6 Thoughts on a Thursday

There’s a lot of reasons why Notre Dame is favored by 20.5 over Pitt this weekend.

Pitt’s defense is pretty good, but not close to as good as they have been. They are 38th in DF+ (combined FEI and SP+ rankings), 41st in EPA per rush, and 63rd in EPA per drop back. It’s a Pat Narduzzi defense, but not one of his best defenses.

Pitt’s offense is bad. They are 87th in OF+, 113th in points per drive, 112th in EPA per rush, and 81st in EPA per drop back. The switch at quarterback and a change in philosophy to get the ball out quicker has helped them and their banged up offensive line, but they still averaged 4.9 yards per play against Louisville and only scored 17 points against Wake Forest last week.

In order for Pitt to have a chance at pulling off an upset, they have to play better than they have all season on offense against the best defense they’ve faced this fall AND have their defense play great.

The last part is the one Notre Dame fans are worried about.

Some of that is they’ve seen Narduzzi’s defenses do this before. They think about the frustrating 2018 games where the Irish squeaked by 19-14 or that 2013 game against Michigan State, when Narduzzi was defensive coordinator, where the most successful plays for the Irish were pass interference calls against the Spartans.

The other part is that they expect the worst right now from this Notre Dame offense. It’s hard to blame them when they’ve seen what the offense has done recently. They have 14 drives that have resulted in three-and-outs or turnovers in the last three games, which matches the number of drives that ended up in points for them.

That’s not a good ratio.

The Irish had trouble scoring against Ohio State, Duke, and Louisville. Those teams are third, sixth, and 40th in points per drive. USC is 71st and they did put up points against the Trojans, albeit with plenty of help from short fields after turnovers forced by the defense.

They should be able to put up points against this Pitt defense (78th). They are one of the worst red zone defenses (118th in red zone touchdown percentage) and one of the worst tackling defenses (117th in PFF’s tackling grades) in the country.

If Notre Dame has some solutions after the bye week, then they’ll score more than enough in this game and likely cover that spread. If they don’t have the right answers, then this game will be closer than it should be.

2. The number one guy Notre Dame’s offense could not afford to lose this season is probably Sam Hartman. The number two guy is probably Joe Alt.

Number three? I think it’s fair to argue it’s Jayden Thomas. We’ve seen the offense without him (or without him fully healthy) in the last three games and it’s not great.

His numbers (15 for 228, no catches vs NC State) don’t exactly scream “elite”, but a box score doesn’t accurately describe his value. He’s an asset in the running like no other receiver is because he is closer to an H-back in size. How many other receivers can lead through the hole like this as a blocker?

He can line up tight and block, but if teams try to put a safety on him, that’s going to be an advantage for Notre Dame in the pass game and it can be advantage in the run game as well.

Since Thomas injured his hamstring, they’ve had their lowest number of first downs in those three subsequent games (16, 17, and 13). They converted 53.7% on 3rd down in the first five games with him healthy. They've been at 23.7% since then.

Mitchell Evans has become the go-to target on 3rd downs, but some of that has to do with Thomas not being an option. He’s second on the team in 3rd down receptions behind Evans. He’s also the most experienced receiver on the team that they can trust to execute even when he’s not getting the ball. This rub route is a perfect example of that.

Thomas isn’t Hines Ward, but in many ways he’s Notre Dame’s version of the former Pittsburgh Steeler. Getting him back and involved in the same way he was early in the season could be a huge boost for the offense.

3. I emphasize Havoc rate a lot when writing about defense. I think most reading this know what that means, but if not, it’s essentially negative plays created by the defense (tackle for loss, pass breakup, interception, or forced fumble) divided by the number of total plays against.

Notre Dame’s defense had a below average Havoc rate last season. They finished at 15.2%. That’s jumped up to 18% through eight games this fall. They are 29th in the country. (Shoutout to Collin Wilson of the Action Network for tracking all of these teams)

The Irish had only three defenders with double digit havoc plays all of last season. They already have four with nine so far this season.

Xavier Watts has 10.5, Benjamin Morrison has 10, Howard Cross has 9.5, and Cam Hart has 9 (three forced fumbles!). Players like JD Betrand (7), Thomas Harper (6), and others could easily get to double digits with five games remaining.

There’s also defenders like Marist Liufau (4.5), Rylie Mills (1.5), and Javontae-Jean Baptiste (4) who have been a lot more disruptive than their havoc numbers would indicate. Any one of them could have a breakout game like Watts just had against USC.

Okay, maybe not exactly like that, but multiple havoc plays in a game could easily happen for any of them in the next few weeks.

The magic number is 19.5%. Seven of the last nine national championship defenses averaged that number or higher. I think that number is within reach this season and could be close to an every season thing with the talent they have recruited on defense.

4. Pitt’s offense is 77th in havoc allowed. Clemson is 72nd, Wake Forest is 131st (yikes), and Stanford is 111th. Now you see why that number can be in reach this season.

These next set of games are set up well for Notre Dame’s defense to make a lot of plays. There are legitimate reasons to worry about what we’ll see from the Irish offense to close out the season. The flip side to that is that we could see Notre Dame’s defense create a lot of negative plays to set up favorable positions for the offense or put up points on their own like they did against USC.

None of those teams have a quarterback who ranks in the top-60 in ESPN’s QBR and considering how good quarterbacks have performed against the Irish this season, I wouldn’t bet on those guys having great games against Notre Dame.

5. The best coaches tailor their scheme to fit their personnel. Add this to the list of why Al Golden has done such a great job this year coordinating Notre Dame’s defense.

It was evident that cornerback was Notre Dame’s strongest position group on defense heading into this season. Golden and the staff have leveraged that by putting their corners in man coverage significantly more than they were last season.

PFF has Morrison (56.3%), Hart (51.8%), Harper (56.5%), and Jaden Mickey (56.7%) playing man to man at the second highest rate out of any cornerback group in the country. Only Purdue’s corners are in man more than Notre Dame’s.

In 2022, no Notre Dame corner played in man coverage more than 36.8% of the time. The corners were around that same number in 2021 as well when Marcus Freeman was the coordinator.

I always thought that Freeman would prefer to play more man coverage than they did. He had that great group of corners at Cincinnati and PFF had them in man to man around 45% of the time during the 2020 season.

Playing that much man allows for more opportunities to pressure with more than four. Notre Dame did that plenty of times against Caleb Williams and USC. It was a significant factor in producing all of those sacks and pressures that led to turnovers.

This is the best collective group of corners that Notre Dame has had in a long time. That’s led to more man coverage and more success overall for the defense as a whole.

6. I don’t think Notre Dame fans should pencil in Clemson as a win despite their struggles this season. As we mentioned on Power Hour, that’s going to be a kitchen sink game for their staff. Losing it, especially after how they lost to Notre Dame last season, would be disastrous for Dabo Swinney.

There are ways to spin their season into them being this close to being undefeated or having one loss. There were the red zone issues against Duke that cost them that game. They have had issues with their field goal kicking that helped cost them the Florida State game that they eventually lost in overtime. Their third loss to Miami also came in overtime.

An optimist would say they are right there, but even Dabo can’t spin it that way because there’s been a clear decline compared to how dominant they used to be. From 2015-2020, they lost three games against conference opponents. That matches their total this season.

ISD’s Matt Freeman has pointed out how he heard rumblings about a culture problem brewing with Clemson changing their approach to recruiting as well as having a lot of staff turnover. Normally that’s not a big deal at power programs, but part of what made Clemson successful was the fact that they had assistants who stayed there longer than assistants typically do in college football. When that changed, the evaluations and development did also.

According to rankings, they have recruited better. According to the scoreboard, they are clearly worse.

They were winning on both sides of the ball because their Jimmies were better than everyone’s Joes. Their Jimmies are still better than most on defense, but not so much on the other side of the ball.

The high profile hire of Garrett Riley as offensive coordinator has not gone well. Clemson is 74th in yards per play and 82nd in points per drive. It’s to the point where he may be one-and-done.

The scapegoat of the last two years on offense, quarterback DJ Uiagalelei, is thriving at Oregon State. He’s seventh in QBR and they are eighth in OF+ (combined FEI and SP+ rankings). Meanwhile Clemson hasn’t averaged more than 5.6 YPP against an FBS opponent and are 95th in plays of 20+ yards from scrimmage.

Dabo isn’t going to lose his job no matter what happens against Notre Dame and the rest of their schedule this season, but if they lose to the Irish, it’s the kind of result that is going to necessitate more changes he will be forced to make. And no one hates change in college football more than Dabo.

There’s too much at stake for Dabo and his staff and too much talent on Clemson’s defense to consider that a sure thing for Notre Dame just like there is too much weird Pitt/Narduzzi energy to consider the game this weekend a lock to be a blowout.

The only thing that’s certain about Notre Dame facing Clemson is that Dabo will be feeling even more pressure than Freeman did against USC.

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