Notre Dame sits at 3-0 and ranked in the top ten this week. You would think that’s a good place to be, but many Irish fans understandably grumbled about the offense’s performance to date. Now it looks like that performance might have the coaching staff grumbling too; word leaked out yesterday via multiple outlets that Ian Book took a lot of first-team reps in practice this week, with some even saying he would start. Brian Kelly seemed annoyed at his press conference about the leaks, which is also understandable. Whatever’s going on, it certainly seems like something is afoot.
What’s the right decision? I don’t think there is one. Let’s do some quick point/counterpoint review.
The Case for Each Guy
- Point: Brandon Wimbush is 11-3 as QB1 (excluding UNC and LSU last year). That’s pretty good, guys. I think if you asked most coaches and fans if they’d be happy with 11 wins in a kid’s first 14 starts, the answer would be yes.
- Counterpoint: He was a major contributor but not the primary reason for the 11 wins, and you could make a very reasonable case that more consistent play would’ve turned around one or two of those losses. It’s a more complicated question than just the W-L record.
- Point: Ian Book picked apart LSU’s defense in the Citrus Bowl to the tune of a 72% completion rate, 8.6 yards per attempt, and a passer rating of 170.4. Which happens to be the highest rating LSU, ranked 20th in S&P+ passing defense, allowed last year.
- Counterpoint: Take out the exceptional individual effort by Miles Boykin on the game winner and he averaged a pedestrian 6.1 yards per attempt – which was right on his year-long average. He also completed just 54% of his attempts in his other meaningful action (UNC and Miami) for 4.8 yards per attempt, with one touchdown and three really bad picks.
- Point: Book is more athletic than many believe and can gain some yards on the ground, so we’re not losing that much in the read-option game with him. Last year, he gained 7.4 yards per carry (sacks excluded) on 32 runs. Opponents sacked him and Wimbush at about the same rate, so the numbers don’t support an escapability loss.
- Counterpoint: Wimbush ran for 914 yards (without sacks) and 14 touchdowns last year. In the last 10 Irish seasons, only Will Fuller and Golden Tate have found paydirt that often. No Irish quarterback not named Tony Rice has ever rushed for more yards in a season, and even with Rice, it’s close. That’s a lot of production to sit on the bench.
- Point: Wimbush has shown improvement this season, with a much more consistent performance (all games between 54-55% completion rate) than at any point last year, better composure in the pocket, and significant growth in the intermediate passing game.
- Counterpoint: The short passing game is not the total disaster it was last year but it’s still bad, and that hamstrings an offense built on RPOs. The deep connection also hasn’t been there, for reasons not entirely connected to Wimbush, but if those passes aren’t connecting it lowers Wimbush’s value.
Many Irish fans have clamored for Book since the Citrus Bowl. I think there’s some significant sampling bias there, as the rest of his season was just OK at best. That’s not to say that his 4.7 yards per attempt against UNC is the “real” Book, but rather that I don’t think anyone knows who the real Book is at this point. Wimbush’s flaws are well-documented; I think they’ve been magnified a bit, but clearly they’re real and some of them seem to be insurmountable. Book’s flaws are less well-documented, and occasionally glossed over by those who do acknowledge them. They’re also very different from Wimbush’s flaws. The reality is that both quarterbacks have substantial strengths and weaknesses.
What’s the Play Here?
Another big question, aside from whether there should be a switch at all, is just what kind of a switch it’ll be.
- Will Book just play a bigger role than he has so far? This has to seem reasonable to even the most dedicated Wimbush fans. While Wimbush is a red zone nightmare for defenses, there’s no question Book could move the offense more efficiently over most of the field. A mix of them could prove very effective.
- Speaking of the red zone, will Book be the guy outside the 20? That makes a lot more sense than what we’ve done to this point, which is to have the red zone guy move the offense down the field and the efficiency expert come in on the goal line.
- Will Book start? This is the big one, and it’s fraught with many implications.
- If Book starts, is it because he’s now QB1 or is it because he’s a better matchup for Wake Forest? Wake’s secondary is weak and their defensive line is respectable. That sets up well Book’s strengths, and poorly for Wimbush’s weaknesses.
- How much of this, if any, is gamesmanship for Stanford and Virginia Tech? Who knows?
- If Book has ascended to QB1 and he falters, in this game or later, how long does the staff wait to switch back to Wimbush? What happens if they do?
One helpful point is that the dynamic here is night and day from the Kizer/Zaire fiasco. In 2016, there were clear factions in the locker room that preferred “Their Guy” and the Guys themselves couldn’t stand each other. Book and Wimbush get along very well, and both are liked and respected by the entire team. Whoever sits won’t be happy to sit, but it’s not going to be a locker room issue like we saw in 2016.
Wrapping Up
If you could combine Wimbush and Book, you’d have a Heisman-contender quarterback leading a playoff-quality offense. But we can’t, absent some Dr.-Moreau-style shenanigans, so it would seem that Kelly wants to do the next best thing: Combine their play to lead a more effective offense. I don’t know if it’ll work, but as Pete Sampson said yesterday, it sure is a ballsy move to make with a 3-0 team. Maybe by tomorrow evening Kelly will look like a genius. Maybe he’ll look like an idiot. I get the distinct sense, though, that the most likely scenario is that we win with some warts and we come out of it with no fewer questions than we had going in. The questions might change, but I don’t think the list will be any shorter.
Thanks for writing an article specifically addressing the latest kerfuffle. I agree with you Brendan, that no matter who plays, we will end up still having questions about the identity and potential of this team. I’m strapping in to face that uncertainty all year long, myself.
In a way, hasn’t Kelly all along all year long repeated “they’re both gonna play” (or words to those effects) a lot of times?
It will be interesting to see how this goes. Wimbush-led teams haven’t impressed the last 2 weeks. As mentioned it is pretty encouraging that they’re being progressive enough not to wait for the failure of a loss of a game in order to make major changes that could be beneficial.I get wanting to give Wimbush every chance in the world to take the offense and go but they probably should have tried this vs Vandy (if not Ball State) to put Book in for a quarter or two when it was clear Wimbush was sputtering.
I do wonder what Book can show. As of now, unless he’s a total revelation, I’d go back to Wimbush for Stanford and gameplan it like the 1st half of the Michigan game, when everything looked like sunshine and roses. That to me looks like the best way of beating Stanford, barring Book coming out and being a major hit. Which, if he does, hey that’s a big bonus and great thing to know ahead of the Stanford game (instead of having to throw him in that middle of that game cold).
It kind of seems like they’re saying “uh oh, we better figure out what we have in Book before these next 2 really tough games”. Which..I don’t think is the worst thing in the world.
Kelly has indeed said since the spring that Wimbush was the lead guy and some version of “but we know Ian can win games for us if we need him.” I interpreted that as “Brandon is QB1 but he knows the leash is not endless.” My guess now is that it also meant “and sometimes Book will be the better option,” because I haven’t seen enough to permanently bench Wimbush.
I didn’t get into this above, but if it’s a permanent move I don’t get why it wasn’t done preseason, as Wimbush has done about as well as one might have reasonably expected. I’m not giving my imprimatur to his level of play, mind you, just pointing out that if you were hoping for him to develop from a 49% passer to a 60+% passer you were probably pretty misguided. 55% was a very reasonable improvement to expect, and that’s where he is.
It’s not all about completion percentage, of course. I think his pocket presence is light years ahead of last year. I also think his tendency to stare down receivers has actually gotten worse. Lots of stuff go into the evaluation – it’s not as simple as plug some numbers in and see who has the better QBR.
Clearly Book is better able to exploit Wake’s weakness than Wimbush is. If that’s why he’s going to play more this week, it makes perfect sense. And then, like you say, we know what we have going into the Stanford/VT gauntlet. Precarious times, but still seemingly manageable.
On the staring down receivers point, is it too simplistic to just have him wear a colored visor?
Yes. Defenders, announcers, and fans alike pretty much all read a quarterback’s “eyes” based on the direction his helmet is pointing.
I am a huge Wimbush fan. I am probably a Wimbush apologists if I am being honest here. I think having Book start and play a lot is the best move for this game. Kelly clearly doesn’t think he can score enough points to beat Wake with Wimbush starting so he is making this move. As long as we win I don’t care.
Right there with you, brother. And I’m happy to have the win, as I’m sure Brandon is.
Random musing: I think it’s interesting that in most things in life we prefer the “devil we know over the devil we don’t know,” but when it comes to college football QBs it’s usually the exact opposite.
Back to regularly scheduled programming: This may be an unusual move for a 3-0 team, but I take it as an extremely good sign that BK looks at our 3 wins and is not satisfied with waiting for the train to fall of the rails, but recognizes a need to get better. I think a failure in that exact trait is what led to the 4-8 season, and that he’s no longer willing to sit on the status quo just because it hasn’t blown up is a great sign whether this particular plan works out or not.
That was Sampson’s point too – that there aren’t many coaches who would change QBs sitting on 3-0. He called it “ballsy and refreshing,” lol. It’s clearly a bold play. Whether it’ll pay off…
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”
I’ve seen this take a few times, and I would agree that even if you think this particular move is a mistake (full disclosure: I’m not crazy about it), you can at least appreciate the mindset behind it.
I agree. Though he did fire BVG mid-season, I suspect that he wished he had done so earlier, like at the end of a pretty successful 2015 season when there were issues with the D.
I basically agree with all of this analysis, except for one part: “The reality is that both quarterbacks have substantial strengths and weaknesses.” I don’t think Book has substantial strengths or substantial weaknesses, but Wimbush certainly has both. Book only has relative strengths and relative weakness (i.e., relative to things that Wimbush is either very good at or very bad at on the absolute scales).
This. Book seems like a 2 eggs, hash browns, bacon & toast type breakfast from a diner – never going to be the best breakfast you’ve ever had, but pretty hard to screw up. BW is biscuits & gravy – sounds like it could be good, but man, if it’s a miss, it’s a big miss.
(Is this an acceptable analogy, kiwifan?)
Now I’m hungry.
Hey…croissants! Pains au chocolat! Those are the comparisons.
Ummm excuse me?
–Crepes
Well I’m a biscuits and gravy man.
Yeah that works, but I’d have the Wimbush breakfast with the Book one on the side. I do love breakfast.
One overlooked thing are skill players around the QB. If we had more Floyds, Tates and Eiferts around the QB then I’d say play Book in a heartbeat. We just need to get it to our playmakers and let them make plays. But since the players around the QB are relatively average at best we need to QB to be a playmaker so Wimbush is the clear winner there.
This wouldn’t preclude finding certain circumstances in which we actually have mismatches with our playmakers that Book might be the better fit like has been suggested potentially against wake forest.
On the flip side, if we had more Floyds, Tates, Eiferts, Mo Stovalls, and/or Smardjziatoaiseaehadfs, we could live with Brandon throwing jump balls every pass. But while we have big receivers, we don’t have good receivers. Claypool and Boykin are…fine. Serviceable. But not GOOD enough to rescue bad passing, they don’t take nearly enough advantage of their size, and they don’t get cleanly open enough for Wmbush to recognize and hit them (since he doesn’t throw people open). With any of the above, they’d either be open or a greater than 50% shot to get a jump ball. Yes, I know Tate was 4’9″, he still had the best hops of any receiver ever.
… or even Theo Riddick… so, let’s hope Armstrong can keep developing…
What’s the play?
I’ve said this a lot lately, so I don’t want to repeat myself too much: I think at this point the most logical complaint is less about which QB should play more than it is about the fact that we’re in year 9 and Brian Kelly STILL hasn’t had an undisputed starting QB from the end of spring to the end of the season. The position has, at its very best under Kelly, been a relative nonfactor – outside of DeShone Kizer’s legitimately very good 2015 season – and at worst has submarined seasons.
Even if you account for the fact that injuries and eligiblity accounted for a little of that, all 3 of the guys affected by those things (Crist, Golson, Zaire) also significantly regressed as their careers went on, and by the time they were done they were barely functional players. Tommy Rees is still to this day the only QB to exhibit anything that could be construed as improvement over the course of his career under this regime.
That’s an issue that really needs to be addressed somehow if Kelly is ever going to get ND where it claims to want to be.
But remember that time he shuffled quarterbacks for a few games at Cincy?
Yes the QB situaish and offense as a whole, except for last year, has pretty much always sucked under Kelly. Inconsistency and/or impotence in the offensive coaching staff from year to year would be the biggest reason as I see it. Not that that exculpates Kelly. Hes responsible for that last time I checked.
This is so ballsy. It might very well turn out to be foolish, but it’s definitely ballsy.
Is it definite he will do this? Seems like everyone’s assuming he will make a big change.
Also, it seemed BW may have been a bit dinged up towards the end of last game. Do we know if any of this is resting BW to get ready for Stan & VaTech?
In reply to my raising the same point on the Preview , Eric said BW was not injured…
No, not definite, but it seems likely Book will do more. BK was non-committal at the press conference about who was starting and acknowledged Book was getting more 1st team reps.
I hadn’t read this article until after today’s game. Now it reads as hilarious. Not that you possibly could have known how today would shake out Brendan. And using my time travel hat and reading it with yesterdays perspective, your piece is very fair and well reasoned. But now it just seems a silly, silly take. Again, Ian Books fault, not yours.