6 Thoughts on a Thursday
Run the football and stop the run. As long as there has been football, these have been mantras shared by coaches when talking about what it takes to win.
Even as things have moved away from the I-formation and football has morphed into more of a wide open passing game, the emphasis on running it on offense and stopping it on defense still looms large. Well, get ready for an old school type of game this weekend because who runs the ball best and who stops it the most is likely going to win.
Syracuse has one of the best backs in the country. Sean Tucker is a big time talent who is more than just a runner, but he’s going to get a ton of carries in this game. How could he not after only getting five against Clemson last week?
They’ll feed him the rock and run quarterback Garrett Shrader plenty too. He played some wide receiver at Mississippi State before he transferred to Syracuse. He’s built like a tight end and averages 5.9 yards per carry as a runner.
The Orange are 12th in opportunity rate, which means they have the 12th highest rate of runs of four yards or more when four yards are available. When looking at the opportunity rate for the Irish run defense, they are 102nd. That certainly is not an ideal thing for Notre Dame.
Flip it over the other way and things look a lot rosier for the blue and gold squad.
The rushing attack looked anemic to start the year, but they’ve had a B12 shot in the form of a much improved offensive line. They are 17th in average line yards and 10th in stuff rate, which means they are consistently churning out positive gains on the ground. They’re also playing against a run defense that is 110th in EPA per rush, 116th in opportunity rate, and 119th in stuff rate.
Clemson ran on 22 of the last 28 plays against them. They rushed for 6.4 YPC, scored 17 straight points, and won the game.
I know there’s going to be a lot of focus on Drew Pyne and his performance this week, but this matchup is likely going to be decided by who does a better job with the running game. Both teams haven’t been great at stopping it. Whoever outperforms in that area will be my pick as the team who comes out on top.
2. I’ve seen a lot of “ND couldn’t have a worse quarterback” on Twitter and our board. It’s a reminder that many people only watch Notre Dame games and aren’t paying attention to everything else in college football.
Pyne is 43rd in pass efficiency. That dropped all the way from 17th two weeks ago, which shows just how rough the last couple of games have gone, but the bigger picture of how he has performed has him slotted in where he is. (Also, another reminder: Bradon Wimbush was 92nd in 2017)
He’s ranked 30 spots ahead of Stanford quarterback Tanner McKee. Anyone who watched just the ND-Stanford game could tell you that McKee is the better player so the numbers don’t tell the whole story. If McKee were playing with Notre Dame’s O-line and not Stanford’s, I think it’s fair to assume he would be a top-20 quarterback in the country.
Just pointing at something like pass efficiency rankings doesn’t add enough context. The situation the player is in matters too.
With that in mind, how good is the situation for Pyne?
I’d say good enough for him to play as well as he did against UNC and BYU. It’s also good enough for them to beat Syracuse.
Saying that others don’t have it worse is hyperbolic. Expecting something better from him is not.
3. I always enjoy these advanced stat previews from Parker Fleming aka @statsowar.
The big thing that stood out to me when looking at this one was that the Notre Dame offense is ranked first in field position.
That’s a “wow” statistic and honestly surprising given the lack of turnovers caused by the Notre Dame defense. Then again, the Irish have blocked four punts, their opponents average less than 40 yards per punt (21st), and Notre Dame is 11th in punt returns per game.
The Irish were 100th, 85th, 95th, 34th, and 107th in opponent punting average under Brian Polian. They blocked four punts in five years.
The defense doing its job plays a big part in this as well, but what Brian Mason has done with simply the threat of blocked punts has given the Irish an edge with field position.
4. The only freshmen and sophomores who are playing on Notre Dame’s defense are Benjamin Morrision, Jaden Mickey, Prince Kollie, and Gabriel Rubio. That says a lot more about where things have trended with the 2021 recruiting class on defense than it does about the current group of freshmen.
It’s atypical for many freshmen to crack the two-deep and next year I would expect a lot more players from the 2022 class to play quite a bit. Al Golden mentioned on Tuesday that Jaylen Sneed is getting closer to playing, but there isn’t that much time left for that to happen. Maybe it could mean he’s someone who gets in those final four games.
The same could be said for Josh Burnham, who Golden also commented on when asked on Tuesday. Burnham came in at 217 pounds as an early enrollee, so when Golden said he’s going to be a 260 pounder, it definitely grabbed my attention.
I think those two players are going to be foundational pieces for the defense in the next few years so to hear some positive comments about them right now when we’re not seeing enough playmaking from the current defense is good to hear.
5. It’s astonishing to me that the Irish are dead last in the country in turnovers. Maybe things are turning around with five forced fumbles in the past four games. It was actually six if you count that extra one against Stanford that got called back.
It’s that they have only one interception this season that is shocking. They had 15 in 2021.
Only three of them were from Kyle Hamilton. The rest were all from returning players (one was from Bo Bauer, who is out for the season).
Isaiah Foskey had six forced fumbles last year. Most of those came on sacks, but his sacks per game are almost identical to what it was last season (0.85 in ‘21, 0.86 this year). It’s a bit inexplicable that he hasn’t had one.
I have to think that this is going to turn around for them because I don’t think this has anything to do with coaching. It’s also not like they are the only blue-blood program that isn’t generating turnovers. Michigan is 113th and Alabama is 121st. Those two programs and Notre Dame all do a pretty good job of getting after the quarterback too. The Irish are 14th in sack rate, Michigan is 7th, and Alabama is 21st.
A good pass rush and turnovers feels like why they created the shaking hands emoji, but apparently that’s not always the case.
It would be a great time for things to start breaking Notre Dame’s way in the turnover department. The only reason the game was tight with Syracuse and Clemson was because of the four turnovers Syracuse forced.
6. At the beginning of the season, Marcus Freeman emphasized that Notre Dame’s offensive tackles were both young and inexperienced. Everyone was excited about their talent, but when the early results weren’t up to expectations, many Notre Dame fans might have been a bit premature with some hot takes.
I remember a few people who were citing how well former Notre Dame offensive lineman Quinn Caroll was playing and suggesting that he might be better than Blake Fisher. It turns out that Carroll’s play against New Mexico State, Western Illinois, and Colorado wasn’t enough to go on to declare him as the better option.
He came back down to earth once they started playing against Big Ten opponents. PFF has him as a 36.8 grade in true pass sets.
Fisher’s play has only gotten better and better in recent weeks. He’s moving people in the run game and been good in pass protection. He looks like someone who is finding his groove and it all makes sense when you consider he missed almost all of last season and he’s about to have his 10th career start.
Joe Alt has taken his game to another level as well. He now has one full season of starting experience and he already looks like he could be an All-American candidate. Him and Fisher are going to have bigger challenges ahead going against Clemson’s defensive ends, but at the very least Notre Dame has two tackles who are playing very good football right now who will only get better.
There’s been a lot of talk about some players on defense not ascending to the level of expectations that everyone had for them before this season, but these two are already key pieces on offense and should be scary good in 2023.
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