When I surveyed the Board in March, the consensus of the probabilities for next year fell between 8-4 and 9-3. Thus, if the Board's assessment of the chances of winning each game is correct, then the odds that N.D.'s record will fall somewhere from 7-5 to 10-2 next year well exceeds 90%. That, of course, would be a considerable improvement on last year's 5-6 season, though Davie's average for the last 5 years works out to exactly 7-5, so setting that as the low end of next year's expectations is not entirely unreasonable.

But aside from the obvious (losing between 1 and 4 fewer games and winning between 2 and 5 more games) how do N.D. teams of the past in this range differ from last year's team statistically?

To examine this, I looked at past N.D. seasons (from Ara forward) that fell in this band between 7-5 and 10-2. Since N.D. has not always played exactly 12 games, I looked at seasons that were very close to these in terms of winning percentage. So, for instance, the 6-4-1 season of 1982 I treated as being a 7-5 season.

I looked at four key statistics: yards per rush, yards allowed per rush, yards per pass attempt and yards allowed per pass attempt. I also looked then at the most important output other than record, which is points scored and points allowed per game.

First let's look at last year on these measures:

2001

Points per game: 19.4 Points vs. per game: 19.5
Yards per rush: 3.9 Allowed per rush: 3.5
Yards per pass: 5.1 Allowed per pass: 6.9

Now, here are how N.D. teams have looked at each record from 7-5 to 10-2:

7-5

Points per game: 23.2 Points vs. per game: 17.5
Yards per rush: 4.0 Allowed per rush: 3.5
Yards per pass: 7.1 Allowed per pass: 6.3

8-4

Points per game: 25.2 Points vs. per game: 18.1
Yards per rush: 4.3 Allowed per rush: 3.7
Yards per pass: 8.1 Allowed per pass: 6.0

9-3

Points per game: 30.5 Points vs. per game: 16.5
Yards per rush: 4.5 Allowed per rush: 3.2
Yards per pass: 7.5 Allowed per pass: 6.2

10-2

Points per game: 29.7 Points vs. per game: 12.0
Yards per rush: 4.5 Allowed per rush: 2.6
Yards per pass: 6.7 Allowed per pass: 5.6

There are some anomolies because of relatively small sample sizes. For instance, 8-4ish seasons are actually hard to find. N.D. went 8-4 in 1987 in Holtz's second year and 7-4 in Devine's penultimate season, and for 10-2 seasons I had to use some of Ara's 8-2 seasons and Lou's 10-1-1 campaign in 1992. Notwithstanding this, however, there are some obvious indicators of how N.D. will have to improve for, say, 9-3 really to come into view.

First, while the points per game allowed figure for last year was on the cusp of being acceptable, N.D. was roughly a touchdown per game from being a decent offensive team, two touchdowns per game from being a good offensive team. As weak as the ground attack seemed last year, it was not that far from being acceptable, though as frequently as N.D. has run in past seasons, the extra half yard or so per carry necessary for a sustained attack would undoubtedly translate into a great deal more success by the end of the year. The pass offense, as one might suspect, was nowhere near to being acceptable. While N.D. has had many successful seasons in which it has thrown relatively infrequently, roughly 7 or so yards per attempt is necessary for a reasonably balanced attack. The extra two yards per attempt will probably have to be added by some combination of a higher completion percentage on the shorter routes (N.D.'s completion percentage of only 50.0% last year was very poor given how short most of the routes were) and presumably hitting some receivers on the move so that they have a chance to pick up significant yardage after the catch. (If we could transplant Stanford's offense from last year: 4.4 per carry, 8.3 per pass attempt, and 37 points per game, that would be a great leap forward.)

On defense, the rushing defense was probably good enough for a decent record, though looking at the 10-2 years, it's clear that true dominance starts to come into view when the defense begins to really stuff the run (say, under 3.0 per carry) and forces the other team to become one dimensional. The pass defense will also have to improve to roughly 6.0 yards per attempt. N.D. managed to hold the opposition last year to exactly a 50% completion rate (137 completions in 274 attempts), which is certainly an acceptable defensive effort in this sense. So improvement on this front could presumably come from holding the opposition to an even lower completion percentage (say, 45%) or by allowing less yardage to be gained after short throws.

So, where do we stand? Work needs to be done on both sides of the ball, but more of it needs to be done on the offensive side of the ball, particularly in developing a credible passing attack. If N.D. could've developed even a below-average passing attack of 6 yards per attempt, it seems likely that the running game would've loosened up some. On defense, the bigger issue is pass defense. Anyone who has followed N.D. football for the last several years cannot fail to have noticed how often N.D. would play good defense for two downs but then let the opposition off the hook on 3rd and long. Making more plays by aggressively defensing passes (without an excessive number of pass interference calls) would do a lot to stop drives.

Other coaches have been able to bring about the kind of improvements that have set N.D. on the right course. For instance, in 1985 (Faust's final season), N.D. averaged 20.9 points per game, gave up 21.3, averaged 3.7 per rush and gave up 3.5, and averaged 6.8 per pass and gave up 6.7 per pass. In most respects Faust's final team was similar to Davie's, though with a better passing attack and a slightly worse rushing attack.

In Holtz's first year N.D. averaged 27.2 points per game, gave up 19.9, rushed for 3.8 per carry and gave up 3.1 and averaged 8.4 per pass and gave up 6.9. Thus, although Holtz's first team was only 5-6, every figure except for pass defense was headed the right direction. In 1987, when Holtz took N.D. to 8-4, the Irish then scored 28.3 per game, gave up 18.2, rushed for 4.5 per carry and gave up 3.7 and passed for 8.5 per attempt and gave up 6.2. Once again, almost all of the numbers were headed in the right direction. Then in the National Championship season, N.D. averaged 32.8 per game and gave up 13.0, rushed for 4.8 per carry and gave up 3.1 and gained 8.4 per pass and gave up 5.8.

Thus, confronted with a similar situation, Holtz chose to attack the offensive problems first and quickly had N.D. back to respectability. While the defense remained at a reasonably good level his first two years, by 1988 he had amassed the personnel to put a strong defense on the field and a national championship ensued.