Merely looking at the score doesn’t fully convey the lopsidedness of this game.
Notre Dame defeated South Florida 52-0 Saturday, and a look at it with a magnifying glass reveals even more indicators of a dominant outing.
Each week, I’ll compile a few stats you don’t see in the regular box score that can help paint a better picture of what really happened, why something happened and some individual stars.
First, BlueandGold.com’s custom stat: individual defensive wins, which measures the number of times a defensive player directly caused a failed play for the offense.
An individual defensive win (IDW) is when a defensive player registers any of the following: sack, tackle for loss, tackle for no gain, forced fumble, fumble recovery, interception, pass breakup, tackle that creates a third- or fourth-down stop and any tackle in a goal-to-go spot that results in the offense gaining 50 percent or less of the needed yardage.
If both happened on one play, like a tackle for loss on third down, that counts as one IDW. Half-sacks, half-TFLs and half-stuffs count as a full IDW.
