Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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UNDER THE DOME Field Plans In mid-July, the University of Notre Dame revealed the markings of the new FieldTurf surface that will be installed in Notre Dame Stadium later this month and is scheduled to be completed by Aug. 15. • There will be an alternating pattern of different shades of green every five yards. • The interlocking ND monogram logo will be on the 50 and will not extend beyond the 45-yard lines on each side. • Small shamrocks will be at each 35-yard line for kickoff markers. • The slanted lines in both end zones that have been in place since 1979 will remain. • In a "who would have thunk it?" revelation, the school noted that each end zone will have nine CHARTING THE IRISH SAFER ON THE GROUND A recent breakdown of all college football teams in the last four years showed that in general fumbles are more costly mistakes than interceptions. Despite some particularly damaging fumbles (South Florida and USC in 2011), the opposite has been true for Notre Dame during the Brian Kelly era. Irish opponents have been more likely to score on the drive immediately following an interception than on drives that come right after fumbles. Notre Dame has surrendered 13 scoring drives following its 31 fumbles under Kelly, giving up an average of 2.16 points per fumble. The national average is 2.81 points per every fumble. Kelly's teams have given up 25 scoring drives following the 54 passes they've had picked off during the last four years. That's an average of 2.87 points per interception, higher than the national mark of 2.48 points per interception. The number of turnovers from Notre Dame's offense has decreased during the past two seasons. The Irish mistakes have also cost them less. For example, in 2012, only one out of every three turnovers resulted in an opponents scoring. Compare that to Kelly's first season when opponents scored 58 per- cent of the time after creating a takeaway. 2010 2011 2012 2013 YEAR FUMBLES 20 10 0 ■ Fumbles ■ Fumbles Resulting in Scoring Drives ■ Interceptions ■ Interceptions Resulting in Scoring Drives