Notre Dame's 2010 Schedule
Maybe this doesn't warrant a whole forum topic, but I was just taking a look at ND's schedule for this fall, and it's about as easy as they could ask for.
They play @ USC the last game of the year. OK, they'll obviously lose that game.
They have 7 home games and 2 neutral site games, so they only have 3 true road games, one of which is USC which they would lose even if they played at the frickin Vatican.
They play 5(!) non-BCS conference teams. Keep in mind that a Big Ten team can play AT MOST 4 non-BCS conference teams, most play fewer than that. M, for example, plays 2 non-BCS conference teams (ND is considered a BCS conference team).
It's possible that ND only plays 1 or 2 teams that finish the season in the top 25 (USC and Pitt are the most likely).
The other teams they play that I haven't touched on are MSU, Purdue, Boston College and Stanford. Not exactly the cream of the crop there.
If they don't win 8 games this year, it will be worse than us winning 5 last year. The only good thing about this schedule is that it sets up ND to get slaughtered by a superior opponent in a bowl again.
Michigan will finish in the top 25 this year.
Book it.
Top 1.
Oh yeah. Book that, baby.
Oh shoot, good catch on my typo.
to wear the Woodley #56 and scream at the television. Bring on Connecticut.
The only good thing about this schedule is that it sets up ND to get slaughtered by a superior opponent in a BCS bowl again.
Fixed that for you.
See, I think ND would have to win 10 games to go to a BCS bowl this year, and I don't think that's going to happen. There will be enough 2 loss teams (and maybe 1 or 2 undefeated Mid Majors) to keep ND out of the BCS mix if they lose 3 games, and maybe even so if they only lose 2. Every other 2 loss team will have beaten better teams than ND will have, and even Penn State missed a BCS bowl with 2 losses last year. 3 losses (which ND will surely have) will be enough to keep them out of the BCS.
From my keyboard to God's ears.
To Hell with Notre Dame
Get Lou Holtz on the phone so he can use this info when he projects who will be in the BCS Championship Game!
Holtz will go a different direction this year. He'll have Notre Dame in the BCS Championship Game, but they'll play USF.
Well, I just got off the phone with Holtz. He said "aalwgo ogihwt sakhog ehati notre dame giowa ghudy." Book it, I guess.
at $8.99 a pound, Charlie must have cost them a fortune!
ND is going to have trouble with Utah.
Not a killer slate. Loses: MSU, Pitt, USC, Utah, Stanford and, hopefully, Michigan
we shall see, though.
Love the talk about these teams, its better than discussing a bleacher report post, thats for sure.
The only reason I think ND will beat Utah is scheduling. ND has a bye week before they play Utah, the game is in South Bend, and Utah has a very tough game against TCU the week before the play ND.
ND will be fresh and prepared at home, and Utah will be on the road following the toughest game of their season.
Didnt know that about the Utah slate. Unnaceptable, even in May that I dont have that knowledge. This year's version of Phil Steele cant get here soon enough, then I wont leave myself open to making wild predictions in a clear let down spot for the Utes.
That said, I do know Utah is awesome as a road dog, especially vs out of conference teams. Major awesome. Take whatever points you can that day to the bank.
To reprise an MM discussion with Irish from Sunday night, this is a typical ND schedule. It has two games that would be tough for a truly elite team and a bunch of games that look good on the computer and to fans but should be winnable if they are as good as they were under Lou Holtz.
I love the current BT setup and have advocated only one tough non-conference game because of the current MNC game qualifications, but ND has even an easier path than the Big Ten champion does.
Under the usual Big Ten model, PSU, OSU, and UM should be elite, with the Wiscys and Iowas of the world threatening to break through but never really sustaining elite performance over an extended period of time. So, usually, there should be two tough games in the Big Ten for a team that is good enough to play for the MNC (remember, this means one of the legit top eight or so teams in the country) and one tough non-conference game; that means they have three playoff-level games to get there.
ND has two games on that level most years: UM and USC. They occasionally add another tough game, but the "tough" games on their schedule are really the equivalent of playing Wiscy or Iowa in a typical year: teams good enough to give them a good game, but not quite good enough to beat a championship-caliber team.
So, anyway, this schedule is perfect for ND right now. If they become an elite team again and beat both UM and USC, they will probably get to the MNC game. They aren't ready yet and should lose quite a few of those games that will become autowins as they get better, but they are positioned nicely if Kelly can do what everyone expects him to do in a year or two.
Before I get too carried away, though, I am hoping they don't beat Michigan again for a long time.
FYI Navy chooses to play its home games in NJ from time to time, so I don't think that's considered a neutral site game.
Also they've got Utah at home at the end of the year. Utah has been just plain good the last few years. That should be a fun game to watch.
In terms of likliehood to end up in the final top 25 I'd say
USC, Pitt, Utah and maybe Stanford. Honestly no idea where we fit in there.
on air when he picks ND to the title game again in a few months. At least our guy on Gameday is not homer like Herbie and Lou. I would rather have Mark May beat down on my team when they are bad and tell the truth as Dr. Lou is taking too many pills before he goes on the air.
ND is not going to beat Stanford,Pitt, MSU or USC this year. They will win 7-8 games this year tops. I really think we beat them as well by a few scores as they are going to struggle with the spread I think for the first few games not like us but we are in much better shape now.
I'm not willing to concede the USC game as a loss for ND. I have way more confidence in Brian Kelly's ability to prepare his team over the course of this year than Lane's ability to do so with USC.
I'll give you 10 to 1 odds that ND does not go into the Coliseum and beat USC. Now, would I like to see that happen? I might. It's one of those win-win (or lose-lose?) situations, either ND loses to USC again, or USC loses to ND for the first time in forever with their new coach. Both of those are kinda cool.
10 to 1 odds? are you sure? Last year ND had 1st and goal down 7 with under a minute left.
USC lost Griffin, Mays and their entire secondary on D. On O they lose their top RBs, WR and TE and most of the OL. Plus Lane Kiffin is now their coach. I'd go closer to 2 to 1. ND will be average. I know SC reloads, not rebuilds, but this SC team isn't going to be the 2005 edition.
USC is not going to be like their 2005 version. But they'll have RB's, WR's and TE's galore. They have so many studs at those spots it's not even funny. Their secondary will be young but their DL and LB crew will be stacked as well. Matt Barkley playing like a true frosh in some games last year was the only reason they weren't in a BCS bowl (remember they still beat OSU) in Columbus. He'll be much improved and he'll have targets. The OL will be inexperienced but very talented. And the game will be in LA.
Truth is, they won't need to be the 2005 edition. ND just won't be that good. I'd be very shocked if they pull off this game. 10:1 shocked.
you're higher on USC than most USC fans that I talk to. Example: Their LB corp is actually the weakest unit on the team
Looking at non BCS v. BCS games is too simplistic. Utah and Navy are tough games.
Eh, Navy is a decent team that usually finishes around 8-5 against a MAC level schedule. Last year they lost to Temple and Hawaii. Utah is a better team, but if Utah is one of the tougher games on your schedule, it's an easy schedule.
There are good non-BCS teams. However, there aren't too many perennial strong non-BCS teams so having 5 of them on your schedule guarantees that 3-4 of them are cupcakes. If you had 5 non-BCS teams when the other 7 had a handful of Texas, USC, Alabama, Ohio St type teams, I'd understand. But that's the problem with ND only scheduling 2 really strong teams every year (UM and USC) - when one of them is down (us) the schedule is even more silly than before.
Navy also beat the piss out of Missouri in their bowl game, but they are pretty inconsistent.
Navy had injuries at key positions last year, lucky for ND they were all healthy for that game.
Don't we have this same talk about how easy their schedule is every year but they always seem to end up 6-6 anyways.
HUGE ( no pun intended) factor in that final result. What is diff this year is that BK can be trusted to win at least half of the tossup games (Navy, Utah etc) and they only need a couple more to claim a very decent year.
The only games on the schedule I see as easy wins are Army, Tulsa, and Western Michigan.
That's probably the case, but the lack of gimmes isn't what determines a touch schedule. They don't play a single team who played in a BCS bowl last year (unlike almost every BCS team, maybe every one), USC and Pitt are the only teams they play who will challenge for the respective conference (and Pitt is the Big East), and there just isn't a single week until USC where you look at the schedule and say "Ooh that will be a tough one."
In years past ND has prided themselves on tough scheduling and those years are clearly behind them. And for those people who complain about the 2 or so easy games that Michigan schedules every year, they should refer to ND's schedule and see that they have a game like that every other week.
murderer's row, but Michigan, MSU, Stanford, BC, Pitt in five consecutive weeks is a pretty good run.
I'm okay with them playing a couple of service academies every year. It's tradition, and it's one that probably hasn't worked out as well as Dame fans had hoped over the last 20 years or so (see Navy recently, or Air Force back in the day).
Due to the Stanford and USC games, plus the Michigan, MSU, Purdue B10 tour, their schedule is somewhat at the mercy of how good those teams are in any given year. It's rare that all of them are solid at the same time, though (or at least it has been the last decade or so).
Ultimately I'm with you in that the days of scheduling Tennessee, Ga Tech, Penn State, FSU etc.would be nice to resurrect.
It's not an extremely difficult schedule, but it's not really that easy, either. There are a bunch of games that could go either way. ND will be a prohibitive favorite in only around four of them.
was just taking a look at ND's schedule for this fall, and it's about as easy as they could ask for.
I think I may remember saying the exact same thing this time a year ago.
And two years ago, come to think of it.
What seems to be lost in all this Bryan Kelly hype is the fact that ND has lost a lot personnel-wise, and I thought they looked slow and sloppy in their spring game. I think they're going to be much worse than people think. Not 3-8 bad, but not anywhere near a BCS bowl, that's just crazy talk.
Don't most BCS Conference teams schedule at least 3 non-BCS conference opponents? This will be the first time in the RR era that we don't have 3. I usually don't have a problem with ND's schedule, facing Blue and USC every year, along with middle level BCS teams like Pitt, MSU, Purdue and then the service acadamies and 1 or 2 patsies. This year seems exceptionally weak for them (but not anymore so than MSU's schedule this year).
Most all respectable BCS teams (and ND purports themselves to be one) plays at most 3 non-BCS teams. The Pac-10 only has 3 OOC games, and many of the top teams still play another BCS team OOC. The other major BCS teams schedule at least one, and sometimes more, OOC games against other BCS conference teams.
Take a look at ND's schedule. Take the three easy ones (Army, Tulsa and WMU) and one of the BCS schools (let's say Pitt) as their OOC teams. Now look at what's left, and tell me that's as difficult as playing in the Big Ten, SEC, ACC or Big 12. It's more like a bunch of teams that will all finish .500 or below in their conference, plus USC.
plus USC and Michigan.
Hey man, I hope you're right. But if we're more than one game over .500 in the Big Ten I'll be very surprised. Pleasantly surprised for sure, but still surprised.
I want to put a thread mocking both this tread and the Michigan schedule thread, say with Western Warhington's schedule, but at least this thread went to discuss something that won't be discussed ad nausem later. Do I care? Not really. Do I want to see the schedule break down for every team that's loosely related to Michigan or good enough that enough people would be interested? Not really.
Not reall.
Tulsa shows up when it comes to the big games, most of the time. They lost by one to #15 Houston, and lost by one score to #5 Boise State. And that was a junior heavy team which didn't have a lot of losses, I doubt it will be an easy game when they roll into town.
Stanford could take the pac10 next year, the same for Pitt with the BigEast. USC definitely has the talent to win a lot of games next season but that is no guarantee. BC is never an easy game for ND, I don't care what their record is or how they project on paper they will play over their heads especially at home. Last year a UM fan told me purdue was a cupcake and ND sucked because they didn't destroy them, I warned him he would be in for a surprise when UM played them, though I am happy ND plays them early.
You guys complained about ND's schedule last year as being extremely weak and they ended up playing 9 bowl teams if I remember right, which seems counter intuitive to me. If you're not taking the schedule order into account you're not weighing the difficulty of NDs schedule correctly to begin with. Purdue, UM, @MSU, Stanford, BC, and @Pitt give me one big ten team that starts out of the gate like that, maybe PSU? Now look at the offenses ND will need to defend, a passing spread, a running spread, power run, prostyle run, and 2 prostyle pass teams. It won't be as much of a cake walk as you think.
in 2005, when ND had one of the harder schedules in recent memory. they played 6 teams in the preseason top 25, including 4 of the top 6. granted that schedule didn't turn out to be as hard as advertised, with only 3 remaining in the top 25 at the end of the year, but nevertheless. you would think that as long as they're remaining independent, they would play a more high-profile schedule. i understand playing a weaker schedule allows them for more wins (which is really all that matters), but those wins don't come with national respect, which they have lost a lot of in recent years.
You were with the Beatles.. that’s was cool .
They may not have that many true away games, but the first 6 games on their schedule are all teams that they could theoretically lose to: Purdue, Michigan, Michigan State, Stanford, Boston College, and Pittsburgh.
They don't play a "should win" game until week 7 against Western Michigan.
Kelly has got his work cut out for him in year 1.