Film Don't Lie | ND Offense vs Michigan
Notre Dame rushed for 132 yards on Michigan’s defense (150 if you take out lost yards for sacks). That’s not a number to celebrate, but believe it or not, that’s above average against them. There are other teams who will rush for less.
The important thing for Notre Dame’s offense is that they ran enough on Michigan to help them win. I’m not just talking about Brandon Wimbush either. Obviously his effort in that department was huge (17 carries for 77 yards minus the two sacks he took), but there had to be instances where they found success from their backs too.
They did just that in the red zone with two rushing touchdowns. Here’s a look at how those rushing touchdowns happened as well as some other key plays on offense for the Irish.
Key 3rd down on First Drive
The first play of the game for Notre Dame went for no yards and the second play Wimbush (7) had to throw one up for Chase Claypool (83) that wasn’t really close to being completed. In order to keep the drive alive, they needed to convert on 3rd and long. That’s not an easy task against a defense that ranked first in 3rd down defense last season.
Don Brown is showing six up front that may pressure and the ND O-line has to respect that. They are overloading the offense’s right side so it makes sense that the line would be sliding that way. UM rushes five, but Khaleke Hudson (7) drops off and has Alize Mack (86) in man.
That’s the key to it all. This is cover 1, which is man coverage with a safety playing deep center field.
Claypool is coming in motion and the corner (24) is coming right with him. Miles Boykin (81) is being covered by the safety. Both Boykin and Mack are simply running routes with the intent of picking the corner coming across to cover Claypool. It works beautifully as the corner has to run around the cluster of bodies and leaves Claypool wide open running across the formation.
Going back to the line of scrimmage now, the O-line slid right and they essentially had five to block four. That leaves Chase Winovich (15) unblocked and ready to tee off of Wimbush. Jafar Armstrong (8) isn’t staying in to pick him up, but there is a reason behind that. He’s running a wheel to clear out the linebacker (36) from jumping the Claypool route coming across the formation.
Wimbush needed to wait it out for Claypool to get open and he did. The hit was going to come and he delivered the ball accurately even though he knew he was going to get crunched. It was a great job by him, but an even better job by Chip Long calling this play. It was the perfect design against Michigan’s coverage and resulted in the first 1st down of the game.
Armstrong’s First Touchdown
The Irish didn’t open up many big holes in the running game, but this was one of them. UM is outmanned to the left side of the formation. As soon as Cole Kmet (84) comes in motion and they don’t shift the D-line, they are in big trouble because ND has three to block three on the zone play.
When Kmet moves across the formation, Devin Bush (10) goes with him. Why does he do that? Because it’s man coverage again. That’s his man if the Irish pass the football. That’s the reason why Bush is running outside with Kmet and not concentrating on the inside run. He essentially takes himself out of the play.
That means it’s just Alex Bars (71) on the other linebacker and he does his job. Liam Eichenberg (74) doesn’t have to do much but stay in front of Winovich. Armstrong sees the huge hole, cuts it up inside, and then finishes by making the safety miss for the touchdown.
This is as much to do with it being a good call by Long as it is Brown's aggressiveness working against him. He is overloading the offense's right side. The problem is that the ball is being run to the left and that makes it easy for Notre Dame.
RPO
Last year Wimbush did not do a good job at either making the correct read on these plays or executing when he did make the read. It was different in this game aside from one poor throw to Kmet on the perimeter.
This is a run-pass option play as you can see by the line blocking up front for an inside run. Wimbush sees the safety playing deep and only one defender out wide to defend two receivers. He correctly pulls it and puts it side arm to Chris Finke (10).
It’s out quickly and in a spot where Finke can run with it as soon as he catches it. Claypool gets in the way enough to have the corner not make the play and the linebacker, Hudson, has to run out and make the tackle. But not until Finke has taken it eight yards.
These are free yards and RPOs allow the offense to take advantage of them. It’s an easy conversion on 2nd and 4.
Power for the Touchdown
Here’s the other rushing touchdown from inside the red zone. This the replay that was shown over and over again with Bars taking out several players, but that doesn’t happen without Eichenberg doing his job on the down block (check) and especially not without Kmet (lined up in line) moving his man off the ball (check). He could have sustained for longer, but did enough.
Those are both important, but the most important block is against Rashan Gary (3). He frankly owned the ND tight ends for most of the game at the point of attack. If he was blocked one on one here, then he might have again. This time he had to deal with Mack initially and thn Brock Wright (89) who came in and helped from his fullback spot. I’m not even sure if it was designed that way, but it was necessary and it worked.
All of that allowed Bars to get out on the pull and take on the safety (24) who was lined up on the edge.
Guard on a safety. ND will take that all day. Bars drives his man into two others and that helped Armstrong get the corner for the touchdown
Boykin’s No Touchdown
There’s honestly not a lot to go over on this play, but I figured I would pick it in case everyone doesn’t understand it.
Kmet is lined up on the line to the same side as Boykin. Boykin has to be off the line because of that or else Kmet is considered "covered".
Kmet didn’t motion to this position. He was lined up there the whole time. That means it was definitely Boykin’s mistake not knowing that he had to be off the line and not “covering” the tight end.
So either Boykin should have started off or Kmet needed to stay in block in order to avoid an illegal man downfield call. Luckily the four points (the Irish ended up kicking a field goal on the drive) didn’t matter in the end or else this could have been a much bigger mistake.