Exploiting the Numbers: Michigan

If there is any game that should completely confound computer models, this is it.  Michigan.  Notre Dame.  Denard.  Te’o.  The Lights.  A liquor breathing hive of a crowd.  A storied rivalry between ranked teams.  Welcome to the Jungle playing every five minutes.  They should put a big top tent over the whole thing and sell it to the Ringling Bros.  Nevertheless, our friends over at thepredictiontracker.com have aggregated all the computer models in one place to attempt to restore order to the madness, and it pleases me to report:  things look good for the Irish.  The opening line was 5 and Notre Dame faithful have pushed it up to 6.  Computer models are tight on this game – Irish win by and average of 9 with a median of 9.5.  That means the smart bet is on the Irish giving the points, so go ahead and wager that beer with your Wolverine office mate.  Tell him he's weak for wanting the points too.  Money line may be even more solid, with no single model showing the Irish will lose.  Somehow, I’ve never felt closer to my computer…

Reilly's Relevance Response

Rick Reilly recently spun up a nice little piece for ESPN on why Notre Dame is irrelevant, here.

The beauty of this article is that it not that it tries to compare NCAA football to European professional soccer.  It's not that it compares Brian Kelly to Bob Davie.  I'm sure you can see the brain power behind those comparisons without help.  No, the beauty of this article is that it shows the paradox of the "ND is NOT relevant!" logic perfectly.  In case you were distracted by Reilly's obligatory Leprechaun hazing and Rudy references, his logic goes something like this:

A.      Notre Dame is NOT relevant!

B.      Notre Dame shouldn’t get to be on TV

C.      Notre Dame shouldn’t get invited to big bowl games

D.      Notre Dame shouldn’t get ranked high in the preseason

The paradox here is that B, C, and D ARE THE REASONS why A is not true.

·        We are relevant BECAUSE NBC is willing to extend our TV deal year after year.  You don’t think we’re a bigger brand than USC?  Then why does everyone tune into watch us lose every week on NBC?  More people love Notre Dame… or hate us… doesn’t matter to me… that makes us relevant. 

·        We are relevant BECAUSE we get invited to big bowl games.  Yep, we keep losing.  Don’t invite us back then.  Why do we keep getting invited?  Because people love us.  Or love to hate us.  Doesn’t matter to me… but thanks for making us relevant.

·        Notre Dame gets ranked high in the preseason BECAUSE we are relevant.  I’m sure the coaches and press are brainwashed into thinking we’re better than we are.  They want so badly to put Oregon State in the top 25 but find their pens mysteriously writing Notre Dame instead.  It’s a conspiracy!  Someone from Notre Dame must be counting the votes.  Let’s keep talking about it!  Talk talk talk!  Guess what talk does – it makes us RELEVANT.

What Reilly, and anyone else who wants to relegate Notre Dame should do is:  Stop writing and talking about us.  If we’re so irrelevant, that should be easy.  Please, tune us out.  Write about golf.  Vote us out of the top 25.  Bet you can’t do it.  You know why?  Say it with me now….

 We’re relevant.

I know you want to comment on this post.  I think we should keep the dialogue going.  I’m up for talking about Notre Dame any time.  We should talk about Notre Dame a lot.  You should discuss this with your friends too I think.  I'm sure Reilly will be revisting this irrelevant topic many times this year.  Maybe ESPN could cover this debate throughout the entire season;  have a chat room devoted to it.  Put some poll widgets up on Reilly's bio page.  There should be some time in the upcoming presidential debates devoted to Notre Dame.  More people should write about this.  Maybe NBC could cover it.  I feel the Notre Dame buzz growing, like it always does this time of year.  Like it always will.

Exploiting the Numbers: Pitt

Minutes to kickoff, probably too late to place a bet with anyone other than the guy sitting next to you, but if you do, word to the wise:  the line opened with the Irish favored by 8 and has sunk to 6 with apparently smart money coming in on Pitt.  Smart in that our friends at the prediction tracker see it as a closer game than that - Irish by 3.5 in another apparent thriller.  We'll see.

Exploiting the Numbers: Michigan

Quick update beore the game.  The line opened with the Irish favored by 4 this week, but that attracted money on the Michigan side, resulting in a bet-down spread of 3.5.  Our friends at the prediction tracker (http://www.thepredictiontracker.com/) have aggregated all the experts and computer models and returned something more like the the opening line:  Irish win by 4.06 on the median, with the average being slightly higher at 4.3.  So take that coworker from Michigan up on his cowardly offer to take the points from you if you have a chance... but it may be a nailbiter.

Irish Kool Aid: Refreshing

Game One - Notre Dame 23, Purdue 12

Whether you're drinking the green Kool Aid yet or not, you have to be feeling refreshed to a significant degree after Saturday's win and the start of the Kelly era.

The run game sputtered at first, but then found its groove early enough to make a difference.  Armando Allen seemed to be in too low a gear his first few carries.  The sheer speed of the offense was impressive and uncomfortable all at once, just like we thought it would be, but that seemed awkwardly counterbalanced by draw plays to Allen, who at first found nothing, getting caught from behind by DEs or just taking too long to find the hole.  The added dimension of Cierre Wood changed all that in a heartbeat.  The insertion of Wood in the first scoring drive immediately paid off, as he knifed to big gains in three of four carries.  This set up Allen's return, as the defense seemed to be backpedaling just enough to give Allen the chance to shift into TD gear and put us on the board.  We owe a great deal of our success early to Cierre Wood, and Allen owes him something ice cold and REFRESHING too.

Kelly seemed to have Crist coached up beautifully - he took what they gave us.  The boilers were effectively zoned to take away Floyd and any other threat of deep attack.  We countered with the 1,2 punch run game, and now Floyd leads the nation in commentary regarding WR blocking skills.  Early on, we were content to look inside to Rudolf, Riddick, and TJ and move the chains or play into our new found run game and/or field position.  Refreshing, no?  That's not to say the pass game was free from error, with Crist overthrowing a wide open Rudolf in the endzone early in the second quarter.  Also, imagine how different things might have turned out if Crist's first pass of the game and season that was tipped over the middle and just slipped through the hands of a defender had wound up picked off.  Scary.  Floyd fumbled when we had our foot on their throat.  We knew these things were going to happen, it was just a matter of how bad they were going to hurt us.  By some combination of luck, coaching, experience, and skill, we managed to keep these blows from being direct hits.

Meanwhile, the defense overachieved early, with Walls and Gray making workmanlike plays to stifle both ground and air.  Walls' cover 2 read and reaction to make the big early INT was a statement - not only are we no longer incompetent on the defensive side... we can can actually beat you with our brains and our talent.  Our DBs played soft on Smith and gave him his short yardage receptions, but kept him from adding to the highlight reel.  We bent but didn't break, with the best example in the first half being the long Purdue drive at about 5 minutes remaining that ended in a field goal but found us out of position and/or unset for multiple no-huddle plays, often with Teo making wild overplays or missing tackles, trying to make up for the confusion.  Despite these miscues, our defense played as a cohesive unit and picked each other up, holding the drive to a deep redzone FG.  Gulp... ahhhhh, refreshing.

Where it seemed like we couldn't be hurt in the first half, we exposed a little bit more of our soft underbelly in the second.  Floyd's fumble was "just one of those plays" of sorts, but it was more than just a glancing blow.  The safety was a brutal and costly instance of the running game returning to slow-mo at precisely the wrong time.  The defense let Marve beat them in spectacular fashion with his legs to draw the Boilers to within 8.  At that point, it looked like fate and futility might be conspiring once again to give us another cardiac ride to the finish line.

Where last year our defense would have let us down under similar circumstances, they seemed to only get stronger, more motivated, and more clutch from this point on, giving up less than 25 net yards and only one first down for the remainder of the game.  The defense was our difference maker and won us our first game.  "Refreshing" doesn't even begin to describe it. 

Time will only tell how much of this was a function of our new scheme, our new found running game, Boiler deficiencies, or just plain luck, but the facts are these:  it felt better than it has felt in a long time; for the most part it looked better; the result was a WIN which is certainly better; and our QB and Coach represented themselves in a way that felt, well.... refreshing.

Kelly on Crist

“You don’t have to win the Heisman today...take what they give you, be patient, let the offense come to you. You don’t have to force it, there’s plenty of answers for you out there. Let the game come to you. If you do that, you’ll be fine. And for me, have confidence because we would not put you back there unless we felt like you were going to do a great job.”

Death by a thousand plays

If the anticipation leading up to Saturday doesn't kill us, the sheer spectacle of our new offense just might, regardless of success or failure. 

Regarding the former, perhaps fear is a better word than anticipation.  The questions are well documented; the doubt is palpable.  ND Nation would be foolish not to be losing sleep over this game.  We've been fooled into believing in the hope of new regimes more times than we've celebrated bowl wins in the recent past.  We've readied ourselves for offensive brilliance.  We've nodded our heads in acceptance of a switch to the 3-4.  At our best, we we've been guilty of having faith in the incompetent;  at our worst, we've consciously ignored what our instincts should have told us was arrogance masquerading as excellence.  In short:  we've believed, and we've been burned. 

If wondering whether that stops now isn't too much for us, we might actually make it to kickoff, and then the real cardiac stimulation will start.  As Notre Dame fans, demographically, a lot of us have been raised by conservatives, whether fiscal, moral, or both.  These conservatives did what came naturally to them and did their best to raise their own to think, act, vote, and spend, well... conservatively.  And you know what?  Many of us like our football that way too.  This whole thing may be tough for us.  To many, huddling before offensive plays just makes too much sense to go and throw out the window.  Grinding out the clock just feels so blue and gold.  There is going to be a moment on Saturday when we all feel like we woke up in someone else's bed.  When that time arrives, my advice to you all is to take a deep breath, partake in legal over the counter mild depressants in moderation, pretend you've been invited by a friend to check out an arena league game, and most importantly:

Focus on what you know.
If you're so flustered you can't remember, here are a few reminders:
1.  The team that scores the most points wins.  You can even picture Lou Holtz saying it if that helps.  Brian Kelly's teams score 30 points per game regularly, and most of them come early.  This point production generally doesn't have a ramp at the beginning of the season and isn't prejudiced toward crappy opponents.  Past performance is the best predictor of future performance, and Brian Kelly teams almost never get shut out and almost always have 20 points by halftime.

2.  Teams that are efficient in the red zone win games.  (The red zone is where you have a good chance of scoring points, to return to point number one.)  Brian Kelly's first focus every week is on red zone efficiency, and while we all know he's not alone in that department, all of his teams have had good stats there.  We're going to get there a lot, and we're going to convert... a lot.  And if we don't convert, we don't need to go crying about it, because we'll be back there before we know it.

3.  Defenses hate the spread.  Teams build their personnel schemes around substitution rhythm and the chance to get set, and we're going to take that rhythm away.  If our pace of play is uncomfortable or confusing to you, just imagine trying to figure out how to make sense of it (let alone stop it) from a defensive perspective at field level while gasping for air.

4.  Risk is necessary to achieve reward.  Ah yes, the dirty secret of conservatives.  We will make a ton of mistakes.  We will be penalized up and down the field.  Yes, these are hallmarks of Brian Kelly's scheme too.  Take another sip of the legal depressant and remind yourself of a great quote from the Shawshank Redemption:  "get busy livin' or get busy dyin'."  Over time, our mistakes will begin to feel less impactful in light of the fact that we're running so many more plays and scoring so many more times than we're used to.

The Irish may lose on Saturday.  I wouldn't count on it, but it won't be the end of the world either if it happens.  It will happen again this season, and may happen more than many of us would like.  The whole thing is going to look like a hot mess sometimes.  It will feel uncomfortable.  But we'll be livin', and we'll be serving up a whole new brand of death by a thousand plays.