Notre Dame’s offense needed a spark on Saturday afternoon and received a jolt of TNT via the controversial insertion of redshirt sophomore quarterback Ian Book. While keeping Brandon Wimbush on the bench the Irish offense exploded for one of the best road game performances in recent years, perhaps recasting the future of the offense as an enormous rivalry game awaits in South Bend against undefeated Stanford.
Let’s recap the win over Wake Forest.
Stat Package
| STAT | ND | WF |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 56 | 27 |
| Yards | 566 | 398 |
| Passing | 325 | 139 |
| Rushing | 241 | 249 |
| 1st Downs | 28 | 27 |
| 3rd/4th Conversions | 5/11 | 11/21 |
| Yards Per Play | 7.4 | 4.3 |
| Turnovers | 1 | 1 |
PASSING OFFENSE
It’s amazing what can happen when you don’t play with one of the least accurate quarterbacks in major college football. Look, all I argued was that Ian Book deserved a chance to start and/or play a significant amount of this game. Brandon Wimbush has been such a potent runner in his career that we forgot playing quarterback is more than flashing athleticism with your legs. Although I thought Book’s skill-set could be a good fit I never saw this type of performance coming.
Plainly, Book’s accuracy, decisiveness, and decision-making completely transformed the offense. It may be hyperbolic to say he played a perfect game but Book was nearly flawless for large stretches of the game. His worst decision may have been a ball thrown behind Chris Finke on 4th down on the game’s second series.
With a cool 25 completions, Book equaled 68% of Wimbush’s completions through the first 3 games and spread the ball out to 10 different pass-catchers. Book’s 325 yards were 81.2% of Wimbush’s passing yardage through the prior 3 games. Despite fears that the passing game wouldn’t flourish because of a lack of a deep threat, Book finishes with a zesty 9.5 yards per attempt stat line. Turns out, getting the ball into the hands of Irish playmakers results in good things!
The line protected really well, allowing only one sack and 3 pressures. For the most part, Book didn’t seem all that bothered by Wake Forests’s pass rush and calmly ran away from pressure on a couple of occasions.
Everything looked so much smoother (including some successful RPO’s) with Book going 4 of 6 on third/fourth down for 83 yards which included 2 incompletions, an 8-yard pass that was short of the sticks, a touchdown pass to Brock Wright, and the long pass-play to Michael Young…from a screen pass.
RUSHING OFFENSE
If I may quibble, I wasn’t stoked about the heavy-passing for most of this game before it got out of hand. This was a certified blowout with lots of garbage time and the offense only ran the ball 52.6% of the time. In the first half, the Irish only ran the ball 38.4% of the time which is a bit scary and was masked by the fact that the offense was humming right along.
Does it really matter if the offense plays like it did? Of course not, but it’d be silly to think an effort like this will continue in every game and it could be quite the 180-degree turn from the run-heaviness we’ve seen with Wimbush in the past. Was this a “Get Book reps immediately and get the pass-catchers some confidence” game and we’ll see more reliance on the ground game starting next week?
Irish Run Success
Armstrong – 6 of 8 (75.0%)
Davis – 7 of 9 (77.7%)
Book – 7 of 9 (77.7%)
Jones – 4 of 7 (57.1%)
Smith – 2 of 2 (100.0%)
Jurkovec – 1 of 1 (100.0%)
Young – 0 of 1 (0.0%)
TOTAL – 27 of 37 (72.9%)
I ask because Notre Dame’s running game was (quietly?) one of the most successful of the entire Kelly era. Outside of Michael Young’s fumble setting up Notre Dame’s only minutes of trailing this season everyone had a very strong day on the ground. It was a bit of a weird game because I wasn’t expecting 241 rushing yards at the final whistle and yet at times it felt like Notre Dame’s line was toying with Wake Forest’s front seven.
This success was arguably more important than Book’s passing because said passing allowed the running game to flourish while the quarterback did just fine on the ground with 3 touchdowns.
It’s kind of exciting to welcome Dexter Williams back after a game like this but how many carries would he deserve right away?
PASSING DEFENSE
Wake Forests’s quarterback was a true freshman who got dinged up early and it showed. The Demon Deacons remained very committed to the run (31 pass attempts while trailing heavily for most of the game), had a long pass of 18 yards, and never got a rhythm going at all.
To Wake’s credit, 9 out of their 16 completions went for a first down which isn’t bad. Still, Notre Dame kept everything in front of them, the Wake quarterbacks did not look accurate down field, and they finished with a paltry 139 yards through the air.
RUSHING DEFENSE
If Notre Dame’s rushing attack was a bit strange to me, Wake’s was even weirder. If we’re honest, the Deacons walk-pass-option (who coined this in the game day Slack chat?) clearly bothered Notre Dame’s defense at times. The longest run of the year (23 yards, this run defense has been gooooood) was given up and there were about 10 really nice runs by Wake Forest before garbage time.
The problem for Wake was that starting quarterback Sam Hartman (16 carries, 11 yards) was demolished by the Irish and almost 1 in 6 of their team carries ended up a tackle for loss by Notre Dame. Yes, 10 tackles for loss by the good guys!
Deacons Run Success
Carney – 7 of 13 (53.8%)
Newman – 7 of 8 (87.5%)
Beal-Smith – 4 of 10 (40.0%)
Colburn – 4 of 10 (40.0%)
Hinton – 1 of 1 (100.0%)
Hartman – 3 of 13 (23.0%)
Dortch – 1 of 1 (100.0%)
Delaney – 0 of 2 (0.0%)
TOTAL – 27 of 58 (46.5%)
Once Notre Dame went up 49-13 the Deacons had a 39.4% success rate on the ground with 132 yards from a ton of carries. Their backup quarterbacks continually running draws for good gains added 127 more yards in garbage time which really doesn’t matter all that much.
Julian Okwara had the best game of his career with 1 sack and 3.5 tackles for loss total.
SPECIAL TEAMS
Notre Dame didn’t need field goals (7 for 7 in red zone touchdowns!!), Newsome was mortal with one good punt, Finke brought the punt return game back to life with a 52-yard scamper, and Greg Dortch was a complete non-factor. Huge win for the Irish! Oh, and Wake’s kicker missed 2 field goals.
TURNING POINT
The bubble screen to Michael Young that went for 66 yards both set up the game to be broken wide open (Irish went up 28-13 on the next play) and showed the Irish would be able to stretch Wake’s defense horizontally and make big plays. The game really never felt all that close after this point.
3 STARS
QB Ian Book – 368 total yards, 5 touchdowns, and not even a sniff of a turnover.
TE Alize Mack – Doubled his season output with 6 receptions, also tying a career game-high.
RB Jafar Armstrong – 98 rushing yards with only 1 unsuccessful carry.
FINAL NOTES
Notre Dame rotated on defense early and often against Wake Forest. Bo Bauer, Justin Ademilola, Jayson Ademilola, Jordan Genmark Heath, Houston Griffith, Nicco Fertitta, Jamir Jones, Jon Jones, and TaRiq Bracy all popped up on the stat sheet with a combined 31 tackles!
The career of Phil Jurkovec began with a single full series. He got to throw a deep ball that would’ve been more scrutinized for pass interference if the game were competitive. He also scampered for a 7-yard gain. I also didn’t hate Jahmir Smith getting 2 really nice runs late in the game.
We should mention that this was Avery Davis’ first extended action where he looked like a quality playmaker with 11 touches for 58 yards. Somehow, he’ll need to tap into his speed and athleticism more because he’s proven to play tough at his size. The offense just needs a little more explosiveness overall.
Notre Dame’s equipment manager left during the off-season for a job with helmet company Vicis and the Irish now have several players who wear these new helmets. I don’t know if something changed in game 4 or if it was something wacky with the scorching North Carolina sun but the Vicis helmets were all very clearly a richer shade of gold compared to the other player’s helmets.
Viscis helmets circled in red.
During the broadcast the announcers mentioned a couple times that the Irish coaching staff compares Book to Penn State’s Trace McSorley. I kind of see it. I also look at Book as a higher-achieving Jake Browning. I’ve never understood why Book got such a “backup” label in very limited time last year or why a couple bad plays doomed his chances for development. He might be a really, really good college quarterback.
So now what happens with Brandon Wimbush? Brian Kelly said in the run-up to the game that both quarterbacks would play and Wimbush remained on the sidelines in favor of Jurkovec getting some experience. For me, he’s clearly lost the starting job. The question remains does he still get a chance to see the field? I wouldn’t move him to a skill-position and I doubt that’s even on the table during the middle of the season. However, probably a max of 5 snaps per game could benefit him and the team. Next week against Stanford could be tough to bring him back, though. I do think we’ll see Book eventually struggle in the near future but I’m not sure how much it would take to put his development on hold in order to see Wimbush try to make plays with his feet.
I remember a post when Chip Long got hired about the RPO offense coming to ND. I also remember really looking forward to it, and then wondering where it was once the season started. Today I finally saw it! I think in some sense this is the first time we’ve really seen anything close to what Long wants to do.
It’s really amazing to see it run correctly instead of just guessing and having to out-athlete your way to a 2 yard gain
First of all, that picture at the top is pretty great. It looks like something that would be in a textbook about football.
Ian Book is like Tommy Rees if he ate those donuts from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze and became a beast version of himself. Wake Forest is not an impressive defense, but it’s just plainly obvious that he has some important QB skills we weren’t seeing from Wimbush and it helped the offense in a huge way.
One other thing that stood out to from this game was that there were some solid stretches where all three phases of the game were performing well in sequence and that’s when it rapidly became a blowout. So nice to not see the different units taking turns being bad.
Also, we can pretty much say goodbye to any strength of schedule arguments this year. FSU is a white hot dumpster fire, USC got blown out by bumbling Texas, which is weirdly hard to decipher because both teams are so talented yet awful, Virginia Tech just lost to a school that didn’t have a football team until after the recession. Somehow Stanford is the only legit top tier team on the schedule right now. College football might be currently possessed by some sort of demon.
If we take care of our business it won’t matter about SOS.
But a strong SOS would have given us a playoff shot at 11-1, barring chaos that’s off the table now.
I still think 11-1 would more likely put us in the playoff than not (read > 50% chance), but then I also expect “chaos,” it is college football after all.
Michigan may still be good. (although they will always and forevermore suck) Texas also beat a pretty decent TCU team yesterday, so maybe USC’s loss isn’t terrible. Agreed that our strength of schedule will be nowhere close to what it looks like based on the names.
Re the college football demon, I commented in the slack thread that it is starting to feel a little like 2007 (granted this was when it looked like OU and Stanford were going to lose)
Shall we start calling Ian “The Shredder?”
Going in I was a little concerned about this game. I didn’t know what to expect from Book. I mean all through spring and fall camp all we were told was BW was the better quarterback. Book looked far and away the better player today. Not only did he look better but he made our skill guys look better. I won’t get to excited about one game but my goodness Ian Book looked like a star today. Its going to take more efforts like today for me to fully jump on board especially with Stanford and Va Tech coming up. Hopefully our game next Saturday night is picked by College Game Day. It seems like every time College Game Day rolls into South Bend our crowd actually becomes a factor during games and we will need it to beat Stanford who will roll in sky high after stealing a game versus Oregon that they should have lost.
GameDay is going to Happy Valley.
And I’m not sure what else is on in two weeks, but VPI losing makes GameDay less likely to come to Blacksburg
OU/Texas & Auburn/MissSt – So I’d guess even if VT didn’t lose, they might have gone to one of those to games regardless
I dont think ESPN would go to ND twice in a year. They’re already having to hype a game theyre not broadcasting by doing it, I can’t imagine them doing it twice. I really dont give a rat’s ____ about that show but has it even ever gone to Tuscoloosa twice in a year?
While Wake’s kicker may only be credited with two misses, i was very pleased that he had the skills to miss one of those kicks twice.
Wake really needs to take that trick play out of the playbook. The one where they surprise the D by running the kicker on with 5 seconds on the play clock isn’t working
It’s going to be hard to top that as my favorite moment of comedy in my sports fandom all year, and possibly for years to come.
Being as it was nearly 5:00 am, I turned the TV off and went to sleep when the Ducks went up 31-21. Much to my surprise, you guys said the Tree was undefeated, so just watched the ESPN highlight 3 minutes clip. Oh my. Same old Stanford. Evoked some crazy bad memories — stupid fumbles, stupid INTs, stupid letting their TE’s make catches they shouldn’t…. Even to that patented D Shaw smirk. Yep, we are going to need a big showing from our crowd Saturday night. I am flying over the pond for this one, I hope our video board genius producer is up for it, whether College Gameday comes to town or not. Who could have figured how pivotal this game is for us.
I guess in terms of strength of schedule, we need to (choke, gasp, wheeze, wince) hope that scUM keeps playing well, the Tree as well — after we wipe the smirk off Shaw’s face.
Should be epic.
Sorry for being OT but the moment is strong. Thanks for the timely writeup, Eric.
I can’t decide if Stanford will come in stronger after that comeback win, or if they had lost and had something to prove. Anyway, they’ll probably be feeling good about themselves, and it seems like the type of game that can give a team some added mojo, so we’ll definitely need to bring our A game.
Yeah, definitely better for us that Stanford won that matchup, gives us another “premier game.” Also, if they were going to win, couldn’t have been better I think. They looked beatable, got a little lucky, and had to put in a ton of energy in a late game all the way into overtime. Their emotions will carry them for a couple days this week, but at some point in the latter part of the week the fatigue will hit too. (How many of them don’t sleep on the way home last night that normally would because their adrenaline is still so amped?)
FWIW, they faced 80 Plus plays and gave up over 500 yards. And momentum talk aside, S&P has them at 26 (us at 11, Michigan at 6), I think we’re the better team. Then again clearly Shaw has clearly outpaced that before
Stanford was incredibly lucky to win that game.
Oregon’s center cost the ducks at least 6 points and probably 7 on two egregious snaps down way inside the red (blue?) zone, one of which sailed over the 6’6″ Oregon QB’s head and was picked up off the ground and run in for a 90 yard or so TD by Stanford, THE turning point of the game.
Then, the Oregon coaches had a brain fart near the end of regulation. They got a first down with about 1:30 or so on the clock. Rather than taking knees to run the clock out, ahead by three, they ran the ball hard and on the second run the runner fumbled to Stanford with about 50 seconds left Stanford went down for the tying FG. Granted Stanford still had 1 timeout left before Oregon fumbled, but worst case is Oregon would have had to punt with less than 10 seconds on the clock.
Then Oregon ran deep passes from the 25 into the end-zone 4 straight times in its lone overtime series, none of which was completed, although one should have gotten a PI flag in the end zone. Bad miss by the refs, who seemed unable to call holding penalties on either team even though pass rushers shirts were being torn repeatedly and visibly as the plays were happening.
All this mostly to say the Stanford is beatable–I’d rather face them actually than Oregon. That Oregon QB is amazing–something like 22 of 24 passing in regulation, a cannon arm, and a fast, powerful runner. Huge QB.
Speaking of Wimbush’s running, he’s definitely a good runner, but I saw three QB’s play yesterday who are better runners than he is–Tua, the A&M guy, and the Oregon guy. And those guys are better passers than he is, although the A&M guy not by much. I don’t think BW’s running is all world, as we saw defenses really reduce his effectiveness later in the year last year, and its definitely not good enough to give up the passing game.
With Book, I loved his decisiveness, ability to do the checkdowns, accuracy, and mobility–he actually reminded me in this game of Montana, who was deadly in the Bill Walsh West Coast offense. NO IM NOT SAYING HES THE NEXT MONTANA—rather that he was Montana-like in those characteristics. He also seemed really cool and confident.
Now we see if playing that well vs Wake will translate into playing that well vs Stanford–but that goes for the whole team, not just Book. I do think Book would have looked just as good as yesterday vs Ball State and Vandy.
Sorry is any of this is redundant to posts below–just getting into these.
Rare if ever poster jumping in — I’m also curious to know what others think of BW v. Book in terms of how each matches up with Stanford’s defense. I thought Brendan R nailed it before the game in his post when he said Book’s strengths were just a better matchup for Wake’s weaknesses. I just haven’t followed Stanford football enough to know whether one QB might be better suited than the other. And in the awesomeness that was yesterday, I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that BW played well against a Michigan defense that was much better than Wake’s and has lived up to its name since losing to ND, which I worry some folks (not on this site) might be overlooking in the BW v. Book conversation.
And I don’t post much if ever on this site, so to be clear, not saying this as a BW homer. I’m thrilled for the sake of my liver if nothing else that Book played yesterday and did so well — though for the record, it did seem like the offense sputtering against Ball State was far more due to bad o line play, and Vandy on bad receiver play, than BW. But that cuts both ways. If every piece of your offense is clicking with Book, as it was Saturday and hadn’t been the past few games, then it just makes sense to go with Book.
Seriously, I just want ND to beat Stanford so badly. The prospect of feasting on the misery and defeat of Harbaugh AND Harbaugh’s successor in a single season has me salivating like a cartoon character. Whoever can make that prospect reality, just make it happen.
Thanks for chiming in! You should post more often, man. Giving credit where it’s due for the Book/Wake observation: That wasn’t my original thought, that was mostly cribbed from Jamie Uyeyama’s excellent pre-game write-up at ISD. Jamie has been helping people like me look smarter since forever.
Stanford’s secondary is definitely better than Wake’s, and by a good margin, but I think that’s more about Wake’s secondary being terrible than Stanford’s being great. Whether Book is still the best matchup for them is an interesting question. I think Book will start, but there might be a better chance we’ll see Wimbush early in this game just to mix things up.
On the other hand, if Book keeps leading the offense to 6+ ypp, it’s going to be really hard to pull him out no matter how much you might like a change of pace.
I think the UM game was kind of a mirage, regarding Wimbush. The first TD drive involved a pass that should have been picked but Claypool turned into a DB and broke up the interception. The second TD drive was mainly due to a tremendous play by Finke against a second string safety on another iffy throw by Wimbush.
I honestly like Wimbush a lot. His future is very bright regardless of football. But as a QB, what he brought to the table was an impressive ability to do things like take it to the house from the 20 when a seam opened up that few QBs could navigate. That’s really, really fun to watch, but I think it’s greatly outweighed by Book’s ability to put the ball in the hands of the other good athletes on the team.. I have little doubt that Book gives us the best chance to beat Stanford. As much as I dislike Shaw and his smug demeanor, he’s a solid coach, and you don’t reliably beat Stanford by winning jump balls and having a nifty run or two. We need an offense that can distribute the ball such that we exploit weaknesses and consistently keep drives alive. That just probably wasn’t going to happen against Stanford with Wimbush unless we got a few early, lucky big plays again. Book is a better bet in my view.
>you don’t reliably beat Stanford by winning jump balls and having a nifty run or two.
Of course not! That’s Stanford’s MO!
Yes, yes, Book, RPOs, whatever, all that’s well and good, but let’s talk more about those helmets, man.
As for Book/Wimbush, I don’t think anything has changed my perception of the thought process going into the season. Everyone–BK and coaches, fans, the media–felt that Wimbush had the higher ceiling and the lower floor compared to Book, and that if our goal was playoffs we were only getting there if he hit his ceiling. The coaches went into the season hopeful that we could get past Michigan (and we did) and then BW could work on things against an easier 3-game stretch to reach that tantalizing potential. And then he struggled (but we won!) against two bad teams. We had one game left to tinker before Stanford.
Here’s where I want to give BK some credit, because Old BK would have gone with the “we’re winning, so nothing is broken, everything’s fine” attitude like he did with BVG at DC, and kept playing BW. We’d have beaten Wake 31-27, and the same internal nausea would be there as we reconciled being happy at a 4-0 record with the frustration and dread that the offense isn’t very good and the next decent team we play would easily take advantage of our inability to complete 5-yard passes.
BK and Long apparently realized that the experiment, while not costing us any games, had not gone positively. They couldn’t wish Wimbush to being a better passer, and he wasn’t putting it together against bad competition. For all his talent, he’s not reaching that ceiling. He was given the opportunity. Enter Book–he of lower ceiling, but also higher-can-complete-5-yard-passes-and-run-the-read-option-effectively-enough floor. We’ve got a good D. We’ve got some playmakers who can, if the ball is placed right, do things, but they aren’t enough to cover Wimbush’s flaws. Book may not be spectacular, but he can distribute and give us the best chance to win, even if we don’t think he can take over the game and put us on his back.
It’s clearly the right move. I think Book is the starter, and I think we can use Wimbush effectively with certain packages as a change up–he’s effectively a wildcat QB but with more experience passing, so take advantage of it with a series per half or so as the Fuschia-zone QB. I think the McSorley or Baker Mayfield comparisons for Book are a bit premature–we played Wake, after all. But Book will give us solid play we can count on and Long can gameplan with, rather than the hope we were leaning on for Wimbush.
On target, KG. I like the wildcat QB notion. Now that BK into’d inserting a QB during the first three games, turnabout is fair play, and as Eric was saying before, hopefully BW will keep his head in the game.
One other thought — kudos for the Tree for pulling it out. But they did get some bonehead Duck miscues to help. Prior to that, did anyone else find that what Oregon was doing might be possible for our “new” offense to do?
Bring on the Wild Bush…wait a sec
I was not for this change initially, but Books floor seems to be so much higher. BW may give us the best playoff chance, but that doesn’t help much if it’s Powerball odds.
Wild Bush and Pulling Out. 18s after dark has officially begun!
The Ducks totally coughed up that game, along with I felt some key officiating inconsistencies. Granted, Stanford was there to take advantage of the miscues, which teams can’t always do. The other thing is that even before the score started changing, Stanford’s D had made some serious adjustments and was starting to bottle up Oregon. They’re like us, I think – a team that’s growing into who they are, and are capable of playing better than they’ve looked in some of their games. We’ll have to play well
Given what I saw yesterday, I’m not sure that Book’s ceiling isn’t as high if not higher than BW’s. That’s the change for me.
The problem with Wimbush in the wildcat is those formations lend themselves to read option type plays, something Wimbush never seemed to execute all that well.
I like him in the Belldozer packages.
So make it that. I won’t get hung up on terminology.
Well, we’d surely call it the Bush-whacker formation, no?
As I was bemoaning all year, no championship team that I could find had EVER won(nay, no playoff team even existed) where the starting QB was not at least a 60% passer and averaging 250 yards of passing per game. Wimbush was so amazingly below that mark and that’s really what made me clamor for Book even before the season started. It became clear to me that for all of Brandons amazing talent and athleticism(and he definitely has that) he was never going to be an elite QB. At Troy, Texas State, North Dakota State, Colorado-Pueblo you Wimbush would be a godsend. At schools like that you can just run all over the place and if you’re an elite athlete it will get you tons of wins. Against the best CFB players, though, you have to be an elite QB. Notre Dame is one of those places. You cant get by throwing for under 50% and only 170 yards per game. And thats why, with maybe a step slower difference and a less cannon arm Ian Book is much more suited for success than Brandon.
My thoughts on the whole QB situation has been while it’s nice to have a QB that can break one for 70 yards you don’t NEED that. All you need is one that can run for 9 yards when it’s 3rd and 8. You have good RBs for the long runs. You do NEED a QB that can make all the throws necessary to move the offense. It’s clear this offense is much better even if it was against WF. Book is plenty mobile enough as proved on his TD runs. Big test next week but much more confident now.
Yes it was ONLY Wake, but we moved the ball roughly 1000x better than we did against ONLY Ball St or ONLY Vanderbilt
Excellent point. Take the Michael Young screen pass. We’ve seen Wimbush throw that so many times and has it ever been accurate more than once or twice? Stanford might not allow a 66 yard catch and run, but those are the exact type of throws Wimbush couldn’t make, like ever, in his career.
Quality of opponent doesn’t really matter, we saw what we needed to see for a QB who can better operate a lot more of the offense the way the OC and HC wants it to be run.
Having only been able to see the highlights above and not the game, more to your point is we don’t always need a 66 catch and run there, we just need a first down to keep the drive going. Book can make that throw giving us a better chance to get the first down and live to fight another play.
There’s at least one condensed cut on Youtube already. The one i saw was 24 minutes.
Also, we keep talking about Wake like they’re a bottom feeder, when they were a bowl team last year and are consistently feisty.
Further, it wasn’t defenses that were causing BW to be inaccurate and miss easy reads. It was those kind of improvements we were seeing, which don’t really have much to do with the opposing team, that give reason for optimism.
Clawson’s done a tremendous job at Wake, but their defense has been bad and only getting worse since we poached Elko from them. Hence why they just fired that DC.
“walk-pass-option (who coined this in the game day Slack chat?)”
It me. I also single-handedly kept a toddler alive during the game, so we can debate til the cows come home who had the more impressive Saturday between Book and I.
I pulled an all-nighter to turn in a paper that was due in May (long, emotionally scarring story).
So my point is I did NOT have the most impressive Saturday, by far.
But in conclusion….Harvard Sucks.
We all have our blind spots.
Spectacular.
Are you ever going to be done with school? How many degrees can one person use?
I mean, it’s a 5-6 year program for a PhD, depending on how fast you write your dissertation. I’m just starting year 3. At least I spaced it all out–I got my BA in 98, my MA in 2012, and started here in 2016.
Man you really came to play class.
Anything I can do to put off having to actually look for a job for the first time to my mid-40’s (I didn’t really have to “interview” for that whole Army thing)
Good job! I thought the way they ran (walked?) that was bizarre. Never seen any plays develop slower than that, and on purpose. Weird.
Overall, having Book run the offense opens the offense up. He understands what he is doing. Wimbush is living to much in his head, second guessing, what he is supposed to do. His passing has not improved. The receivers are fighting for contested balls, which we didn’t see a lot of last year. The offense isn’t good with Wimbush leading it, because Wimbush can’t make the quick decison’s, go through progressions, or recognize what the defense is giving him. The offense works when the qb works.
I thought the long throw(s) Book attempted were decent even if they didn’t result in + yardage. Overall I was impressed with book, even if his ceiling is lower. The fact is that BK in every other position, plays the player that understands what is required of them. Running back has to block, T.E. has to block and catch, O-line has to block and communicate, safeties have to understand coverage, how many electric players have we seen ride the bench because they couldn’t do all the little things right. Wimbush may have the higher ceiling, but what is good for the goose is good for the gander…
I do like the idea of Wimbush running some wildcat formations. Not sure how that would fit into the offensive gameplan, but it would help Wimbush keep his head in the game and if Book needs a blow, wimbush is ready.
I noticed the different color in gold helmets in the Vanderbilt game. I was attributing it to fading in the sun for the older helmets vs the newer ones. I do like the darker tone of the new ones, better match to pants and less “las vegas”.
Excellent point. Wimbush is no different from any other player who can’t put all the pieces together in spite of raw talent. That gives some additional context.
At what point do we decide that Wimbush doesn’t really have the higher ceiling? Book, in a single game has already had more passing yards in a single game that Wimbush ever has. Maybe Wimbush’ ‘higher ceiling’ isn’t as high as we all thought it was.
I was way off on this one. Stanford with a week to look at Book tape will be a whole different ball of wax but I’ll happily cop to being dead wrong about this switch.
Also, I don’t want the subtle “turn the page” pun in the title to go without props, so here they are.
I admit I was dead wrong as well. I was opposed to switching QBs on an undefeated team. I can’t help but feel bad for BW, hopefully we find a way to utilize his talents going forward.
So, do they just let you write “Instant Reaction” for losses and disappointing wins?
I thought Eric was way off calling for a change from BW. I too was wrong. Mmm, yummy crow. Crow always tests better after a blow out win.
Crow is also a nice appetizer for Cardinal this week and Turkey the next.
I was wrong as well, didn’t know or think Book had that performance in him.
It does make me wonder how they adjudged Wimbush to be better. I guess falling in love with his potential and tools, or maybe he’s just a better practice player than on game days.
From Kelly’s post-game press conference their thinking on Wimbush and Book was that Wimbush was the best chance to beat Michigan, and the whole off season was spent on getting him to the point of being ready for that. They chose Wimbush for Michigan because Book needs a supporting cast, particularly Armstrong and Jones Jr. and Kelly said they needed a few weeks of in-game reps to really be ready. I’m guessing they thought Michigan would be a defensive battle and that Brandon’s ability to run out of a 3rd and 18 was more likely than the players around Book being ready for Don Brown, Gary, Winovich, and Michigan’s secondary.
SO Ball state, and Vanderbilt, now look like this to me. Ball state, Kelly and Long give Wimbush a shot to show he can do what they want/need this year with the pass. He’s explosive and if he can pass with enough consistency and accuracy to keep teams from stacking the box, it could be really great. It doesn’t happen. They give him a shot with Vanderbilt again, but with more running, and its still a struggle. By this point Armstrong, Jones, the offensive line, and others have found a bit experience, confidence, etc. and are ready to be what an offense with Book needs, so we see the game yesterday.
To be fair Kelly said the WF game was tailored to Book’s skillset, and they some games coming up may not be, and may be more of a struggle, so he expects ND to need Wimbush still. Its Kelly so take all this as you will.
I’d say Wimbush needs a supporting cast at least as much as Book does–we’re pretty one dimensional with BW at QB, and opposing team defenses figure that out pretty soon, thus the drop off in offensive production as the game progressed in each of the first 3 games.
Great points. And I totally buy that explanation on the long offseason and focusing on Michigan. Can’t argue with the results either, Wimbush played very well and we won! (Although, if Chris Finke doesn’t win that toss-up ball in the end zone, what happens from there on out in the game….). That thought aside, winning or losing the Michigan game was pretty much make/break of the season and they found a way.
But everything you wrote makes total sense. The coaches knew Ball State was, well, Ball State, and they didn’t have Wimbush run once in the first half. They wanted him to pass and use his arm and hopefully build and grow and progress. He couldn’t do it though. Gave him another chance against Vandy even though maybe they showed have known they would see more struggles. And they saw more struggles.
To the last point, you’re right that WF probably has a weaker defense and pass defense than upcoming teams. But the way Book ran the offense yesterday speaks for itself. And he made plays that Wimbush hasn’t shown in 15 starts. I agree with you that Kelly-speak can’t be trusted too much, he wouldn’t confirm or commit to Book right up to game time. And it’s probably not smart to openly close the door on Wimbush, because who knows maybe they will need him at some point.
That was how Devine screwed up with Montana–he wasn’t a great practice QB, so Devine never really bought into him 100%.
Add me to that group who was wrong on Book.
Book was hitting wide open guys. While WF’s pass D is baaaad, it can’t really be that much worse than Ball St, right? Since we don’t suddenly have different WRs, I think this points to Book going through progressions well and throwing on time. I think it was obvious that BW wasn’t great at this, but either Book is really good at that (next week will give us a much better sense), or BW was even worse than I thought.
He didn’t attempt any super hero throws, made some nice sideline tosses that weren’t nerve wracking. Hopefully this was him really improving, and not just playing against Wake. I am convinced he is better than BW, but not yet convinced he can be a really, really good college QB. He does this again next week, I will jump on team #Heismanuscript
rec’d for the hashtag.
He attempted a few hero balls. One, Finke fell down, the other Austin was interfered with.
I didn’t mean the long passes. I consider hero balls trying to squeeze it between/past defenders, when you really have to have an accurate cannon. More high risk throws.
What were the final numbers in regards to defensive pressure on Hartman?
Officially we were credited with 5 QB hurries – I don’t know the breakdown but I would imagine they were all on Hartman. We had 63 hurries last year, which was easily the most of the Kelly era; we’re on a better pace this year, with 24 through the first four games. Assuming a bowl game, if the pace holds we’ll hit 78 for the season.
Yes, according to the website of the company that provides the official stats all 5 hurries were on Hartman. The site isn’t supposed to be public, but i found it with a simple Google search a few years ago so i’m sure others can too. There really is some good in-depth info there.
5 QB hurries and one really big case of QB PTSD
Jamie tweeted that Hartman was hit 21 times. Yee. Owch.
If I were recruiting against Wake, which we don’t really have to do too much, I would have those second half QB draws they had Hartman run after he was hobbled as evidence that Wake isn’t the place to send your son to play.
Only 5 hurries? Is there a category above that? Like 12 QB Oh, Damns! and 2 QB Fricks!
You mailed it Eric. You called it from the start. I’m glad I was wrong.
Nailed it.
Were you meaning this as a kudos to your initial post? Eg that in saying “mailed it,” you nailed it? If so I agree.
Nope. Just a terrible typist.
So besides VT not being what they originally looked like, that matchup in 2 weeks may have just gotten even easier: http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/24770479/virginia-tech-dismisses-trevon-hill-team
Never so glad to be wrong. I didn’t think that Book was capable of this type of performance and that even if he performed well that it wouldn’t elevate the rest of the offense to the level of scoring 56 points.
However, I have read (other places and sites) about comparisons to Montana (not so much playing style as Book’s impact on the team leading us to a championship) and to me that is just silliness. I will be the first to celebrate if Book ever approaches that level, but to already be comparing him to an all-time great after playing the equivalent of 3 full games (two of which were OK performances and one outstanding) is just the knee jerk reaction that gets everyone in trouble.
I do still worry that we will struggle to run the ball in really tight games without Wimbush, but yesterday showed me that might not matter as much as I thought. Play action seemed to really work and the short passing game was clicking. I hope that I’m completely wrong and teams won’t be able to game plan for a Book led offense and I guess we get to find out this week.
Different era of course, but I think what misses with the comparison is that Montana was 20% of the quarterback in college than he was in the pros. Heck, Book’s game on Saturday statistically is far better than Montana ever performed at Notre Dame.
It took pairing with Bill Walsh to make Montana the NFL Montana, but he flashed it at ND. My dad was at ND in grad school during the time Joe was there (take that for what you will: he saw it all in person, but he’s also got very rose-colored nostalgia glasses) and while he didn’t put up amazing stats, no one did back then (speaking to your era comment) and Devine didn’t really know what to do with him. Which is probably why Montana was at his best when ND was down and needed a comeback, so was throwing the ball.
Great point. Different era for sure. I think my issue with the comments (again in other places) was the people were literally ready to say that Book’s one game guaranteed that his career and accomplishments would equal Montana’s
If that’s what they meant, they’re insane. I heard a few people (including a text from dad) say something about him looking like Montana, but it was mostly the vision and accuracy on a few of his short passes and ability in the pocket, and they were quick to qualify it as limited to that.
The comparisons I read are talking about his skill set compared to Montana. In that Joe’s best attributes were his accuracy and decision-making and not so much chucking the ball deep or having elite running. Same with Book
I agree with the stylistic comparisons, but I’m not joking about multiple people on another site saying that he looked like Montana and just like Montana he is certainly taking us all the way because he looked amazing this one game (obviously paraphrasing a bit, but that was the clear message).
I don’t think anyone said that. At least I didn’t. Stylistically he looked like Montana in his coolness, accuracy, quick reads, decision making, mobility and running what looked like the West Coast offense Saturday. That’s not the same as saying he’s on par with or will exceed Montana. His operating at qb looked very much like Montana operated is what I’m saying.
I believe he said at the beginning that he was seeing those comments on another/other sites, so wasn’t attributing it to anyone here.
Correct
I was not referring to anyone on this site. It was on another site.
To me this doesn’t damper the excitement of the offensive performance from last night and I’m not saying that Wake’s defense is trash and that Ball St. and Vandy were amazing, but when the D coordinator gets fired 4 games into the season I think it is safe to say that Wake’s defense is really not doing a whole lot of good things.
http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/24775081/wake-forest-demon-deacons-fire-defensive-coordinator-jay-sawvel
And yet BVG has a job. What a crazy world.
Probably not for long…Louisville might go 2-10
Wake’s defense is objectively very bad. Gave up 400+ yards to Towson (Towson!!) and Tulane and 500+ to BC and ND. 97 points against in the last 2 weeks. Ouch.
But, that said, I don’t really think Ball St and Vandy personnel are THAT much better on defense than Wake, if at all.
Also, makes me think to the stories that came out last week that Clawson offered Lea the DC job when Elko jumped to Notre Dame. Seemed a minor footnote at the time for Lea to follow Elko, but if he took the step up in position immediately instead of following his mentor, this season is probably a lot different for both Wake and ND. (Not that I think it would change yesterday’s result).
Also, for the ND fans (not here) that complain about the salary levels of coaching, I wonder what the DC Wake gig pays vs. LB coach at Notre Dame (when you’re a rising young coach and favored son of the then-new DC). I’d imagine if the Wake job made $$ sense, Lea might have been more inclined to take it. I’m speaking without knowledge but guessing the ND job/prestige/opportunity of even being a LB coach with an in-house rabbi was an easy call compared to a P5 DC job which is pretty cool and something that many of the critics don’t point out when it comes to ND hiring practices and results. This one probably had a big hand in things might fly under the radar.
I am not sure how much coaches look at the players available. If they do, Lea may have seen that Wake’s top defensive players were graduating and their incoming classes were not much to write home about, such that the D was going to be much worse in the next couple years. It would have looked like the defense took a dive when he took over when it was really lack of good players. Likewise, he may have seen that ND had a lot of good young players and was going to be pretty good. Again, not sure if coaches look at that sort of thing, but I suspect they do and it may have made a difference.
Perhaps.
My thought was if choice A is:
-Accept promotion in job title, and surely upgraded salary from previous year to take over a DC role for a P5 school (where there isn’t much pressure, traditionally) and also get the benefit of not having to uproot your young family
or choice B:
-Follow your mentor to Notre Dame in a lateral title move. Where there is immense pressure and the HC is coming of a 4-8 season and might be on the hot seat…And you have to move your family too.
Choice A makes a lot more sense professionally and personally, IMO. I don’t think many would chose “B” without a huge leap of faith –and it’s not like at that point Lea could have imagined Elko would hot potato out of ND after one single season. And also choice B salary probably can’t be too much lower than staying put and getting promoted too. (But I really don’t know that, just approaching it from an attempted logical position).
Clearly from a personal position Lea had a lot of serendipity and luck in the way everything shook out, couldn’t have gone better for him really…But 20 months ago I doubt it was so clear. Which really boils down to ND being able to attract/pay more talent than the most critical voices would choose to admit, or even be able to see that perspective.
And as Billy Zane and Dwight Schrute taught us, a real man makes his own luck so perhaps it might not have mattered anyways. Just a minor sidenote I found interesting.
I think this might also have something to do with a discussion with Mentor prior to the move. “Yo Boss, how long do you think you stay at ND?” …”Well, if they fire kelly, I’ll see if I can get the HC gig and will need a D coordinator, if Kelly sticks around, 2 years and I’m out for HC somewhere.”
When we were looking for BVG’s replacement I tried to estimate this. Wake Forest is private so they don’t have to make salary info* public, but based on what Clawson is making I guessed that Elko was being paid about $300K as Wake’s DC. ND doesn’t make salaries public either, but I would imagine Lea was close to that as a position coach, and I’m guessing he got a bump to around $600K as DC. Elko was at $800K I think and then accepted a bump to $1.1, then to $1.5, then was told to scratch when he reneged again.
Anyway, point being, I don’t think the difference between Wake’s DC job and ND’s LB job could be so big that it would merit a move in itself.
* Note that when I say “salary info” I really mean “total compensation” – even private schools do have to report the base salary of anyone making more than $1M per year, so we know Kelly’s base number, but they don’t have to report total comp, which is always creative. Harbaugh, for example, is reported at $8M per year (I think) but his base is $2M and there’s a bunch of wacky stuff to get the rest of the way. Same for Meyer, Saban, Swinney, etc.
And though Eric gave him a mention, how about Alize Mack! After Kelly praised him in the Vandy game for having his best game ever last week he was probably even better with the 6 catches and had some good blocks too (including crucial one on the Young screen pass). Finally living up to his expectations and talent, and after all the trials and tribulations, not sure anyone on the team deserves some success more.
I’d imagine many an upcoming DC is having some sleepless nights in the future now that there’s a QB who can hit Mack on a seam route up the middle and that should help the offense out a lot too with Mack finally a player to account for defensively. In fact, if you had to gameplan against the ND offense, Mack might be the first guy now you really have to worry about giving attention to.
I remember a couple if plays where Bars pulled and made some real nice moving blocks on some run plays too.
If Book doesn’t put him on the wagon first.
Yeah, Mack made me look like an idiot on Saturday and obviously I’m happy about it. I was harrumphing about how much of a disappointment he’s been after dropping a pass and missing a screen block. Then he makes two (or was it three?) straight catches and started making some solid blocks. If he can keep up this level of play or take it up one more level, he’s going to do some damage the rest of the season.
Yup, it was three. There wasn’t enough time between the missed block and the first of those three catches to finish complaining about it 😀
Just about agree with everything you wrote. The only part that I didn’t was the comment that Book’s only poor decision was the early pass to Finke that was dropped. If he throws that ball out in front of him, it either gets tipped/batted down(best case) or picked(worst case). The defender between Book and Finke on that play caused Ian to have to throw it behind Finke and it was STILL a good throw. Look at who Kelly went after on the SL after that play…Finke. Tells you all you need to know about who made the mistake. Absolutely should have been caught. I supposed if you do want to criticize that one pass, it should have been thrown earlier or maybe with a little lob to get it out in front but that’s picking nits.
Incredible game by Ian. I’m with you overall…I knew Ian would be GOOD just not this incredible. One of the biggest things that has irritated me in this whole Book/Brandon debate are the insane comments about how if you put in Book, you basically lose all of the QB runs and all the explosiveness of BW’s legs. Basically, it boiled down to “white QB, must not be able to run.” Glad to see Ian squash THAT mess as well. He runs the ZR, RPO so much better than BW and that should really be a game changer for us. I hate the WR screen but maybe it was just because it was BW throwing the ball on that play that always caused them to suck. I was amazed that we actually had a few of those actually work for once.
If anything on that Finke “drop”, I thought Book’s main problem wasn’t throwing it a bit behind him so much as being a second or two late to throw it in the first place. That’s easy to say from the comfort of a couch, of course but it didn’t look like Book was timely to me on that one when Finke had more separation.
I noticed that Book threw it a little late on a few throws too in the second quarter. The receivers had more separation and then when he threw, there was less separation.
To be fair, he was in the process of leaving the pocket when Finke first came open, so I think you can excuse the lateness of the throw a bit.
Yeah, that’s true and fair. Admittedly I don’t know the keys on the play or the timing. I would hope on 4th down though making a decisive throw whenever a player comes open supersedes flushing the pocket but that may well have been by design to extend the play.
I just found Book to be late in his throw there, but obviously in the big picture he figured it out just fine. That was like the 2nd or 3rd drive, right? I’d bet if that was later in the game when he was more dialed in he might have made it more timely.
I went back and watched it, and he wasn’t really leaving the pocket when Finke came open, but he was looking for Claypool to come open and snapped it to Finke as soon as he saw him.
It will undoubtedly please KG to learn that ESPN has us back up to a 35% chance to make the playoffs.
Obligatory ESPN sucks…I’m feeling way more confident after week 4 being 4-0 with a great QB performance now than pre-season when it was probably 50/50 to be 0-1.
I wonder what the p(we make the playoffs if we go 11-1) is.
Also, it now seems like 11-1 is a distinct possibility, so I was like super wrong about all that.
Book played nearly flawlessly, but Wake’s defense is objectively horrible by any measure.
All QBs need great supporting casts. Montana isn’t Montana without Jerry Rice, Dwight Clark, et. al. There was one personnel change in the game that was overlooked. Kevin Austin. He got a lot of reps yesterday. Claypool and Boykin have been struggling all year to get separation. Austin was wide open. Is that Wake being bad or him being better than Claypool and Boykin? I would say a bit of both, but neither Claypool nor Boykin were getting that separation against Wake either.
Pictures or it didn’t happen. Everyone keeps saying Boykin and Claypool suck and get no separation, but they made some big plays in the first two games despite that wimbush couldn’t find much less hit the broad side of a barn. Both guys are big and both have plus athleticism and coordination for their size. I dont think I buy the no separation thing. Book used them sparingly but it was his first game and he really didn’t ever need to go deep to them.
One could easily say “pics or it didn’t happen” in response. Boykin had one decent game. Claypool was missing most of Saturday until the TD. The plan was going to be throw it up and let our trees at WR go get it, since Brandon can throw far and back shoulder teams to death. What I saw this last week was Finke might be our best WR. Who are you going to, game on the line, have to make a first on 3rd and 12 with 2 min left? I’m not saying you don’t try for Boykin or Claypool, but I sure haven’t seen anything to feel confident in them. Finke’s TD against Michigan shows me he’s at least gonna fight.
Well how about that. Even with a mediocre opponent, I don’t think Wimbush is capable of putting up the type of performance Book did. Going into the game, I thought Wimbush represented the higher ceiling and I’m ready to immediately and shamelessly backpedal from that one.
You know how the other teams on our schedule keep looking worse? Northwestern’s top offensive player, RB Jeremy Larkin, just retired from football.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/ct-spt-northwestern-jeremy-larkin-injury-20180924-story.html
And Virginia Tech not only lost to ODU, but their QB and probably best offensive player Josh Jackson broke his leg (surgery tomorrow) is out for a long time. And they also kicked their sack leader and arguably best defensive player, Trevon Hill, off the team on Sunday for violating team rules.
That game also looks a lot less imposing than it did 48 hours ago.
https://www.richmond.com/sports/college/schools/virginia-tech/virginia-tech-s-josh-jackson-out-with-fractured-leg/article_54aeefe4-c014-11e8-abf4-131d38feef0a.html
I’m a little bummed because I’m going to that game and wanted it to be exciting, but it could end up being against a down 2-2 VaTech team… but blowouts can be fun too!
I’m sure all these teams are gonna be hyped to play ND and give us their best shot, as is tradition. Even say a down USC has a boatload of talent that can make things really tough. I think we can compete with just about anyone as long as we bring our best though – which seems to have been an issue for us till now.