Talent Gap
Much has been made of the talent level on the current Notre Dame team compared to the Mighty Trojans. It will not be a shock to anyone when I say USC has more talent than Notre Dame. But by how much? Breaking down the numbers hopefully we can gain some insight into the talent gap.
First, front line talent. Looking at the starters from each team, how highly regarded were they coming out of high school*:
| Notre Dame Starters | |
|---|---|
| McKnight |
**** |
| Harris | *** |
| Santucci |
*** |
| Sullivan | **** |
| Morton | **** |
| Young | ***** |
| Anastasio | *** |
| Quinn, B. | **** |
| Walker |
*** |
| Grimes |
*** |
| Shark |
*** |
| Abiamiri | ***** |
| Laws |
**** |
| Landri | **** |
| Frome | **** |
| Ferrine | ** |
| Crum | *** |
| Brockington | *** |
| Lambert |
*** |
| Ndukwe |
*** |
| Zibby |
**** |
| Richardson |
** |
| Average |
3.45 |
| USC Starters | |
|---|---|
| Jarrett |
**** |
| Turner | ***** |
| Baker |
**** |
| Radovich | **** |
| Kalil | *** |
| Rachal | **** |
| Williams, K. |
**** |
| Davis, F. |
***** |
| Smith, S. |
**** |
| Booty |
***** |
| Gable |
***** |
| Jackson, L. |
**** |
| Ellis |
**** |
| Moala | *** |
| Cushing | **** |
| Sartz | **** |
| Lua | **** |
| Rivers | ***** |
| Harris, C. |
**** |
| Mays |
***** |
| Ellison |
*** |
| Thomas, T |
*** |
| Average |
4.09 |
USC’s starters came in with an average of 4.09 stars while Notre Dame starters enjoyed a 3.45 average ranking. This represents a difference of .64 stars, nearly two-thirds of a star difference between each starter. Anyone following recruiting will understand how significant of a difference this is. The best analogy may be comparing GPAs of students on a 4.0 scale. If USC is the equivalent of a 4.0 student, Notre Dame would grade out around 3.4. Imagine that match-up in a math contest.
Next let’s look at the depth of talent.
| Notre Dame Class |
Number of Recruits | Ave Stars |
| 2006 |
28 | 3.46 |
| 2005 | 15 | 3.00 |
| 2004** |
18 | 2.83 |
| 2003 |
22 | 3.41 |
| Total |
83 | 3.23 |
| SouthernCal Class |
Number of Recruits | Ave Stars |
| 2006 |
25 | 3.96 |
| 2005 |
20 | 3.95 |
| 2004 |
20 | 4.05 |
| 2003 |
28 | 3.68 |
| Total |
93 | 3.89 |
Again we see a significant difference in not only the number of recruits but also the quality. Before Notre Dame fans can expect regular wins against the Trojans, Weis will need to close the talent gap. He has already started to close the gap with the class of 2006 and will continue with the class of 2007.
November 26th, 2006 at 9:34 pm
The difference in the front line talent of the starters is equal to the entire team. So it’s not just the depth but also the starters.
November 27th, 2006 at 9:39 am
Two interesting facts about JD Booty:
1. He played varsity football in SEVENTH GRADE! Yes, Louisiana allows seventh graders to play varsity football (it helped that his dad was head coach, but still!).
2. He skipped his senior year of high school. He’s the only person the IRT is aware of that has completely skipped a year of HS to go to college. As it turned out, Leinart was ready to take the QB job, but Booty thought he was coming in to take over for Carson palmer.
November 27th, 2006 at 9:48 am
Interesting, Hammer.
Rivals didn’t have a star rating for Booty so I went with Scout which had him as the number one QB coming out of HS. I had no idea he was only a junior.
November 27th, 2006 at 9:48 am
Great info JVH…but you failed to mention that Losingham did lower his handicap from a 8 to a 6 during that time period…so there was improvement in talent.
November 27th, 2006 at 12:14 pm
Great analysis. If we lose 4-6 games next year, the silence around this lack of talent thanks to Ty’s laziness will be deafening. All we’ve heard about for the last 2 years is that “Charlie is winning with Ty’s talent”. Charlie will not get the same benefit of the doubt if he loses with Ty’s recruits. Good thing is that we play Washington again in ‘08, so we should get at least one win.
November 27th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
I think 08 will be a entirely different case than in 07. In 07, we need to worry about getting our 6 wins. Here is what I see as far as our sked and rough projections based on this years teams/our team next year:
S 01 GEORGIA TECH Toss up/ND. @ home will help. Reggie Ball and CJ will be gone.
S 08 @ Penn State Toss up/PSU. away will give them HFA Look for an improved Penn State. Morelli is more experienced.
S 15 @ Michigan Michigan. Henne, Manningham, Arrington, Hart all back.
S 22 MICHIGAN ST. Toss Up. Shouldn’t be, but with a new coach, but MSU will be playing for redemption/validation
S 29 @ Purdue ND-PU will be be using a veteren QB, but lack offensive firepower
O 06 @ UCLA Toss Up/UCLA (home field advantage). UCLA will be playing for redemption for the loss. Good defense.
O 13 BOSTON COLLEGE Toss Up. BC is still good, and the improved ACC competion has not hurt their experience level. Not sure on status of returning starters, but I am relatively sure they will have more experience than us.
O 20 SOUTHERN CAL USC. Sorry Charlie. Look for USC’s streak to continue
N 03 NAVY ND. Sorry Navy. Look for the streak to continue.
N 10 AIR FORCE ND. Just can’t pick an academy, especially after this years showing. Home field will help us too.
N 17 DUKE ND. Bottom feeder ACC team.
N 24 @ Stanford ND. Bottom feeder PAC-10 team. But look what happened last year.
Overall: (W-L-?)
5 (Purdue, Navy, AF, Duke, Stanford)-2 (UM, USC), 5 (GT, PSU, MSU, UCLA, BC)
It will be an interesting year. Will give us some interesting games (the ? column), but if we do not correct some of the defensive issues, we could easily go 2-3 in the ? column, leading to a 7-5 season. If we play lights out, though we could get to 9-3. We would need to pull an amazing upset to beat UM or USC next year. ND fans should be estatic with a 10-2 year next year.
November 27th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
Gunter, you are giving the media too much credit. They don’t understand how recruiting works. This will be their spin – now that Charlie has been there for two years and has had a chance to get his players in place, he’s losing. He only won because he was using Ty’s players those first two years.
Wertzy, I think you can chalk up PSU, in Happy Valley, as a guaranteed loss next year.
December 5th, 2006 at 6:09 pm
[...] Last week the IRT looked into the talent gap between Notre Dame and USC based purely on high school recruiting rankings. The evidence clearly showed that across the board Notre Dame was severely over matched. [...]
August 22nd, 2007 at 8:10 am
[...] Last year the IRT broke down Notre Dame’s talent level against its last two opponents(USC and LSU.) Using the Rivals recruiting star system, we aim to make the same comparison to ND’s next opponent: Georgia Tech. [...]