Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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IRISH ANALYTICS BRIAN FREMEAU tainly outpaces that of his immediate predecessors, but the Irish program needs to take another leap forward to reach its goal of winning a national title. Five-year measures of success are key indicators for projecting future success. The program ratings I use as baseline data for next-year projections are a function of five years of oppo- nent-adjusted possession efficiency data, weighted for more recent sea- sons. How well does a team maximize its own scoring opportunities and mini- mize those of its opponents? Wins and losses are important, but how a team controls drive efficiency on both sides of the ball is even more valuable in my model. Kelly inherited a team that ranked 28th in my program ratings at the end of the 2009 season, having gone 35-27 (.564) over the previous five seasons under Charlie Weis. At the end of 2012, three years after Kelly took the reins, the Irish program had elevated to 15th overall. Two seasons later, Notre Dame's program rating has slipped seven spots to 22nd overall. Each of the last four national cham- pions were ranked among the top 10 in my program ratings heading into their championship season, and nine of the last 10 national champions were ranked among the top 15 programs before the year began. If a national championship is in Notre Dame's fu- ture, the program likely needs to climb a few more rungs up the ladder first. I plotted Notre Dame's program rat- ing over the last 10 seasons and com- pared it to the program trajectory that preceded each of the last 10 national champions (see chart). Half of the national champions in the last decade had a worse program rating than Notre Dame's current rating within five years of winning the title. However, all but one of the national champions had a better pro- gram rating than Notre Dame's cur- rent rating in the year right before it won the title.