Notre Dame's Strength Of Schedule: Stronger Than Expected

Notre Dame is unranked at 4-1 for the first time in program history as they head to North Carolina to face a No. 23 Tar Heel team with an identical record. And just to drive the point home, the Irish are eight point underdogs.  Why?  It's the same reasoning that a few bold college football pundits used to explain how a team coming off a 3-9 campaign could turn around and win 10 games in 2008. Scheduling. Leading up to this season, Notre Dame's was expected to be uncharacteristically soft and front-loaded with home games—just what the fledgling Irish needed to recover from a forgettable fall. But six weeks into the season, closer examination shows the Notre Dame slate is anything but fluffy, and in fact when compared against those of other top 25 programs, would be better categorized as balanced and challenging. According to the Toughest Schedule report available at ncaa.org, the Irish rank 54th in cumulative opposition—a measure of past and future opponents’ ... (link)