Before the Box Score: Key Stats as Notre Dame Faces Northern Illinois in Home Opener

The potential for a breather on Saturday exists to a certain extent for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. That’s because they enter their home opener matchup against the Northern Illinois Huskies as prohibitive favorites and have yet to lose to a MAC school in the seven previous contests. Both teams won their opening contests but the quality of those respective opponents was decidedly different in favor of the Irish.

Of course, until the teams take the field, Notre Dame remains at risk for what would be a stunning upset. Marcus Freeman will no doubt be emphasizing during the week the dangers of a letdown after the emotional win at Texas A&M. Taking care of business early would help alleviate any thoughts of concern by the school’s fan base.

Below are some numbers that could offer some insight into how things play out:

Home Cooking

Freeman’s tenure at Notre Dame in 2022 began uncomfortably after two losses in his first three home games. Since then, Notre Dame has won eight of nine under the Golden Dome, the lone defeat coming in the last-second heartbreaker to Ohio State last season. Lighting up the scoreboard has been a hallmark of those nine wins, scoring 43.9 points per game, compared to just 16.3 points in the three defeats. The margin of defeat in those nine wins has been imposing: 32.1 points, with last year’s five clashes delivering an even higher number of 38.8 points per contest.

Northern Illinois head coach Thomas Hammock is in his sixth season with the Huskies and his teams have struggled when hitting the road for a non-conference matchup. In nine games, NIU has won just twice, with those two victories being by a combined three points. In those seven losses, the Huskies allowed 38.5 points per game and have only managed to score an average of 21.1 points. Three of those games had them competitive, with losses of eight points or less. Still, as nearly 30-point underdogs, pulling off what would be the upset of the year looks to be remote.

Third Down Value

Amid all the excitement of Notre Dame’s thrilling win last Saturday was the glaring futility of the team’s third-down offense. This unit succeeded on just two of 12 occasions, with one of the successes coming on the dramatic game-winning 85-yard drive. The fact that the Irish came away with a victory helped ease the frustrations of this particular statistic. However, in two of the Irish’s three losses last year, they had a success rate of less than 30 percent. That means that developing some better consistency might help ramp down the risks of such struggles coming back to bite them.

When a team rolls up 706 yards of offense in a game, it seems likely that success on third down was a given. That was the case for Northern Illinois last Saturday when they moved the chains in all but one of their eight attempts. Last season, the Huskies converted on 41 percent of their chances in this category. Yet the won-loss breakdown shows that in their seven wins, they succeeded 52 percent of the time. On the flip side, in their six losses, that percentage dipped to just 29 percent.

Quarter Talk

Notre Dame did most of its scoring damage during the last three-quarters of play last year and had a modest continuation of that on Saturday. In the latter situation, the Irish outscored Texas A&M by 10 points, compared to the 20-point average enjoyed for those quarters during the 2023 campaign. It would probably ease Freeman’s concern about a potential upset if the Irish immediately took control of the game in the opening period. However, even in some of the blowout wins last year, a slow start was part of the equation for winning. That means that taking such factors into account would be wise for all concerned.

Last year, Northern Illinois outscored opponents by an average of four points per game during the second half and were virtually tied in the first half. Against Western Illinois, a 28-point second quarter turned the game into a blowout, followed by outscoring their opponent 20-12 after the break. For the Huskies, simply keeping the ball out of Notre Dame’s hands gives them some hope of putting up a fight on Saturday. In addition, the longer they stay close to Notre Dame, the more angst will be felt by Irish fans.