performances, recruiting rankings and the head coach. The Fighting Irish's FPI rating is 17.5 and their projected win-loss record is 9.1-2.9. According to the metric, they have a 1.1 percent chance to go undefeated and a 17.6 percent chance to make the College Football Playoff, which ranked sixth-best nationally. A total of 63 teams have a positive FPI, in- cluding nine of Notre Dame's 2022 opponents (notably, North Carolina is 22nd, USC is 37th and BYU is 46th.). — Ashton Pollard ESPN 2022 PRESEASON COLLEGE FOOTBALL POWER INDEX RATINGS Rk. School FPI 1. Alabama 28.9 2. Ohio State 28.3 3. Georgia 27.4 4. Clemson 23.2 5. Notre Dame 17.5 CHARTING THE IRISH TOUGHEST OPPONENT WINNING PERCENTAGE RANKINGS Discussions around Notre Dame football's 2022 schedule often start with con- versations about Ohio State and continue with thoughts on talented Clemson and USC teams. Plus, there is a notable meeting with a veteran BYU squad in Las Vegas. But top to bottom, how does the Irish gauntlet look? Now that all of the FBS conference schedules are out, college football analyst Phil Steele recently compiled a list of the toughest schedules next year based on opponents' records from last season (the NCAA's method). He also included a few of his own touches in his chart, factoring in winning records, bowl teams and top-25 rankings from 2021. Notre Dame comes in at No. 93 on the list after its opponents won just 49 per- cent of their games last season (73-76). By contrast, Navy's 2022 opponents won 65.8 percent of their games — which leads all 131 FBS teams — with a combined record of 100-52. UMass and Louisiana were last on the list, with their opponents winning just 39.5 percent of their contests in 2021. Digging deeper into Steele's metric, six of Notre Dame's 12 opponents played in bowl games last year, and three teams finished ranked — Ohio State (No. 6), Clemson (No. 14) and BYU (No. 19). Notre Dame finished in the No. 8 spot. But just four of the teams Notre Dame faces next year had winning records in 2021 — Ohio State, Clemson, BYU and Marshall. — Ashton Pollard RANKING NOTRE DAME'S 2022 SCHEDULE BY TOUGHEST OPPONENT WINNING PERCENTAGE Courtesy PhilSteele.com School Nat. Rank Opp. Record Win Pct. Ranked Foes* Bowl Teams Navy 1 100-52 .658 3 10 North Carolina 11 94-59 .614 4 10 Marshall 12 93-59 .612 2 7 BYU 13 93-60 .608 5 9 Stanford 23 89-63 .586 4 8 UNLV 27 88-65 .575 3 8 Syracuse T-33 85-66 .563 5 9 Ohio State 39 86-69 .555 4 9 Clemson 58 79-69 .534 3 7 Boston College 74 78-72 .520 4 7 USC T-75 78-73 .517 2 7 Notre Dame 93 73-76 .490 3 6 California T-114 69-80 .463 2 6 * Final 2021 top 25