Here is N.D.'s offense for the last two years broken down by what percentage of the game Holiday plays (I used pass attempts by quarterbacks as a proxy; so if Holiday had 20 pass attempts and LoVecchio or Dillingham had 5, then I assume Holiday played 80% or so of the game.) Here's the breakdown:

Holiday plays 80% or more of the game:

N.D. record: 13-3
Points per game on offensive possessions: 17.7
Yards per play on offense: 5.1

Holiday plays 50% to 79% of the game:

N.D. record: 1-2
Points per game on offensive possessions: 15.0
Yards per play on offense: 4.5

Holiday plays less than 50% of the game:

N.D. record: 1-4
Points per game on offensive possessions: 9.2
Yards per play on offense: 3.8

The "middle" group of games, ones in which Holiday played most -- but not nearly all -- of the games were both B.C. games and the M.S.U. game in 2002. N.D. won the M.S.U. game and lost the two B.C. games. In all three of those games it seems obvious that Holiday's injury affected the course of the game.

The games where Holiday played less than half the game were the first three games of 2001 and Stanford and the Gator Bowl this year. Stanford 2002 was the only one that N.D. won.

The three losses where Holiday played substantially all of the game were Stanford and Tennessee 2001 and U.S.C. 2002.

One of the reasons that N.D.'s record has fared so much better with Holiday playing most or all of the game is that every other quarterback who has played over this stretch (principally LoVecchio and Dillingham) have been much, much more turnover prone. N.D., for example, was minus 7 on turnover margin through the first three games of 2001, but then when Holiday took over for most of the last 8 games of the season N.D. was +10 for the rest of the season. Dillingham in 2002 threw more interceptions than Holiday but had only about a quarter the number of attempts.

The other factor is that, while Holiday's passing has been very inconsistent, he brings into play at least two factors lacking in anyone else who has played QB over this stretch. First, his running ability has tended to do more to keep defenses honest. The other is that his ability to make deep throws with reasonable accuracy gives him a much better yards per attempt figure. Over the course of the two years, Holiday is at a little better than 6.5 yards per attempt, while all other N.D. quarterbacks combined are actually a little under 5 per attempt, assuming that you throw out "trick" passes like Battle's completion to Holiday against M.S.U. or Hildbold's fake punt pass completion in the Gator Bowl.