Marcus Freeman may very well benefit from an explosive, difficult to defend offense in his second turn at the helm. By keeping it in the family and tabbing Gerad Parker as OC, Coach Freeman may have found the perfect driver for a neon-colored, nitrous-boosted, titanium reinforced 2023 ND Offense,

A year ago around this time, this space hosted a prospectus for a “space force” version of the 2022 ND Offense (the Lorenzo Styles header photo truly does make the post a collector’s item). Obviously what we ended up seeing was very far from what I (or anyone) expected. I would submit that you could perhaps squint at the Ohio State and (especially) Marshall games and see Tommy trying to really drive toward an NFL look for last year’s team, but I digress.

I THINK PARKER AND THIS YEAR’S PERSONNEL MIGHT BE A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN

Reviewing Parker’s resume, I think a few formative itdems stand out:

1. He played WR under Hal Mumme at Kentucky in the early days of the Air Raid

2. He coached WRs under Doc Holliday for the uber-prolific early 2010s Marshall offenses, which could really go fast and set up quick reads for QBs to either stay with a run or get the ball outside

3. He coached on the very RPO-heavy 2019 Penn State offense

4. He was OC at West Virginia under Neal Brown, who made a name for himself running the NASCAR high-speed offense for the Senator Thomas W. Tuberville Texas Tech teams

So what might you say Parker has really been steeped in, philosophically:

  • The importance of key reads (RPO or otherwise) to punish the defense for trying to cheat against one particular scheme (especially the run)
  • The power of tempo to keep defenses on their heels, locked into suboptimal substitution packages, and ultimately tired out.
  • Do I think this means the Irish are going Air Raid this year? No, far from it. I don’t think that’s Freeman’s style and I honestly don’t think a player-centric coach like Freeman would have so much trust in Parker if Gerad were a philosophical zealot for one particular scheme. That said:

THE ROSTER SETS UP WELL TO USE TEMPO AS A DEADLY WEAPON THIS YEAR

Imagine it’s 3rd and 1. The Irish roll out a personnel grouping of:

  • RB Estime (7)
  • RB/WR Tyree (25)
  • WR Merriweather (5)
  • WT Thomas (83)
  • TE Evans (88)

Given the short yardage situation, you’d probably see a lineup along the lines of (note: please forgive this terrible diagram as I did it in the car):

No I was not driving. Kids were going nuts in the back seat though

There’s a lot to like here for ND:

  • The talent along the OL is such that they can always get two double teams/combos involving an All-American candidate, not to mention a plus blocker in Evans and an above-average one in Thomas
  • They have two dudes in Thomas and Estime who can block in space
  • Both WRs on the field are big bodies (especially Merriweather). It would be very dangerous for the safeties to commit downhill lest a play action call leave a big bodied WR in one-on-one coverage downfield against a smaller corner (and Hartman is a proven commodity in these situations – see the video below)
  • Oh, and Estime is a hellacious ball carrier.

So, lots of good options for the offense here. You can play it straight up and have all the big bodies lead for Tyree, do something quick hitting to Estime on the weak-side where numbers are better; motion Thomas, flip Evans, etc. So go ahead, stipulate a conversion. Give it some gas, Gerad! Here’s what the next play could look like if you don’t give the defense a chance to substitute:

 

Now the defense is in a real quandry. The horns of this particular dilemma could be explained as: What Do You Do With Your Safeties?

  • Decide you don’t want to leave a CB 1-on-1 with Merriweather, another CB 1-on-1 with Thomas, and (most frighteningly) a linebacker 1-on-1 in the slot against Tyree? Well, in that case you’re playing two-high. Two-high, by the way, will leave you with 6 defenders in the box against 6 blockers (half of whom are All-American candidates) and 2 potential ball carriers (one of whom is Audric Estime). This also leaves you with an unfavorable coverage matchup on Evans
  • Decide you’d rather shut down the run and make Hartman beat you? Well in that case you’re playing zero or 1-high. That means you’re counting on winning your one on one battles on the outside, and a loss on any one could result in points (especially the Sam backer on Tyree, where anything from a streak to a bubble could be trouble).  The big swing here (and perhaps for the season) is Merriweather: if he can prove a tough-to-very-tough downfield assignment one-on-one ND will be tough to stop.
  • Defenses can try to aggressively pattern match via a Dantionio style Cover 4 look and have the secondary close to the line and adaptively smothering whatever specific play the offense attempts,  but time has shown that offenses can feast on that type of scheme if they’re able to use the whole field and have a QB who knows how to process quickly and where to place the ball against 1-on-1 coverage.

Weirdly, it just so happens that ND has a QB in Sam Hartman has a ton of experience with post-snap reads and going big in the matchup-hunting game. Parker has been around offenses that have made their living with just the same. Could be fun.