Notre Dame was a pair of two-point losses away from going 12-0 last year and a Top 10 team with its sights set on earning a spot in the College Football Playoff this season.
But August was not a good month for the Fighting Irish. DeShone Kizer and Malik Zaire were not excited about head coach Chip Kelly’s decision to play both of them in the season opener in Austin against Texas. Two days after that announcement, five Notre Dame players were arrested and charged with marijuana possession after the car they were in was stopped for speeding. One of them, safety Max Redfield, was also charged with possession of an unlicensed handgun and subsequently dismissed from the team.
The other four — cornerback Ashton White, running back Dexter Williams, linebacker Te’Veon Coney and wide receiver Kevin Stepherson — were internally disciplined but not suspended, so they will be available against the Longhorns on Sunday night. Cornerback Devin Butler, who was already out until at least October with a broken foot, was suspended indefinitely for a separate incident that same weekend when he was accused of tackling and punching a police officer.
Notre Dame opened as a 10.5-point favorite over Texas way back in February but that is down to 3.5 points now. Redfield made 68 tackles in 2014, the second-most on the team, behind only Jaylon Smith’s 111 stops. He followed that up with 63 tackles last season despite missing two games — Week 3’s contest against Georgia Tech with a hand injury and the Fiesta Bowl against Ohio State for a violation of team rules.
Redfield was the No. 3 safety in the 2013 class and the 30th-best player overall, according to the 247Sports Composite player rankings — the fifth-highest rated player to sign with the Irish in the Brian Kelly era. Opponents had 30.42 EPA (Expected Points Added) on the plays he made last year, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.
About one-third of the tackles he made resulted in a negative EPA for the opposing offense, meaning they were expected to score fewer points on a given drive after Redfield made a play than they were before he did. After another approximate one-third of his tackles, opponents gained between zero and one EPA, with the remaining 19 stops resulting in the opposing offense gaining -0.90 EPA. Apart from those 19, Redfield contributed to plays that resulted in -0.90 EPA for opposing offenses.
The forecasts for how the Notre Dame quarterbacks will play against Texas is a bit more encouraging for the Irish. Before his season-ending ankle injury in the second game of the year against Virginia, Zaire scorched the Texas defense in Notre Dame’s 2015 opener. He completed 19 of 22 passes for 313 yards and three touchdowns without an interception.
That was good for 27.77 adjusted pass EPA — the 32nd-most in a single game last year out of 2,668 player-games. Zaire averaged 1.26 adjusted pass EPA per attempt in the 38-3 shellacking of the Longhorns, making his the 14th-most efficient passing performance among quarterbacks who made at least 20 passes in a game last season — and the most against a Power 5 opponent.
After Zaire’s injury, DeShone Kizer took over and went 8-3 in the Irish’s last 11 games of the year. He passed for 2,880 yards, 21 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. Kizer racked up 64.23 adjusted pass EPA and averaged 0.22 adjusted pass EPA per attempt — the 50th-best and 43rd-best in the country last year.
So while the Irish might miss Redfield, the good news for them is that they have two more-than-capable quarterbacks to put behind center when they face Texas. And one of them had one of the best games any quarterback had last year against the Longhorns in last year’s opener.
That’s one of the biggest reasons why the model used here to assign each FBS team a rating and project the outcome of each FBS game this season is so confident Notre Dame will still beat Texas despite all the off-field drama last month. It has the Irish going to Austin and beating the Longhorns by 9.8 points, with a 74.3% chance to come out with a crucial season-opening victory.
But August was not a good month for the Fighting Irish. DeShone Kizer and Malik Zaire were not excited about head coach Chip Kelly’s decision to play both of them in the season opener in Austin against Texas. Two days after that announcement, five Notre Dame players were arrested and charged with marijuana possession after the car they were in was stopped for speeding. One of them, safety Max Redfield, was also charged with possession of an unlicensed handgun and subsequently dismissed from the team.
The other four — cornerback Ashton White, running back Dexter Williams, linebacker Te’Veon Coney and wide receiver Kevin Stepherson — were internally disciplined but not suspended, so they will be available against the Longhorns on Sunday night. Cornerback Devin Butler, who was already out until at least October with a broken foot, was suspended indefinitely for a separate incident that same weekend when he was accused of tackling and punching a police officer.
Notre Dame opened as a 10.5-point favorite over Texas way back in February but that is down to 3.5 points now. Redfield made 68 tackles in 2014, the second-most on the team, behind only Jaylon Smith’s 111 stops. He followed that up with 63 tackles last season despite missing two games — Week 3’s contest against Georgia Tech with a hand injury and the Fiesta Bowl against Ohio State for a violation of team rules.
Redfield was the No. 3 safety in the 2013 class and the 30th-best player overall, according to the 247Sports Composite player rankings — the fifth-highest rated player to sign with the Irish in the Brian Kelly era. Opponents had 30.42 EPA (Expected Points Added) on the plays he made last year, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.
About one-third of the tackles he made resulted in a negative EPA for the opposing offense, meaning they were expected to score fewer points on a given drive after Redfield made a play than they were before he did. After another approximate one-third of his tackles, opponents gained between zero and one EPA, with the remaining 19 stops resulting in the opposing offense gaining -0.90 EPA. Apart from those 19, Redfield contributed to plays that resulted in -0.90 EPA for opposing offenses.
The forecasts for how the Notre Dame quarterbacks will play against Texas is a bit more encouraging for the Irish. Before his season-ending ankle injury in the second game of the year against Virginia, Zaire scorched the Texas defense in Notre Dame’s 2015 opener. He completed 19 of 22 passes for 313 yards and three touchdowns without an interception.
That was good for 27.77 adjusted pass EPA — the 32nd-most in a single game last year out of 2,668 player-games. Zaire averaged 1.26 adjusted pass EPA per attempt in the 38-3 shellacking of the Longhorns, making his the 14th-most efficient passing performance among quarterbacks who made at least 20 passes in a game last season — and the most against a Power 5 opponent.
After Zaire’s injury, DeShone Kizer took over and went 8-3 in the Irish’s last 11 games of the year. He passed for 2,880 yards, 21 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. Kizer racked up 64.23 adjusted pass EPA and averaged 0.22 adjusted pass EPA per attempt — the 50th-best and 43rd-best in the country last year.
So while the Irish might miss Redfield, the good news for them is that they have two more-than-capable quarterbacks to put behind center when they face Texas. And one of them had one of the best games any quarterback had last year against the Longhorns in last year’s opener.
That’s one of the biggest reasons why the model used here to assign each FBS team a rating and project the outcome of each FBS game this season is so confident Notre Dame will still beat Texas despite all the off-field drama last month. It has the Irish going to Austin and beating the Longhorns by 9.8 points, with a 74.3% chance to come out with a crucial season-opening victory.
No comments:
Post a Comment