Notre Dame has entered November firmly in the playoff discussion in three of the last four years. In all three of those seasons the Irish ended the year on the outside looking in after varying degrees of November collapses.
Breaking Down the Last Few November Collapses
2014: When it All Fell Apart
Four years ago Notre Dame battled defending champion and eventual playoff team Florida State down to the wire at the end of October and entered November firmly in the playoff race. Then November hit and the injuries mounted.
Arizona State capitalized on turnover after turnover by Notre Dame to blow out the Irish in Tempe. Then the Irish fell at home in over time to Northwestern. Then to Louisville a week later on Senior Day. Notre Dame capped off the November to forget with a blowout at the hands of USC.
2015: Sluggish Offense and Wasted Defensive Talent
A year later Notre Dame entered November with just a single loss to eventual runner up Clemson in a monsoon in South Carolina. Notre Dame would have been in the playoffs if they started in November. They didn’t unfortunately. The Irish were so sluggish in early November tilts with Wake Forest and Boston College that they fell out of contention.
Heading into the final week of the season, Notre Dame technically was alive in the playoff race, but barely. Stanford put the final nail in Notre Dame’s playoff coffin when Brian Vangorder couldn’t devise a defense to keep the Cardinal from scoring when they got the ball back with just 37 seconds on the clock.
2017: Miami and Stanford dash Notre Dame’s Dreams
Just last year it looked like Notre Dame was poised for a playoff spot after blowing out USC and North Carolina State in October. Unfortunately the calendar turned to November and the wheels fell off again. Miami embarrassed Notre Dame on national television and then the Irish coughed up another 4th quarter lead on the road in Palo Alto to cap off the season.
Preventing Another November Collapse Started in Winter
Notre Dame should benefit from year two of the Matt Balis strength and conditioning program. A year ago when Balis arrived, he spent a lot of time completely remaking the program and laying a lot of foundational work. Only so much can be done in year one though.
As Notre Dame enters year two under Balis, the players not only understand what is now expected of them more, but Balis knows every player better now as well.
There is always a wave of optimism and positive results when there is a change in strength and conditioning programs. Remember, it wasn’t all that long ago that the program of Paul Longo was being praised after Rueben Mendoza’s program fell flat under Charlie Weis. So every Notre Dame fan should take all of this with a healthy bit of skepticism until we see the results. That said, there hasn’t been any indication that the second year of the Balis program has been anything but a success.
Notre Dame Didn’t Do Itself Any Favors in 2018
Notre Dame has to travel to California twice over the last five weeks of the season. They also agreed to move the Syracuse game to Yankee Stadium for the Shamrock Series. Both of those California contests will also both likely be primetime contests which makes travel back to South Bend an issue.
Notre Dame will be traveling back to South Bend on Sunday following the Navy contest in San Diego – a change in their previous regime that included redeye flights back. The change seems simple but to anyone who’s ever attempted redeye flights back and tried to be functional the next day, it sucks. Now imagine doing that after playing a game of college football and trying to do schoolwork the next day.
Travel schedules alone are not the reason Notre Dame broke down in previous Novembers. The weekend before the Miami debacle last year, Notre Dame was home against Wake Forest for a 2:30 kickoff. The change, however, should help and make things a bit easier on the players.
Traveling the next day alone won’t make up for all of the miles the Notre Dame team will be accumulating this fall. Notre Dame will play one game in Notre Dame Stadium – Florida State – after mid-October. Over the final five games of the year the Irish play twice in California, once in Illinois, once in New York, and then the one home game.
Learning from the Miami and Stanford Loses in 2017
Notre Dame wasn’t prepared emotionally for the Miami game last year. They stepped into Hard Rock Stadium last year and the game was over almost before it started. Notre Dame looked shell-shocked by the third quarter as Miami built an insurmountable lead before coasting to a 41-8 victory.
It wasn’t as though Notre Dame hadn’t played any big road games in 2017 prior to the Miami game. The Irish handled Michigan State with relative ease in Spartan Stadium earlier in the year. By the time they got to Miami though, the Irish were spent emotionally. To help in this department Notre Dame’s off-season conditioning program featured some sessions designed to push the players not just physically, but also psychologically to increase their emotional endurance on top of the their physical endurance.
Snapping the California November Curse
Let’s say Notre Dame reaches the season finale in Los Angeles in contention. The Irish haven’t won a season finale since 2012 when they beat USC to clinch a spot in the BCS National Championship. In fact, Notre Dame’s won only two finales in California under Brian Kelly (2010, 2012).
When the Irish have faced Stanford the games have been tightly contested. When the Trojans have been their foe though, Notre Dame has not fared well since that 2012 win. USC has handled Notre Dame with relative ease in the 2014 and 2016 finales in the Colosseum.
To completely reverse their November curse, Notre Dame will have to win on the road to end the season for the first time in six years
This is one of the tougher questions to answer this off-season because of all of the variables. On paper, it doesn’t look like Notre Dame is set up for success in November this year with premiere opponents and all the travel. Most elite programs look to have as many home games as possible towards the end of the season – not the reverse.
Notre Dame’s roster is much deeper this year than it was in 2014 so baring total disaster, a 2014 style collapse seems pretty unthinkable. Too many of the same players who experienced last year’s Miami breakdown are still on the team for something like that to happen again this fall as well.
Heading into the season, I expect Notre Dame to lose a game in November. That doesn’t mean they will of course and my opinion is subject to change. The Irish have the talent to beat every team on the November schedule and if Brandon Wimbush takes a step or two forward, they could very well reverse their recent November curse. That said, there are just too many variables in play to expect that to happen until we see the Irish in action.
The AD needs to tell USC that it is a home and home at the end of the year. Have those Southern California pansies play in the cold. It is a joke that ND is required every year to end their season in California. The AD also needs to look at the travel schedule, which also is harsh. You have kids that actually have to go to class and participate academically. I think they need to look at mid terms, finals and busy academic weeks when scheduling. ND is always sluggish during those time periods. Tranquil one year got 6 hours of sleep in two days due to studying. You can’t compete at that level with that amount of sleep.
So..preferring to play in non-debilitating weather conditions makes USC “pansies”.
While ND football players are being systematically sleep deprived by their vastly more intense studies.
Victimhood elevated to an art.
The combination of better condition and much better depth will overcome the stupidity, or perhaps the callousness, of our Athletic Director. As an athletic director, your job is to look after the athletes – not to accommodate some Development Office scheme for raising money and cultivating donors.
BGC ’77 ’82
I’m all for a season that accepts the impossibility of a NC, and focuses on filling the coffers with even more money instead…as this schedule does.
It’s an elegant way of providing both the ‘team is not progressing’ cover AND some of the funds to get rid of Kelly.
So I’m optimistic.
Strength and conditioning , banged up players, opposing teams “knowing our every move” — all hogwash and lame excuses. Cut the pampering of ND football. Rockne is rolling over in his grave ’bout now !
But Rockne teams played a 9 game schedule, on the average. Twelve games may be a new ballgame. It certainly changes some things!
BGC ’77 ’82
For our opponents, when they face the Irish it’s the game of their life. Remember envy is the price that must be paid for those of distinction. We usually enter the home stretch with guys banged up. The opponents know our every move, who they can exploit. I was so happy one year to see Robert Hughes come out of nowhere and run past the Trojans at the Coliseum. The future’s not for us to see, que sera sera.