Game Analysis

Penn State (+2.5)  23   Notre Dame  22

Note: The line was +2.5 when I sent the analysis to subscribers.

The market has overreacted to Notre Dame beating a flawed Georgia team that was without their starting quarterback. The Irish have an elite defense but with the injury to star DT Rylie Mills they rate a bit worse than Penn State’s defense. The Notre Dame offense is not as good as the Nittany Lions’ attack and Irish quarterback Riley Leonard has struggled to throw the ball against better defensive teams.

Leonard has averaged just 6.3 yards per pass play this season against teams that would combine to allow 6.1 yppl to an average quarterback and he’s been relatively worse against teams with a good pass defense. Notre Dame has faced 9 teams that were at least 0.3 yards per pass play better than average defensively (Texas A&M, Northern Illinois, Miami-Ohio, Louisville, Georgia Tech, Florida State, USC, Indiana, and Georgia) and he’s been 0.1 yppp worse than average in those games – averaging just 5.6 yppp against teams that would allow 5.7 yppp to an average QB, weighted by how may pass plays he had against each team, as is always the case. That includes averaging just 4.5 yppp in playoff games against Indiana and Georgia, who would both allow 5.1 yppp to an average quarterback.

The Irish have an elite run offense that averaged 6.5 yards per rushing play against teams that would combine to allow 4.9 yprp to an average team. The run game was also relatively worse against better defensive teams and overall the Irish offense, which rated at 0.9 yards per play better than average in all games, was just 0.5 yppl better than average against better than average defensive teams (5.8 yppl against 10 better than average defensive teams that would allow 5.3 yppl to an average attack). I used regression analysis to arrive at a negative adjustment of 0.2 yppl for this game (rather than the 0.4 adjustment had I just used their games against better than average defensive teams).

Penn State’s defense is elite against the run and the pass, having yielded just 4.2 yprp, 5.5 yppp and 4.9 yppl to teams that would combine to average 5.3 yprp, 6.9 yppp, and 6.2 yppl against an average stop unit. Since defending Leonard in the pass game should not be an issue this game will likely come down to how well the Nittany Lions defend an elite Irish rush attack. Penn State has faced 4 good rush attacks this season (USC, Ohio State, Oregon, and Boise State) and they held those 4 teams to 5.2 yprp, which is 0.8 yprp better than an average team. However, that is skewed by the 8.4 yprp they allowed to USC. Penn State yielded just 4.6 yprp to the other 3 good running teams since that USC game, including 3.6 yprp against Boise last week while limiting Heisman Trophy finalist Ashton Jeanty to just 3.5 yards per run. I project 5.4 yprp for Notre Dame in this game but just 5.2 yppp for Leonard.

Penn State’s offense averaged 6.6 yppl with quarterback Drew Allar in the game (against teams that would allow 5.3 yppl to an average offense), but the Nittany Lions were also relatively worse against better defensive teams as they surpassed 8.0 yppl three times against worse than average defensive teams (W Virginia, Bowling Green, and Purdue), which skewed their offensive rating higher. As with Notre Dame, the pass attack was relatively worse against better defensive teams but overall the offense wasn’t nearly as affected by facing good defensive teams as Notre Dame’s offense was (the adjustment came out to -0.1 yppl).

Notre Dame’s defense has been 1.3 yppl better than average and their worst game was also against USC (7.2 yppl allowed). That unit played relatively well in other games against good offensive teams and overall their was very little correlation between the level of the opposing offense and Notre Dame’s defensive game ratings. The Irish are still without sack leader DT Rylie Mills, whose 7.5 sacks are 3 more than any other player on the defense. Mills is worth 1.2 points and I expect his absence to matter more in this game than it did against Georgia playing with a backup quarterback.

The math model favors Penn State by 0.7 points with 46.4 total points before applying the adjustments for each offense being relatively worse against better defensive teams. I get Penn State by 1.1 with 45.1 total points with Penn State having a clear edge from the line of scrimmage but Notre Dame being 2.3 points better in special teams (despite their bad place-kicking) and with a 0.8 points advantage in projected turnovers.