It was the most Navy game imaginable. Eat clock, keep the Irish offense off the field, execute, get a little help from the refs, and wait for Notre Dame to mess up. The Midshipmen played their hand fabulously.
There will be plenty of criticism of the Irish in due course but first it needs to be pointed out that Navy played outrageously consistent and deserve a lot of credit. They scored a touchdown in each quarter, shortened the game to an extreme degree, and checked all of the right boxes to win this game. Good on them.
Now for us!
OFFENSE
First off, there wasn’t a whole lot to judge. As you may have heard by now Notre Dame’s 6 offensive possessions were the fewest nationally since 2008. As you’d imagine the 56 snaps were the fewest on the season and the least since last year’s Wake Forest game when the Demon Deacons inexplicably scored 7 points, mostly sucked on offense, and still hogged the ball for 74 snaps.
Overall, the offense played right around its average level for the year–not really inspiring nor full of a bunch of mistakes. They didn’t really need to play perfect but with the shortened game the margin for error was really small.
TD
FG
PUNT
TD
TD
FGAnd we lost.
— 18 Stripes (@18stripes) November 5, 2016
No turnovers, 6.6 yards per play, and nice averages across the board for rushing and passing look plenty fine. It’s just with Navy you can’t miss touchdowns on half of your drives, even if you only get 6 drives total.
In really broad terms the lack of a cohesive approach against Navy was puzzling. You could say this has always been a downfall for Brian Kelly at Notre Dame. They came out to open the game moving quickly and using tempo while scoring a touchdown. Later, while trailing 14-10 they went super slow and using the ground game heavily. In the second half, the speed was increased and passing the ball was the way to go. What was the gameplan here?
On the second possession the Irish faced a 4th and 2 from the Navy 21-yard line and decided to kick the field goal. Why did the offense go for it on 4th and 4 on the first drive deep in Navy territory and then forego the much more manageanle opportunity on the second drive?
The game looked like it was going to be turned when Navy was stopped on 4th and 4 just inside Irish territory. Notre Dame had a short field and the chance to go up 17-7 and take command of the game. Instead, they tried a 1st down kill shot deep pass (don’t hate the play in a vacuum but was it necessary on 1st down?) got behind schedule and went three and out. Instead of 17-7 the Middies went down and scored to make it 14-10 in their favor.
This is what is so inexplicable about this team. Try for kill shots then go super conservative later. No consistency to the approach.
— 18 Stripes (@18stripes) November 5, 2016
Of course, the final Irish possession saw them kick a field goal on 4th and 4 from the Navy 14-yard line. In a game against an opponent where most would agree you have to go for every 4th down attempt deep in Navy territory why did we refuse on 2 of 3 chances?
None of these scenarios are big, dumb Les Miles mismanagement issues there’s just a lack of consistency that doesn’t make much sense. Kelly has largely been an aggressive coach. Most people wouldn’t fault him for trying to go for it on 4th down and yet he chooses the route that leads to greater criticism. It’s bizarre.
DeShone Kizer review of the Navy game CLICK HERE.
DEFENSE
There was a point pretty late in this game where I would’ve commended the way the Irish dealt with Navy’s flexbone. Their fullback was largely neutralized and frankly not much of a factor. The slotbacks had a few nice runs–and one long touchdown run–but the defense adjusted fairly well on the edges.
Quarterback Will Worth had about 80 yards more than Notre Dame could handle. Given the volume he handled (28 carries!) it was quietly one of the best QB rushing performances Notre Dame has seen from a Navy offense–even Keenan Reynolds was never this large of a part of their offense against the Irish. Out of those carries Worth gained a first down or touchdown on 13 attempts. That’s insanely good production.
It’s fair to say that the defense didn’t hold up their end of the bargain. Only 4 tackles for loss was disappointing and frankly a couple of out of character playcalls from Navy gifted a couple of those anyway. No turnovers forced when just one would’ve been huge. Navy converted 12 out of 18 of their 3rd and 4th down attempts. Navy didn’t hog the ball for 20 minutes in the second half because the Irish were playing good defense.
FINAL THOUGHTS
We’re not going to leave just yet without discussing 3 pivotal moments in this game, all from the second half, and all including poor officiating.
The first ocurred on Navy’s 37-yard touchdown run on a key third down. The block on Troy Pride got most of the attention during the broadcast but there is a hilariously illegal block in the back on Julian Love.
Of course, the Notre Dame penalty after forcing a Navy punt late in the 3rd quarter was not without controversy. Not only was there no flag thrown on the play, not only was Devin Studstill with the legal bounds of stepping off the field, but following the game it was discovered the AAC after-the-fact play review was not allowed per the NCAA rule book.
You just have to laugh. It’s been one of those type of seasons.
The final play was yet again another horrendously missed block in the back.
This is from Navy’s final drive which would end the game as they ran out the clock. Yet again, another crucial third down. Watch freshman corner Donte Vaughn at the top of the screen quickly recognize the reverse. Once he makes his break Vaughn is a step ahead of the receiver who decides to put his hands directly on Vaughn’s back for 9 yards before shoving him to the ground just as a game-saving tackle could have been made.
We rarely complain about officiating around these parts but these are obvious and patently easy calls to make for any officiating crew. Such a shame.
There was more than one time that Kelly was complaining of Navy getting away with holding.
Jarron Jones barely played. Sampson pointed that out in today’s presser and the response was not all that convincing. How do you keep a guy like that, coming off a game like that, out?
I went and listened to the Q and the reply. I think I can get it – Jarron just doesn’t have enough lateral mobility to prosper against the Navy scheme and its insanely precise execution. BK was saying technically why option defense is not in his skill set.
It’s a pretty dubious explanation given that 1) he’s the best player on the defense (and who would choose to sit their best player?), 2) the defensive line sucked (so could he have really been worse?), and 3)
Not sure I buy Kelly’s rationale.
Per Pete on twitter: “Jarron Jones played 2 series (12 snaps). One ended in a 4th down stop. Other ended in a punt (& illegal sub). ND’s only 2 stops in the game.”
They knew they weren’t playing Cage with his concussion, so why voluntarily leave Jones on the sideline all the while the defense is getting thrashed as it is? Doesn’t seem to manage DT’s very well and the guys playing certainly weren’t succeeding even with their technical advantages. Jones is possibly the best d-lineman they have.
Kelly’s obviously way smarter than I on the intricate details of what he’s talking about, but the results pretty clearly disagreed with the reasoning he gave.
EDIT: al beat me by a minute, and formatted it nicer too. Great minds..
The problem, and this is far from an isolated incident, is that often BK seems to give half-answers to these questions; when you dig into it there can be an underlying logic that “makes sense” but in the aggregate it’s either situationally misguided or at least arguable. There’s a logic that says kick the FG and get the stop; it just doesn’t fit when you add the circumstance of playing a ball-control option offense with a defense that has shown no ability to stop it. There’s a logic that says Jarron isn’t ideal to play against this offense, and worries about his knees taking Navy’s blocks; it just doesn’t fit when you look at our depth and that he’s the best DL we have coming off his best game in 2 years, and you would be better off letting him disrupt and compensating around him.
Right. The numbers say, basically, that you should go for it on 4th down in nearly any 4th and short-medium situations past your own 40 yard line. Of course coaches never do that, and often do really stupid things like punt inside the opponent’s 40. They say “Yes, but you see, I understand football and the situation, and the situation says punt there.” In BK’s case with the 4th down, there was *literally nothing* about the situation that indicated that they should kick the field goal, as it was entirely plausible that Navy would run out the clock.
In short, he is a poor in-game coach. This has revealed itself over and over and over. I’m tired of it.
Despite my desire to believe otherwise, I am starting to accept that BK is a poor in-game coach as well. Every coach makes head-scratching decisions at time, but there seems to be a consistent pattern, and the explanations given afterwards either don’t cut it or are directly confrontational. I’m most bothered by this last part, that there seems (again, giving the benefit of the doubt since I’m not in the press conference and don’t always have full context) that he has no inclination to accept that his decision may have been wrong and he should adjust. There are times you do the right thing and it just doesn’t work out, but these decisions do not fall into that case. It’s starting to remind me of Les Miles, who deserves all the credit in the world for assembling LSU’s talent and being a decent coach, but also had major in-game coaching mistakes (usually revolving around clock management or offensive play calling) that he refused to correct, or even acknowledge as a problem.
Addendum: At least Miles had those games where he’d pull a rabbit out of his oversize hat with a fake field goal or something. If you have a coach who takes risks (or conversely, is conservative) and it usually works out, you can accept that once in a while it won’t. BK, as was pointed out, is erratic in his decisions, and once again I’ll say–outside of Utah 2010, Oklahoma 2012, what in-game coaching or gameplanning has decisively and obviously won us a game that should have been a loss or tossup otherwise? I got nothing.
Whereas we can easily count games where Kelly’s in-game decision either clearly cost us a win or a very very good shot at the win (Tulsa 2010 and Northwestern 2014, for starters) before even beginning to describe the games where he got outcoached (which are numerous).
Ayup.
Dammit…I’ve just crossed over into the “Fire Kelly” group, haven’t I?
In all seriousness, though–ND is never going to have the talent or systemic program advantages of an Alabama or an Ohio State. The ONLY way we can hope to compete with them is a head coach and staff that can maximize our talent and minimize our weaknesses through game planning, play calling, etc. (and don’t misread me–I’m not saying we’d have a coach who could be better than or as good than their current HC’s at that, but we have no shot until we get better at it). I still think we can do worse than Kelly, and I don’t look out there and see anyone who’s an obvious upgrade. But answers like this that continue to downplay or ignore clear issues have eroded my faith that maybe Kelly can make changes and improve. He seems completely uninterested in doing anything of the sort.
Welcome to the dark side.
I completely agree with all you have said, by the way – being “Fire BK” does not mean “I expect to be [Bama/Ohio State/Florida State/even Oklahoma].”
Come back, KG, come back… I don’t see how you want to ignore all those close games BK’s teams have won with him calling plays. He is spotty on game day decisions, I freely confess. And he does not like to admit at first in pressers that he was wrong. But he will get around to it every now and then.
The thing about that: those close game were nearly all games we were supposed to win, often by more (sometimes much more) than the final score. Hard to credit the coaching too much in those situations.
Really guys, BK has 50+ wins, but he was only responsible for 2 of them? People on 18S are supposed to be better than that.
That’s significantly over-simplifying my position, to the point of not what I said at all. A head coach is “responsible for” everything; therefore, he’s clearly responsible for every win. Those wins could be because we have superior talent–a credit to his recruiting and development. It could be because the players made plays and the other team didn’t, which is much harder to pin down but speaks to proper practice instruction, motivation, etc. It could be because of superior game plan, or it could be because of in-game tactical decision making. Sometimes it’s just luck, and that’s okay too.
My criticism is that outside of those two games, I can’t identify any wins off the top of my head that we won clearly due to in-game decisions or game planning. We can point to a lot more of those games that we lost (or were closer than they should have been) due to inexplicable decisions on the field or poor game plans (some, like NC State, could be both).
Now, if you want to argue that I’m missing a game–37-0 over Michigan just popped into my head as one where clearly we were better prepared and made better coaching decisions on the field–I’m all for listening. Hence, why I asked the question. But don’t characterize it as “KG’s saying BK is only responsible for winning 2 games.” That’s not what I said at all.
Addendum: Obviously the LSU bowl game counts, and deserves to be mentioned. So it’s clearly something our staff is capable of doing. Which makes it that much more frustrating to hear “oh, everything’s fine…nothing to see here” in the press conferences.
Also, that last line–really? All the hysteria we’ve seen on the board the last few weeks, and my comments are over the line? I mean, even if you did interpret it that I said “BK is only responsible for 2 wins” it’s hardly the worst thing I’ve seen around here recently, including from 18S writers.
Your comments weren’t over the line, but they showed a total lack of effort towards fairness. I know you are much more level headed and logical. I expect that extra effort from 18S as it is the only site on the internet like that. That is the reason I come here. So I hold everyone on this site to a higher standard, in particular you, because you have a track record of thoughtful, analytical commentary
Basically any win against a P5 program with a winning record is due to game planning and coaching decisions. The past 20 years have shown that ND doesn’t just roll out and beat decent teams simply because Notre Dame.
Taking as given that we should automatically beat a decent P5 team (or Navy) is why the entire country hates our fan base, it wreaks of undeserved entitlement. ND has not been consistently good team in 20 years. We have shown time and again that walking out better talent means nothing. All of CFB shows, every single week, that walking out better talent means nothing.
Now this team is particularly awful, and it is pretty clear both in-game decisions and poor game planning have been responsible for that. We aren’t as good as we should be, and that is on BK. But that doesn’t mean that beating Miami (a team about as good as we are) had nothing to do with in-game coaching and game planning. For the record, I would have no problem with us firing or retaining BK.
And then, of course, NDNation has to go and make feel bad about my side – http://www.ndnation.com/boards/showpost.php?b=football;pid=158985;d=this
Look, if we hear that Tom Herman or Chris Petersen are willing to come, we fire Brian Kelly immediately and don’t need to think twice about it. But somehow they are not good enough, because they pass the ball a lot or something.
And, man, are the posters there delusional. Mike Tomlin? Really? A guy who has basically life tenure in the NFL is going to go coach in Northern Indiana because, like, wake up the echoes or something?
And would necessarily be successful in college because….why
Don’t bother going there. ‘Tis a silly place.
We should definitely be listening to someone who barely watches Notre Dame games and doesn’t watch other college football. That guy for sure has the pulse of the country.
there is nothing on NDN worth giving them any clicks. Most of the posters are just plain stupid, ignorant, or both. Not to mention their writers thinking they have all the answers. NOT.
Ha, yes.
The sad thing (from my perspective) is that I don’t even necessarily disagree with the crux of his thesis – i.e., that Notre Dame’s comparative advantage is probably in a ball-control type offense based around strong and tough O-line and running the football, with a Diaco-like “keep it in front of you”-type defense (for some reason, NDN didn’t like Diaco. Maybe they’re just impossible to please). Basically Wisconsin-plus.
I recognize that is, at this point in the development of the game, a gimmicky offense. But it could have been our gimmick. Instead, Michigan is doing it.
Re Peterson, if he came I’d love it, but seriously doubt there’s any chance of that.
Herman was hot, now he’s come back to earth by losing to teams he was expected to beat. I don’t know if he’d be any better than BK at this point. Don’t know he wouldn’t be, but its no slam dunk that he’d be an improvement.
He’s not a slam dunk, but nobody has had the kind of coaching hype around him since Meyer even with the Ls this year. You take the chance that he is the next Meyer even if the odds of that are low, given that Kelly has more or less run his course here.
Addendum: He is not coming here. I know that. I’m just saying if he were amenable, firing Kelly would be a very easy call.
The bottom line with this series going forward is that if it’s Kelly vs. Niumatalolo, we will be operating at a serious coaching disadvantage.
Maybe the answer to the question, “If we fire Kelly, who could we get to replace him?” is Niumatalolo?
Paul Johnson’s 66-48 record at Georgia Tech suggests that it isn’t as easy to transplant that offense to a school with better athletes and expect the same results. He’s had good seasons and he’s had bad ones–similar to Brian Kelly. I would posit that the system is perfect for a group of athletes who live a disciplined, detailed existence at the academies. They’re told how to fold their socks for crying out loud, so there’s a reasonable expectation that the same attention to detail and discipline allows them to run the offense as efficiently as possible, even if they aren’t the most athletically gifted. Meanwhile, Johnson at GT has had his team in the ACC title game 4 times (never won): his first two seasons, when it was still new to ACC opponents, 2012 when the entire division stunk and his team was in at 6-6, and 2014 when things fell right and they were really good. Of course non-academy players can be disciplined, but most of your better recruits want to play in a system that will prepare them for the NFL, so your talent upgrade isn’t as good as one might think, and it is potentially harder to get normal CFB players to put in the effort to run the offense the way it should without some sort of external discipline system at work. Sometimes it will work (2014), sometimes it won’t (2015).
Bama’s players are EXTREMELY disciplined, on both sides of the ball.
Saban’s best quote that I’ve seen is “Most people say ‘practice til you get it right. I say practice til its impossible to get it wrong'”.
I don’t think Niama…. is the right coach for ND, or that the triple option is the best scheme for us (well, admitting that under Holtz it worked darn well) but there are some very disciplined non option teams out there. UM this year is another instance, as is tOSU. Common denominator is great coaches, I think.
Yes, Bama’s players are disciplined (on the field). Pretty much you could throw Saban out as an argument against literally any norm of college football. The question isn’t whether Saban or Meyer could make ND disciplined (tOSU isn’t disciplined at all in the same way Bama is–in fact, that’s been their achilles heel the past 2 years), it’s whether or not that system, which requires a certain type of discipline, could transfer to ND if Niumatalolo (live in Hawaii for a year and the name just rolls off the tongue). Niumatalolo is a good coach, but he’s not Saban-level at being able to induce his will on everyone and anyone around him. At the academy, you don’t have to be. At a “normal” school, it would take someone close to a Saban to make normal players buy in.
Saban also has the ability to ensure football discipline by benching 5 star athletes that aren’t disciplined and replace them with 4 star athletes. Compare that to say Max Redfield. 5 star athlete, but when he wasn’t disciplined we were replacing him with athletic liabilities so he continued to play a lot.
Absolutely.
No one really, really wants the triple option, right? Well, maybe Burgs 😉
First , the installation would have to be out-of-the-box productive. And very productive. Otherwise, the complaining would be deafening.
Second, offensive recruiting would have a cap on it. We’d struggle to do better than 20th in the national rankings. We’d need smaller linemen, so more lesser heralded ones sometimes. We’d basically stop recruiting tight ends. Virtually no 4-star or better quarterbacks are coming. We’d need fullbacks and they’d drag down the rankings. The only cool thing would be bringing in a bunch of athletic running backs every class and seeing the run around.
There’d be zero patience for any of this. The coach would have to start out with a couple top 10 seasons to even have a hope to recruit well enough to compete, and I can’t see anyone coming in and playing that well with that offense in their first couple years against our schedules.
If Holtz couldn’t manage that impatience as the sport outgrew his offense it’s never happening again.
We’d get athletic RBs, but not great RBs. GT doesn’t exactly recruit or produce NFL caliber RBs. They don’t really need to read blocks or require vision. They mostly catch pitches and operate in space. Not sure that’s a huge draw for kids coming out of HS.
Nd was out coached, plain and simple.
RE: Officiating – I thought the early personal foul call on Tranquill was BS as well. He barely touched Worth.
Well that was once again BVG’s defense being incapable of stopping offenses from doing what they want. Wake only scored seven, but they accomplished their objective of hogging the ball and shortening the game. Thankfully, Josh Adams decided to run the 98 yard touchdown play, so Wake’s strategy didn’t pay off in the end, but it was still frustrating to watch the defense give up four yard gains every snap to an offense that was trying to kill the clock from the first quarter.
Anyone else get the sickening feeling that last year’s “breakthrough” defending GT and Navy’s option had more to do with GT just not being good than any semblance of finally “getting” how to defend them?
Having a Jaylon Smith also helped.
This season is just something else. Six losses in, and none of them by more than eight points.
Yeah, terrible coaching again with the field goal, but haven’t we already had the Inexplicable Turtle Pulls Head In Shell Soul Crushing Loss this season? Kinda felt like a repeat.
I went to Indiana for undergrad, New Mexico for grad school. My final year at UNM, the two schools combined to go 2-22 in football. This year IU is 5-4, UNM is 6-3. I live in Boulder now, and the Buffs are 7-2. What a strange season…
Yep, this feels like 2009 all over again. A team talented enough to have a chance to win on the last possession, but so disorganized and poorly coached that they’re 3-6.
But this year we’ll be 4-8! Totally different!!
IMO its also something lacking in the will to win in our players–they just don’t seem to want it as badly as our opponents do. Mental toughness seems to be underwhelming. You’d think sheer willpower would get us at least a few of these close ones, wouldn’t you?
I know you’re not a Prister/Samson/O’Malley fan, but their take this week is that BK was “taking the bullet” for Jarron Jones, and that Jones didn’t play a lot this game simply because he didn’t want to play against an option team that would cut block him. That Kelly’s dancing around when asked about it was merely to cover for Jones not wanting to play, and Kelly didn’t want to call the kid out. Make of their assessment what you will, but I don’t know how else you explain our best DL guy not playing. Even acknowledging that Jones has an injury history, I find it hard to swallow that a player would make that choice.
Gosh KG, I hadn’t heard that. If true it is very discouraging. I doubt that one of Lou or Ara’s guys would have wanted that, and would bet the house that neither would have tolerated it either.
Their guys played Navy every year too. Must be a generational thing.
“Coach Holtz, how do you motivate your players?”
“You get rid of players who aren’t motivated.”
So Army cut blocks, will Jones opt out? What if Va. Tech and SC cut block him, will he ask out then too? What message does that send to his teammates? That attitude, if true, is a cancer and can’t be tolerated.
Holy moley.
I told you guys, he’s a anchor guy. Can physically do just about anything, but imposes his own mental limits. One of the most frustrating kind of people to try to develope.
Cool, let’s totally throw this kid under the bus with complete conjecture and use it to draw grand conclusions about him as a player and person.
Yeah there’s some truth to that Alstein. There is a lot of conjecture there. I’ll just keep my thoughts to myself on it from now on.
All the calls against ND … you have to wonder at some point if Kelly doesn’t work the officials correctly. Heck, maybe he works them exactly the opposite of how an effective coach would do it and therefore is on every official’s list.
A few weeks ago Holtz was on Sirius describing how he conducted his pregame meetings with the refs. He said he’d meet them in his office and thank them copiously for their service and professionalism. He’d ask if all their needs were met, if their lodging was acceptable, if they slept well, if their meals were great, etc. He said he would get them whatever they needed to be more comfortable, on this and future trips to ND. Then he’d say he’s coached his team to play very hard, right up to the end of the whistle, but never dirty. He said he expected his players to play with passion, but with poise and respect. He said if one of his players ever did something out of line, he would appreciate knowing about it, even if it wasn’t a penalty. He wanted his players to understand accountability.
And he said he is sure the other coach feels the same, so if ND’s players are held to a standard of behavior he expected the other team to be held to that same standard.
He would point out some of the things he’d seen on tape, like a tendency of the other team to hold or block illegally, and that he’s coached his players to politely point out to the refs when that is happening because he knows it is hard to see it lots of times.
He would warn the refs of a couple of his trick plays so they would not be in the way on a reverse, for example.
And of course, during the game he would be all over the very same refs if they blew a call.
Basically, he said working the refs begins hours before the game and was a very carefully orchestrated process.
Kelly seems to be on the wrong side of the refs over and over again. Maybe they just don’t like him. At this point, I could understand that. Sigh.
“Maybe they just don’t like him.”
Do you blame them?
Could be.
Could also be that there are some downright incompetent refs, lots, in fact if you count all the bizarre and blind calls that have happened, and not just this year