Navy has dazzled this season with a perfect 6-0 record. QB Blake Horvath has been a revelation and has led the offense to 44.8 points per game, 4th best among 134 FBS teams.
The Navy offense has also performed well by the underlying metrics. To evaluate offense, I look at success rate, a metric that captures the context of each play. A two yard gain has a much different impact on 4th and 1 compared with 1st and 10.
To keep things simple, I define success for an offense based on the fraction of the yards towards the next first down:
- 50% on 1st down.
- 70% on 2nd down.
- 100% on 3rd, 4th down.
The Navy offense has been successful on 51.4% of plays, 6th best in FBS.
However, you also have to look at the opposing defenses. The key advantage to college football metrics available to members of The Power Rank is the adjustments for opponent based on my proprietary algorithms.
To put it mildly, the opponents for Navy have not been good. Here are the ranks of the last four opposing defenses by my adjusted success rate:
- Memphis, 84th.
- UAB, 125th.
- Air Force, 107th.
- Charlotte, 72nd.
After adjusting for these opposing defense, Navy ranks 25th in my adjusted success rate on offense. This is great for Navy but not elite.
On The Football Analytics Show, professional bettor Mike Craig made the same point about Navy: they have faced atrocious defenses so far this season.
This week, Navy faces an excellent Notre Dame defense that ranks 10th in my adjusted success rate. They excel in pass defense, ranked 1st, although top CB Benjamin Morrison is out for the season with a hip injury. They have not been as good against the run (67th in success rate) but have not allowed big plays (9th in adjusted yards per carry).
In addition, Navy has zero fumbles lost this season. Zero. This is an unsustainable number for any offense, but it is even more unsustainable for a triple option offense that tends to fumble more.
My member college football predictions use a combination of market and play by play data and make Notre Dame a 16.6 point favorite. I wrote about Notre Dame -12.5 for members earlier this week, but there is still value in Notre Dame -13.5 at FanDuel.
On the podcast, Mike talked about under 51.5 in Navy vs Notre Dame at MetLife Stadium near New York City. While the market has moved to 51, there is still value in the under.
Smarter sports betting in less than 5 minutes
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