re: Notre Dame's defense/special teams: A detailed look

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On defense, ND is 20th (194.8 yds/game) against the pass and Alabama is 6th (166.2yds/game).

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Opponents average 5.75 yards per pass attempt against ND and 5.99 against Bama. They average 11.03 per completion against Bama and 9.68 against ND (which I actually didn't realize is the lowest in the country). Basically, ND has allowed more passing yards per game just because opponents throw more against ND than opponents throw against Bama.

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so I took a look at the offenses that these defenses were shutting down. I took out Western Carolina to avoid giving Bama an advantage and to keep both at 12 games(Sorry Bama, you just switched out Western Carolina for Georgia)

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First, though you took them out when comparing opponents, you didn't take out Western Carolina in Alabama's stats (not that I blame you since it would have required lots of work). A 1-10 team in FCS. That significantly helped Bama's stats, since they held them to 163 yards and no points.

But beyond that, your point is wrong anyway, because you said taking out Western Carolina and adding Georgia doesn't give an advantage to Bama in this discussion, but IT DOES. Bama's average opponent ranking would shoot up significantly from the 60.75 it's at now as far as opponent scoring offenses is concerned. And finally, you also looked at scoring offense, when looking at total offense, here are the stats (again without Western Carolina which HELPS Bama in this discussion):

ND -- Bama:

11 -- 3
28 -- 19
38 -- 27
56 -- 46
59 -- 52
61 -- 71
79 -- 77
80 -- 78
83 -- 80
89 -- 96
98 -- 97
117 -- 115

Avg:

66.58 -- 63.42

Not much of a difference (and with Western Carolina, Bama's average would probably move above ND's. If we'd give WCU a ranking of 100 [which I think is very generous for a 1-10 FCS team], Bama's average moves to 66.23, virtually no difference between the two teams).

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On offense, ND is 75th in points/game and Alabama is 15th. Bama by a wide margin. End of story.

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Total offense is much closer, with Bama at 40 and ND at 49, and less than 20 yards apart. In addition, here are the total defenses (without Western Carolina, which again helps Bama) each faced:

ND -- Bama

3 -- 8
4 -- 11
11 -- 23
16 -- 27
21 -- 49
44 -- 56
55 -- 58
63 -- 59
70 -- 69
88 -- 72
101 -- 80
116 -- 109

Avg.

49.33 -- 51.75

So there is not much difference. If we add WCU and give a 100 (again, very generous) Bama's moves up to 55.46, more than an average of six spots greater than ND, which starts to be significant.

Scoring defenses:

ND -- Bama

5 -- 11
10 -- 16
14 -- 17
16 -- 28
21 -- 30
31 -- 51
43 -- 64
45 -- 66
71 -- 67
74 -- 81
82 -- 85
91 -- 106

Avg.

41.92 -- 51.83

Big difference. Western Carolina allows an average of 41 points per game against a predominantly FCS schedule. If they were FBS, that'd put them at 118th in the country. I think a ranking of 121, last in FBS, would be fair here, but I'll again be generous and give them 118, Bama's average moves up to 56.92, an average difference of 15 spots compared to ND, which is huge.

Basically, there is not much of a difference between the total offenses and defenses each team faced. ND faced much tougher scoring defenses, Bama faced tougher scoring offenses. The total offenses and defenses of Bama and ND are nearly equal, slight edge to Bama in each category.

What this says is ND can move the ball, but can't score in the redzone (which we knew), but also faced defenses that seem to be tougher in the redzone than what Bama faced (since the total defenses are about the same, but ND's scoring defenses faced are tougher). We also knew ND is better in redzone D than Bama, but part of that might be because of offenses faced.