I feel so dumb. I let myself get a little cocky predicting Notre Dame would easily cover a 21-point spread in a rivalry when the program almost never does that. We have been down this road so many times before with a tired team dealing with exams struggling against a statistically poor team with a quarterback who grew up a huge Notre Dame fan. It was all too predictable and frustrating all the same.
Let’s review the much-too-close victory over the Pitt Panthers.
Stat Package
| STAT | IRISH | PITT |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 19 | 14 |
| Yards | 344 | 242 |
| Passing | 264 | 126 |
| Rushing | 80 | 116 |
| 1st Downs | 23 | 14 |
| 3rd/4th Conversions | 4/14 | 8/17 |
| Yards Per Play | 4.9 | 4.0 |
| Turnovers | 2 | 0 |
PASSING OFFENSE
Hear me out, Book when he actually threw the ball was quite good against Pitt. I know nearly everyone would say it didn’t feel like he completed 81% of his 32 attempts but that stat isn’t lying. The problem, especially in the first half, was that Book did not look comfortable pulling the trigger, was jittery in the pocket, was reluctant to look down field, and ran around for poor scrambles, in addition to taking 3 sacks for a killer minus-32 yards.
Thankfully, the 2nd half was much better. Book did throw a second interception when his arm was hit on the follow through. Otherwise, the ball didn’t hit the ground as the Irish quarterback finished the last 2 quarters going 13 of 14 for 158 yards with a pair of touchdown passes. Book also completed his final 10 passes after the aforementioned second interception.
The starting trio of Boykin, Claypool, and Finke all gained at least 60 receiving yards which is nice. Even Alize Mack had 6 catches (although pretty quietly) which increases his season total to 25 catches. That should move Mack into the Top 10 for tight end catches across the nation.
I thought the line was decent in pass protection. A couple gaffes but generally pretty clean and not helped out by Book being super skittish in the early going, including not seeing blitzes or moving on to his hot-read quickly enough.
RUSHING OFFENSE
Following the game, Brian Kelly said this should’ve been the game where they threw the ball more, maybe 45 to 50 times. Let’s understand that a smart gameplan taking advantage of your own strengths and the opponent’s weaknesses is a good idea. However, I’m not sure how exciting it is to hear that from Kelly when there were 17 carries given to running backs and roughly 45 called pass plays from the offense.
It’s one thing to go into a game ceding something on the ground to Alabama but a really bad Pitt team?
Granted, the offense was playing from behind most of the game after Pitt’s ridiculously long 1st drive immediately shortened the game. So I get wanting to move things going through the air ASAP and forgetting the running backs a little bit. However, Dexter was actually sneaky successful in this game despite having really modest numbers (31 yards) and that’s because he converted a bunch of short-yardage opportunities.
Irish Running Success
Williams – 7 of 13 (53.8%)
Book – 2 of 12 (16.6%)
Jones – 2 of 4 (50.0%)
Finke – 1 of 2 (50.0%)
TOTAL – 12 of 31 (38.7%)
My thing is the offense is going to reach its fullest potential only if they occasionally are able to grind things out on the ground when called for. The first half of this game seemed like a good spot to do that and the coaching staff didn’t really seem too interested in trying. Although, to be fair Book’s game eventually turned around as noted. I just think the one-dimensional aspect portends bad things.
A 35.7% run success rate last week and 38.7% rate against Pitt is really concerning.
On Saturday, a lot of blame falls at the feet of Ian Book. At times, he’s been a sneaky efficient runner with the ability to make a defense pay with his feet. In recent weeks, we’ve seen the bad side. He’s bailing out of the pocket too soon, making poor decisions with where he begins his runs, and far too often attempts to get around the edge of the defense with poor results. Against Pitt, he had nearly 10 “carries” from scrambling that went down in the book as stuffs for the defense.
I think we’re beginning to see the limits of Book’s athleticism and frankly it should probably be reigned in a little bit. Somehow, the offense needs to turn these ‘lost’ carries into successful passing attempts (the most likely route given Kelly’s comments) or just play a tad more conservative and give the ball to the running backs more often.
A lack of explosiveness was a big problem. Book’s only 2 successful carries went for 22 and 15 yards, respectively. The successful carries by everyone else went for 13, 7, and 7 yards with nothing over 4 yards!
Also, Book needed to keep running and pick up that first down instead of sliding late in the game. That was another moment in the game with poor results by the Irish quarterback.
PASSING DEFENSE
Pitt’s passing offense was supposed to suck and yup, that checked out. The Panthers almost exclusively relied on a short passing game that gave their running game no breathing room whatsoever. Kenny Pickett picked (ha) on lanky Irish corner Donte Vaughn (rough, rough game for him) before he was benched in favor of freshman Tariq Bracy. Otherwise, there wasn’t much to write home about.
Pickett finished with a horrible 4.5 yards per attempt mark and didn’t have a completion longer than 16 yards. Losing to an offense with this inept of a passing game would’ve been outrageous.
How about Julian Okwara with 7 quarterback hurries and the defensive line crushing Pitt’s dreams on their final series?
RUSHING DEFENSE
This game was close and we likely won’t remember the defense mostly dominating Pitt’s offense. This was a 3-drive game for the Panthers resulting in a touchdown and a pair of missed field goals. They put 80.1% of their yardage in those 3 drives and surrounded it with a whole bunch of nothing.
Pitt did rip off some quality runs with a few 6-yard runs, a pair of 7-yard runs, one run for 8 yards, 3 that went for 9 yards, with long runs of 16 and 17 yards. They just couldn’t find any consistency, case in point 6 of their 14 total successful runs came on their first and only touchdown drive.
Panthers Running Success
Hall – 8 of 10 (80.0%)
Ollison – 4 of 16 (25.0%)
Ffffrench – 1 of 1 (100.0%)
Aston – 1 of 1 (100.0%)
Pickett – o for 2 (0.0%)
TOTAL – 14 of 30 (46.6%)
Judging from the above, Pitt should’ve given the ball to Darrin Hall more. Ollison was really ineffective after the first series and just didn’t have the speed to threaten the Irish defense at any point of the field.
SPECIAL TEAMS
Hopefully you’re sitting down. Obviously, the kickoff return touchdown was really embarrassing to open the second half and made this game closer than it needed to be. So too did Nicco Fertitta’s offsides penalty on Pitt’s opening drive allowing them to forego a punt and continue for their only offensive touchdown.
We also saw a failed 2-point conversion a bit too early for most tastes, and we’ll file that in this special teams section. It’s also cruel to see Jonathan Doerer back out there on kickoffs only to watch it come back for a touchdown and Justin Yoon have to go back out there and apparently tweak something in his leg.
The Irish were lucky Pitt missed 2 field goals and failed on a hilarious fake punt.
TURNING POINT
I don’t want to get too fancy this week, once Ian Book hit Miles Boykin for a 35-yard touchdown pass and the Irish took their first lead the game seemed to turn. Pittsburgh had showed no signs for 3+ quarters that they’d be able to move the ball effectively enough to score a touchdown in response with just under 6 minutes remaining.
3 STARS
1 DE Julian Okwara – He was a menace and made a great tackle in space in coverage to get the ball back for Notre Dame’s eventual game-winning touchdown.
2 DE Khalid Kareem – Notched another sack.
3 WR Chris Finke – Ran really hard with the ball in his hands for a career-high receptions.
FINAL NOTES
Not a good day for the heavy-set umpire who got in the way on 2 Notre Dame attempts to make a tackle. I focused on him during a re-watch and let’s just say he was trying his best to move as little as possible out there.
On the one hand, a quarterback sneak would’ve been my preferred choice on this (nearly) fateful missed 4th down at the end of the game. So, I get criticizing the play-call. However, Notre Dame has been money on these play-action bootlegs with Book. He usually pulls the trigger quickly and for some reason pulled it down. I thought it was pretty clear he had Weishar for a first down and even a quick pass to Wright likely moves the chains too. Instead, Book (who may be taught this) believes his legs can pick up the first down if he gets the edge. He did not get the edge.
I thought it was kind of funny watching Boykin’s late touchdown and how he falls down for no apparent reason.
These games suck because we know college football really isn’t just about winning and losing. It’s a reminder that every team (save maybe Alabama and even then?) is mortal and can lose any given week. Even though there are exceptions to the rule this is a data point that suggests the Irish could very well drop a game to someone like Northwestern or Syracuse.
Having said that, there’s something to be said for overcoming adversity. So much was not going right in this game and so many of the upset boxes were being checked in the first half. Instead, the Irish rallied and played much better in the second half to win. That’s also another data point.
Good news in the YPA department. The season defense mark dropped from 4.62 down to 4.55 and is now the second lowest mark in the post-Holtz era only bested by the 2002 squad. With rather modest offensive opponents coming up in Navy, Northwestern, and Florida State there’s a chance the defensive YPP threatens to dip below the 4.4 mark and “Notre Dame shouldn’t lose during the regular season with this defense” territory.
Bad news the offensive YPP fell -0.14 (ouch!) to 5.80 on the season with the worst mark of 2018 since the Michigan opener. This Pitt game was also the 4th worst mark since Chip Long arrived behind Michigan, Miami, and Georgia. All 3 of those games were losses but this Pitt defense should not be in the same conversation as those teams.
I’m still a little skeptical of this offense. That may be too much of a gut reaction to watching them perform against Pitt in a look ahead spot. Still, a trending unsuccessful run game, below average deep passing game, and continued over-reliance on Book’s supreme accuracy make me believe the offense will cough up a game at some point during the regular season. When I think about the defense, going 11-1 would hurt a lot. When I think about the offense, going 10-2 still doesn’t seem crazy. Do people feel like we’re out of the woods where this isn’t possible? I’m not sure I’m quite to that point right now.
I am 100% convinced the blistering sun affected both teams in the first half, particularly those moving south more into the circle of fire. This was a really poor uniform matchup for contrast sake and I truly wonder if it bothered Book looking down field because his longest completion in the first 4 series was just 8 yards. Also, a weird helmet note. I think every single Pitt player was wearing Riddell SpeedFlex helmets which is unusually conforming. Not only that, but Pitt has decided to go with a truncated helmet stripe in favor of placing their stickers in the bottom middle of the back while also attempting to white-out the Riddell wordmark on the back bumper. Strange.
Another funny event was Pickett trying to sell a personal foul for being touched out of bounds. Dude, we can all understand gamesmanship, but you tried to pull that flag for way too long. Peel that Brady Quinn fathead off your bedroom wall.
>”However, I’m not sure how exciting it is to hear that from Kelly when there were 17 carries given to running backs and roughly 45 called pass plays from the offense.”
Are you sure all 45 of those were “called” passes and not checks or RPOs? The sense I got during the game was that Book was making the check into a pass, or pulling the ball on an RPO and passing it instead of handing off/running it. My sense from Kelly’s comments is that instead of calling a run or RPO and the onus being on Book to check/choose the pass option, he’s saying they should have called more actual pass plays once they saw what the defense was doing. Which, maybe they didn’t plan to since Book didn’t hit many downfield passes last week, I don’t know.
On another note, Book is the master of the 3 yard throw. Which paradoxically makes me so happy since Wimbush couldn’t hit any of those.
I’m sure some of them were. I still don’t like hearing that we will give up running before ever really trying. It won’t lead to good things.
Right. I think the answer may ALSO include calling more straight up running plays. Basically, if Book is checking/RPOing into passes and it’s not working, take the decision away from him and call an intentional pass or run, because he’s making the wrong calls and you want to force the issue, either way. Because even if he’s checking into a pass based on who is in the box and it’s the “right call” he’s not checking into effective pass plays. And vicey versy.
If it was RPOs, then those aren’t designed to challenge the defense deep, and 8-9 defenders near the line of scrimmage disrupt those as well. So Kelly’s comment makes sense to me if (and only if) he was saying that more of those passes should have been calls to threaten them down the seam or deep instead of a pass off an RPO that didn’t really counter what Pitt was doing. But I agree on the sentiment about not abandoning the run. Mostly because we’ve seen this before, and it never went well.
I agree wholeheartedly with your concerns about run success.
I know we’ve had success all season with play-action on 4th and short but I think it’s too risky to rely on it in crucial moments. With the talent disparity, a QB sneak or an RB dive should be a gimme.
I was rolling my eyes for most of the game but that 4th Down play nearly made me scream. If Book won’t throw to open receivers and tries run for the pylon, we should put Wimbush in on these plays.
Ok. Rant over.
It was nice to see Book bounce back from a rough half. I always forget it’s his fifth start or so. I think the last two weeks show that our offense is so complicated and it seems to rise and fall with the QB. I think the bye week comes at a great time and I hope the coaches do some soul-searching. Hopefully Jafar’s return will help too.
In my opinion, “That Old Crap Win Feeling” was The Righteous Brothers best song.
I know it’s live by the sword, die by the sword but Book needs to learn that sometimes a throw away is the best play. If his stats had read, 26 of 36 instead of 26 of 32, ND might have been better off. Sims said at the half that Book had open receivers, I have no idea why he didn’t see them.
Are you saying our Book needs to learn to read better?
Wouldn’t it be 22 of 32 instead of 26 of 32?
Same number of completions, but a few extra throwaways instead of scramble oob
or sacks.
Two plays that really stand out in my mind, the 14 yard sack that looked like Book was literally running the wrong way. I thought for a moment we were going the opposite direction and I started cheering because Book was gone! Then I realize, holy crap, he’s actually RUNNING the wrong way to get sacked. WTF was THAT? Then, to try to convert a 3/14 we run a designed QB draw???? Come on guys. We’re better than that.
Yeah, in the moment I was thinking that the QB draw on 3rd and 14 was leftover in the playbook from Wimbush and they didn’t catch it!
A couple of weeks ago Book did the “fish hook” escape where he spins and curls to his left and it worked beautifully, but I remember Flutie saying that technically he shouldn’t do it and that long sack showed why. Book spun, bailed left but realized there was a defender right there and just sprinted the wrong direction for a 15 yard loss. Something for him to learn from.
Vaughn was getting abused (as much as Pitt is capable of doing, anyway). Get well soon, Troy.
This was an excruciating game. When they scored the TD on the kickoff to start the second half I stopped watching live and went over to LSU-Georgia—a good game, by the way.
Then I watched the rest of our game when it was over—much more relaxing that way.
Book looked bad on the first 2 possessions, especially that run the wrong way sack. On the other hand, I disagree with some of the comments re the offensive line. Whether it was Pitt’s scheme or whatever, Book was under a lot of pressure and there were few running lanes all day. Second half was better in that Book settled down and pass protection got better. Eichenberg and Kraemer looked slow and largely ( no pun intended) innefective to me. And Davis watched a rusher blow right past him to sack Book, on what I think was his only appearance?
Good to win though. I was encouraged that Book’s deep ball to Boykin was right on the money in a money situation, and Boykin made a nice, hands catch. I didn’t know he had the speed to get open deep.
All things considered, I like our blowout wins better.
Oh, and I thought 35 was decent, better than Vaughn showed.
Georgia didn’t really look competitive in that game. Good result for us though.
Agree with you though that it was difficult to watch the first 3 quarters.
Yeah, starting the 2nd half giving up the kickoff TD, followed by an interception was too much for my nerves
That was the type of game I was worried would be the norm for Book. His feet seem to be too happy at times and his scrambling doesn’t often lead to very productive plays.
But, to his credit the completion percentage was high and you’re right that pass to Boykin was a thing of beauty. They needed that earlier in the game to relax everyone and maybe back Pitt off a bit. Never got it. In fact, I might need another view but I don’t think (seemingly) they took many deep shots. The ones against Tech might not have connected but I was encouraged that they were at least attempting to keep them honest and also try for the home run. Didn’t really feel like they did that enough against Pitt, but admittedly that might be an improper memory.
Thank you for the write up, Eric. I missed the first half so that’s helpful.
With respect to the lack of explosiveness, that is probably just a bad luck day – explosiveness is notoriously unpredictable (sort of tautologically true in the English sense, but definitely true in the statistical sense with respect to college football).
Given how well passing worked in the second half and how much Pitt was (I think) loading up the box, why do you feel like this is “ceding” ground to Pitt? Even Alabama will pass when the numbers dictate it. But, as my parenthetical expression suggests, I may have overestimated the number of defenders in the box
I thought the same thing about Book to Weishar on 4th and short. He was open!
And yes, the game today was a sign that we are very mortal and could lose to other mediocre to bad teams.
On the plus side, that fake punt call was so blindingly stupid. Punting from mid-field when you’re down with a couple minutes left – no one’s going to be looking for a fake there!
We opened the game with 3 straight passes, running backs got carries only on 4 out of the first 17 snaps and the 4th drive of the game featured zero running back carries on 11 snaps which ended on a pair of sacks on Book.
The backs weren’t doing phenomenal (Dex opened with 2 negative runs) but they picked up a pair of short-yardage conversions, Jones ran for 7 yards, and then were largely ignored. They never got the chance to try and calm down the offense and help Book out.
I’m just worried about the offense getting really out of balance.
I just watched tape of our first two offensive possessions. I can see your concern. We ran into boxes that were *not* stacked. Our line was just not holding blocks (or in some cases not even making them initially) and so the running game struggled. So if you believe running more would fix that (not unreasonable belief) that would help. And if you don’t believe running more would fix that (also reasonable) then we are indeed in a dark spot for this season. Given those choices, I would try running a bit more when the numbers seem okay.
But yeah, mentally I’d been telling myself that Pitt had numbers, but I don’t think that was true. Book just made some really bad decisions (the first pick) and some extraordinarily bad decisions (like running backwards, a comment I did not understand until I saw the tape).
That is a good point, I think the line had a lot to do with it. Also, not for nothing, the Pitt defense was playing with a lot of passion and intensity. They bottled up some momentum and were playing with emotion, gotta give them some credit too. They’re not exactly the ’85 Bears or anything though, so it’s perhaps a valid counter-point that a playoff hopeful should be able to overwhelm and steal momentum back from a middling team.
Yeah and obviously we didn’t try to run it much, but every time we did it seemed like there were 3 guys in the backfield crushing the Rb before he got to the LOS. Kind of like Miami last year, I would have like to see maybe a little more downhill, quick hitting rushing. But I don’t blame the staff for getting away from those slow developing runs.
I’m more sanguine on the offense than E (though this is generally the case). Well more and less. I more sanguine on Book and the receivers. Good lord Ian and Chip, can we please get Mack and Kmet running vertically? I think this would play to the TE strengths, help out the run game, stress the D vertically, and the QB doesn’t need huge arm strength to make those throws. I think the WRs are good. We just need to hit them. I’m less sanguine on the OL. At times I wonder what they were practicing in the offseason and I don’t think they’ll show well in the playoff. Book didn’t help them out with his running the wrong way, but Baker Mayfield had those plays too and the OL just were not doing anything in the running game. I think back to Murtaughs comment about nobody along the OL really being an NFL talent. I hope they can improve over the next couple weeks.
This game definitely brought us down to earth a bit. The question is if the players and coaches can work on some of our shortcomings over the bye week and build towards being a better team in November than September. That is something that Kelly has notoriously not been good at during his tenure.
I look at it more as limping in to the bye week and getting out a win after finals than coming down to earth. Also Pitt had more film on Book than anyone yet. Hopefully against bye and Navy, we can recalibrate and improve OL, self scout QB tendencies and areas for improvement, and get our RBs healthy. The bye comes at the perfect time for all that.
There’s a meme on NDNation that Kelly’s teams historically face down the stretch because, once teams get enough film on us, they figure out how to stop the offense, and there are no adjustments to that. It does have an air of truth, in spite of the source. I share your hope that there is some self scouting and looking for ways to avoid that shut down and embarrassing slide in November
ND’s record under BK by month Sep/Oct/Nov/Overall
’10: 1-3/3-2/4-0
’11: 2-2/3-1/3-1
’12: 4-0/4-0/4-0
’13: 3-2/3-0/2-2
’14: 4-0/2-1/0-4
’15: 4-0/3-1/3-1
’16: 1-3/2-2/1-3
’17: 4-1/3-0/2-2
So of every year he has been here, only ’14 and ’17 were years that teams were worse in Nov than the rest of the year. It wouldn’t surprise me if part of that had to do with the competition. We never play USC or Stanford in September.
Maybe you could include ’13. We did lost to Pitt in November (how timely), with no other losses to non ranked teams earlier.
Overall: 67% in Sep, 76% Oct, 60% Nov (someone feel free to double check my calcs)
Excluding ’14 and ’17: 60% in Sep, 75% Oct, 70%
’14 and ’17 were epic collapses, basically due to coaching (’14 injuries lead to a collapse when we only had one player able to organize that awful defense). But overall, this narrative probably comes more from the fact that we have been really good in October, so generally there has been a step down in November from October.
I’ll try to compare this to some other teams later today if I get time. I would guess most teams have winning % that look like Sep > Oct > Nov just based on schedule.
Well it doesn’t seem to be overly consistent. Not sure anyone is still reading this thread, but here are the win% by month over the past 5 seasons for some random schools that we have played, who are either peers, or aspirational peers.
Clemson: 89/90/85
Stanford: 76/74/75
OU: 89/76/90
UM: 81/67/48 (obviously going to be worse because of tOSU). But lolz all the same.
MSU: 78/71/70
Only one good year in he last five. Balis was partly brought in to address this concern.
BVG was also fired to address that concern.
I still can’t get over that fake field goal attempt by Pitt with the game literally on the line. The fact that they dressed up their backup QB in the only unnamed jersey on roster somehow makes that even more pathetic. Narduzzi apparently inherited the worst aspects of Dantonio with none of the actual coaching acumen.
He wanted little giants 2.0 so badly
It was a fake punt, not a FG, but yes.
Narduzzi is just all sorts of bad.
The sequel has to be a little different.
Ah, right. The funny thing is that Dantonio ran a fake punt AND a fake field goal yesterday but since he’s a good coach they won.
So here is an important aspect of the interpretation of this game Did or did not Pitt sell out to stop the run? I am not sure I buy Eric’s point about we should have been able to run the ball at least somewhat better even if Pitt did stack the box against the run, it seems to me numbers can often be numbers. But no matter, the issue I want to raise is whether Pitt actually did do this. I see among the recent posts at least one of us (Orlok) said that they did not. I can’t really read those replays well enough to tell.
But BK certainly doubled down on this point in today’s Sunday presser, see below. So — can one of 18 Stripe’s superb analysts take a comprehensive look and assess this? The answer is obviously relevant to the concerns about the running game, which just thinking they might be true gives me a massive sick feeling if it pans out that way (I have nightmares of BK shutting down Chip Long’s preferences, etc. and the return of empty backfield as a staple).
From today:
Q. You struggled with the running game yesterday. What was Pitt doing that maybe made things difficult for your offensive line? And are you anticipating any moves in the offensive line coming after the off week?
BRIAN KELLY: Yeah, I mean, there were a couple plays that we wish we could have blocked up a little bit better, certainly, but all in all, I think Pitt’s plan was to exert a lot of pressure on the running game, and they left themselves vulnerable in the passing game. You know, any time you throw it for 80 percent completion, you just have to put more points on the board. That’s where we fell short. It wasn’t that we fell short in the running game. We took advantage of their aggressiveness in the running game by, again, hitting 80 percent of our passes and having chances to turn some quick game into some big plays.
Nobody in this building, including myself, is concerned about the lack of a running game. There are some players that we wish that we executed better, but the way they were configured and the way they wanted to play this game, it was going to make it difficult to have a sustained running game in this game.
I don’t know if I take him at face value there. If you’re allowing the defense to pick and choose how they want you to play the game and then you play it and win by scoring with 5 minutes left (and owe a heck of a lot to the defensive side of the ball for keeping it close) then it’s not very re-assuring to not be concerned about the running game given the issues the tackles are having and the huge injury loss to arguably the best lineman on the team.
Then again, they’ll be healthier after the bye with Armstrong back and the line will have more time to get more cohesive. So perhaps there’s not much reason to be worried moving forward, but I’m certainly a bit concerned to play any team with a really good front 7.
I don’t think you’re addressing Kelly’s point though. He said that they sold out against the run, so we attacked through the air AND we didn’t do a good enough job of it. Not that we took what they gave us and were satisfied. Hopefully everyone can use the next couple weeks to get healthier and better.
Thanks to you both, and you both make valid points. But my question was more to assessing what actually occurred. Did Pitt really and pretty much continuously stack its defenses to shut down the run?
It definitely looked that way to me, lots of players close to the line of scrimmage and even when they got spread out they were often bringing corners on blitzes, which seemed to confound the blocking schemes whether it was called to be run or pass.
My response to Eric was based on the first two drives, where Pitt did not stack the box (or rather, we didn’t run into it when they did). But after I posted that, I watched a few more drives, and Pitt had seven guys in there – usually charging the LOS – an awful lot. So I would say they were stacking the box for most of the game.
Edit: I still think we need to be concerned about the offensive line. In passing situations, Pitt seemed to really drive them back, which contributed to Book’s discomfort. But watching the tape, I think the #1 factor behind our struggles was Book’s poor decisions – especially, as Eric has mentioned, deciding when to run.
Pete Sampsons “what we learned” article from this week on The Athletic, as well as Mike Frank’s podcast, discussed the running issue at length, including play calling, execution, what Pitt’s D was doing, and parsing BK’s press conference comments. Both are recommended.
The overall consensus between those sources is that there is some reason for concern re the running game (from both playcall and execution sides), but nothing to do but see what happens from here.
Given that the LBs were coming straight downhill and usually blitzing, the way to stop that is for the TE to run vertically into the vacant space as a hot route. We never did that.
Will the next tackle Alize Mack breaks be his first?
A bit off topic, but how freaking crazy is Vandy’s Coach Mason? He does not have an off switch.
I saw that incident in Saturday’s game where both coaches got into with each other, and then the teams started to come onto the field against each other. It’s really hard to tell what was said between the coaches. However, I suspect Mason was ticked about the fact that his player got targeted and was obviously hurt as a result.
Eric, I don’t really understand why you wanted ND to hand off more to the RBs, when they only averaged 2 or 3 YPC. Maybe the frustration with the O line may have been the target? You are correct saying that the O line should have used Pitt as pinballs in their blocking.
Their success rate was more impressive than their rushing average. I thought the line wasn’t blocking any better in the pass game than the run game, either. Like I mentioned above, I’m a bit worried we are moving toward a lack of patience with the run game and falling in love with Book’s efficiency as a passer.
The way this offense, and really this season, derails is to make us get away from balance. I am afraid if the same thing as you, Eric. Hopefully we can avoid Air Kelly
I just rewatched the game. The problem with the run game was the line not blocking. Run blocking sucked, somewhat worse than pass blocking, which occasionally was ok, thus contributing to Book’s completion percentage. On the other hand, the three straight sacks on Book when we got a 1st down on the Pittsburgh 9 yard line in the second quarter was strictly on pass blocking. First two the line just got blown out, the third one Davis was late seeing a blitzer off the edge and somewhat flinched rather than blocking him and whiffed, with Book getting crushed from behind.
Kraemer is easily our worst Oline blocker, although Eichenberg is hot on his heels, at least in this game. If our line blocks, our run game works. It didn’t block effectively vs Pitt. As it was, Jones and Williams got some tough yards pretty much on their own.
On defense, Vaughn was our worst tackler by far—he looks weak in addition to poor technique. Tariq was much better when he finally was put in. On the Dline, Hinish is markedly slower than the others. Plays very hard but seems a step or two off.
Thanks, Kiwifan. So not encouraging. As somebody else said, at current trends we are gonna be in serious trouble when we run up against a team with a really good front 7. Unless the issue is cohesion and adjusting to loss of Bars? Or is it just lack of talent?
The good news is that we might not run into a team with a good front 7 until Alabama in the national semis, and literally no one will be surprised if they straight up murder us.
Well, KG… yep, I guess that is sort of good news… but given I still carry the extreme trauma of having flown Paris to Miami for an overnight at the end of 2012 (with the optimism of having seen us whip the Tide 5 straight times in decades prior)… I am sort of not really pumped up by this good news.
What if we lose another close one to Clemson in the semis… no, that recalls another hurricane trauma… ooo, (note the double meaning there, if only comprehensible for ND fans)
Oh, I was there as well, and seated in a Bama section, too. I have more PTSD from that than from Afghanistan. My butt will be firmly planted on my couch this time, but also we have the advantage of muted expectations. Success this year is getting there. It shows proof of concept. One of our biggest hurdles is convincing players AND future coaches that ND is a viable playoff contender, as long as they do the work. Getting there, even with a team that isn’t great (I like our team, but if we were purely ranking on who I think would win, I’m not sure I’d have them 4th), shows that it’s possible. And that is huge. And who knows, maybe Tua’s got an imaginary dead girlfriend who will mysteriously show up and throw him off his game.
Pro Football Focus disagrees with you pretty strongly, as they had Eichenberg in their five highest performers (regardless of team or unit) in this game. So does Jamie at ISD, who says Eichenberg’s problem this season has been consistency but when he’s been on he’s been really good. I think Eichenberg has caught a ton of heat from fans this season because (a) he’s a new starter following McGlinchey and (b) Winovich ate him up in his first start and it colored perception of him for some. He’s going to be fine.
Kraemer is fine as a run blocker until you ask him to work in space, which he obviously isn’t very good at. He was glacier-slow getting out to block on the screen for Dex, which turned a potential TD into a TFL. They need to stop asking him to pull, but that’s tough too because pulling guards is such a huge part of Long’s offense. Not sure what the answer is there.
Somebody said the coaches have kept the blocking schemes pretty simple since Bars went down and Pitt took advantage of that. I don’t know enough to agree or disagree with that, but it sounds plausible and like something the staff might target now. We’ll see what happens coming out of the bye.
I don’t think it’s unusual for a QB starting his 5th(?) game to run into a defensive concept that confuses him. He made one really bad throw and the other INT was not his fault. Book having a strong 2nd half is encouraging. He seemed to have a better idea of what he was seeing. Hopefully this was a learning experience for him and his development continues.
Books’s splits by half for the season (with a hat tip to the excellent cfbstats.com):
1st half – 71% comp. rate, 7.7 yards per att, 3 TD, 2 INT, 143.3 rating
2nd half – 81% comp. rate, 9.4 yards per att, 7 TD, 1 INT, 202.4 rating
Jimmy Clausen’s transcendent 2009 season set the Notre Dame standard for passer rating at 161.4, to add some context to those numbers. Book’s first half passer rating would be roughly top 50 nationally. His second half rating would be third, behind only Tua and Kyler Murray.
One conclusion you could reasonably draw from those splits is that when he regroups after seeing something new, he picks it apart. If that’s the case, that’s an extremely good sign for his long-term development, as the universe of things he hasn’t seen shrinks more and more.
Overall, by the way, he’s 12th nationally in passer rating. His 75.2% completion rate is 1st nationally, and if it holds would be the second-highest in NCAA history behind only Colt McCoy’s 76.7% in 2008.
I usually head over to the opponent’s SB Nation site on Mondays to try to read their live game feeds..
– Pitt fans think Doug is a huge ND homer – but still think he’s horrible.
– They were also getting sick of hearing how Pickett grew up an ND fan – but blamed it on NBC always promoting ND
– Where ND fans see only giving up 7 points to Pitt as a sign of a good defense, Pitt sees only scoring 7 points as a sign of a bad offense.
– They also thought the fake punt was a not good call
At least everyone can agree that Doug is awful, that we didn’t want to hear about Pickett’s boyhood ND fandom, and that the fake punt was dumb.
I guess someone thinks Doug isn’t awful.
Doug’s mom is an avid 18S reader.
Additionally, big ups to Pitt on those uni’s. Looking fresh in a close loss is much better than wearing drab-gold and blue in a close loss.