6 Thoughts on a Thursday
The start of the 2018 season for Notre Dame was a memorable one. It felt very similar to this current season for Notre Dame. Both teams came out 3-0, but it didn’t exactly feel like that could continue much longer if things stayed the same.
The problem in ‘18 was the offense. They scraped by against a very good Michigan defense and looked terrible against a not so good Ball State defense. Things perked up a bit against Vanderbilt, but no one was going to write home about winning three straight one score games when the offense failed to score 25 points in any of those matchups.
We know that things flipped. Ian Book took over at quarterback and the passing game went from bad to above average. Adding in Dexter Williams to give them an explosive element with the running game helped spark them as well. Those two combined with improvement on the offensive line helped the offense be good enough to take them to an undefeated regular season.
The problems are different this time around. They don’t have two players to insert into the lineup that can do what Book and Williams did. They’ve put up more points in the first three games and showed more potential with a plethora of playmakers, but the offensive line still appears to have a long way to go to be able to consistently take advantage of their skilled talent.
And things are about to get much more difficult as well. They’ll be playing the 4th and 7th ranked defenses in F+ (combined FEI and SP+) in the next two weeks. The next five opponents have game wreckers with the potential to be as disruptive as George Karlaftis was for Purdue.
What we’re seeing from the offense up to this point is unsustainable. The inefficiency, 28% success rate last week, won’t be nearly good enough even if they continue to produce explosive plays at the same rate they are right now. Even in that Michigan game in ‘18, the success rate on offense was 36%. They did worse against Purdue’s defense than the Wimbush led offense did against a Michigan group that ended up with seven starters taken in the NFL Draft. That’s a bit frightening.
The one easy answer to improve is to catch the ball better. Seven drops isn’t what we saw in the first couple of weeks, so if they can get back to normal there, that’s going to help a lot. It’s obvious that they have to get better on the offensive line, but even if they are, the next couple of weeks might not make that noticeable given the step up in competition.
The biggest thing for them this weekend will be for them to be far better on first down. As my friend Michael Bryan noted, the Irish were only 2 of 10 for 14 yards and gave up two sacks on first down pass attempts against Purdue. If it’s anywhere close to that bad against Wisconsin, the game could get ugly.
The good news is that prior to Purdue, they were 21 of 26 throwing on first down and they had five plays of 25-yards or more. I don’t think it’s a surprise that they were around 70% in 11 personnel in the first two games (one back, one tight end) and were playing two tight ends on close to 50% of the snaps against Purdue.
I realize that it was strategic. They were trying to protect with tight ends to help their struggling tackles. It might help those guys more by being more spread out and getting the ball out quickly to supplement the running game.
Notre Dame is 60% run on first down through three games and that number needs to drop about 10% or more, especially in this game against an elite run defense. The only way to move forward may be to embrace playing more wide open because what they did last week isn’t the solution. It might also help them run against lighter numbers in the box as well.
It’s hard to establish an identity when the offensive line is having the issues that it is. I do know that what we saw last week can’t be the identity going forward and it will be interesting to see how Tommy Rees approaches things against some very strong defenses in the coming weeks.
2. The question then switches to how they could possibly pass more if they are not protecting the quarterback very well?
That’s tough to argue against, but it comes down to the lack of success running that is far worse than passing. They are 121st in rushing EPA (expected points added) and 62nd in passing. It’s not like they are anywhere close to a great passing game, but they are near the bottom of the country when running the football.
If Tyler Buchner is in the game, then that might change things. When they are playing in their standard offense with Jack Coan, they need to throw more.
3. It’s only three games and I don’t want to get carried away with overreacting to it, but what JD Bertrand is doing right now might need to be talked about even more than it already is.
He’s averaging 11.7 tackles per game and 1.5 of those are for loss. This is the first significant snaps he is seeing in his career and to say he has produced is an understatement.
To put it all in perspective, consider that what he’s doing now is comparable to what Te’von Coney did when he took over as the starter at Buck (Will) in 2017. From the USC game until the end of that season, he averaged 10.6 tackles and 1.4 TFLs during that run.
I wouldn’t say that Bertrand is quite at the same level we saw from Coney despite the numbers being even better, but the fact that it’s in the same conversation at this point is already blowing my mind.
He’ll be a busy man again this weekend. I’d be shocked if he doesn’t have double digit tackles.
4. I know there is this idea floating around with Coan asking, “What if he played with the 2020 offensive line instead?” It makes sense that people would wonder about that, but I also hope that people appreciate what Ian Book brought to the table and that it doesn't get forgotten when that question is asked.
I kept track of what I called “improv” yards with Book last season. Those are the yards where he would scramble or escape the pocket and make plays with his legs or his arm outside of the framework of the original call.
He averaged 60.2 yards per game and totalled eight touchdowns on those plays last year. Through three games Coan has 31 “improv” yards.
Normally one could say that it’s hard to put a number value on Ian Book’s athleticism and what that meant to the offense, but compared to Coan, it’s about 50 yards extra per game.
What Book could do if he was still around in this current scenario might be a different story, but what he brought to the table outside of the raw passing numbers while he was at Notre Dame is something that is difficult to replace.
5. Jayson Ademilola is 11th in PFF’s pass rush productivity metric at the defensive tackle position. Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa is 7th in that metric at defensive end and Isaiah Foskey is 19th.
The scary part about that for the opposition is that I think those three players can be even better.
The fact that MTA and Ademilola are both so high up there validates the move of MTA to end. Playing them both together on 3rd downs rather than one or the other has been very beneficial for Notre Dame’s pass rush.
6. My guy Michael Bryan is getting two shoutouts in one week in 6 Thoughts! He deserves it with this tweet that explains a lot about the run defense so far this year.
The raw numbers look bad because of those long runs, but if they can prevent those long runs like they did against Purdue, then the rest of it looks really good.
Stopping the run against Wisconsin might not be everything for the defense, but it’s darn close to everything. Notre Dame needs to have plenty of stuffs in this game to put Graham Mertz in long yardage situations on 3rd down.
When Mertz has to throw on 3rd downs, he’s only moved the chains on two of 15 pass attempts this season. If last season is included, his NFL passer rating on 3rd and 6+ is 35.7. That’s not great!
Wisconsin’s offense leads the country in average time of possession. Notre Dame needs to get them off the field and it starts with stopping the run on first down.
If they can do that and try to force Mertz to beat them, what he’s done previously says he likely won’t be able to.