Denver won 19 of 24 faceoffs. We can't play a good team, win 5 faceoffs, and expect to win.
We have lost a number of key games over the past few years as a result of faceoff performance. Basically, Denver won 4 out of every 5 Faceoffs. When you consider how lopsided that statistic appears, it says a lot that the team still could have won this game.
I would have never guessed it was that bad. Holy business!
If we win 50% of the face-offs, this game might be a laugher. That tells you how strong this ND team is. That said, FO's are a huge part of the game, and Corrigan needs to figure this out. We don't have an elite FO guy, and haven't since I can't remember. Hell, I'd take 'serviceable' at this point. If we win 30% of the FO's today, we probably win the game. If we win 40%, we definitely win the game.
Tough to fault ND for losing to the absolute best there is. He will eventually graduate.
If we win 40-45% of the faceoffs, we can beat anybody. Baptiste has owned us for the past few years and we will likely see them again at tournament time. Without Baptiste at FO, Denver would not be a top 5 team. Air Force and North Carolina had decent FOs against Denver and North Carolina beat them. We had better find a way to win 35+% of faceoffs against them or hope that another team knocks them out of the tournament. I think we are better than them in all aspects of the game except FOs. Because of our FO performance against the better teams, I dread games potentially going into overtime.