Breaking Down Advanced Statistics Ahead of ND-USC

Here at Her Loyal Sons, we strive for equal parts optimism and free discourse.The Irish open as an 11-point favorite against the USC Trojans. Using overall and unit rankings from SP+, I examine what to expect on primetime Saturday night.

You can jump over to ESPN for a quick primer on SP+ but it’s a method to quantify team and unit efficiency. I decided to compare the relative strengths of each unit as they’ll appear on the field, so looking at Southern Cal’s offensive ranking compared to the Notre Dame defensive ranking (and so on).

The first quick note: there are four teams ranked in the top-30 for offense, defense, and special teams in 2019–they are LSU, Georgia, Auburn….and Notre Dame.…