Game Analysis

Lean – Notre Dame (+12.5)  24   Clemson  32

Saturday, 1 pm Pacific

Note Dame isn’t getting much love from the oddsmakers but the Irish are a legitimately great team and they caught a huge break with the suspension of Clemson All-American DT Dexter Lawrence, who demands a double-block on every play, which frees up the other Tigers’ linemen. ESPN reported that Clemson allows 1.3 more yards per rush when Lawrence is out of the lineup compared to when he’s in, which actually works out to 0.6 yards per rushing play more than their season rating, excluding garbage time (I’ve cut that adjustment a bit be conservative). Clemson is still an elite defensive team even without Lawrence, most likely, as the Tigers allowed just 4.0 yards per play to teams that would combine to average 5.8 yppl against an average defensive team. I still rate Clemson’s defense at 1.5 yppl better than average without Lawrence but I may not be adjusting enough given what Wisconsin’s rushing attack did against Miami without their All-American DT Willis a few days ago. Notre Dame doesn’t run like Wisconsin but the Irish have a stud running back in Dexter Williams, who ran for 941 yards at 6.6 ypr despite missing the first 4 games. The Irish are also better throwing the ball than their season stats would suggest, as Ian Book only started 8 of Notre Dame’s 12 games and Book’s compensated yards per pass play rating of +1.8 yppp (8.2 yppp against teams that would allow 6.4 yppp to an average QB) was significantly better than original starter Brandon Wimbush, who was slightly below average. Notre Dame is 1.1 yards per play better than average with Williams and Book both playing and I project 364 yards at 5.0 yppl for the Irish in this game.

Clemson’s offense rated at 1.5 yards per play better than average with a dominating rushing attack (7.2 yprp against teams that would allow 5.1 yprp) and an efficient passer in freshman Trevor Lawrence, who was 1.0 yards per pass play better than average (7.3 yppp against teams that would allow 6.3 yppp) after taking over as the starter in week 5, which is actually the same as Clemson’s offensive pass rating for the entire season (Lawrence was much better coming off the bench the first 4 weeks of the season than he was as a starter).

Notre Dame’s defense is among the best in the nation defending the pass (4.5 yppp allowed to quarterbacks that would combine to average 6.5 yppp against an average defense) and the Irish are 0.6 yprp better than average defending the run and did a very good job against the one elite rushing team that they faced (holding Pitt to 4.5 yprp, which is 1.0 yppp better than average). Clemson was relatively worse against better run defenses and their 1240 rushing yards at 11.4 yprp in 3 games against the sub-par run defenses of Wake Forest, Louisville, and Pitt skewed their rating upward. Clemson played 5 games against good run defenses (at least 0.5 yprp better than average) and the Tigers averaged just 151 rushing yards at 4.9 yprp in those games against Texas A&M, Georgia Tech, NC State, Florida State, and Boston College while rushing for 141 yards or less and 5.0 yprp or less in each of those games other than versus Georgia Tech. Those 5 teams would allow 4.3 yprp to an average team so Clemson was just 0.6 yprp better than average running against good run defenses, which is 1.5 yprp lower than their overall rating that was skewed by those big yardage games against worse than average run defenses. I’m not going to assume Clemson will be only 0.6 yprp better than average running the ball but using a regression equation to predict yards per rushing play as a function of the opposing run defense rating would yield a prediction of 6.15 yprp for Clemson in this game, which is 0.5 yprp less than what the model would predicted without adjusting for the outliers by using regression. I think that’s a more than reasonable adjustment but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Clemson ran for closer to 5 yprp than 6 yprp in this game.

My math favors Clemson by just 5.6 points but the Tigers have outplayed their math projections under coach Dabo Swinney so I’ll call for an 8 point margin. I certainly lean with Notre Dame here, and considered making the Irish a Strong Opnion, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the Irish won this game straight up – which could happen if I’ve underestimated the affect of losing Dexter Lawrence, as I only adjusted 0.3 yprp rather than 0.6 yprp to be conservative.