Instant Reaction | Notre Dame 56 Wake Forest 27
What is the opposite of the “This is fine” meme? I think the answer might be the game Notre Dame just played. Notre Dame was a top-10 ranked team heading into this game. Today they played like one.
Brian Kelly made a move at quarterback and I know there were more than a few Irish fans who questioned it. No one can question it now. I thought it was the best performance by the ND offense under Chip Long.
It wasn’t just the big plays. It was the efficiency. It was a completely different dynamic with Ian Book at quarterback and things transformed into the offense they were supposed to be. I realize that Wake Forest does not have an elite defense, but the Irish just did what a good team is supposed to do against a defense of that caliber.
Even after some mistakes to start the game, the total team performance was outstanding. 3-0 didn’t feel so great. 4-0 feels a lot different.
- Here’s one thing I knew about Notre Dame in camp, but we didn’t see much of in the first three games: they have plenty of skill position talent.
I knew this because I know the Irish have talent on defense, but I saw receivers, backs, and tight ends making plays, sometimes of the spectacular variety, versus the defense in one on ones. The issue for the offense is that those guys didn’t get a chance to showcase it.
They did today because of Book. He threw the ball to 10 different receivers and put those receivers in a position to make plays after the catch often. Everything opened up because of the way he could make the routine throws in the quick game and also because he made the simple plays like check downs to the running backs.
Getting three or four yards on certain plays instead of zero changed things drastically. I couldn’t have been more impressed with Book’s accuracy and his decision-making. He missed very little out there and that made the Irish a relentless machine.
- Notre Dame finished with 7.4 yards per play. It was the first time they broke 6.0 YPP since Navy of last year.
- The blocking by the receivers today was so much greater than any other recent game I can remember. Not only did Book get the ball out quickly and accurately in the screen game, but the blocks allowed for the receivers do damage after they got the football.
That Michael Young 66 yard catch that was all after the catch happened because of great blocks by Alize Mack and Jafar Armstrong out wide and then Avery Davis and Miles Boykin making blocks down the field.
- There are too many skill guys to single out for strong play today, but Long has to be singled out for how he called the game. Having Book allowed him to make the offense so much more balanced.
This was the offense that Long probably wanted to have all along, but the shackles were taken off after the quarterback change.
Remember how I criticized Long for a lack of play-action last game? It was play-action all game long for the Irish. They were predictable versus Vandy with the way they ran the ball on 1st down. This game the Irish ran the ball 21 times and threw it 17. A couple of those runs were quarterback scrambles too so it might have actually been a 50/50 split.
- Both lines for the Irish dominated this game. The offensive line created so many big holes and the level of execution, which includes the tight ends, was the sharpest it has looked. The right side in particular, with Trevor Ruhland stepping in for an injured Tommy Kraemer, got the job done in a big way.
It can’t be said enough how great the defensive line played too. Other than some ends getting caught peeking inside and allowing Wake’s running backs to bounce it outside, they were really, really good. And that was with a number of bodies playing.
Wake got some yards, but they ran the ball 61 times to do so and most of their best runs came in garbage time.
- I know Wake’s kicker missed a couple of kicks, but think about the fact that Notre Dame had two bad third down penalties to keep a drive alive (Nick Coleman PI and Jonathan Bonner roughing the passer) that led to a Wake touchdown. That kind of even things out for me.
Notre Dame also had that drop by Chris Finke on 3rd down on the second drive of the game and that illegal man downfield by Alex Bars on a 3rd down conversion to Kevin Austin that eventually led to a punt. Then they had the Young fumble where he made a bad read by cutting it up inside when it was set up for him go out wide.
If not for some sloppiness in the first half, this game could have been a much bigger blowout. ND had some issues early and then stepped on the gas pedal and never let up. The last part made up for the mistakes.
- Jon Doerer was great on kickoffs today and the coverage down the field by Notre Dame was also great. Greg Dortch never had a chance to get loose.
- Dortch finished with six catches for 56 yards. He had a couple of big conversions on 3rd down versus Houston Griffith, but that was about it for him making an impact.
The biggest reason for Dortch being a non-factor is the way the Irish attacked the quarterback. Clark Lea did a brilliant job of attacking the mesh point with blitzers and forcing quick decisions from the quarterback.
Then when Sam Hartman kept the ball, they made him pay for it. They beat him up all day long. He completed only 50% of his throws and it felt like less than that.
He only averaged 4.58 yards per attempt before he left the game.
- Wake ran 56 plays in the first half. It looked like they had a shot to flip the game if they kept that pace up. Then Notre Dame’s defense only allowed them to run 11 plays on their next three drives. They did that while the offense kept pouring it on and essentially ended the game.
Wake ended up running 92 plays. With the way ND substituted and the fact that they were able to take out their starters early, the amount of plays that the key players on the defense played ended up being much less than every other game this season.
- 10 tackles for loss for the defense was critical. Julian Okwara finished with 3.5 of those. Wake only averaged 2.9 YPP on 1st down. When they got into 3 and 4 or less, they were 8 of 9 on 3rd down. Wake was only 3 of 12 on 3 and 5 or longer.
- This was Clark Lea’s best game as a defensive coordinator in my opinion. The way he attacked Wake constantly with blitzes from his linebackers and safeties was the perfect game plan to counteract what Wake likes to do.
This was also Chip Long’s best game as an offensive coordinator in my opinion. When both of your coordinators are having a day, you end up with a game like today.