Film Don't Lie | Denbrock Dials Up Winning Touchdown

Notre Dame was down three starting offensive linemen. They threw away good field position with penalties on their first drive of the second half and turned the ball over on downs at the start of the fourth quarter.

The field position they gave Louisville allowed them to kick a 56-yard field goal and make it a one score game. To call the next series of the game the most important of the season would not have been an understatement. The Irish needed something on offense that they hadn’t found in the second half as they struggled against the relentless blitzing of Louisville’s defense.

Mike Denbrock was able to deliver what they needed at that moment. A three-yard gain to Mitchell Evans might not have seemed like much at the time, but the play that happened right before the 34-yard gain to Jayden Harrison is what ultimately set up the eventual game-winning touchdown pass to Jeremiyah Love.

I’ll get to that in a second, but first it starts with a play that Denbrock is known for. He’s broken it down at coaching clinics because his offenses have had consistent success with it at Cincinnati and LSU. I wrote about it back in January, but here’s a few clips to remind everyone exactly the play I’m talking about.

It’s a run-pass option play where the quarterback can either hand it to the running back, hit the tight end in the flat who is motioning across, or keep the ball and run it himself. Here’s a version of it at LSU when a blitzer forces the ball to get out to the flat.

Here’s the same play at Cincinnati where the quarterback could have kept, but threw it to the tight end and another one where they give to the running back that hits for a big play.

There’s different tweaks that Denbrock has added in where that tight end has become a lead blocker and they have also used a receiver rather than a tight end. It might look simple, but it can stress the defense in a variety of ways.

This is the play from earlier this season with Notre Dame running it against Purdue. They are worried about the inside run or Leonard keeping it. That left Eli Raridon wide open in the flat.

Okay, on to the good stuff on the fourth quarter touchdown drive against Purdue. 2nd and 9, a measly three-yard gain. It’s that same play that I’m sure Louisville repped against dozens of times this week in practice because they knew it was coming.

They have a great call against it. The boundary corner is blitzing, which takes away the give to the back and the edge attacks Riley Leonard. The only option is to get it out to the flat to Mitchell Evans and he didn’t have much space to make something happen.

Fast forward to later on that drive and this isn’t an RPO, but the action from Evans and the fake to Love makes it look similar at first. It’s a throwback screen to counter off of the defense overplaying the expected RPO.

That’s the All-22 view of it, but here’s the end zone angle where you can see the Louisville defense biting hard on the action.

There are calls an offensive coordinator makes that he knows will be a touchdown the moment he calls it. Denbrock had set this up and not just earlier on this drive. This was playing the long game and with how aggressive Louisville’s defense is, Denbrock had to like his chances of this hitting big.

All that was left was the players going out and executing.

When this play was over, Leonard pointed to Denbrock on the sideline. He knew it was a touchdown the moment he heard the call today. As he said after the game, “There’s no better feeling in the world when the coach calls a play and you know it’s going to work.”

“We practiced it all week,” Leonard said about the screen pass to Love. “What a great time to call it. They were in the perfect defense against it. Yeah, shoutout to coaches there. Those are easy plays to execute and we did.”

That touchdown put them up two scores and helped them earn a huge win. 

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