Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Notre Dame Historical Ineptitude Watch

Notre Dame's season has come to a merciful end with a win over Stanford in a match-up of teams formerly coached by Ty Willingham. The Irish managed to generate 313 yards of total offense in the win and rang up their third highest point total of the season (Notre Dame Scored 44 against Navy in triple overtime and 28 against Duke).

In the process Notre Dame comfortably avoided being the worst offense in the last 9 seasons. Here's where they rank:

  1. 2002 Rutgers – 214.00
  2. 2006 Temple – 215.67
  3. 2000 Baylor – 221.82
  4. 1999 South Carolina – 228.64
  5. 2001 Rutgers – 241.64
  6. 2007 Notre Dame – 242.25
  7. 2005 Temple – 247.45
  8. 2003 SMU – 260.67
  9. 2004 Duke - 266.45
So there you have it, Notre Dame's 2007 offense is officially the 6th worse over the last 9 years. An admirable feat nonetheless for a coach that is touted as an offensive genius. Consider that there are more than 100 Division 1A teams. That means that 900+ offenses have been fielded over the last 9 seasons and Notre Dame is 6th from the bottom. It truly was one for the ages.

As far as futility for this season goes the honor is solely Notre Dame's, finishing 119th out of 119 by averaging 20 yards less per game than 0-11 Florida International.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

By any standard, ND stunk this year. But their schedule was really tough. (Sagarin 16)

How does ND rank in your power rankings? I'm guessing they are in the top 100, maybe even in the seventies or eighties.

Mergz said...

Eric - Right you are, Notre Dame comes in 97th despite the 3 wins and the lame offense, and that is in large part because of their tough schedule.