Wow Florida State, life comes at you fast.
Bad news (part 1): Five weeks into the 2024 college football season and Notre Dame’s strength of schedule isn’t looking great. Surprise, surprise.
Good news: The whole system part of college football, and the craziness going in almost every sector, means that evaluating the Irish’s strength of schedule in isolation doesn’t mean much.
Good news (part 2): Depending on how you like your stress, the numbers surrounding Notre Dame’s schedule through the first quarter of the regular season make for some pretty interesting storylines.
And while we’ve got a break in the action, let’s take a deep dive into how things are going for Notre Dame’s opponents.
Overall Records
From a high-level perspective, Florida State and Miami (OH) are the biggest underperformers. Florida State was rated #1 in the preseason but is 1-4 through Week 5. Miami (OH) was at #5 and is sitting at 1-3.
Texas A&M, Louisville and USC are performing about as expected.
Georgia Tech, Northern Illinois and Virginia are performing slightly above where I had them pegged.
And the bombshell no one could’ve imagined. Army and Navy are undefeated going into Week 6. I’m surprised this has largely blown under the radar and chalk that up to the quarterback situation it still being early in the season. But I’m expecting a full-on meltdown on the message boards and ND corners of Twitter if the service academies’ success continues.
The Irish have played three of the preseason Top 5 rated opponents. They’ve managed to win all of those games (Texas A&M #2, Louisville #3, Miami (OH) #5). The Irish have also beat Purdue, who was sitting at #10 going into the season. Northern Illinois is the only loss through Week 5 and I pegged the Huskies at #7 during the preseason.
Notre Dame still has the #1 (Florida State), #4 (USC) #6 (Georgia Tech), #8-9 and #11-12 rated teams left to play.
Scoring Takeaways
In terms of scoring, Miami (OH), Purdue and Florida State are playing the worst. The RedHawks have only scored 48 points so far. Of the Irish’s remaining opponents, Navy and Georgia Tech are performing the best. The Midshipmen have scored 184 points and the Yellowjackets have scored 165 points. On a per game basis, Navy, Army, USC and Georgia Tech are the most prolific scorers.
Defensive Takeaways
Defensively, what we’ve seen from Notre Dame opponents doesn’t differ much from the preseason ratings. Florida State is the big outlier, in yet another negative category. Army’s defense has been particularly stingy, allowing only 10.5 points per game.
System Takeaways
Notre Dame’s opponents have played mostly against ACC programs through Week 5. For those 12 games, Notre Dame opponents had a 41.7% win rate. Florida State has accounted for four of those ACC games. The ACC in general doesn’t have much to be proud of but I kind of feel for FSU having to face this many conference opponents so early in the season.
Opponents have beat all nine of their FCS opponents and they are 85.7% victorious in seven games against American conference teams. The American conference wins are all the handy work of Army and Navy but Florida State did drop a game to Memphis.
What’s odd is that Irish opponents are 3-0 against SEC competition but 0-2 against the Big 12 and 1-5 against the Big Ten. Those SEC wins came by way of USC (LSU) and Texas A&M (Florida, Arkansas). The Big 12 losses are attributed to Miami (OH) and Stanford. The RedHawks lost to Cincinnati and the Cardinal dropped their season opener to TCU. USC is 1-1 so far against Big Ten competition but Miami (OH), Purdue and Virginia have all been beaten by Big Ten teams.
Point Differential Nuance
Football is a pretty binary sport when it comes down to it. And it’s just reality that whoever’s scored the most points at the last whistle is all that matters in the long term. But from a more nuanced, point differential perspective Notre Dame’s opponents are doing alright. Florida State, Miami (OH) are overachieving in the losing area and Purdue has been on a hell of a ride through Week 5. Army and Navy are playing the most consistent football and I’d say are trending the strongest. It’s still pretty early but even for the other teams who are looking strong from 30,000 feet, the point differentials are so spread out that we really can’t call who they’re going to turn out to be.
Just some stuff to take into the next episode/weekend of As The College Football Turns.
Cheers and Go Irish!!