Well, they did it again. For the second time in 4 years the Fighting Irish staged a heroic game-winning drive to upset LSU in a bowl game. This time, Notre Dame did it with an unbelievable touchdown pass that vaults wideout Miles Boykin’s catch into the running as one of the top plays in recent school history.
PASSING OFFENSE
I feel bad for Brandon Wimbush, I really do. A close win with Wimbush playing poorly (hey, that happened!) for me was automatically going to be a damper on the bowl because it provides zero clarity heading into the off-season. Unless in this case clarity means you don’t think Wimbush will ever be the quarterback again. For his part, Wimbush hit St. Brown on a very nice 35-yard completion on the first offensive snap, and even started 2 of 3 for 40 yards on the first drive overall.
He’d finish the rest of his portion of the game going 1 of 5 for 12 yards after the first drive before being permanently benched. Wimbush just finished a college football season completing 49.4% of his passes on 275 attempts. That is so bad that A) mild improvement next year may not be enough to hold on to the job and B) the history of the game suggests Wimbush won’t get appreciably better, a small uptick by 5% may be as good as it ever gets.
Quite the performance by Ian Book in relief, though! Except a really bad interception and a couple poor internal clock decisions leading to sacks it was refreshing to see a competent passing game once again. We’ve seen this before as the plucky underdog backup came in and played cool, calm, and collected.
In a low-scoring affair Book’s clutch ability shined on his first full series with the offense leading 3 completions and a big 21-yard run on third down giving the team a 3-0 halftime lead. He also tossed a 29-yard completion on 3rd & 19 leading to the tying touchdown, threw said touchdown to Michael Young 5 plays later (on 3rd down again), and of course finished the game going 2 of 2 for 73 yards on the game-winning touchdown drive.
Book had his own issues but he played about as well as Wimbush played poorly and that completely recasts the off-season quarterback competition much more in the former’s favor.
RUSHING OFFENSE
I’m the biggest Josh Adams fan and it saddens me that even after the month-long break he didn’t look healthy or explosive as earlier in the season. In excruciating fashion, he falls just 8 yards short of the single-season record at Notre Dame–rest easy, Vagas Ferguson.
I’ll have more on Adams below.
| Player | 1st/2nd Yes | 1st/2nd No | 3rd/4th Yes | 3rd/4th No | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adams | 5 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 40.0% |
| Wimbush | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 50.0% |
| Book | 5 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 85.7% |
| Dexter | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 100.0% |
| Jones Jr | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 00.0% |
| Total | 14 | 11 | 2 | 2 | 55.1% |
A healthy Dexter Williams had to wait until the 4th quarter to pick up his first snaps and carries of the game. He promptly ripped off a 5-yard run and 31-yard run and was benched for good following his 3rd snap.
Williams does a poor job chip blocking with center Sam Mustipher which ultimately leads to a hit on Book. But, the hit also happens because Bars gets completely owned, too. We know Bars won’t get benched though. So it goes.
If you’re Brandon Wimbush it may not be Book’s passing ability that has you the most worried. Removing sacks, Book was quite a good runner against LSU and if he’s more than serviceable with his feet (which I think he is thus far in his career) it may be too much ground (get it?) for Wimbush to make up in the passing game.
Given the quarterback carousel in this game it’s kind of impressive that the Irish finished the game with a positive success rate on the ground.
PASSING DEFENSE
Danny Etling’s 19 completions tied his season-high and his 229 passing yards were the second most on the season, too. You’d be tempted to look at those numbers and give him a high grade on the afternoon. However, Etling also threw a season-high 33 passes in large part due to a feverish ending drive (6 pass attempts) but also because LSU’s running game never really got going the way they wanted.
Etling finished 7 of 16 (1 sack included) on 3rd or 4th down which is a pretty solid number considering he got 79 yards on the day from 3 of those throws. However, 2 of those throws came on LSU’s missed field goal drive so they didn’t hurt Notre Dame in the end.
What more can you say about Julian Love? He notches 3 more pass break-ups to finish the season with an unbelievable 23 in that category. On the final drive he was a wild man that was not allowing Notre Dame to lose.
RUSHING DEFENSE
I wasn’t expecting to see anything notable here. At times, it felt like Guice was definitely on the loose and punishing some Notre Dame defenders. While true, the Tiger running game was largely held at bay finishing with 170 yards which ends as their 6th worst total on the year.
Perhaps more importantly for Notre Dame, the Tigers had 19 successful runs to 20 unsuccessful runs. Who wouldn’t have taken a game with the Irish having a better run success as long as LSU wasn’t hogging the ball and grinding out first downs?
Also, I have to give props to the defense for their 3rd down stuff of Guice at the goal line, which while technically a pop pass, was essentially a run stop.
SPECIAL TEAMS
All praise to Justin Yoon who hit field goals from 46 and 49 yards in some pretty crappy weather–also his PAT after the last touchdown was quietly crucial to extend the lead to 4-points. Shout out to LSU’s kicker for missing 2 out of his 3 attempts, that definitely helped the cause.
Kickoffs cancelled each other out for both teams but the “fumbled” punt return off Isaiah Robertson’s body was super close to being a special teams blunder we looked back on with scorn in a loss.
TURNING POINT
I honestly felt at ease on Notre Dame’s final drive because of the aforementioned 3rd down stop at the goal line and 2:03 to play for only a field goal to tie. For what it’s worth, I would’ve gone for it on 4th down and inches if I were LSU. I don’t hate the call but I go with what made me breath a sigh of relief and it was definitely taking the 3 points. Backed up against our goal line I don’t think the offense would’ve been entirely comfortable without Wimbush’s running ability–although it’s possible he would’ve been inserted for a QB power to try and get some breathing room from their own end zone.
At any rate, I thought the 2nd down pass for 18 yards to Chris Finke was a turning point before the real turning point touchdown. That moved the ball near midfield with plenty of time remaining, and frankly, allowed Book to take a shot down field to Boykin without worrying about down, distance, or clock.
3 STARS
- Miles Boykin
- Ian Book
- Julian Love/Te’von Coney
FINAL NOTES
A couple of days ago the Indianapolis Star wrote that Josh Adams is “expected to return for his senior season” although nothing official has been announced from the player or school to date. I’ll say this much: If he returns this offense can be pretty good–maybe in the mold of the 2011 offense with a potent run game, fewer turnovers, and a little more running overall. We’d see fewer explosive runs but hopefully a far more stable passing game that would equal an offense able to get back to 10 wins again. In this scenario, Ian Book is your quarterback.
That catch by Boykin defies my words. It goes straight into the highlight canon.
The coaching staff wasn’t joking when they praised freshman Jordan Genmark Heath for his strong bowl game prep practices. He finished the game with 5 tackles (including making first contact on the Guice goal line stop) in his first extended snaps of the season. This means there will be 4 safeties going into the off-season with experience, plus Robertson a year older as a sophomore, plus Gilman becoming eligible, plus a couple blue-chip freshmen coming to campus. Should be fun, I think. We have to get better quickly.
Goodness, Te’von Coney finished this game with 17 tackles and 116 overall on the season–the most since Te’o in 2011. Gun to my head I think he’ll go pro early along with St. Brown.
Notre Dame was out-gained by 29 yards, but thanks to the Boykin catch, ended up +0.8 in yards per play in this game. I don’t have a problem with thinking LSU out-played the Irish but for the breaks of the game came up short.
I thought this was would be a 8-4 season and with a finish at 10-3 (and close to a top 10 finish) I won’t complain too much. I was pretty depressed following the regular season and the bowl win is a nice pick-me-up for the long off-season, for sure. Still, we’re at another crossroads for the program trying to re-load once again, with plenty of question marks, and plenty of skepticism that the bar will be raised next fall. The quarterback competition that’s bound to happen is both frustrating and yet oddly comforting for Notre Dame. See you in the spring!
“We’ve seen this before as the plucky underdog backup came in and played cool, calm, and collected.”
Come to think of it, I’ve never seen Tommy Rees and Ian Book in the same place at the same time…
There was a shot of Rees talking to Book after the interception. I’m not a lip reader but it looked like Rees said, “I know how you feel”.
Are you serious? Because if so, that is amazing and something we can laugh about.
It does have an air of “truthiness” about it, doesn’t it?
That was Tom Rees, a completely different guy, who I’ve also never seen in the same place as Tommy.
I think we’ve talked about this before but how is Wimbush so inaccurate after a h.s. career where he was a big-time passer and completed 76%(!!!) of his passes as a Senior? It’s not like he doesn’t have the physical tools so going up in competition means everything is too fast physically. It doesn’t seem like it could be enough that you don’t play to his strengths which he did in h.s. (i.e. even if you did that perhaps he would complete at least 55% of his passes probably more). Could it really just be mental? I know BK has talked about his technique but how did his technique either a) get so bad or b) did he complete 76% with that technique? How much have the WR’s played a role who seemed to have been not that great getting open (so if this were true that he would have completed more passes with some better WR even if still not 60%). I’m just at a real loss how this could happen after being so accurate in H.S.
Book completed over 60 percent of his passes this year despite coming in cold off the bench. It’s hard to blame the wide receivers as anything more than a tertiary factor.
Besides his inaccuracy, Wimbush seems to get the ball out late very often. Book put a couple into tight windows. Do you think Wimbush makes those throws? It’s his mechanics, it’s his field vision and it’s between his ears. I hope he gets better. I have little faith he will.
I agree nd09, it’s not the receivers. I don’t think it’s fair to blame the scheme either. IMO opinion it has to be a mental thing. Sure his mechanics are all over the place, but to me there’s a lot of mental to that too.
The receivers aren’t the issue, but they also didn’t do anything to cover up the issue. Part of why I’ve wanted to see more Boykin is that at least he was tall and might be harder to overthrow.
That’s a fair point KG.
Yea that was mostly my point with the WR’s KG. I was also more just adding in what the logical possibilities were, so if the WR’s weren’t the main cause, if they were better Wimbush might be passable (no pun intended) as a thrower – given how good of a runner he is.
This happens allllllll the time. QBs probably have the highest bust rate of any position. Here are the top 5 PRO QBs from 2010-2015. Not sure how many dropped 25 pts in comp%, but very few turned into great QBs.
2010 – Sims (Bama), Scroggins (USC), Bray (Tenn), Heaps (BYU), Wood (Texas)
2011 – LeMay (UGA), Wittek (USC), Brissett (UF), Kessler (USC), Golson (ND)
2012 – Keil (ND), Kline (Cal), Mangum (BYU), Brewer (Texas), Voytik (Pitt)
2013 – Browne (USC), Hackenberg (PSU), Morris (UM), Bateman (Bama), Olsen (daU)
2014 – Allen (aTm), Grier (UF), Chryst (Stan), Cornwell (Bama), Barker (UK)
2015 – Rosen (UCLA), Barnett (Bama), Francois (FSU), White (ASU), Browning (UW)
Yea, it’s more about the one skill lacking – accuracy (and maybe it is more than that if it is mental) – seemed to be there in h.s. But perhaps the one year in h.s. as a senior was more of an outlier (his junior year was somewhere in the 60’s i believe).
But but but Brisset has played a few snaps as a backup in the ENNEFFELL and Rosen will be a top 5 pick and so 2 out of 30 so that means ND should be getting a top-5 NFL pick QB AT LEAST every other year or Fire Everyone!
Well… I think the receivers didn’t always help him – there were some brutal drops this year by Mack, ESB, and Claypool in particular – but in the big picture they were much less of an issue than Wimbush’s inability to hit water if he fell out of a boat. And I love the kid.
The step up in competition is probably somewhat of a factor. People move faster, windows are smaller, lights are brighter, mistakes are magnified. It’s not insurmountable in and of itself, though; plenty of guys look shaky at first and adjust eventually. In Wimbush’s case, I think he got inside his own head more and more as the season went on. Those corner throws that he keeps making – like on the first play of the game yesterday – are *really* difficult throws, and he must have about a 90% completion rate on them. Switch to a screen and he spikes it almost every time.
He’s overthinking. Look at Steve Blass. The guy was an All-Star; he didn’t just wake up one day with sports amnesia. That was mental, and so are Wimbush’s struggles. Some guys get into that and never get out of it, like Blass or Mackey Sasser, and some guys figure it out, like Steve Sax. We’ll have to wait until the spring to see which bucket Wimbush falls into.
Thanks. That certainly makes the best sense of it.
It’s a little like that Yankees (?) pitcher who doesn’t throw to first base but he’s a major league pitcher so can obviously throw it physically just fine.
I wonder then to how much it is the jump in competition since he can make that really difficult throw so well. But certainly smaller windows can make a big difference with accuracy.
I think you mean current Cubs’ pitcher (and former Red Sox pitcher) Jon Lester.
And he did actually throw to first this year and picked someone off. Nonetheless, it is fascinating to see the difficulty he has with throwing the ball somewhere other than home plate. On several occasions, if he fields a grounder back to the mound, he just tosses his glove (with the ball in it) underhanded to the first baseman.
Thanks! Could be! I remembered from watching the Indians in the playoffs. Must have been the previous playoffs and not this past year!
rec for the insightful comment and the Blass, Glasser, and Steve Sax reference. Knoblauch had it too. Apparently, Sax screwed up second base in NY so bad nobody could play it (thanks Frankie Frisch!)
This is Wimbush’s first year as a starter, and QBs improve with experience.
Brady Quinn’s FR completion % = 47.3%. SR completion % = 61.9% (high of 64.9% his JR year)
Jimmy Clausen’s FR completion % = 56.3%. SR completion % = 68.0%
For me, there’s no indication that he won’t improve.
But Wimbush isnt a Freshman. If he was coming into his first season as a college QB and had this year that he did, I would be behind him the whole way and urging patience and letting him grow. He’s been in this system supposedly learning how to be a college QB for 3 years now. He can’t make BASIC throws. This is nothing like Quinn or Clausen running for their lives(especially Jimmy) on teams that couldn’t protect him so he was throwing up prayers just to avoid getting crushed for the 40th time in a game.
The indication that he won’t improve is that the left side of his line that protected him is gone. It’s that he’s been in the system 3 years and you can compare him to plenty of other first year starters with less time who were much better. As Clearwall said, comparing him to Quinn and Clausen is very misleading–their completion percentages went up not only because they got better, but because their receivers, line, etc. were all horrible their first years, and got a ton better later.
I hear what you guys are saying, esp with Jimmy’s and Brady’s lines improving over time (my God, that 2007 O line!). But I’m holding out hope for two reasons: 1) stability in the system — another year spent working with Long and Rees; and 2) how a lot of players talk about the game eventually slowing down for them. All the tools are there, and it seems mental at this point. I do believe the game will slow down for him, and then his confidence will come back
I admire your optimism, but I think were that the case, we’d have seen improvement from the beginning of the season to the end. However, despite a….we’ll say “decent” stretch where it looked like he was getting better around the Sparty game, he didn’t finish strong. Perhaps there is some film study or some other off-season thing he can do (please, do NOT go see the broom guy!) to improve before Spring, but I’ll be pleasantly surprised if it happens. I think the most likely scenario is that he is what he is, but he stays in the QB race because ZOMG CAN RUN and is a good practice player. Between now and September there is nothing but practice, and we’ve all heard about how he can do things…in practice.
Neither Quinn nor Clausen ever looked as bad throwing the ball to wide open receivers as Wimbush has so often. I did see Dayne Crist miss Michael Floyd on a slant that may be the worst pass I have ever seen. Neither is Wimbush a freshman….He’s been in the system 3 years. His team this year is much better than Quinn’s and especially Clausen’s their freshman years.
I just posted this in the other bowl game thread, but there actually isn’t evidence to suggest QBs necessarily improve over time. Your 2 person sample size is a significant outlier. I think it’s a toss up if he gets better at all, and a very small chance he gets to BQ of JC level.s
Here are a handful of great QBs whose stats I googlized.
Didn’t Improve
Tim Tebow didn’t get any better from Soph to Sr year.
JT Barrett peaked as a frosh, got worse then returned to almost as good.
Colt McCoy went down, up, down, with big swings.
Sam Darnold got worse.
Jameis Winston got wayyy worse.
Wentz cut back on picks, but dropped slightly in QB Rating.
Deshaun Watson’s numbers got worse.
Improved
Andrew Luck, huge jump frosh->soph, not much year after that.
Braxton Miller improved significantly and consistently.
Josh Rosen got a bit better each year.
Goff got consistently better every year.
Marcus Mariota improved in y/a every year (only place he could).
Mayfield made 2 big jumps. Didn’t have much possible improvement this year.
Expanding the sample size a bit:
https://247sports.com/college/alabama/Board/116/Contents/How-much-do-young-dual-threat-QBs-usually-improve-year-1-to-2-50602547
Click on the chart in the first post to expand
If Book starts next year we will definitely need our skill position guys to step up to be real threats – replacing Wimbush’s big plays (mostly running) won’t be easy with average WR play or Adams going pro. It was all those explosive plays that made the offense a real juggernaut.
Can Lenzy and/or Austin be ready to play and be big play threats?
Jesus Christ not another 2011 type offense. I cannot handle a season of “Tommy Rees, but this time he can move”.
I’d feel that way about the 2013 offense but not so much 2011. There were times in ‘11 where the offense was humming right along. A short accurate passing game with more emphasis on running and a mobile QB can work really well.
My only reservation about that is the 2011 team had Floyd and Eiffert. I don’t know how well we can replicate 2011 without some skilled receiving threats. But Rees with +50% mobility and +20% range wouldn’t be terrible with decent targets.
Very true those are 2 big talents.
Isn’t that kind of what Clemson runs?
Yeah with a lot more running from the QB than we could expect from Book.
You’re going to love it when Rees is promoted to offensive coordinator!
I thought the turning point/biggest play of the game had to be the huge completion down the left sideline to Boykin on third and a million. We were pretty screwed if we didn’t get points that drive. It was a spectacular pitch and catch. He got drilled over the top right when he caught it.
The game winning miracle catch was even sweeter because Boykin made Donte Action Jackson look like a fool. And Claypool let him know about it after the game. Good stuff!
As Eric mentioned, I’m genuinely sad about Wimbush. I wanted him to succeed so, so badly. I’m sure he feels incredibly embarrassed about all of this. It is still ideal if he can win the job next year and run with it.
After (during) the game the QB controversy talk was already getting brought up. Considering we have months of time to discuss it, I personally plan to not think about it for a few weeks and enjoy this 10 win season. Props to BK for an overall terrific year. After the game I thought back to October and the pure ecstasy of the Mich St, USC and NC State wins. It was the most beautiful ND football I’ve seen in my lifetime. We caught a glimpse of this team’s potential, and I will pray and dream that we can play close to that well next season with an even more talented defense.
Have to completely agree on the decision to kick a fg on 4th and goal. The other fan bases reaction should be a pretty good indicator for a coach’s decision and in this case I assume most Nd fans were relieved.
Kirby smart was super conservative in their game too, almost cost them the game. Is this an sec thing or just a coaches in general thing?
This has me cautiously optimistic for next year… pending the Coney and (especially) Tillery announcements.
Who are you, and what are you doing in nd09hls12’s account?
KG, you nailed it.
I’m grateful for this season but I think the same Kelly problems plague us next year, and we’ll be less talented. I think Kelly gets another 8 wins and Jack is reluctant to fire him with two ten win seasons in four years. The question is, will there then be enough heat to fire Jack?
Well so much for the optimism, eh?
8 wins would be a major disappointment. Possible but definitely on the low-end of what projections should be. A lot of people around here seem overly scared of a Michigan team that beat exactly 1 team with a winning record this season (and that’s a 7-6 Purdue team, at that) but we will see how it goes. @USC, FSU games will be uphill battles and @VaTech, Stanford won’t be cakewalks but I find it tough to believe it’s only an 8-win season unless something goes way off the rails.
I’m not so sure the team is going to be “less talented”. There’s no reason the defense shouldn’t be better, special teams can’t be anything BUT better and offense will need some revamps but has a decent nucleus even with defections.
We’re losing our two best OL, possibly our best DL, either 1 or 2 of our best LBs, possibly our best WR and RB, and our likely starting QB (Book, IMO) has limitations on his athletic abilities. After 3 special teams coordinators and consistently bad ST play, I’m convinced it’s because BK doesn’t spend any/enough time practicing it. So no reason to believe ST will get any better, either.
Combine all that with a pretty brutal schedule (on paper) and the fact that BK typically wins 8-9 regular season games, and it seems to me that 8-4 is the most likely outcome next year.
That deals with a lot of “possibly”s and addresses them from worst case scenario. 8-4 certainly isn’t out of the realm of possibilities, but 1 day after beating a top-15 ranked SEC team to get to a 10-win season, I’m just going to take a while to enjoy it personally before problems real and imagined come to pass.
I’m with you hooks…..plenty of time to worry later.
And may I add “Nice 2nd half Michigan,,5 turnovers! You suck!”
Haha haha you nailed it, TL, Michigan certainly does suck!
You summed up my thoughts nicely, including special teams!
Those that follow finance, where the phrase is used with impunity, will recognize that saying one is “cautiously optimistic” is spewing meaningless BS. I get to be right either way 😉
Doppelgänger?
This team had reason after reason to pack it in pre game and as the game progressed. They didn’t and they scrapped to the very end. Sometimes it pays off and yesterday it did. What a hard fought football game.
E you mentioned the safeties. LSU had 2-3 passes where I couldn’t believe our safeties didn’t break up the passes. Great improvement is needed at those positions.
Tevon Coney is a baller. He played his ass off. Drew Tranquil & Tillery too. Red Zone defense was outstanding holding LSU to FG attempts.
If we look for an upgrade at special teams coach, it won’t be LSU’s.
I agree on the safety play. Etling was floating them in and somehow the safeties just couldn’t make a play on the ball at all. As mentioned, I think it will be different next year with new personnel. If GIlman’s as good as advertised, he’s a day one starter and an upgrade. They’ve mentioned Allen/Griffith coming in as freshmen and getting playing time. Genmark-Heath was getting some snaps and apparently had a good year too in development. Reasons for hope at least, and given how Elko defenses are typically known for great safety play I’m pretty confident they’ll get it turned around once the personnel is improved.
I watched UGA handle 2 short punts. Both times the return man started screaming and pointing to where the ball was going to hit. All of the UGA players in that area hauled ass out of that area. Why can’t we do that?
Finke was screaming at Robertson and even tried to pull him away. Kelly was right the kid needed to “wake up”. You can’t tell me that hasn’t been worked on in practice.
Not trying to say “fire the coaches” per se, but if it has been worked on in practice, and the players (Robertson in particular) aren’t getting it, why are they playing? At some point if it doesn’t get fixed, you have to ask why.
I was watching the A&M bowl game and they had Jimbo Fisher on. He made an interesting comment, which may or may not be true, that he was typically tense all week but was usually calm during the game. Watching our team it always seems like everyone, from the coaches down, is so tense on game days. We seem to make a lot of mistakes that may not happen at practice.
Just a guess.
Players make mistakes. Kelly was screaming “wake up” at him because he knows the kid should know better.
This is one of the reasons why coaches lose hair and age quickly.
Not terribly shocking considering they never used him on offense, but the numbers game is already in play
Man it just never worked out for him. Bummer.
Three KO returns for TD’s but I thought he was a lousy KR due to the fact he went down so easily on the slightest contact. He was a non factor at receiver. I don’t know why. He should be easily replaced. Best of luck CJ.
I didn’t get this. Seemed to me like he earned some reps as an electric utility man. I mean we had no slot presence this season. It wasn’t like we had anyone else filling that role. Oh shit Chris Finke is standing right behind me isn’t he.
Hopefully has a gradate transfer he learns to spell better than Loy
Always need to remind myself to not get too concerned about recruiting numbers, because attrition is inevitable. I wonder who else in his class is that far ahead so that they can graduate in the summer and go.
I had such high hopes for him coming out of HS. Then they got even huger when his first 5 games of his soph yr were basically better than any slot WRs best season at ND. But then…nothing.
Are there any college teams that actually use a slot WR?
Wow that means he’s graduating in three years. How often does an ND player graduate in three years? So not shocking in terms of football/PT but surprising insofar as most (4th year) seniors don’t transfer because it isn’t typically worth it given that if they stay another year they can then graduate transfer. But given that he’s graduating it makes perfect sense.
Are any other seniors graduating in three years?
He shouldn’ta come to play SCHOOL! He shoulda come to play FOOTBALL!
Not sure about graduating in three years. I believe a fair number of guys essentially finish early because they take courses over the summers. I think a lot of the true seniors basically finish a semester early, and then they focus on draft prep in the spring (maybe they take a light course or two?).
Explosiva!
And Yoon was clutch.
Explosiva, the Wild Antelope Edition!
Murtaugh\you guys–not sure where else to post this: I think it may require, nay it definitely justifies it’s own thread… can we call it the Citrus Snag?!?!?! OMG is that so hot or what?
Actually would one of you young tech savvy types email this to ND SID Mike Bertsch via Twitter or Instchat it to him via the dark Web or something.
Any guesses on the ultimate fates of Stepherson and Mack? I’m not worried so much about McIntosh as it seems to be his first offense. Part of me says don’t let the door hit you on the way out, but Stepherson is one of our few playmakers outside. Mack is an enigma to me, and I’m not sure we lose all that much if he left, but it’d just annoy the hell out of me if he transferred to a Tennessee or something and blew up.
No way Stepherson can be back. Seemed like he was down to his last strike after double-secret probation in getting held out the first 4 games of the season and then in a 2 day span he gets popped for weed (AGAIN) and cited for shoplifting? Just way too many bad decisions and trouble off the field, unfortunately. He is a good player, but it’s not like he’s a Bednarik candidate or anything. As we’ve seen from Boykin and Young (plus Lenzy and the next Golden Tate per Kelly) the WR’s will be OK. Way more worried about getting them the ball, I feel like they’ll be good enough athletes to make a play at that point.
Mack, who knows, he’s stuck before when he could have left but after a disappointing season on top of that maybe he would be better off moving on down the road at this point. I’m not really confident either way on that one.
Belitnikoff ?
Yeah, good call. Brain slipping in 2018 already
To be fair, he’s on neither.
Usually not that big a knock on a receiver to not be a Bednarik candidate. Usually. With some very rare talents you can have the audacity to hope for consideration.
Interesting question about Mack. He red-shirted (cough-cough, well technically) Sophomore year. If he transferred somewhere he’d have to sit for a year and then would only have one year of eligibility left, no? Don’t you have four years of eligibility over five calendar years? He’d be like 23 years old playing for a shot at the NFL if he transfers. If he can mend whatever fences are broken, I would think it makes much more sense for him to stay.
Also, unrelated, but: can we just drop Bama from the NCG and let UGA and Okie play again? What a fun game that was. What a dud the late game was.
Can we just drop Bama from CFB and let all the little kids play each other?
“…plenty of skepticism that the bar will be raised next fall”
For some reason I feel compelled to say, “We don’t just raise the bar…we ARE the bar!”, in a gritty Boston-type accent.
Great article Eric. I thought I saw that look of defeat in the defensive players eyes during that goal line stand. But ND called a timeout and the defense forced them to a field goal.
Nelson is such a beast. He truly does maul defensive linemen. I would say we are going to miss seeing him in an ND uniform, but you can’t knock this staff’s ability to acquire and coach up O-Line talent. They just keep finding and teaching them.
I forgot to add how pissed I was at after LSU scored, most likely, the winning field goal. They were panning the LSU crowd and sidelines. Watching all of the cocky and arrogant reactions had me just seething. Then Boykin made that incredible catch. For some reason, watching all of the cocky and arrogant reactions from the ND fans and sideline along with the dejection from the LSU fans and team made me feel all warm inside.
We are very likely going to finish #13 in the S&P+ (I can’t imagine UGA could possibly lose so badly that it affects our ranking *that* much) – http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaa. Somewhat incredibly, that is only the 5th best S&P+ season of the BK era.
Not sure what the highlight of the season is/was.
The Boykin catch or those ram’s balls?
Great call back.
More like great ball sack, amirite?
Count me as one of those people who think that Book will be the starter next season. I saw Irish Illustrated’s interview with Chip Long where Long said that he expects QBs in his system to complete 65-70% of their passes. You could just see all year how much Wimbush’s issues limited the offense. We were able to get away with it for a long time, but when teams adjusted at the end of the year and shut down the run that was game over. It’s ironic how much we begged for an explosive athlete at QB during the Rees years, but we have to be careful for what we wish for when that athlete can’t throw the ball at all. It’s almost as limiting to an offense as having a statue who can’t run.
Midway through the second quarter you could already tell that the Wimbush-led offense was doomed. Just like the Miami and Stanford games, LSU had keyed on the run and we had no hope of moving the ball against a good defense. Add in the fact that Wimbush can’t even connect on the shorter passes with consistency and it would’ve been an absolute slog to get in the endzone. Do we even score if Wimbush plays the whole game?
The offense looks more fluid with Book at QB, mostly because he completes the short throws like PA TE wraggle with consistency. He’s got decent arm strength and when he throws to the right team, he at least gives his guy a chance to make the catch. His running ability is good enough to make defenses respect him, and for once we weren’t 100% reliant on the zone read in order to run the ball. Like I said, a QB who can throw the ball and is an okay runner >>> a QB who’s an exceptional runner but can’t throw at all.
I don’t know how high Book’s ceiling is, but the offense actually looks like a diverse, multiple unit when he’s in the game as opposed to a static and boring mess that falls apart against any team smart enough to load the box. Against a tough schedule next year, we’ll need QB play that will actually move the ball through the air when we need it. If Wimbush can’t be that guy, we can’t afford to limit ourselves to what we saw at the end of this year.
If he could lose the “horrible interception” issue – which in fairness seems to be what inexperienced players do, so he could reasonably expect to not do that with more experience – he would obviously be pretty decent. The playmakers around him need to step up a little more than with Wimbush making huge plays (usually running) himself. We thrived on big plays this year – where will they came from next year without a wimbush/adams (and the leftside of the line making it happen as much)?
My only concern with Book is his intermediate to long passing game. I’m trying to remember from the season, but it seems a lot of his passes were less than 10 yards. I think before the two ridiculous Boykin catches he was 10 of 13 for about 80 yards. He successfully completed safe passes but seemed to throw picks when he went downfield.
Maybe that’s normal for his developmental stage, and maybe being reliable on certain routes is better than Wimbush. I kept hoping with Wimbush that having 6 weeks off from class to focus on his game would lead to a significant improvement, but he looked the same.
Yea wasn’t there a downfield throw down the middle of the field that he left short and was almost intercepted?
I think often he can make up for the lack of arm strength even down the field the better he is at anticipating the throw by making quick good decisions.
I’d think so too. The play before the game-winning TD he hit FInke with an 18-yard strike that’s a basic intermediate throw but one Wimbush proved incapable to deliver on time and accurately. If Book can just incorporate that type of throw successfully, things will be a lot better.
And he only has 75 pass attempts this season so maybe with more practice time with the first string and experience he can even show some improvement. I think we all know he’s not going to be an All-American or anything, but he operated the offense well in the 4th quarter when not a lot was going right and coming into the game on the fly, which seems promising enough I suppose.
Then again, with Book’s limitations maybe he fails to establish himself the #1 and we have another toxic QB competition that stretches into the season. That would be the worst case scenario.
He was 10 of 13 for 54 yards at one point with a pick. That is pretty bad. Really not sure what to make of the qb situation going forward
I agree. That won’t get the job done either. He was averaging about 4 yards an attempt prior to the FInke 18 yarder and the Boykin 55 yarder. That average included the 27 yarder to Boykin.
I think the spring will be wide open. If Wimbush can throw accurately and consistently, he should be the starter over Book. Much greater upside. I think everyone is making a mistake in sleeping on Davis. Jurkovec won’t have enough time in the summer/fall to assert himself as the starter.
You can’t teach speed or arm strength. Wimbush has more of either than Book. You can teach accuracy. Time for Rees, Long and Kelly to be teachers. Better ones than they were this year.
Question becomes, how do you simulate a game environment in practice? Because that seems to be Wimbush’s limitation. He probably looks great in practice and in drills, but once the lights come on and guys are legitimately trying to hit him and hurt him, he loses everything and looks completely incompetent. Maybe we need to take the red jersey off him in practice and see if he can still execute then?
We shouldn’t forget that we have a sample of them both playing against the same defense. A pretty good defense at that. Is anyone going to argue that Wimbush played better than Book?
We also saw Book, against a pretty godawful UNC defense, play an absolutely terrible game. If Wimbush isn’t the starter next year, ok, but I don’t want it to be Book. He hasn’t shown me anything impressive at all; at that point just throw Jurkovec to the wolves and see what he can do.
This. Starting a guy who might as well have “career backup” written all over him against the ridiculous schedule we have next year is just asking for trouble.
Starting a guy who can’t hit the broad side of a barn, gives you the warm and fuzzies?
How many terrible games did Wimbush have throwing the football? How many games did Book complete less than 50% of his passes ? I understand your worries with Book. I bet the kid takes this opportunity and runs with it.
30 Total TDs to 6 INTs.
4 Total TDs to 4 INTs.
You either get the guy who makes decent decisions but can’t do anything with them, or the guy who can make most of the throws, but makes some godawful decisions.
I’d rather take the guy who is going to put the defense (which may end up being the better unit on our team over the next 2 years, shockingly) in a better position to win the game. I think that’s Wimbush.
If Book/Davis has an amazing Spring, or if Jurkovec gets here in the summer and lights the world on fire, I’m all for it. But nothing I’ve seen from Book indicates he’s anything more than a dump-off QB who makes poor red zone decisions.
Basically, I think I’ve just talked myself into a pessimistic view of the QB situation for next year, after feeling pretty darn good about it roughly 2 months ago. Hooray ND Football!
Who’s the guy that can make the throws? The guy that completed less than 50% of his passes ? In the one game they both played vs. a quality defense I don’t think you can say Wimbush gave ND any chance at all to win the game.
I’m not crazy about Ian Book either. I just have no expectation that BW will improve very much.
I think Book could become a decent game manager.
Ha no, I was saying Book is the guy who can make the throws but makes terrible decisions. Wimbush pretty clearly couldn’t make the throws this year. But he very rarely made a terrible decision on a pass that led to a bad turnover.
I’ll admit you had me confused. I haven’t seen too many people complimenting Wimbush’s decision making. Anything but actually. Nor have I seen ANYONE saying Book could make most of the throws.
At least Book IMPROVED. In the numbers you cited, Book went from a stat line of:
17/31(Why the hell we threw that much in a kid’s first game???)
146 yds
1 TD 1 INT
and he turned it into:
14/19(there we go)
164 Yds
2 TD
1 INT
One of my huge complaints isn’t that Wimbush just sucks, it’s that he sucks AND he’s not showing any signs of improving. Book appears to be doing that. Plus, the only way you CAN improve in decision making is to see more situations. You cant know what to do in a situation you’ve never seen before so more gametime is going to make Book better. Wimbush, hell I don’t have a clue what to do with that guy.
Book did improve, but he is probably not an NC QB. Wimbush can carry a team with his legs. If he could be as good as Book was in the second half against LSU passing, he would win the Heisman. Those short outs to the TE that Book was throwing would have been adventures with Wimbush.
All that said, it was clear that Long/Rees/Kelly did not trust either of them to throw over the middle, behind the LBs and in front of the S. . I think the only intermediate throw in the middle was the one to Finke, and I would bet he was not the first or second read. You can’t beat good teams if you won’t or can’t attack that part of the field with the pass. The LBs cheat too close to the LOS and you start to lose your run game.
I think we will have an open tryout spring. That opens the door for Davis (which it would not otherwise have been), and if none of the three seize the job, for Jurkovec. Nothing against Jurkovec who is supposed to be all that and a bag of chips, but if a true freshman can win the job after a 10 win season and you return your entire QB depth chart, it means Wimbush/Book contributed the bare minimum to those wins.
I think Book and Wimbush did contribute the bare minimum to the wins. Other than the bowl game, how many more games do you think we lose with, I don’t know, 2010 Tommy Rees playing QB? Michigan State? Wake? TBH I don’t think so. Probably would have lost to Georgia by more, but that doesn’t change the result. I think we win against Navy this year by *more* if 2010 Tommy Rees is the QB.
Sure, and he was 13/18 for 110 yards (horrible) before Boykin made an absurd catch and run. That last amazing play by Boykin is making people have some weird revisionist history about how Book played in that game; he was not good. He was better than Wimbush, but honestly not by very much.
Nah, that’s not horrible.
That’s basically, “When you take out that one big play Book’s completion percentage was 22% higher than Wimbush and 70% of his average passing yardage in half the snaps.”
Wimbush averaged 6.8 YPA this year. People have consistently said Wimbush was a terrible passer (which I won’t disagree with). Book was at 6.1 YPA until Boykin’s catch. That’s not good!
Sure, I’m just saying you’re painting a fair more negative picture than reality.
Book can probably make a few better decisions and with more experience (and perhaps better playmakers) his YPA will increase. I get that Book’s ceiling may be lower but these are far more normal problems compared to Wimbush’s issues.
Also, I think we need to take a good hard look at what an offense would be like with 62% completions even if the YPA is a little low.
I don’t think it would be very good, especially without Wimbush’s rushing ability on the field. I have no interest in a dink and dunk offense that requires Ian Book to make good decisions for long, extended drives.
It’s Jurkovec time!!!
T O M M Y R E E S P T 2
I get Book’ physical limitations with arm strength but he is pretty athletic running (not wimbush elite running mind you).
Also this season has taught me how important efficiency can be if you want to be a power run offense. A correct zone read for 3 yards is so much more important than 1 50 yard scramble followed by 6 negative plays because the read is wrong.
His decision making seems quicker.
Everett Golson stares, confused, wondering what this “read” you speak of might be.
To be fair, he did learn to play by ear.
Brilliant. This is 2018 Comment of the Year. Shut it down everyone else. Don’t ever bother with 12.75 more months of futility in trying to match this. Bravo sir.
Judging from some of the posts below the original comment, I think some people are missing my initial point. Ultimately, it’s about what Chip Long wants to run and who can execute that vision best. It’s pretty clear that Book can access a lot more of Long’s system than Wimbush can and the coaching staff knows that. Remember that play against LSU where Book replaced Wimbush only to throw a short screen pass? We literally had to bench our starting QB because we couldn’t trust him to throw an easy pass. This is how bad things were at the end of the year.
Wimbush never really improved all year. The MSU game turned out to be a spectacular one-off that was never replicated, even when the team was at its peak in October. The Miami game marked the beginning of the end where teams knew that they could completely ignore our passing game. Miami was literally blitzing 7 or 8 every single play regardless of whether it was a run or pass because they had such little respect for Wimbush’s passing ability. Stanford and LSU replicated that strategy and we had no countermeasures.
Evidence: https://twitter.com/PeteSampson_/status/930961270181900288
The RPO is a huge part of Long’s offense, and the ‘P’ was missing all year long with Wimbush. He would either make the wrong read or miss the throw. I mean, look how laughably bad some of the passes off RPOs were for Wimbush this year: https://youtu.be/vO-v-hOG27Q?t=1074
https://youtu.be/al8AHQGsc3I?t=2390
https://youtu.be/al8AHQGsc3I?t=2450
Is there some revisionist history regarding Book’s performance yesterday? Perhaps, he definitely wasn’t perfect. But the fact remains that the Wimbush-led offense finished with less than 100 yards and zero points in almost two quarters of play, while Book led five drives that presented scoring opportunities and had almost 300 yards in two and a half quarters. All we needed this year was “good enough” production from our QBs and Book was able to do that against LSU. Would Wimbush ever make this throw like this on the run with great accuracy? https://youtu.be/jN0jFZjd0oM?t=108
Unless Wimbush has meteoric improvement in the passing game next year, I just don’t see where he fits in this offense. You should tailor your offense around your QB, but when you’re limited to just zone reads and praying you don’t screw up in the passing game then is it really worth it? Next year might be painful regardless of who starts at QB, but it could be less painful depending on what choice the staff makes.
I’ve got an interesting discussion based on a half-crazy theory.
Are Notre Dame’s practices structured so that quarterbacks have a hard time failing? Is there something with the way Kelly does things over the years?
I got to thinking a while ago, which quarterbacks has the media witnessed in practice through the years and really questioned if they were good enough?
Couple things to add, I think the media tends to ‘take it easy’ on the QB’s particularly if they’re in a backup role so they won’t be too harsh on them. So that plays a small part. I also think the media tends to find the silver lining with all the QB’s, again especially if they haven’t seen any extended game action.
I do think we’ve seen some examples of QB’s who finally got extended action and then the practice reports weren’t as kind if they stunk in games. The one I’m remembering this way is Hendrix. Before he actually played the practice reports were (mostly, I think?) positive. Once he played and struggled, it was almost comical how his practice reports changed.
Clearly there’s lots to games being way different than practices. I get that much.
If I remember there was a little bit of concern with Kizer early as a freshman but he wasn’t getting many reps and once he did I recall the media thinking he was looking surprisingly good.
Are we just terribly vanilla on defense in practice?
Who are the list of players that ND media think – and, more importantly, say out loud – are no good? It seems like a player basically has to get to the obvious uselessness of a Dew-Treadway after 3 years before the will consistently say that player is no help. For new guys, there’s always hope, and combine that with the general over-positivity of the embedded media, and you get the sense that guys who are not that good are actually good.
With the ND media that I consume (note: still not a pay member, so maybe different for certain sites), you kind of have to read between the lines to figure stuff out. For example, nobody in the media I’ve read has said much nice about Avery Davis, and all the talk of the future is about Jurkovec. So I take that as an indication not to expect much. But, then again, there wasn’t much talk of Kizer as a true freshman either (as they’ll let you know after the fact, it was because he looked bad in practice, but the media didn’t say so much at the time because reasons).
I wonder if there is a place in the market for a less rah-rah-y/everybody-is-good-or-at-least-not-bad pay site that does in-depth breakdowns, kind of like 18S but with full-time staff (how *dare* you guys not spend all your time on this 😉 ). I would be all over that. But I suspect that these sites are rah-rah-y not only because it allows for continued access, but also because it’s good for business. In reality, that’s probably what most people want, either on a conscious or a sub-conscious level.
As to the regimented practice, I suspect the practices that the media sees are pretty vanilla, and the Irish Illustrated guys often say so on their podcast. My sense is that they don’t really know what a no-media practice looks like.
Yeah, if there’s an issue with letting QBs off easy by the media, what are they doing with the DBs? Every training camp, we hear about the next great DB who is going to be an all-world performer (Studstill, the Nicks, etc.), who then comes out an is less than impressive.
Now I’m fully expecting Alohi Gilman, touted by everybody as the next Ed Reed, to actually only have 1 arm.
LOL that’s funny The sites I read weren’t very excited about the safeties this past year.
They were fairly bullish on Coleman I think? The other safeties maybe not as much.
I feel like there’s a disease where we all talk ourselves into overrating our corners every pre-season. Love actually exceeded expectations this year!
Also, in fairness to the ND media (w/r/t over-positivity), they really talked down the defensive line pre-season, and, well, they were pretty good! Like, everyone other than maybe Jay Hayes (but probably even including Jay Hayes) and Darnell Ewell outplayed expectations.
Truth
I’m probably thinking of prior to the 2016 season, when Studstill was being talked up as having the quality of a 5 star recruit
I do seem to remember hearing that Hendrix had thrown six interceptions in one practice, but that was from a post by someone with access to pay sites. I think this was after 2011, before he saw Rees relief duty in 2013. Quinn was legitimately good and the players I tutored all thought Clausen was a clear qb1. But I heard very little during Golson, Kizer, Deshone.
Another couple things…
There was a fall camp where Kelly literally told the media some stats on Golson and they were gaudy AF and he hadnt thrown a pick on 100+ attempts. This was late August, and if I remember correctly he threw a pick in the last media viewing period a day or two later.
During the 2016 fall camp we had a similar story with neither Kizer or Zaire throwing picks! I remember this so well because the II podcast was asked over/Under on 6 interceptions on the season and they were so casually taking the Under. Kizer threw 9 by the way.
I could definitely believe that BVG was such a bad defensive coordinator that he actually made our offensive practices worse.
PUTTING ASIDE THOUGHTS ON THE FUTURE, man that was a needed win. Great job by the team to gut out a win in a garbage state where we hadn’t won in decades, in bad weather, against a ranked LSU team. Particularly gutty effort by the defense to hold LSU scoreless in the first half, and come up with two huge goalline stands; the Tigers got inside the two yard line both times, and only came away with 3 points. On offense, great job by Yoon to calm hit those two long field goals in crappy conditions, it was great to watch Nelson just bury people one last time in an ND uniform, and that catch and run by Boykin is going to go down in ND lore alongside Fuller against UVA and Samardzija against UCLA. Great end to the season after a disappointing November, getting to 10 wins and coming away victorious in January for the first time since the 90s.
Now that I got that out of the way, I will resume my usual pessimism.
Publius — noooooo; stay locked on lovely sunny optimism at least for a while – like, till National Remnant Signing Day. It is so great to have you saying the kind of good things I tend to think; reinforces those thoughts in a major way. Gonna go drink champagne in Paris, will check in later!
rec’d for National Remnant Signing Day….we’ll get the best carpet at discounted rates!
Kelly gave this answer to Matt Fortuna at The Athletic ($$ required, great site though not much NCAA/ND content). This was pre-bowl game too. Makes me think more that Jurkovec could actually be starting given Book’s limitations, Davis’ inexperience and Wimbush’s mechanics…
[Question]I know a lot of people, yourself included, were singing (Notre Dame quarterback signee) Phil Jurkovec’s praises. What’s a reasonable early expectation for a kid in that position with all the hype he has and with what you have on that roster?
BK: I think that Phil will be given the opportunity to show what his traits are. Quarterback, as you know, those kids, they show themselves early on. They just have a sense and a feel, and so we won’t really know until we put him out there with college players, but I am not adverse to starting a true freshman quarterback if he’s the best quarterback. We brought him in to compete. I love the fact we’re gonna add competition to that position. But I can’t tell you — I think it’s like anything else. When you get a kid like this, you gotta see him with college players before you can really get a sense.
https://theathletic.com/199066/2017/12/31/brian-kelly-notre-dame-citrus-bowl-brandon-wimbush-lsu/