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Very fascinating numbers! |
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I'd love to see these numbers during the Holtz years. |
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Watching Stanford last night, there may be something to this theory. Instead of actually playing the games, can we just call them based on O-Line starts? 8-4, baby. Hope we draw an inexperienced opponent in the Gator Bowl. |
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Judging from those numbers, 7-5 should be about right. |
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Interesting and intriguing. Yes, what does his research data reveal? Crystal ball? Roll of the dice? Dart board? A cold 12 pack? |
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Pat, your music references never cease to amaze me. Some day I want to peek at your ipod. |
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very interesting. thnx. |
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Hey, look at it this way. That's 65 starts after the SD State game. Getting close! What I would really like to see is how starts compares to minutes played. I think our o-line would jump up a bit. |
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I think playing time is a better indicator than "Starts". |
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Great post, Pat. With the exception of SD St, it seems like the strength of our opponent is almost going in reverse order. I had us at 7-5, with the "definite" losses being BC, UM and USC. Those are 3 of the bottom 5 teams listed here. I don't think it is a coincidence that those 3 teams (plus Navy) also had good years last year compared to the top of the list (Wash, Staford, UNC). What thay says to me is they were good in 2007 because of an experienced o-line and now that they lost many of those guys, it makes for an inexperienced line in 2008. The converse is true of Washington, UNC and Stanford -- they were awful last year because of an inexperienced o-line. However, most of those guys played together last year, which accounts for the high number of starts (ie experience) on their 2008 roster. |
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I don't think the ND 1988 offensive line was all that experienced. I know we had lost former co-captains Byron Spruell and Chuck Lanza to graduation. There may have been others -- Tom Rehder comes to mind. Andy Heck was a returning starter. I remember that Mike Heldt was a new starter at center (in place of Lanza) It would be interesting for someone to look that up. |
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Excuse me, but wouldn't both of our top two opponents have to overcome coaching incompetence? You are not being far to Harbaugh by singling out the Golfer. As a michigan grad, I'm certain that Jim is equally incompetent. |
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I actually think Harbaugh is going to be a fairly decent head coach in time. At the very least, he works hard. He also has Stanford off to a good start on the recruiting front, which only makes the rest of his job easier. |
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Assuming this metric to hold true (and it appears that it does, in general), the questions then become, how does a team maintain this number at a high level consistently, and how does ND get away from the sinusoidal effect of having what appears to be two years above followed by two years below. Adding depth in each class definitely helps, however, it seems that a team could not "add" more than 2 "new" lineman to the mix per year. would. |
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So if it wasn't Harbaugh, I guess you were calling out Butch Davis? |
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Seems like this metric would be better if he set some sort of "average cumulative starts" or something that could take into account for having, say, the left side of the line be 3 year starters and two first timers on the right? Of course maybe that was factored into "success." |
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that would just be "average starts" |
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rustle...less coffee, sir. You seem to be rattling the okay button a bit. |
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Your so-called facts don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy mixed-up world. Stop putting your readers to sleep with a lot of mathematical mumbo-jumbo and take a cue from E-Ess-Pee-N; people want big, bold opinions based on colorful anecdotes and experience. Not fancy numbers that some bigshot says run the show. What's next, a magic stick that lets you talk to a Chinaman? A carriage that flies in the clouds? |
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I think the cutoff should be 59. |
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If the 5 starters with 48 starts this year start all 13 games (bowl included) and start next year as well, we'll have 113. Look out world, 2009 is coming! :) |
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I don't think Turkovich has any more eligibility after this season. |
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I think SC will be just fine with there 25 starts....it's about depth, which ND is finaly starting to get. Hate the bye week to start with by the way. |
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Good article Pat. Standard greatness for you all. |
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Not wanting to thread-jack (and not knowing a whole lot about baseball), but isn't this some kind of speed record for a college draft pick to crack the rotation in the bigs, let alone open up with a win? I thought you had to spend a couple of years fetching the donuts in AA and AAA before you even got a toe in the door of a major league locker room. |
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early bye week is a huge minus - methinks charlie alluded to his in his presser - it essentially reduces the cumulative # of practice weeks by one. |
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Pat, Which ND player has the all-time most games started in their career. Young, with 25 heading into his junior year, must certainly be on his way to the most ever. Can you enlighten us? |
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since we play more games now (12) than we have in the past and since in three of Young's four years here we will have played in a bowl game (hopefully), it would seem that he would break the record for most starts somewhere in the vicinity of the 9th or 10th game next year. |
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well the clock is ticking towards kickoff. |
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i am just going to have to go ahead & say that the "bowl losing streak" is borderline disgraceful |
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HAHAHA! loved the pirate chart #1. loved the crack on ty #2! keep up the dry sense of humor. loved it! |
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For whatever it's worth, even with 91 starts, I seem to remember the 2006 line being pretty lousy. Brady Quinn covered up a lot of their weaknesses by being a mobile, veteran quarterback. |
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I am so happy college fudbaw is back. It's just the best. |
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Anyone else get a kick out of seeing Dickrod's revolutionary offense struggling to break 200 yards? Utah should've won that game by 2-3 TD's, but they did their best 2007 UCLA imitation in the 2nd half. |
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Michigan will experience a lot of growing pains this year, much like we did last year. |
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First week was real good. Tommorrow there is still some games. Utah could have killed Michigan if they wanted. |
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Some thoughts on yesterday: |
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ditto navyjoe. Our schedule looks even easier after yesterday. If we were good we'd be undefeated going into USC. Alas. Eight wins I would gladly take though |
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I watched the Cal - Michigan State game last night here on the West Coast and trust me, we will not beat the Spartans. They are damn good - fast with both a good running and air game. |
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Re: Samardzija pitching for the Cubs |
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damn good teams usually don't give up 38 points... |
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Well, there was a lot of talk about whether UM 2008 would be as bad as ND 2007. While it might not reach such historic pitifulness, it could get pretty bad for the skunkbears. |
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1. Did Michigan remind you at times of ND last year? Gee, what a difference the loss of a QB, a star RB, star wide receivers and the top OL make. Or is it that Rich Rodriguez is a lousy coach as some ND fans believe Weis now is?? |
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Dateline Eugene, OR: The University of Oregon put up a racist effort beating coach tee time 44-10. |
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Guys, save your glee a bit. As bad as Michigan might have been, they were still in position to tie in the 4th quarter against a decent (yet mistake prone) Utah team. Michigan plays Miami of Ohio next, which should give them a win going into playing us. I'd save any comparisons with ND 2007 until after we play--if we hand them a 38-0 loss, then yeah, they're that bad. But I'm not convinced we're any better than they are at this point. |
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I mean, if you guys think we're that much better than Michigan, then are you saying we'd beat Utah by 2 TD's? I don't buy that. |
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Michigan's defense played much better in the second half against Utah. That defense could give ND's offense problems. |
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Willingham is now 11-26 and 6-21 in conference play at UW. His overall career coaching record is now below .500. This is not to take glee in his record but only to point out that ND's buying out his contract was not racist but no one on ESPN is mentioning this, is he? |
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Let's not give Michigan too much credit here. They didn't sustain a drive longer than thirty yards. Their defense gave up over 300 yards in the first half, and Utah got way too conservative in the second half and basically abandoned the passing game. Utah kept them in the game by abandoning what had been working for them and totaling an astounding 160+ yards of penalties. |
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Seems that the 75 doesn't hold true for everyone. |
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This is an encouraging quote from Bruton that CW is undergoing a complete metamorphosis. |
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Michigan looked very much like we did last year. They will have difficulty scoring 20 points every week. Utah's starting QB was very poor in the second half. I think we stand an excellent chance of shutting them out. |
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Michigan was incredibly lucky if you saw the game. A TON of bad Utah penalties and dropped picks. A fuimbled punt. Utah looked awful |
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Prehaps using a combination of, # of starts and their position rank when being recruited. |
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Here is PA, the Penn State fans are all excited again after beating Coastal Carolina, a fledgling team who will use its share of the game take to expand its stadium's seating capacity to 7500!! JoePa is extolled for tying Bowden's record. Just think of the shit Weis and ND would take if they pulled a stunt like this!! |
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If Notre Dame ever scheduled Coastal Carolina we would never, ever hear the end of it from all the college football pundits. |
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Here's my 12 team ranking, w/gaps: |
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to be honest I think 10 wins is very possible but I see we will get 9 though. |
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As of now, the ND-Michigan game has changed from a toss-up to a probable loss for Michigan. Good for us. |
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there is absolutely no reason to think that we would be overmatched against Stanford. We controlled that game last year and we sucked. There is no way that they have improved more than we have. |
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I would like to agree with you, but Stanford is showing improvement in a very solid conference. They sure as hell played USC tougher than we did, and it's clear their coaching staff is making the most of their talent. |
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Utah vs. U of M reminded me of ND vs. UCLA last year. That game was a MESS. If Utah has been able to find its behind with both hands they would've won by 2 or 3 TDs. That isn't to say they're a terrible team but they played a terrible game and still beat Michigan in their own house. |
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Why are there so many people here inviting so grand a fall from the grace of the football gods for ND football this year with the speculation that UM will now be an easy win in view of their first game against Utah? The season prospects for many teams were hinted at over this past weekend, but until our team plays, how can anyone say anything about how ND will perform against the teams that did play? I thought I had provided a few doses of reality a couple weeks ago. Apparently not. So here goes again: |
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IndyEsq: |
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TBoneND: |
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