6 Thoughts on a Thursday

College football is unlike any other major sport. One great game can put you on top of the mountain. One bad game can knock you all the way back down.

Clemson’s Cade Klubnik was a 5-star recruit. He was the guy who was supposed to live up to the hype when DJ Uiagalelei didn’t. The offense was going to take off with him at quarterback and new offensive coordinator Garrett Riley.

It didn’t go down that way.

The offense was anemic when it came to explosive passing. They finished 109th in completions of 20+ yards in 2023. He finished fifth from the bottom in the country in both average depth of target and PFF’s “big time throws”. Whatever kind of quarterback he was, he wasn’t Deshaun Watson or Trevor Lawrence.

He opened this season with a predictably meh performance against Georgia with their offense scoring three points. Then this happened last week.

Lighting it up would be putting it mildly. He was having an all-time great game…in one half of play.

Sure, it was against App State, but that’s the same App State who famously upset Michigan as an FCS program, had beaten a top-25 Miami team in 2021, had a top-10 road upset over Texas A&M in 2022, and took Drake Maye and North Carolina to overtime last season.

There were likely a few pundits out there who picked App State in an “upset special”. How were they supposed to know that Klubnik would come out throwing flames?

This doesn’t mean that Klubnik is now on his way to living up to the previous hype or that Clemson is now on a trajectory to restore Dabo’s reputation as an elite coach. What it does show is how quickly the vibes can change from week to week and it can all come crashing back down for them if they have a dud of a game on the road against Florida State on October 5. (And the vibes would change drastically for them if they win that game too)

No other sport can someone go from you suck to great in one week then back to you suck again shortly after.

The pressure in college football is different. The Bears can beat the 49ers like they did in week one back in 2022, which will lead to some overreactions. There’s more time for things to get corrected in the NFL, though. The Niners started out 3-4 and ended up in the NFC Championship game that season.

Even with an expanded playoff in college football, a big win can lead to saying Notre Dame is a lock for the playoff and then a bad loss flips it to being now improbable that they can make it. Those are both hyperbolic reactions to one week, but they happen because of the nature of college football. That type of week to week pressure doesn’t exist anywhere else.

Marcus Freeman has experienced it as the head coach of Notre Dame. They love you one week and then call for you to be fired the next. Now Riley Leonard is experiencing it as QB1 at Notre Dame.

Losing a game or playing poorly at Duke isn’t the same when the expectations for the program are different. It changes when it’s Notre Dame and it changes when you’re the guy who’s a transfer portal addition in the NIL era.

Ian Book went to two CFPs and is the winningest quarterback in Notre Dame history, but he isn’t loved like Tony Rice because Book never won a championship. Book will likely never get the credit he truly deserves for his success at Notre Dame because he was an imperfect quarterback who mixed in sometimes brilliant improvisation with inconsistent performances. But there hasn’t been anyone who has handled the pressure of playing quarterback at Notre Dame in the modern era better than Book.

He went through plenty of adversity, played through injuries, and received a lot of criticism from the media and fans. Through all of that, he managed to keep showing up and winning. He delivered in several big moments and when people were writing him off after Michigan in 2019, he still found a way to overcome a shaky start and come through when it mattered when they were set to lose against Virginia Tech the following week.

That’s a game Notre Dame had lost too many times in the previous three decades. Book led them on that last drive and then shushed the home crowd after, likely because many of them were hoping he’d be benched earlier in the game.

I don’t know how Leonard is going to react to this pressure. To be honest, it’s probably better that this next game is on the road. He’s new to this and new to the offense with new teammates and he doesn’t look all that comfortable (and I’m not talking about his left shoulder). How he responds against Purdue will influence how Notre Dame fans and NFL evaluators feel about him going forward.

How he responds is also something that could have a huge impact on not only the success of the football team this season, but also how people view Marcus Freeman’s future in South Bend as well.

2. I mentioned this in the rewatch notes after NIU, but wanted to mention it here because it’s something that has to change with Leonard if he’s going to continue as Notre Dame’s starting quarterback.

Leonard was three of eight on intermediate throws (10-19 yards) and he’s eight of 18 on the season with an adjusted completion percentage of 44.4%. He hasn’t been hurt by drops.

If Mitchell Evans was playing more snaps, he was up to 22 in this game, then that would obviously help. He was responsible for two of those three intermediate completions, both on contested catches. Leonard’s adjusted completion percentage on intermediate throws at Duke in 2022 was 60.6%.

He is capable of making those throws, but hasn’t up to this point.

This throw on 3rd down in the fourth quarter against Notre Dame last season is exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about. Pressure is coming and this is the only spot the ball could be thrown without it being picked or tipped by Junior Tuihalamaka. It leads to a big play.

Rylie Mills talked about positive reinforcement in the preseason and how Freeman spoke of Aaron Judge watching his own highlights to go into games with confidence. I know some people have suggested that Notre Dame should have put the “OR” beside his name with Steve Angeli or do something similar to that in order to motivate Leonard. I think he’s very aware of how things are being perceived right now and that kind of thing isn’t going to help him regain his confidence.

Maybe showing him a bunch of these types of throws might.

3. It’s a different offense and different circumstances, but here’s how many yards rushing Leonard has had when Duke scored 30 or more points against Power 4 programs.

63 yards and 7.11 total rushing EPA (expected points added) vs UCF

40 yards and 0.21 EPA vs Wake Forest

64 yards and 7.29 EPA vs Virginia

107 yards and 4.5 EPA vs Boston College

144 yards and 10.11 EPA vs UNC

72 yards and 9.33 EPA vs Miami

20 yards and -0.33 EPA vs Northwestern (2022)

99 yards and 1.34 vs Northwestern (2023)

Bonus because they only scored 28: 99 yards and 7.86 EPA vs Clemson

And for reference, his first two games at Notre Dame are:

59 yards and 0.16 EPA vs Texas A&M

39 yards and 1.45 EPA vs NIU

Leonard’s rushing output and EPA seem to be pretty important when it comes to his offense scoring points. In the nine games he started at Duke when they scored 30 or more against Power 4 teams (plus the 28 point game vs Clemson) he ran for 60 yards or more in seven of them.

He also rushed for just under 60 and his running was very important in the win against Texas A&M. They stopped running him in the game against NIU and that didn’t go well for the offense.

In all of the other games against Power 4 opponents when Duke scored less than 30 points, there was only one game where Leonard rushed for over 52 yards. That was against Notre Dame last year when they almost upset the Irish.

We’ll find out more about if he can run as much as they need him to against Purdue, but this pretty much backs up the fact that if he is unable to run because of a shoulder injury or any other reason, it severely diminishes his value on the field.

His teams put up points when he’s making an impact as a runner. Running has to be an option for him.

4. The opponent matters this week because it’s one who will force Notre Dame to throw often. Their head coach, Ryan Walters, has built excellent defenses with a general philosophy of loading the box, bringing lots of pressure, and playing a ton of man to man coverage with his corners.

He had top-25 defenses in DF+ (combined FEI and SP+ rankings) in four of his five seasons as the defensive coordinator at Missouri and Illinois. Last season the defense at Purdue wasn’t as successful (63rd in DF+), mostly because they didn’t have the corners that were good enough to play on an island for 70% of the game.

Purdue was 126th in passing plays of 20+ yards allowed last season. They have one returning starter at corner and are starting a true freshman at the other spot. There will be opportunities to make plays against them.

The one team who truly gashed them on the ground last season was Syracuse. They had 271 (6.2 YPC) with their quarterback running for 195 of them, so the quarterback run game could be very important on Saturday.

What will definitely be important is to have receivers who can win in man coverage. This makes it a great time to get Jordan Faison back for Notre Dame. He caught nine of 10 targets for 15.6 yards per catch and three touchdowns vs man coverage in 2023. His lone catch of the season came on a slant versus man coverage against Texas A&M that went for a first down.

They desperately could use some production on deep passes as well. I know that might make Notre Dame fans cringe after seeing that Leonard interception, but Kris Mitchell had a real shot at something if it was a better throw. He also averaged 20.6 per catch against man coverage at FIU last season and most of that was on deep balls.

5. Notre Dame’s defense finished 15th in the country in havoc rate last fall. Through two games, the havoc has been lacking. It’s only 11.8% right now compared to 19.4% in 2023.

That was going to be difficult to change last week with the style of play of NIU and the fact that Notre Dame did a bad job of getting them into long yardage on 3rd downs. That has to change if they want to create negative plays at the same rate they did last season.

Purdue may be the perfect remedy for that as an Air Raid team who wants to throw as much as possible under Graham Harrell. They added a couple of starters from Group of 5 programs up front to try and fix some issues, but they allowed pressure on nearly 40% of dropbacks last season and were 111th in havoc rate allowed.

QB Hudson Card and RB Devin Mockobee had a combined 18 fumbles last season. That’s a problem. So is the fact that Card was in the bottom 10 in interceptable pass rate on downfield throws.

I would be shocked if an angry Notre Dame defense isn’t great on Saturday and it feels like the right opponent for them to play in this scenario.

6. This is my tenth season covering Notre Dame for ISD. It’s worked out pretty well for me with the trajectory of the program over that time. They’ve won 10 or more games in seven of the past nine years. They probably should make it eight for 10 at the conclusion of this season, even if some people might not want to believe after last week.

Before I covered the team, I was a Notre Dame fan who got sucked in during the fall of 1993. I’m sure everyone knows that they won 11 that season and were not awarded the national championship, which remains a ridiculous thing that isn’t talked about enough. I was still just a fan for the next two decades and they won 10 or more games in only three of those seasons. The last nine have been a heck of a lot better than the previous 20.

There are ISD subscribers who attended Notre Dame when Ara was the coach. They’ve seen it all over the years and know what the highest of highs feel like. There’s people older than me who experienced the rise during the Holtz years and got to fully enjoy when the Irish were last on top of the sport.

There’s also people who came along later. This past decade is all that they know about Notre Dame football. The Irish have been (mostly) very good. But not good enough.

I know how badly all of these people want Notre Dame to win. I understand how much they care and I know the bare minimum of what they want from the program is hope. For some fans, losing a game like that kills any hope that existed for this season. For others, it destroys the confidence they had in the current staff. And then there’s people who have been waiting for the bad to happen so they can say “I told you so” because they’ve had too much bad over too many years and it’s made them cynical about the present and the future of the program.

I don’t know if Marcus Freeman is going to be the guy who gets Notre Dame its next national championship. I do know that the players and the coaching staff he has now can be much better than what they showed last week and there is a lot of ball left this season.

There’s a lot of questions left to be answered about this team and about Freeman. A lot of people will be looking for answers against Purdue, but no one will get the answers they’re looking for until we see this team over the course of the entire season. That was always going to be the case. The most recent result just added more fuel to the fire.

There’s been many things that have gone wrong for the program over the last 30 years. More has gone right during the time I have worked at ISD. The pieces are there for that to continue and for things to trend the way Notre Dame fans want it to, but there’s a lot of people who will remain skeptical until they see the right results.

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