Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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UNDER THE DOME MOVING? Let our customer service department know your new address! CALL US 1-800-421-7751 CHARTING THE IRISH SCHEDULE POWER? With strength of schedule holding more value in the College Football Playoff, schools from the power five conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC) started talking this summer about cutting out the cupcakes. Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly said he'd welcome the idea of those schools playing other power five opponents exclusively. "We would be extremely excited if everybody would go down the same road and play the kind of schedule we do," Kelly said. "We think that would be a level playing field." The problem is to play the same slate as the Irish, other conferences would have to start scheduling fewer power five teams, not more of them. Over the last five years, the Irish have not played more teams in college football's elite class than any of the last year's major conference champions. Stanford, for example, has played 89.4 percent of its games against other top conference teams since 2010 compared to Notre Dame's 76.6 percent. Notre Dame's claim to facing stiffer competition comes from never playing Football Championship Subdivision opponents, but to fill the power-five-only schedule they would have to get rid of regular games against BYU, Navy, other military academies and an annual less reputable team like this year's season opener against Rice. Team Percentage Of Power Five Opponents From 2010-14 Notre Dame 76.6 percent (49 of 64) Florida State (ACC) 82.1 percent (55 of 67) Michigan State (Big Ten) 77.3 percent (51 of 66) Baylor (Big 12) 76.6 percent (49 of 64) Stanford (Pac-12) 89.9 percent (59 of 66) Auburn (SEC) 76.9 percent (50 of 65)