It appears my reverse-jinx worked. Notre Dame came out like gangbusters to open a tough road game but then went into a big funk until halftime with only a 1-point lead over Virginia Tech. With a let down in plain sight, the Fighting Irish stepped on the gas in the 3rd quarter on their way to a dominant 22-point win and a 6-0 start to the 2018 season.

Let’s recap the win over the Hokies.

Stat Package

STAT ND VT
Score 45 23
Yards 438 441
Passing 271 309
Rushing 167 132
1st Downs 19 25
3rd/4th Conversions 10/19 11/22
Yards Per Play 6.5 5.1
Turnovers 1 2

PASSING OFFENSE

Ian Book’s arm is…too strong? The Irish spent a decent chunk of the first half attempting to beat a weakened Virginia Tech secondary down field and despite plenty of guys running free Book over-shot nearly every pass. I think we could chalk it up to the quarterback having an off day (certainly the benefit of the doubt) because 8 of Book’s 10 incompletions were thrown 20+ yards down field.

The good news was that Book was 24 of 26 (insert fire emojis here) from inside 20 yards and that’s elite. The only 2 blemishes were his interception and a slightly high third down throw that slipped through Miles Boykin’s hands.

At halftime this kind of felt like the Ian Book Regression™ game and yet he comes away with another impressive game in the box score and in reality. He had some especially important 3rd down throws to keep drives alive and as previously mentioned was nearly perfect in the short-passing game.

The offensive line I thought protected quite well given Virginia Tech’s ability. Only 2 pressures allowed plus 1 of the 2 sacks was the intentional grounding penalty on Book in which he probably could’ve kept the ball and ran around the defender. That was a weird moment of panic from the Irish quarterback.

A couple weeks ago Boykin was hardly targeted and most of the media were led to believe Book had more of a connection with other receivers, or at least, the more horizontal passing game suited Boykin far less. Well, following another fantastic performance (8 catches, 117 yards, 2 TD) Boykin is on pace for a 1,000 yard receiving season.

RUSHING OFFENSE

The gameplan called for Notre Dame to exploit Virginia Tech’s secondary and even though Book missed several passes downfield that was compounded by an abandonment of the run game for most of the first half. At the break this looked like it could be one of those games in which the offense relied too much on passing and got itself all out of sorts.

Thankfully, the second half was much better. Granted, this really was not a good rushing performance from the Irish on the whole. Solid on the road? Perhaps, it’s just there wasn’t enough quality runs for the offense to hang their hat on for 4 quarters.

Irish Running Success

Williams – 8 of 17 (47.0%)
Wimbush – 0 of 3 (0.0%)
Davis – 1 of 1 (100.0%)
Flemister – 0 of 1 (0.0%)
Jones – 0 of 2 (0.0%)
Book – 1 of 4 (25.0%)
TOTAL – 10 of 28 (35.7%)

Obviously, Dexter’s 97-yard touchdown was a momentous turn of events. His traditional numbers (17 carries, 178 yards, 3 TD) reflect how crucial longer runs can be in big games. Dexter had runs of 97, 31, 13, and 13 for 86.5% of his yardage. On his other 13 carries, Williams totaled just 24 yards.

In conjunction with the lack of running, the backs only carried the ball 21 times. With injuries I bet the coaches are happy they got away with preserving some health at the position. Tony Jones tried to cut back behind the line of scrimmage after being surrounded and was never put back in the game while nursing a bum ankle. I’d imagine he won’t play much next weekend, either.

Interestingly, Book’s feet never really had much of an affect on the game. I counted one designed run and I don’t believe Book kept the ball once on a zone read all game.

PASSING DEFENSE

I noticed the lack of a nickel package for large swaths of this game and for me that’s a huge worry because Virginia Tech had not proven themselves to be very good running the ball and adding another defensive back in coverage probably would’ve slowed down the Tech passing game.

As is stood, Ryan Willis threw 52 passes! They clearly targeted Troy Pride (he must’ve given up double-digit catches on his man, I’d bet) and took advantage of three Notre Dame linebackers struggling to drop back and flood the middle and intermediate parts of the field. The Hokies largely attacked the perimeter with decent success and relied on Willis to keep driving the team down field.

Ultimately, it didn’t work out as Va Tech got too one-dimensional but I was impressed with Willis’ ability. I know many were frustrated with some of the soft coverage and ‘free’ underneath stuff but it continues to be a working solution for the defense. Keeping a quarterback at 5.9 yards per attempt without an accompanying run game is going to win the Irish a lot of football games.

RUSHING DEFENSE

There were some leaks. Give credit to the defense though, they’ve spent this entire year gradually fixing those leaks and slowly suffocating opponent’s run games as the snaps pile up.

The Hokies had 9 carries total 121 yards with a long of 41 yards leading the way. Six of their 9 longest runs came in the first half for a total of 83 yards while they did basically nothing of note on the ground in the final 2 quarters.

Outside of the 9 carries mentioned above, Virginia Tech ran the ball 24 times for 11 yards. Yes, you read that correctly.

Hokies Rushing Success

Peoples – 2 of 7 (28.5%)
McClease – 3 of 6 (50.0%)
Willis – 4 of 9 (44.4%)
Holston – 0 of 3 (0.0%)
Grimsley – 1 of 1 (100.0%)
Savoy – 0 of 1 (0.0%)
Kumah – 0 of 1 (0.0%)
Wheatley – 0 of 1 (0.0%)
TOTAL – 10 of 29 (34.4%)

Notre Dame was able to ‘get away’ with a poor rushing success because the Irish defense made Virginia Tech’s success even worse and the Hokies didn’t have the same long runs as Dexter Williams.

I know there will be other things to point to in this game which led to the win but yet again I have to applaud Notre Dame’s run defense because it continues to be the rock upon which the entire team has lived this year.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Outside of a botched snap and punt it felt like Notre Dame won the special teams battle, almost by default. Once again, the returns games from both sides provided little help. We should congratulate kicker Justin Yoon for moving into first place on Notre Dame’s all-time scoring list following his 1 field goal and 6-PAT performance.

Virginia Tech’s start to the second half highlighted to me how they let things get away on special teams. On 4 consecutive series beginning with the 3rd quarter they punted from Notre Dame’s 42-yard line, missed a field goal, punted from Notre Dame’s 44-yard line, and missed another field goal.

At the end of this sequence, the Irish went from a 1-point lead to a 38-16 lead.

TURNING POINT

There were so many things in the second half to choose from in this game. I’m sure many would select Dexter’s 97-yard touchdown. However, upon a re-watch something to stuck out to me that I thought meant a lot for Notre Dame.

Virginia Tech had just missed the first of their two field goals mentioned above and the Irish led by 8 points thanks to that long Dexter touchdown. Three plays after the missed field goal the Irish were faced with a 3rd & 1 from their own 39-yard line. The Hokies came down with 8 in the box and looked like they will overwhelm Notre Dame’s 6 blockers.

Virginia Tech looks tricked as if they were expecting a pass and Dexter was this close to running for another long touchdown. The Irish would continue this drive with a touchdown, took control of the game hereafter, and I think this one run allowed the offense to breath a lot more in a way that wasn’t working in the first half.

3 STARS

1 RB Dexter Williams – The number one star in all of our hearts, too.

2 DE Khalid Kareem – Made the biggest play of the game with a forced fumble and also totaled 2.5 TFL and 1.5 sacks.

3 WR Miles Boykin – Rumbling, bumbling, stumbling his way to a huge year.

FINAL NOTES

During the game this counted as a ranked win on the road–and came with it some historical stats–yet the Hokies are no longer ranked after Saturday. Still, I would think they should win their next 4 games and have a good shot at a 8-3 (game cancelled due to the hurricane) final record. This is largely due to a pretty unimpressive schedule–this Hokies team is probably okay and not much more.

I can’t believe how deep the Irish went into the defensive depth chart in this game, and didn’t pay the price. The amount of super young defenders with minimal experience being throw into this game really shows how well the coaches have prepared them to play. The complete 180 from the BVG era just 2 years to now has been amazing.

I was impressed with Avery Davis’ lone carry of the game for 5 yards, and it was a tough 5 yards. I was surprised he never got another opportunity.

Was this the first game without a really bad drop from a pass catcher?

Something to think about for the future and the offense taking an extra step or two is developing a fourth wide receiver. With the ascendancy of Boykin we’re seeing a No. 1 wideout emerging with Finke and Claypool providing decent work behind him. The fourth leading receiver in receptions is currently a tie between Kevin Austin and Michael Young with 3 catches, hopefully this changes.

The +1.4 yards per play differential does a good job of showing how the Irish were better despite being out-gained by 3 total yards and allowing Virginia Tech to accumulate 441 total yards, the most surrendered by Notre Dame this season.

Game one with Tranquill’s hand all wrapped up seemed to go pretty well, right?

Brian Kelly is usually overly optimistic about injuries. Today, he threw out the possibility that defensive end Daelin Hayes could miss 6 weeks if his symptoms from a ‘stinger’ don’t improve. In response, it looks like the defense will use true freshman Justin Ademilola sparingly and move over Ade Ogundeji and Jamir Jones from the strong-side to offer help on the weak-side.

With Brandon Wimbush getting the mop-up duty in this game we move one step closer to Phil Jurkovec taking a redshirt. Although, if things get out of hand this upcoming Saturday I would expect Jurkovec to get some playing time against his hometown college.

Next weekend won’t be a let down but do everything in your power to make sure Notre Dame doesn’t get caught in a look-ahead moment. No, I believe Pitt is in big trouble.