There was a time, not so long ago, where Notre Dame beating a Power 5 team – any Power 5 team – by 18 points on the road would’ve been cause for celebration, if not a parade.
The two most talented Notre Dame teams of the Brian Kelly era prior to the 2016 debacle and the much-ballyhooed “Kelly 2.0” were probably 2012 and 2015 (they were certainly the most successful in any case). Those two teams combined to beat zero Power 5 teams by 18 on the road. (The 2012 team beat OU and MSU by 17, so while that looks awfully convenient, I didn’t set out to do it that way, I promise!)
I suppose one of the best things you could say about Kelly’s work at ND is that he seems to have lifted the program to a point where such a showing, like tonight’s 35-17 victory over a probably improved Louisville team (the Petrino to Satterfield upgrade seems to be clear, even if they’re still undermanned), isn’t, in and of itself, great.
There’s plenty to talk about with the Irish opener, so let’s jump right in.
Clark Lea made his money even if it took a minute
It was clear from the jump that Notre Dame was ill-prepared for what Louisville was doing offensively. The Cards came out with an imaginative set of play calls (Jawon Pass running the option!) that shredded the Irish D for the first two possessions. The losses of Te’Von Coney and Drue Tranquill were very much felt.
After that, DC Clark Lea made the moves necessary to adjust and showed off why many internally are so high on the young assistant. Louisville had 3 points the rest of the way (to ND’s 28). They also had 3 turnovers the rest of the way. It still wasn’t always perfect, but it was plenty effective.
My only major defensive question would be where game-wreckers Julian Okwara and Khalid Kareem were. Okwara made a couple of nice plays later in the game, but up until then their biggest moments in the game were foolish offsides penalties that helped Louisville extend drives. I’m sure the X’s and O’s guys among us will tell me that the Cardinals sold out to stop them, but it was still a bit disappointing given how weak their O-line seemed to be on paper.
(Here is my spot to remind you Alohi Gilman is a freaking beast. This will probably be a weekly occurrence.)
The running game was huge early
Not to be all #RTDBK, but man, when you run for approximately a gazillion yards per carry on the opening drive, throwing 3 straight passes on your second series seems suboptimal. Luckily, the Irish went back to the ground game after that to great effect in the first half – Tony Jones ran for 87 in the first quarter alone – and that helped overcome a rusty performance by Ian Book to keep them afloat early on. Jones, perhaps being used more than usual, didn’t do much later in the game, and Jahmir Smith’s numbers were unimpressive.
Jafar Armstrong, unfortunately, was hurt very early in the game – a groin injury – and never returned. Reports were he didn’t even have his helmet with him for the second half. That does not bode well. Hopefully the 12 days before New Mexico, and more importantly the 19 until Georgia, are enough for him to heal up.
Jafar Armstrong suffered a groin injury early in the first quarter, a source tells The Athletic.
That’s why you’ve been seeing a large amount of red-shirt freshman running back Jahmir Smith.
— Pete Sampson (@PeteSampson_) September 3, 2019
(BTW, I apologize if you don’t closely follow Twitter and I just broke the Jafar news to you. ESPN, as far as I could tell, didn’t mention it one time, even to wonder why he wasn’t playing. This coming off their bang-up job not noticing last December that All-American Julian Love was missing from the Cotton Bowl until Clemson was already halfway through taking advantage of it. Why is Pete Sampson getting this info but not the Worldwide Leader?)
ND showed off some depth
At one point in the game, as they’re contractually obligated to do, Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit mentioned ND’s big-game woes, specifically talking about their ‘depth’ as opposed to the guys Alabama, Clemson and the like roll in. While they’re still not rolling in blue-chips like those teams are, there was a fair bit to like in that department. Tommy Tremble, who I’d never seen on the field before and looks more like a running back than a tight end, had some impressive moments, including a TD on Book’s best pass of the day, and looks like he’s forcing his way on the field more, perhaps at Brock Wright’s expense. Lawrence Keys had a great grab on a bad Book third-down pass and hopefully will receive more chances to show off his speed. Ade Ogundeji, so often overlooked on the defensive line amidst the Okwara/Kareem discussions, made one of the bigger plays of the game when he forced Pass to fumble while the Cards were driving in the third quarter.
It still isn’t national-title depth, but it was heartening to see those kinds of contributions so early in the season. One would think we can expect a few more as the year progresses. If Jafar is out a while, they will probably be necessary.
Irish haven’t yet taken the next step
Taking the next step was, in so many words, the theme of the ND off-season. We’ve seen the Irish earn their way into big games – but not much good has happened after that. The time had come to become a team that could compete in those games and preferably win them.
Obviously, Louisville is not that sort of game, but part of being a team that can win big games is bludgeoning teams you assume are as poor as Louisville was projected to be, not just beating them semi-handily. The Cardinals may well end up being much improved, and the early struggles in this game won’t look like more than a blip if that’s the case. However, you’d like to see an ND team come out and truly lay the smackdown on a low to mid-level Power 5 team. Perhaps those days are yet coming.
I know it’s an unfair standard. But this is college football; it’s an unfair world. There’s no eking your way to a title anymore in the playoff era. You have to be elite. Today, ND looked, for all but the first 8 minutes or so, very good. By the end of the year (probably by Sept. 21), they need to be elite if they want the season to end differently than 2018 did.
(Photo cred: South Bend Tribune)
Some hard truths in there.
We did look very unprepared for Pass to run so much. Nice adjustments but linebacker isn’t a strength this year.
Jones continues to be solid, good pass blocker. But man I think he leaves yards out there due to lack of speed or going down easy. C’Bo flashed when he was in there, would like to see more of him.
I really think we were 2 offsides away from this never being a game but alas. Georgia didn’t look like world beaters out there, Trevor Lawrence looked human, and Michigan didn’t completely dismantle MTSU either. This Louisville team is going to win twice as many games this year as last. No clue where Herbie thought he saw 6 wins on their schedule.
To be fair to Herbie, I don’t think he ever predicted they would, just that they could. The directional Kentuckys and Wake probably ought to be wins but those are the only comfortable ones. Maybe they knock off BC or NC State or Kentucky or even FSU but any of that still feels optimistic.
I think Troy Pride really contributed to us looking bad early. That amazing catch to convert the long 3rd on their first drive, he never even attempted to turn around and find the ball. If he does. I think he’s in a really good position to knock it away. If he does that, they’re punting away after just giving us a 6-play TD drive.
Very weird game.
Okwara and Kareem looked anything but All Americans, middle of the dline didn’t hold up well and the line backing was weak most of the game. We were lucky Louisville made so many offensive mistakes. Hamilton looked good, Gilman his usual self, can’t really be impressed with many others on D. Hopefully we’re ready for GA. Tackling has to get a lot better.
Offense was out of synch a lot. Not a great game for Book, but he got the job done. We flat out do not have elite skill players. We won’t be seeing long TD runs this year by RBs, and our receivers, at least without Young and Kmet, were meh. Fink is out of position, he’s not a wide receiver. Put him back in the slot where he’s very good and put somebody fast out there until Young is back, so we don’t weaken both slot and WR.
Claypool flashed, but needs more help from the other receivers being more of a threat.
I didn’t see any All America linemen. Hopefully our center was just green, he whiffed a number of times, and rest of the line unimpressive. Book was skittish often, but I also thought protection was not great. I think we attempted only one pass downfield, to Tremble for a TD, and that one not truly deep.
Not a terribly impressive win for the most part, but as you say Andy we’d have been really happy with it not so long ago.
I’m surprised you didn’t like the o-line play. I had about the opposite takeaway, I thought they were awesome and blowing Louisville off the ball most the night (granted, they’re undersized and not very good, so remains to be seen if they will do it again). The holes for Jones to run through were mostly huge and he wasn’t getting touched a lot until the 2nd level several times. And if Jones was a Josh Adams/Dex type IMO we would have easily seen a few of those 50+ yard TD runs. Alas.
Comparatively I was much less impressed with the d-line. 2 senior captain offsides on 3rd down? Yikes. Didn’t see much pressure on the QB either until it was late, though with that guy it was like they were holding on the ball or dropping back a lot.
Agree with you on Finke though. He seemed wasted split out so far from a QB who wasn’t looking there anyways. Might as well put Finke in the slot and use McKinley (a McKinley sighting!!) out as a decoy or whatever.
Agree with a lot of your points. I thought that the o-line did a good job of opening holes in the run game. At this point, Jones is who he is — a dependable type of back who is not a home-run threat.
It was my impression that the Louisville gameplan was designed to make Okwara and Kareem ineffective — for example, option reads off the defensive ends’ reactions. I thought that Owusu, Crawford, and Gillman all looked good (I hope that the latter does not get too beat up over the season, being involved in so many tackles).
I too was surprised by McKinley — there’s enough depth at WR where Finke should be able to stay in the slot.
Run game blocking was very good (other than third downs, where it largely sucked again) but I thought the pass protection left a hell of a lot to be desired. Book didn’t help himself by occasionally running directly into a tackler, but I would have expected more clean pockets for him last night.
I thought the defensive pressure was pretty good on the whole, and better as the game progressed, but it was as if Lea did not prepare for Pass running by either design or necessity at all. They seemed to clean that up after a few drives in, but it shouldn’t have been necessary to do so. The prospect of playing against someone like Hurts at OU scares the absolute shit out of me.
For the latter point, I give Louisville credit more than I knock ND. First game of the year, tough to simulate speed on the perimeter like that and they basically were an option offense for a while and that’s tough to defend and looks bad with 1 blown assignment. Given how quickly and easily Lea cleaned that up for the last 50 minutes of the game, no worries for me on that. You’re right it would be not fun to face Hurts/OU offense, but that applies for everyone in the game.
Ian Book looking like a 3* game manager and not an NFL prospect is the most concerning takeaway for me. Bouncing around everywhere at the first sign of trouble and it seemed like he would rather run the ball than even check down and make open passes to RBs. Where’s the guy that shredded Stanford? They need that QB, not this one carrying over antsy habits from Clemson.
But, I’m glad to see the reason here. Spread was 18.5, and as burger said on twitter SP+ predicted 35-16. So Notre Dame took care of business on the road and did basically what they were supposed to do. Didn’t exceed expectations but got some experience and won comfortably on the road at night against a P5 team (even if not a very good one).
The NFL hype for Ian Book was always misplaced. His ceiling is probably “7th best QB in the country as a 5th year senior,” which won’t get him drafted.
I was always under the impression that the nfl hype was just people reporting he is already planning to leave for the NFL after this season. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone who thinks he should go or would be a high draft pick even with continued improvement. Are there people who legitimately think he’d be a viable pro QB after this year?
Yeah, I didn’t mean to imply fan expectation or reasonable output. But this clearly is a player with aspirations to succeed at this level and move to the next. Book did get invited to the Manning Passing Academy in the summer with the elite QBs, he requested his draft grade this past offseason, lots of hints from media members that he would leave ND after this season and declare for the draft. The narrative on him has seemed more like progressing to take that next step and be a high-end player and we didn’t see that.
I suppose we’ll see how it goes. His measurables and arm strength don’t really suggest a bright NFL future but 13 QBs did get drafted this past year, so I wouldn’t say it’s wild to say he has a chance and is angling for it.
I have no earthly idea why Book would leave for the NFL one second before he exhausts his eligibility. He didn’t so much as attempt a pass more than about 15 yards downfield last night; a pro scout wouldn’t even waste the time to review that tape. He’s generally very accurate with the short-to-intermediate stuff, but he’s still approximately half a QB right now. There’s no guarantee on making the leap from college to pro, but logging as many starts as you possibly can at the latter level is as good an indicator of future success in the NFL as anything else.
Well Eric was right about the linebackers. It felt like we were underachieving again, but then you realize were just a few shy of 40, and we held them to a field goal for three quarters. All in all, it wasn’t great, but I don’t think it was bad either.
When Pete Sampson refers to himself as “the Athletic,” is that using the 4th person?
“The Athletic” is the website he works for.
my joke didn’t land 🙁
It wondered if you might be joking but, there didn’t seem to be anything humorous.
I thought that was humorous.
I’ll be here all week.
The D did play better but much of that can also be attributed to Louisville self destruction. We have a LARGE drop off at Linebacker. Bilal looked lousy IMO.
I was disappointed in Book’s overall composure and leadership.
I thought White was pretty good. He’s not as good as Coney and misses some tackles but physically I thought he was fine. Hopefully more experience helps. Bilal, yeah, it’s a shame he’s never really seemed to pan out or play to his potential. It’s a big problem that he’s not a solid piece of the puzzle.
I may be in the minority here, but I thought we did well…better than I expected, given that Louisville was bound to have a “bounce-back” since losing their DC. It looked like the crowd was loud…Book has typically done worse in those environments. That said, he settled down and looked better as the game progressed. As much as I was screaming at my TV every time we would call a pass play, in retrospect I can understand why Long wanted to build up the passing game and get Book’s confidence in a better place.
Given how many yards we gave up in the first quarter, I was worried that this was going to be a replay of the last Texas game. BUT, defense settled in and made the game eventually get to (let’s face it) a blow-out. I thought Louisville looked good…this year they will probably be close to equivalent to Pitt last year. Not a great team, but I think last year’s record had a lot to do with BVG and nothing to do with the talent they obviously have.
I’m happy with the win. If someone had told me Jones would get as many carries as he did, I would have expected MUCH worse YPC. We have a better looking team than I was anticipating given the losses from last year. They will take time to mesh, but they made lots of visible strides from the beginning of the game until the end.
That said, New Mexico is a joke. If we’re tied with them after the first quarter then I may be looking for a new TV by halftime.
Jones had a good game considering that he had graduated last year according to the ESPN pre game show.
He’s always a Junior to me!
Nit to pick….With our WR situation, why is Finke returning any punts ? I don’t want him hurt because he was trying to improve field position by 10 yards. He’s really not a home run threat.
With all of the fair catches and 0 yard returns, I always just assumed that was John Goodman back there wearing a #10 jersey.
By the end of November, if we’re looking back on the season and an 18 point win over UL is the worst thing we have on our resume, I will be jacked the heck up. This is nothing to worry about. Some teams come out week one and commit 30 penalties because of rust. Some teams come out and look rusty on either O or D. Hell, some teams LOSE. It happens and I’m not going to lose sleep over it.
WHY ARE YOU BEING SO REASONABLE? We are supposed to be upset that we did not blow UL out by 70 points!!
Thanks for the calming words. I think many of us kept reading these great things about the team and forget that a lot of teams look rusty in their first games. I think many were looking at last year’s UL team and how bad it finished and thinking that their lines were going to be paper bags that our lines would blow through without a fight. Perhaps if we played them at the end of last season, we would have seen a 50 point win, but this is very a different UL team. They have a new (good) coaching staff; I understand a lot of the players who quit last year are gone; and the optimism from a new season and new coach was evident.
Let’s see if they can clean some things up against NM. I suspect that might be the 50 point win, we were hoping for this week. Incidentally, my PSA for the ticket office: there are still A LOT of tickets left for the NM game (probably several thousand). I bought several from the ND website last night for $45 each. They do not add any “convenience” or other types of fees either – just the cost of the tickets. If you are nearby and have young kids who want to go to a game but hesitate to spend a ton of money, this might be a good/cheap one to go to.