Nov 8 | Arizona State

[connect the dots]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>BK: Todd Graham has always had aggressive defenses and has been innovative on offense. Has won in HS, at Tulsa, at Pitt, now at ASU</p>— Irish Sports Daily (@ISDUpdate) <a href="https://twitter.com/ISDUpdate/status/529685806378942465">November 4, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Todd Graham and that frustrating Tulsa loss 28 -27(interception(three on the day for backup Tommy) returned for a touchdown, punt returned for a touchdown). Leaving for Arizona State, his Pitt players referred to Graham as a liar - as the King of liars! I do not care for this Todd Graham.

 

[dublinirish]

Todd Graham and that frustrating Tulsa loss 28 -27(interception(three on the day for backup Tommy) returned for a touchdown, punt returned for a touchdown). Leaving for Arizona State, his Pitt players referred to Graham as a liar - as the King of liars! I do not care for this Todd Graham.

he's a well known dirtbag, time to curbstomp these clowns

 

[GoIrish41]

ND will win this game. I am confident. ND-38, ASU 24.

 

[CarrollVermin]

Well now you're just bragging haha.

I promise I will come down to the bayou next year for a game if you just happened to get tickets for a sixth tiem Life goal to hit the Meccas of college football. Big house, horseshoe, rose bowl, the swamp, neyland, death valley, happy valley, between the hedges, Texas a&m, Nebraska, etc.

It would be in two years, but absolutely. LSU will visit Bama next year...also been there a few times. Its a great rivalry and a great game to take in.

 

[irish4ever]

ND will win this game. I am confident. ND-38, ASU 24.

Let it be written, let it be done!

 

[Emcee77]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>BK: Extra blitzer took the TE out of the game last season, used as a blocker. Won't necessarily be the case this year</p>— Irish Sports Daily (@ISDUpdate) <a href="https://twitter.com/ISDUpdate/status/529685285723176960">November 4, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Love this one. In other words, Rees couldn't run; Golson can.

 

[Luckylucci]

Love this one. In other words, Rees couldn't run; Golson can.

Yea, preseason BK pretty much put it out there that with Golson on the field they don't necessarily have to account for the edge rusher as they think thats a match up Golson can win or we can exploit. It gets me excited as well

 

[faithfulfan]

Two-deep for the ASU game. Morgan listed as starting MLB.

Surprised to see Folston not listed as the starter at RB.

 

[IrishLax]

ND will win this game. I am confident. ND-38, ASU 24.

I think we lose 45-31. Body blow theory and all that jazz.

 

[ACamp1900]

I know we have lost some key guys, honestly though, it's not as bad as some years coming off the Navy game (I was prepared for worse)... but yeah, ASU is a solid team, it's in their house AND it's coming off a game full of cut blocks... I honestly think ASU is strong with ND being typically stronger, but ASU will probably be good enough to take advantage of a home crowd, and a banged up ND D...

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Keith Arnold just published an article titled "Sun Devils present major challenge for Irish."

 

[Emcee77]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>BK: "If Will Fuller practices like he did last week he'll (Torii Hunter Jr) get a lot more playing time."</p>— Irish Sports Daily (@ISDUpdate) <a href="https://twitter.com/ISDUpdate/status/529688131575234560">November 4, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Wut?

Yeah it was weird. He didn't elaborate. Not sure why Kelly felt like calling Will out publicly but apparently he needs to lock it up.

 

[ACamp1900]

I was talking cfb with a UCLA alum last week and UCLA faced the same type of monster last weekend in Arizona... a team good enough to beat just about anyone in the country on their best day, but not respected enough to earn any real brownie points with the powers that be... in that regard this week is like a more difficult Navy game.

 

[Luckylucci]

Yeah it was weird. He didn't elaborate. Not sure why Kelly felt like calling Will out publicly but apparently he needs to lock it up.

Big game coming up, needs big time players to step up. Had a fairly easy drop for TD versus Navy, can't have those against ASU or it could cost us the game.

 

[Luckylucci]

I was talking cfb with a UCLA alum last week and UCLA faced the same type of monster last weekend in Arizona... a team good enough to beat just about anyone in the country on their best day, but not respected enough to earn any real brownie points with the powers that be... in that regard this week is like a more difficult Navy game.

If we win, there's a good chance that this weekends game is a huge plus for us in the end. There's a good chance ASU represents the Pac 12 south, thats a good win.

They have Oregon state and Washington state after ND which should be easy W's and then they play Arizona (basically) for the Pac 12 South.

 

[ACamp1900]

If we win, there's a good chance that this weekends game is a huge plus for us in the end. There's a good chance ASU represents the Pac 12 south, thats a good win.

One would certainly hope so...

 

[irishff1014]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>BK: ND has played all Power 5 teams except for Rice, defending CUSA champs, winners of 5 in a row. No "glorified byes" in ND's schedule</p>— Irish Sports Daily (@ISDUpdate) <a href="https://twitter.com/ISDUpdate/status/529687435094286336">November 4, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Imo Kelly is getting full of him self with this comment. The 2014 schedule has been no wheres near as tough as anyone thought it would be. And 2015 is oh boy that's ugly.

 

[Luckylucci]

One would certainly hope so...

Right after this weekend I become the biggest ASU fan in Oregon.

 

[aubeirish]

Imo Kelly is getting full of him self with this comment. The 2014 schedule has been no wheres near as tough as anyone thought it would be. And 2015 is oh boy that's ugly.

Perhaps, but that is not ND's(or his) fault if everyone is not playing up to expectations.

 

[RDU Irish]

Cumulative effect of playing legit D1 programs every week really becomes statistically significant as you multiply probability of success out over 12 games. Part of that is related to the "Body Blow" effect Lax posted in another thread on Navy. You get banged up and don't have any patsies to heal up on and take a week off. Think about that the next few weeks as you see DII schools creeping onto SEC schedules in November.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Imo Kelly is getting full of him self with this comment. The 2014 schedule has been no wheres near as tough as anyone thought it would be. And 2015 is oh boy that's ugly.

He wasn't, really. At least not when his comments are taken in context. He was saying that (1) ND regularly schedules one of the most difficult slates in the country; and (2) several teams ranked ahead of us chose to schedule FCS schools and haven't been properly penalized for that.

(1) is objectively true. Phil Steele rated our pre-season SoS #1, and (IIRC) 2012 was the same. It's not our fault that Stanford, UNC and USC have all disappointed, while UM is a blazing tire fire. ND is still one of only three programs who has never scheduled an FCS opponent.

And I'd argue that (2) is accurate as well. For instance, 3/7 of Michigan State's wins came against Jacksonville State, Eastern Michigan and Wyoming. Yet the Committee has decided that pathetic group of cupcakes--which they deliberately scheduled, knowing they'd be free wins-- is irrelevant; their win over Nebraska is "better" than ours over Stanford, so they're ahead.

Kelly's comments are totally defensible.

 

[ACamp1900]

Cumulative effect of playing legit D1 programs every week really becomes statistically significant as you multiply probability of success out over 12 games. Part of that is related to the "Body Blow" effect Lax posted in another thread on Navy. You get banged up and don't have any patsies to heal up on and take a week off. Think about that the next few weeks as you see DII schools creeping onto SEC schedules in November.

exactly... We've discussed this over and over in the past. In my strong opinion it's harder to survive a typical schedule of Purdue, Syracuse, Stanford, Michigan and UNC all back to back than it is to survive a schedule of DII cream puff, D I non power five cream puff, UGA, D I non power five cream puff and LSU... when you play average or above teams every week they really compound each other... much rather play a few top ten teams every year then spread them out and surround them with completely unlosable garbage the way other name schools do.

 

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

Maybe if fuller practiced as good as brown he'd be helping the team. O Wait

 

[Ndaccountant]

He wasn't, really. At least not when his comments are taken in context. He was saying that (1) ND regularly schedules one of the most difficult slates in the country; and (2) several teams ranked ahead of us chose to schedule FCS schools and haven't been properly penalized for that.

(1) is objectively true. Phil Steele rated our pre-season SoS #1, and (IIRC) 2012 was the same. It's not our fault that Stanford, UNC and USC have all disappointed, while UM is a blazing tire fire. ND is still one of only three programs who has never scheduled an FCS opponent.

And I'd argue that (2) is accurate as well. For instance, 3/7 of Michigan State's wins came against Jacksonville State, Eastern Michigan and Wyoming. Yet the Committee has decided that pathetic group of cupcakes--which they deliberately scheduled, knowing they'd be free wins-- is irrelevant; their win over Nebraska is "better" than ours over Stanford.

Kelly's comments are totally defensible.

They should do it like one of my fantasy college football leagues handles the crazy stats generated from playing lessor teams......apply a factor to minimize that impact. In the league, all stats generated from a non-power 5 teams is reduced by 25% and 50% for FCS teams.

 

[irishff1014]

He wasn't, really. At least not when his comments are taken in context. He was saying that (1) ND regularly schedules one of the most difficult slates in the country; and (2) several teams ranked ahead of us chose to schedule FCS schools and haven't been properly penalized for that.

(1) is objectively true. Phil Steele rated our pre-season SoS #1, and (IIRC) 2012 was the same. It's not our fault that Stanford, UNC and USC have all disappointed, while UM is a blazing tire fire. ND is still one of only three programs who has never scheduled an FCS opponent.

And I'd argue that (2) is accurate as well. For instance, 3/7 of Michigan State's wins came against Jacksonville State, Eastern Michigan and Wyoming. Yet the Committee has decided that pathetic group of cupcakes--which they deliberately scheduled, knowing they'd be free wins-- is irrelevant; their win over Nebraska is "better" than ours over Stanford, so they're ahead.

Kelly's comments are totally defensible.

I do understand your point about that it isn't our fault they shit the bed. But know that they have you have to look at a our schedule and say man that isn't good.

Rice-82nd Michigan-69th Purdue-91st Syracuse-85th Standford-38th UNC-62nd FSU-2nd Navy-89th Asu-14th Northwestern-74th Louisville-27th Usc-26th

That's as of right now. Yes i agree that playing those BS schools shouldn't be aloud. But those schools do it for the money and the FBS schools do it for an easy game. And i also understand that we try to do our best to get the hardest to get the best. But Look at Rice,Purdue,Northwestern,Syracuse,Navy are not ever going to constant top 50 teams.

So maybe i should adjust my original comment and Say yes we do try hard to schedule hard schedules but needs to be careful politely bashing other schools when we don't dominate the soft teams on ours.

 

[NDohio]

exactly... We've discussed this over and over in the past. In my strong opinion it's harder to survive a typical schedule of Purdue, Syracuse, Stanford, Michigan and UNC all back to back than it is to survive a schedule of DII cream puff, D I non power five cream puff, UGA, D I non power five cream puff and LSU... when you play average or above teams every week they really compound each other... much rather play a few top ten teams every year then spread them out and surround them with completely unlosable garbage the way other name schools do.

BK was on Dan Patrick today and he was talking about the schedule. He is absolutely being a politician about the strength of schedule. He specifically called out teams playing FCS - even calling them D-II teams at one point(that was on purpose) - while ND plays Power five schools every week. He also talked about the difficulty of playing a schedule against teams from different conferences as conferences often have a specific offensive identity and it is a huge challenge to have to defend against the different styles across the country.

It was a great interview and he was really laying the ground work for the committee to have a better understanding of the difficulty of the ND schedule model as opposed to other teams.

 

[Irish Insanity]

I do understand your point about that it isn't our fault they shit the bed. But know that they have you have to look at a our schedule and say man that isn't good.

Rice-82nd Michigan-69th Purdue-91st Syracuse-85th Standford-38th UNC-62nd FSU-2nd Navy-89th Asu-14th Northwestern-74th Louisville-27th Usc-26th

That's as of right now. Yes i agree that playing those BS schools shouldn't be aloud. But those schools do it for the money and the FBS schools do it for an easy game. And i also understand that we try to do our best to get the hardest to get the best. But Look at Rice,Purdue,Northwestern,Syracuse,Navy are not ever going to constant top 50 teams.

So maybe i should adjust my original comment and Say yes we do try hard to schedule hard schedules but needs to be careful politely bashing other schools when we don't dominate the soft teams on ours.

When we make our schedule it is projected to be one of hardest, if not the hardest, in the country. When teams like Michigan, Bama, LSU.......set their's, they know 2 or 3 teams are roll over teams and they pay them to come in and get spanked.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

So maybe i should adjust my original comment and Say yes we do try hard to schedule hard schedules but needs to be careful politely bashing other schools when we don't dominate the soft teams on ours.

Why does he need to be careful? Kelly believes his team will have earned a playoff berth if we win out. But there's a very good chance we'll get left out not because some of our opponents have disappointed, but because the records of other playoff contenders have been inflated by victories over cupcake opponents.

And to be fair, our schedule hasn't been bad. Sagarin ranks it 49th currently, which is higher than Michigan State's, and pretty close to KSU's and FSU's.

Kelly wasn't beating his chest about how well our opponents are doing this year. He was simply pointing out that: (1) we did everything in our power to schedule competitively; (2) several teams ranked above us went out of their way to schedule "glorified byes"; and (3) we're being unfairly penalized for doing the right thing.

 

[irishff1014]

I guess we will have to settle for different interpretation.

 

[IrishLax]

True cupcakes have been and will continue to be completely undervalued. If you play FSU + Bama + 3 true cupcakes it's the same net odds of going 5-0 as playing 3 "Louisville" equivalent schools plus Navy and Rice. In the former, people would go "OMG GREAT WINS OVER BIG TEAMS" and in the latter they'd say "you haven't beaten anyone..."

Even though both stretches would be the same difficulty to complete undefeated.