Caught up in the Crowd

With everyone blabbering about Michigan at Ohio State this weekend, I thought I'd add some spice to another traditional rivalry that defines coaches: USC/Notre Dame.

Now, it's not a conference rivalry, because Notre Dame is an independent. They have no conference ties, and they can play whoever they want. And each year, they play USC (And Stanford, Navy, and Army, but none of them are any good).

And each year a lot is made about strength of schedule. "Oh, USC has the edge because they played so-and-such," versus, "Oh, Notre Dame doesn't have to play those Pac-10 patsies Arizona," ad infinitum. It's quite annoying.

The game itself is still two weekends away, but I thought I'd add a little spice to the relationship:
Frankly, I think ND has traditionally one of the harder schedules in the NCAA year-in and year-out. Whether those teams end up being any good is another story.

But their schedule is a lot easier than, say, USC.

Here's USC's schedule:
at Arkansas
Nebraska
at Arizona
at WSU
Washington
ASU
at Oregon State
at Stanford
Oregon
Cal
ND
at UCLA

Four of those teams are/were ranked at the time of the game (including Nebraska).

Here's ND's schedule:
at GaTech
Penn State
Michigan
at Michigan State
Purdue
Stanford
UCLA
at Navy
NorCar
at Air Force
Army
at USC

Two ranked opponents: Penn State and Michigan. The rest are middling-to-bad.

USC plays 6 away games, all of which are against teams that are .500 or better. USC's opponents are 74-49, or .602

Notre Dame plays FIVE away games, only two of which are against opponents playing halfsy football. UND's opponents are a combined 66-56 right now, or .541

USC has a harder schedule - the numbers don't lie. In fact, given opponents' records, you could argue that WVU has a harder schedule than Notre Dame (WVU's opponents are a combined 66-53, .554).

Take THAT, Golden Domers!*

*In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I'm still bitter Notre Dame beat West Virginia in the national title game following the 1988 season, on January 1, 1989. I take no small pride in knowing that that was UND's last national title