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Winning Percentages For Notre Dame Football In 2016

Bill Connelly - writer for SB Nation, Football Study Hall and Football Outsiders - breaks down every single FBS team in the offseason as a preview series for SB Nation.

He's also the author of Study Hall: College Football, Its Stats and Its Stories.

Connelly released his full Notre Dame preview on Monday, including many advanced analytics and some predictions for the season (link).

Blue & Gold Illustrated takes a look at some of the highlights and numbers inside.

Notre Dame enters 2016 fresh off a 10-3 overall campaign last year.
Notre Dame enters 2016 fresh off a 10-3 overall campaign last year.
BGI/Bill Panzica

Schedule Notes

One of the more interesting aspects of Connelly's previews is where his data assigns a specific winning percentage chance to each game on the schedule.

Most college football fans understand that winning on the road is much tougher than winning at home. Yet, many of us still underestimate just how much the degree of difficulty is raised going on the road.

According to Connelly's projections, the Irish could be favored in every game in 2016 except at USC (41 percent chance to win). Three of the toughest four contests come on the road.

· At USC – 41 percent

· At Texas – 59 percent

· Vs. Stanford – 61 percent

· At N.C. State – 63 percent

Another important note is always to remember the law of probability. Just because Notre Dame is favored in every game outside of the season finale against the Trojans doesn't mean to project an 11-1 regular season.

Let's take a random three games from the schedule.

· Vs. Duke – 82 percent win probability.

· (Neutral) vs. Syracuse – 74 percent

· Vs. Miami – 72 percent

The Irish are pretty good-sized favorites in all three of those games. However, say if you have a 75 percent chance of winning a contest, that does mean (on average) you would lose one out of every four tries to that opponent.

To calculate Notre Dame's chances to win all three of those games, you multiply the winning percentages together.

0.82 x 0.74 x 0.72 = 0.44

So, the Irish have only a 44 percent chance to win all three of those games when grouped together.

All of that means the odds project (rounded up) - when looking at the win percentages for each game - to a nine-win regular season for Notre Dame.

That's only the average expectations, though. A little luck, and Notre Dame could go on to have a very special season. The reverse could also apply.

Just to note, the remaining five games on the schedule are:

· (Neutral) Vs. Army – 97 percent win probability.

· Vs. Nevada – 92 percent

· (Neutral) Vs. Navy – 80 percent

· Vs. Virginia Tech – 74 percent

· Vs. Michigan State – 65 percent


Offense Notes

Part of Connelly's previews review the previous year. To no surprise, the Irish's offense excelled almost across the board last season.

One interesting note is the splits by down and quarter. The Irish's offense in the first and second quarters ranked 13th and 21st, respectively, in the country - but they performed as the nation's best offense in the third quarter, and No. 2 nationally in the fourth quarter.

Notre Dame also performed as the nation's No. 1 offense on both first and third down. On second down they ranked 18th.

Connelly also tracks receiver targets, noting that the Irish lost four of their five most targeted receivers from last season (Will Fuller, Chris Brown, Amir Carlisle and C.J. Prosise.)

Also explained, though, is that the Irish have recruited well offensively, and should reload with talented players like Torii Hunter Jr. receiving more targets, Alize Jones, Equanimeous St. Brown and Kevin Stepherson among others.


Defense Notes

Connelly argues Notre Dame returning so many players from injury - that severely hurt their depth at times last year - could help alleviate the departures of top talents like Jaylon Smith.

He also makes a couple interesting notes about last year's defense as a whole. For example, Notre Dame's defense by his rankings checked in at 34th nationally on passing downs, which is second-and-8 or longer and third-and-5 or longer.

Standard downs is what hurt them, dropping to 53rd nationally.

To read Connelly's full season preview, click HERE.

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