Third downs, Three-And-Outs Plague Irish

In the immediate aftermath of his team’s College Football Playoffs-crushing 45-14 loss Saturday night at Michigan, Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly cautioned against any thought that his Fighting Irish might need a complete overhaul.

On Sunday, Kelly doubled-down about the Irish’s need to simply reacquire what Kelly considers to be their playing identity.

“I think more than anything else, it’s controlling the line of scrimmage,” Kelly said. “We weren’t able to control the line of scrimmage.

“It’s a physicality that we have to get back. We’ve had it. We did not have it in this game.”

Moreover, an Irish offense predicated on its ability to dictate tempo and sustain drives --- uptempo, gassing defenses or clock-melting methodical possessions --- could do neither against the Wolverines, who forced Notre Dame’s offense into a season-worst eight three-and-out possessions.

“We knew the weather was going to be factor, and we knew had to establish the ground game,” junior offensive lineman Robert Hainsey said. “We didn’t do that. We didn’t play to our standard.”

Seven games into this 2019 season, the Irish’s offensive standard still lacks a true identity. When Notre Dame clicks, the unit can generate artful possessions maximizing players’ talents up and down the field.

But when it fails, it tends to do so in a resounding manner. Notre Dame, in five games against Power-5 opponents this season, has 25 possessions that have ended in three-and-outs or turnovers less than three plays into a possession.

That doesn’t just hamstring offensive productivity; it inevitably wears down a defense that, on Saturday night, bowed its back early and then forced a flurry of Michigan punts in the third quarter that could have enabled Notre Dame to scratch back into the game.

“Fixing is such a general word that kind of takes on a connotation that there’s a lot of things broken,” Kelly said. “We feel like this was a game where our team was not who they were. I think what we have to find out is why weren’t they playing at the level they’ve played for the last two-and-a-half years. That might be more on me. It might be in our preparation. It might be in our game plan.

“And so fixing sometimes sounds like, well, we’ve got to change the way we run our offense or defense or personnel. And I would really be cautious in making those kinds of assumptions and it might be as simple as our preparation wasn’t what it needed to be over these last two weeks.”

Still, the Irish must fix their three-and-outs and their third-down success rate. Notre Dame converted just three of 15 third-down tries against the Wolverines; they’ve converted 27 of 72 (37.5 percent) on the season against P5 competition.

“Third down, really, was part and parcel of the whole night,” Kelly said. “We’ll continue to work on our third-down efficiencies. It’s 11 players. It’s blocking. It’s catching the ball. It’s quarterback decisions. It’s a little bit of everything when you talk about third-down conversions.

“It’s staying out of third-and-long. We’ve got to work on all of those things to be better at third down.”