6 Thoughts on a Thursday

It’s always difficult to compare eras in college football. When looking at a team from today and contrasting it with a team from the ‘90s, it feels impossible to quantify how much the game has changed from then to now.

Notre Dame has had plenty of special defenses sprinkled throughout the decades, but going back and comparing the 2023 defense to the 1993 one doesn’t feel appropriate. Go back and watch any of those games from that era and it’s like watching a black and white movie compared to when they implemented color.

Defenses and the offenses they faced were much different back then. It’s much easier to compare the ‘23 defense to more recent ones.

The best of them for the Irish were 2012, 2018, and 2019. The Irish finished 3rd, 9th, and 8th in DF+ (the combined FEI and SP+ rankings) those seasons. The ‘23 defense is 7th through nine games.

There’s still games to be played, so we won’t be able to truly evaluate them against those defenses until everything is complete, but I’d say we’ve seen enough to know that this defense deserves to be mentioned with those three.

It’s not just having a great performance against Caleb Williams and USC or them continually forcing quarterbacks into the worst performances of their careers. It’s that they are doing it at all levels of the defense.

The run defense is only allowing 3.1 rushes of 10+ yards per game (28 total on the season and 13th in the country). That’s a better rate than the 2012 defense, which gave up an average of 3.4 per game. That’s the same 2012 defense that didn’t allow a rushing touchdown until the eighth game of that season.

They’re only allowing 2.2 passes of 20+ yards per game (also 13th in the country). The 2019 defense led the nation with 1.9 per game, so they are above that, but currently better than the 2.3 per game that the 2018 defense allowed. The 2012 defense was right at 2.0.

In terms of havoc rate, the ‘23 defense tops those other groups. They are at 18.7%. The ‘19 defense was the highest at 18.4%. Their 1.56 forced fumbles per game are higher than ‘19 as well (1.54, 3rd overall with 20). ‘23’s yards per play of 4.45 is also lower than any of those three as well.

I thought that the defense had a chance to be pretty special after seeing them in camp, but you never quite know until we start seeing them on Saturdays. I wrote this about them back in August.

I was confident that the defense was going to be better this season than it was last year. I thought being a top-25 or top-20 defense was a reasonable expectation in year two under Al Golden, especially because of the approach the staff was taking when it came to trimming down the playbook.

Now that I have a better grasp of the talent heading into the season, my expectations have changed. I think they can be a top-15 defense and if that happens, they’ll be a true contender to make the CFP.

The CFP didn’t happen, but that was through no fault of the defense. They’ve played at a CFP level this season.

If we’re talking All-American candidates, then this defense has a few just like those defenses did as well. Whether it’s numbers or individual players, they’ve earned being mentioned with the best Notre Dame defenses in recent history.

2. Notre Dame’s pass defense first in EPA (expected points added) per attempt. I mentioned on Power Hour earlier this week that they’ve only allowed five completions on 40 deep pass attempts (20+ air yards).

They’re also 15th in yards after catch per reception, so they aren’t exactly giving up much on the short stuff either. (These stats courtesy of cfb-graphs.com)

The secondary gets a ton of love for that and they should. The pass rush doesn’t get enough love for that because pressure has led to a lot of poor throws, pass breakups, and interceptions.

Howard Cross had three pressures this season that led to an interception against Duke (Xavier Watts), against Tennessee State (Ramon Henderson), and against Pitt (Watts again). It doesn’t show up in the box score, but it shows up on the film.

Notre Dame’s pass rush has 41% pressure rate this season. That matches Michigan this season and only trails SMU and UCLA (51%!). The Irish have executed their stunts and blitz packages at a very high level.

Blitzing from depth used to make fans cringe before. When it’s executed properly, it looks like this.

The big thing I see from the group as a whole, up front and from the additional rushers, is unselfishness when it comes to who ends up getting the hit on the quarterback or the sack. Everyone is doing their job and that leads to someone, it might be them or it might be someone else, to get pressure. That leads to good things and to elite pass defense.

3. The Notre Dame defense is 12th in points per drive. The next three offenses they face in points per drive: Clemson 91st, Wake Forest 118th, and Stanford 78th.

The thing that all three of those teams have in common is bad offensive line play.

Clemson is 100th in PFF’s run blocking grade and they’ve allowed 7.7 tackles for loss per game against Power 5 opponents (also 100th). The two best defensive lines they’ve faced, Miami and Florida State, had pressure rates of 46.7% and 53.7% against Clemson.

Wake Forest has given up 37 sacks (130th) and 71 tackles for loss (133rd). Stanford has given up 28 sacks (119th) and are 128th in PFF’s pass blocking grades.

We’ve seen teams with bad offensive lines play against this Notre Dame defense. I think we aren’t going to see a lot of points scored by these offenses in the next few weeks.

4. I don’t know about everyone else, but I was surprised to see the Irish offense be 10th in yards per play. With all of the ups and downs, I wouldn’t think we’ve been watching an offense that would be ranked that high.

I keep an eye on explosive passing plays because I know how that typically translates to CFP success and with Notre Dame’s injury issues at receiver, I just assumed they wouldn’t be nearly as explosive as they have been. They’re averaging 4.6 passing plays of 20+ yards per game, which is the same number they averaged in 2019 when they finished 13th in the country.

That offense had a monster season from Chase Claypool. He had 23 receptions of 20+ all by himself, which was fourth in the country. This 2023 Notre Dame offense definitely does not have a Claypool type at receiver, but they’ve somehow managed to find a way to be fairly explosive.

What might be even more shocking to some is that this offense averages more 20+ yards passing plays per game than Wake Forest did last season (4.3). It’s not just about the long ball. It’s also about YAC. Notre Dame has more yards after catch (1,301) in nine games than Wake had all of last season (1,150).

The average yards after catch per reception for Notre Dame is 7.8. It was 3.8 last year at Wake.

Hartman is seventh out of Power 5 quarterbacks with yards after the catch from his receivers. That has been a very positive development for the Irish this season, especially considering the personnel.

5. Speaking of yards after the catch, this gives me an excuse to mention just how impactful Chris Tyree has been again.

He’s averaging 11.5 YAC per reception, which is tied for 3rd in the country. He’s averaging 21.9 per reception, which is sixth. He always seemed like the best candidate to be this kind of option for Notre Dame this fall because of his speed, but it worked out better than anyone could have predicted.

Tyree has not had more than five targets in a game this season. I don’t think he’s the answer to replacing what Mitchell Evans’ gave them, specifically on 3rd down, but in a game against a Clemson defense that hasn’t given up many points all season, the staff needs to find a way to get Tyree more targets and touches.

6. Clemson is 0-4 against teams in the top-60 of F+ rankings this season. Dabo Swinney is ranting against angry fans on his call-in show. The offense is averaging 19.3 points per game against ACC competition and they’ve only scored more than 24 points once in those games.

Throw in a noon kick with a fanbase that could turn on their team in a hurry with a slow start and it does feel like Notre Dame could put a whoopin’ on the Tigers for a second straight year.

The only reason to think that might not happen is Clemson’s defense. They are very good. They are 10th in DF+, 8th in points per drive, and 7th in yards per play. They have been good enough for Clemson to be 8-0, but haven’t had enough help from the Clemson offense or special teams.

The pass defense is elite. They are 9th in EPA per drop back and 6th in yards per attempt. They are 7th in havoc rate and make a ton of negative plays with an aggressive style, but haven’t been burned by it too often. They’re 9th in allowing plays of 20+ yards from scrimmage.

There’s that and the fact that the Irish offense has struggled against some top defenses. Against Ohio State (3rd in DF+), they scored only 14 points. Against Duke (20th), they scored 21. Against Louisville (23rd), they scored 20. NC State (27th) was the only top-30 defense they put up big points.

They scored 45 that day, but got a huge boost from some short fields. They scored 21 points off of turnovers in the fourth quarter.

Notre Dame is going to need some short fields to work with against this Clemson defense.

They’ll need Cade Klubnik to be the same guy he’s been all season. He’s first in the nation in fumbles and fifth in batted balls at the line of scrimmage. He’s been someone who has tried to do too much at times and it’s come back to bite him. He’s thrown four interceptions in their four losses.

This game has all the makings of a low scoring affair and that means it could be anyone’s game. Or it could be the Irish pulling away and it looking very similar to what we saw last season.

To me, the latter scenario feels even more likely than the former.

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