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Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been briefly going over each position group for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. The most important part of each, in my opinion, isn’t just which players are staying and which players are leaving — it’s what kind of production is staying and leaving.
The Irish return 6 starters on defense and 7 starters on offense (based off of base formations in the last game). You could twist those numbers around a bit with 7 starters on defense and 8 starters on offense. Twisting them, however, doesn’t change what production is returning for the Irish in 2019.
Bill Conley released his returning production rankings today, and Notre Dame is sitting in an unfavorable position.
Irish Returning Production Ranking
| Team | OFF RET | RANK | DEF RET | RANK | TOTAL RET | RANK |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | OFF RET | RANK | DEF RET | RANK | TOTAL RET | RANK |
| Notre Dame | 57% | 86 | 55% | 95 | 56% | 97 |
The Irish rank 97th overall out of 130 team in their returning production. Here are the overall rankings for Notre Dame’s opponents:
- 11 Virginia Tech Hokies
- 24 Louisville Cardinals
- 55 Virginia Cavaliers
- 68 Michigan Wolverines
- 69 Georgia Bulldogs
- 79 USC Trojans
- 98 Bowling Green Falcons
- 106 Duke Blue Devils
- 108 Stanford Cardinal
- 110 Boston College Eagles
- 115 New Mexico Lobos
- 126 Navy Midshipmen
It’s kind of amazing that Virginia Tech is ranked so high with so much attrition, and yet there they are. At any rate, it’s at least somewhat fortunate that despite Notre Dame’s very low ranking for returning production, they still fit right in the middle with their schedule.