Was Notre Dame Any Good in 2002?
by omahadomer Crudely put, that seems to be the question on the minds of many Notre Dame fans as the beginning of the 2003 season starts to creep up on us. Lets look at it in some detail. The most revealing and relevant statistics in football are per-play averages. A college team is involved in at least 1500 plays over the course of the season on offense and defense. Special teams plays account for fewer than 200 plays most years. Thus, the surest route to dominance is to be better per play than the opposition. If a team goes through the year averaging 5 yards per play and holds the opposition to 4 yards per play, chances are that this team will prove to be a pretty good team. Even just raw per-play statistics, however, are skewed. In particular they are skewed in favor of teams that have a lot of pass attempts. One reason is that sacks are counted as runs and sack yardage is counted against rushing totals. A clearer picture would actually emerge if sacks were counted as pass attempts
