The offseason is a long, dreary landscape. It’s cold, February signing day isn’t even exciting anymore, and spring practice is a mystery. Still, to keep the lights on at the content factories across this nation, hot takes must be created and burned to keep us warm. This year, however, the pollution from these myths and talking points is worst than most. To filter the air we need to take apart some of the narratives and conspiracies that start slow but get repeated until they are living, breathing Notre Dame narratives that make it to national TV shows and press conferences.

Notre Dame is a great QB away

A dominant passing offense is the single greatest asset in football at any level. An elite quarterback can be game-changing for a program – Marcus Mariota’s excellence fueled an Oregon run to the CFP title game, and the new era of Clemson dominance started with Deshaun Watson. There’s so much obsession about the quarterback position, but at the highest level, the entire passing attack has to be excellent. Relative weakness on the offensive line? Your great QB may look like Patrick Mahomes in Tampa Bay. Not the usual cadre of NFL draft picks at wide receiver? Sorry Trevor Lawrence, you’re ending your playoff career on a two-game losing streak.

Oklahoma went through a virtually unprecedented 5-year run with consistent top offenses and Heisman caliber QB play. And to show for the Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, and Jalen Hurts years Lincoln Riley has a 0-4 playoff record (with only one competitive game, to a team that beat the Irish by a point in South Bend). Give Notre Dame an edge at quarterback against Alabama last year and there’s still serious gaps at defensive back, defensive line, wide receiver…. you get the picture.

Clemson and Deshaun Watson gets brought up often as the example of a QB jump-starting a program without exceptional talent around him. But if anything since then the talent bar has been raised higher as the top tier of programs (Bama, Clemson, Ohio State, and Georgia) stockpile top-100 recruits at an unprecedented rate. And unless an outsider can somehow force their way into a one seed, the playoff requires beating two of those teams, likely Saban and Dabo, twice.

It’s easy to fixate on changing position groups of need as if the Irish have been unlucky or slightly off in ideal timing. If last year’s team just had the 2018 corners, or if the 2018 team had the offensive line of ’17 or ’20, or Chase Claypool’s breakout synced with Kyren Williams and Michael Mayer’s arrival. But it’s a game of whack-a-mole that fixates on symptoms rather than underlying causes – when there is an overall talent gap to the best programs, there will always be position groups coming up short and with mismatched peaks. To “make the leap” and reach championship level with a top 10-15 talent level – even for just a year – is the equivalent of pitching a perfect game two classes in a row with no margin for error in talent evaluation, development, and scheme.

Can Notre Dame get closer if Tyler Bucher develops into a first-round talent? Absolutely! Will that close the gap to championship-caliber on its own? No, it will represent one (substantial) step in a few that are needed, along with an overall infusion of talent, continued excellence in player development, great schemes, and in-game decision-making. To minimize the needed improvement to just being a quarterback away doesn’t help anyone – the quarterback recruits with outsized expectations, the onus on staff to evaluate and land the perceived savior, and the program that needs to recognize and pursue holistic improvement.

The 2020 Irish offense was outdated

Somehow after the playoff loss to Alabama, this narrative formed – that Tommy Rees’ offense was too old-school and conservative. It was a failure to recognize the opponent-specific gameplan – the best and only chance the Irish had at an upset was a ball-control approach that minimized possessions. Could it have been better executed, including some 4th down attempts? Sure, but airing the ball out and creating a high-possession game was only going to lead to a 50-21 type of defeat.

The grind it out strategy didn’t work for Notre Dame, but nothing really worked for anyone else the Tide faced except “pray the Bama defense has communication problems”. And following the loss, the entire season began to be framed as if the Irish could have been better if they had just aired it out more and been more modern. Despite having to face Clemson twice and Bama at its defensive peak, the Irish finished in the same offensive quadrant (looking at success rate and explosiveness) as shiny offenses like Lane Kiffin’s at Ole Miss and with better metrics across the board than the Air Raid at USC.

In reality, the approach took advantage of the offense’s strengths. Rees had a top-3 offensive line, great running back play, and a veteran mobile QB in Ian Book’s with an ability to improvise. The losses of Kevin Austin and Braden Lenzy sapped the Irish of two key vertical threats, and the Irish offense formed its identity around the veteran, physical receivers remaining. ND should have utilized play-action more, run more RPOs, and gone with more second and long passes to make incremental improvements. But it’s an oversimplification to believe just moving the run/pass splits NCAA14 style would suddenly unlock new heights with the personnel available that magically would increase (expected points added) without any trade-offs.

All we know of the Rees philosophy was his approach with the strengths on the roster last season. What will it look like with a so-so offensive line? Or an elite group of receivers? There’s too much fixation on run-pass ratio when some of the top minds in the NFL (Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan) have embraced higher than league-average run rates that take advantage of the right situations and opponent personnel groupings to drive efficiency and explosiveness.

Notre Dame isn’t reaching its ceiling because BK won’t play the kids

This myth has two forms:

  1. The coaching staff isn’t playing [insert talented freshman here] and that’s why they aren’t winning big games
  2. ND isn’t letting young guys take their lumps now so the program will be better in the future

Are there kernels of truth behind this take? Sure. The program can and should do a better job giving young players some defined, limited roles to master early in their careers that can translate into increased early game experience. That said, this is a weird narrative to promote following a year where Michael Mayer tied for the team lead in receptions, Chris Tyree had 80 touches, and Clarence Lewis cemented a starting CB spot despite COVID hindering normal practice routines.

The call to play the blue-chip true freshmen more is always tempting. When the talented young guys are on the bench there’s only perceived upside. We assume every top-100 recruit can be Kyle Hamilton and ready immediately – or for example, that Jordan Johnson can bring a breakthrough skillset to the offense or Jordan Botelho will instantly be the missing pass-rusher. It gives no real consideration to things first-year guys are typically not good at – technique, blocking, knowing plays – that are important.

The second variety of this is tapping into the idea the Irish need to play high-upside talent earlier versus high floor / lower ceiling players. There are somehow still lingering Phil Jurkovec debates – who knows what would have happened if he started earlier? Except we have a lot of evidence, based on his BC season, that the answer is probably losing more games than if Book was in, with no guarantee of reaching his ceiling. It’s another debate where recruiting stars are tattooed in fans heads as if they permanently matter – if you flip Book and Jurkovec’s 247 rankings, is there even 25% of the outcry when Phil goes to Chestnut Hill?

The upside debate is playing out again with Tyler Buchner vs. Jack Coan. There’s a school of thought that the Irish should just roll with Buchner, theoretically losing more games than with Coan but raising the ceiling for the future. This assumes 1) Buchner is something near ready, 2) the price you pay of something like 2-3 wins is worth it, and 3) implies Coan can’t or won’t be much better than what he demonstrated at Wisconsin.

If it’s close between Buchner and Coan, absolutely, roll with Buchner. The upside and long-term play may very well be the right play. But it hasn’t always worked out that way. How many talented guys have passed through campus under Kelly that ultimately didn’t reach their potential, and actually may have been limited by dealing with their struggles (Golson, Zaire, Wimbush, even going back to Dayne Crist)? There’s no certainty, scarce information beyond high school tape, and a lot of wishing for a best-case scenario instead of realistically weighing downsides. “Trust the staff, especially when no one else has seen practice” is not good for content or clicks, but hard to argue at present.

Honorable Mentions
  1. It’s actually bad Notre Dame has made two of the last three playoffs / the Irish didn’t deserve those spots
  2. This is the program’s current ceiling, ND can’t recruit any better (Marcus Freeman is already disproving this to a small degree in a matter of months)
  3. Filling gaps with talented grad transfers is a losing strategy

Any others that are missing? Let us know in the comments.