Breaking down the classic “beat an opponent by 29 points, yet inspire a crisis of confidence in your fanbase” win over Boston College. What does Notre Dame’s offensive identity look like through three games, and how might the Irish evolve if the passing game doesn’t improve*?

*It might just improve

The Basics

Saturday’s game was a bit above average in terms of both possessions and plays for both teams, mostly thanks to BC trying to run their offense at a solid tempo and multiple short drives from both teams pushing up the possessions. While it looked for a long time like an ugly game that might go down the wire, 24% of the game (most of the 4th quarter) ended up being played in garbage time.

Explosiveness

Let’s start with a quick look with what we know about the Notre Dame offense through three games. Who is ND offense right now? Out of 130 FBS teams, the Irish are…

  • A respectable 23rd in Offensive S&P+, which on its surface seems like about what we might have guessed before the season, maybe a little bit behind if you were really drinking the preseason Kool Aid.
  • Like with most teams early in the season, consistency is a question mark. Looking at offensive percentile performance (think of it like your old standardized test scores), ND logged an 87th percentile performance vs Temple, a 14th percentile game against UGA, and then an 85th percentile performance at Boston College.
  • An extremely explosive (4th in Rushing IsoPPP) and decently efficient (54th in Rushing Success Rate) ground attack
  • An inefficient passing game (118th in Passing Success Rate) that struggles on passing downs (120th in Passing Downs Success Rate)

That sums up the offense we saw against Boston College, doesn’t it? Maybe the most important question at this point is how efficient the running game can become. This offseason Bill Connelly explored the relationship between explosiveness and efficiency in this fantastic article. The key takeaway is that it’s pretty difficult to intentionally generate explosive plays – if anything, the best way to try to be explosive is just being efficient as often as possible and eventually some big plays will pop.

This has been evident in Notre Dame’s first three games – the Irish were hyper-efficient on the ground against Temple (59% success rate) and BC (53%) and broke off several big plays. Against Georgia, the offense couldn’t stay on the field long enough to break many big plays, and was far less efficient (24% rushing success rate). If the Bulldogs are the exception to the rule and the Irish can be find a season rushing success rate near 50%, Notre Dame will be tough to beat. If their current rushing success rate of 45% (or lower) is closer to reality once you average out the good and bad teams faced so far, this is a team that’s going to struggle with offensive inconsistency due to the dependency and high-variance nature of explosive runs.

Some of that inconsistency was evident through the ugly first half and much of the third quarter – the Irish offense score on only one of its first six possessions, and two of the first ten. Against BC this wasn’t costly, but with the concern about the passing game escalating, it’s a definite worry moving forward. The Irish will face much better offenses, and if the offense sputters and opponents are able to open up a big lead, this isn’t an offense right now that’s well suited for playing from behind.

Efficiency

Speaking of the defense, this was a minor step backward after what felt like a breakthrough performance against Georgia the week prior. The Eagles offense was unable to scratch out over 4 yard per play against Northern Illinois and Wake Forest, so for them to find moderate success at 4.74 YPP (before garbage time) against a more talented Notre Dame front wasn’t awesome. The same team that held the Bulldogs in check should have dominated this BC offense, but in the big picture it’s hard to argue with a unit so obviously improved from 2016.

So far limiting opponent efficiency has been the calling card of Mike Elko’s baby tenure in South Bend – the Irish are top 20 in limiting opponent efficiency, and pretty balanced between the run (12th in opponent rush success) and pass (24th). The huge “what if” here is the small sample sizes, especially with Temple looking abysmal offensively regardless of opponent and Boston College’s recent history of putrid offenses.

Are you surprised that the Irish were near the national average in passing down success rate last week? You may be less surprised when you find out that all of those successes came on the ground, via two Wimbush scrambles and three designed runs. The Irish actually ran the ball on 68% (13 of 19) passing downs against the Eagles, a dramatic increase from Temple (38%) and Georgia (33%) tendencies. Some of those runs were scrambles on called passes, but it will be interesting to see if that run ratio on passing downs (currently 26th highest in FBS) continues to increase.

Finishing Scoring Drives, Field Position, & Turnovers

It was encouraging to see the Irish find the end zone on all of their red zone visits a week after settling for four field goals against Georgia. Notre Dame now ranks 26th nationally with 5.32 points per trip inside the opponent 40, and I attribute the success to fullbacks and lack of success to not enough fullback use. Wake Forest had an excellent defense in the red zone and preventing touchdowns on scoring opportunities last year, and so far that Elko magic has also transitioned to South Bend. ND ranks 36th in opponent points per trip inside the Irish 40 (3.56), and it’s nice to see the Irish playing well on both sides of the ball when there’s a short field.

The Irish lost the average starting field position battle again, and this is starting to look like a potential under-the-radar issue. Notre Dame’s average starting field position was its own 25 compared to BC starting an average drive at their own 32 yard line. That may not seem like a big deal, but using historical data a team with an average starting field position 6-10 yards better than an opponent wins 78.3% of those games. The ND return game has been mostly non-existent this year minus an almost-celebration against UGA, and the coverage units have been as bad on kickoffs as they’ve been good on punts. This is an area that hasn’t quite hurt the Irish yet, but definitely has the potential to cost the team a close game.

The Irish won the turnover battle 3-2, forcing multiple late giveaways to compensate for the early gifts to the Eagle defense. A consequence of Brandon Wimbush’s inaccuracy has been a few deflections into the air – sooner or later those will cost Notre Dame, so I’m glad we got one out of the way in a 29 point win. Ideally the two lost possessions are learning opportunities in a game ND ultimately could afford them in, and the takeaways inspire some increased confidence in the defense’s ability to force a few more moving forward.

Bonus content: Where does the offense go if things stay the same?

Since we’re all prisoners of the moment, it seems like there’s been a rush to jump on the bandwagon of “Notre Dame will definitely not be able to pass the ball well this year”. The numbers are ugly, without a doubt, but this ignores some important things like 1) how most quarterbacks don’t debut to immediate success, no matter how talented or how long they’ve been in a college program, and 2) how they tend to improve over time. Wimbush’s reputation from years scouted in high school and in practice at Notre Dame isn’t of a Denard Robinson athlete learning to throw, it’s of a skilled passer who also is a threat with his legs.

Nevertheless, if – and this is a huge if – the passing game really will be a constant area of inconsistency this year, how does the Irish offensive identity evolve? For the fun of speculation and giving in to instant overreaction, here are some ideas, with the caveat that I think Brandon Wimbush is probably going to become a better passer sooner rather than later than any quarterback he’s implicitly compared to below.

Scenario #1: More of the same with some tweaks:

The least exciting but highest probability scenario is little change to the scheme and balance of the offense. The passing woes are a team failure – some on Wimbush, some on the receivers, and some on the coaches who aren’t matching plays with what the quarterback can do right now. The Irish offense placed a significant load of responsibility on Wimbush in the first three games, and the staff may look at ways to simplify and ease the number of things he’s asked to do. I think it’s pretty illuminating that after Temple Wimbush commented that they had only shown off about a third of the offense, but we haven’t seen anything much different in the two games that followed.

Another wrinkle may be borrowing a little bit from our service academy friends in terms of play calling and aggression. There’s no reason the Irish shouldn’t feel extremely confident about their ability to pick up first downs running the ball on third and fourth and short, so why not keep running the ball on 3rd and mediums (5-7) against less crowded boxes with an eye on running some more if you come up a bit short?

Scenario #2 – Bama 2016 with Jalen Hurts:

Despite a true freshman QB with some passing limitations, Alabama still finished 5th in Offensive S&P+ last season. The run game powered everything (2nd in Rushing S&P+), but the Tide still finished 29th in Passing S&P+ despite inefficiency throwing the ball (75th in Passing Success Rate).  In term of offensive identity, the Tide were run-first (54th in standard down run rate) and run-second, running at an even high rate (21st nationally) on passing downs. The passing game then rotated between deep shots playing off the threat of a run and short, easy throws to build Hurts confidence. Notre Dame doesn’t have a Calvin Ridley, but these are low risk throw to see if a receiver could break a big play – per Pro Football Focus, a full 45% of Hurts’ completions came behind the line of scrimmage. Wimbush throws a nice deep ball and has been accurate on his quick / short passes, and taking a page from last year’s Saban/Kiffin playbook could be a direction to head.

Scenario #3: 2013 Auburn with Nick Marshall:

Back when Gus Malzahn was the hottest offensive mind in college football and the Tigers were blessed with divine intervention, Auburn also had a largely inefficient passing game (57th in passing success rate). Transfer and converted CB Nick Marshall was an explosive threat on the ground but had a ways to go as a passer. Through his first six games, his average passing line was 14-28 for 190 yards with 1.0 touchdowns and 0.7 interceptions per game.

The evolution of that Tiger offense was to take the ball out of Marshall’s hands as a passer – in the second half of the year (including the SEC and BCS Championship Games), he only threw the ball an average of 13.7 times per game, including three games with single-digit attempts. I don’t think such an extreme split is in Notre Dame’s future, but I also don’t think I’d hate seeing what this offense looked like with a more creative run game just getting carry after carry. And that did open things up for when Auburn did throw – in that stretch Marshall averaged 14 yards per completion.

On to Michigan State

Before the season, a lot of prognosticators (including me) wrote off the Spartans. After their own (less meme-worthy) disaster of a season in 2016, offseason issues sliced off much of what talented depth remained after already losing a number of key players to graduation. A Mark Dantonio hot seat entering 2018 seemed more likely than not.

All of that still may be true, but Sparty looked mighty frisky in their first two games, albeit against poor competition. Dominating bad opponents is a good sign for Dantonio and company, but it’s impossible to know if it’s a red herring or sign of good things to come. Mississippi State stomped bad competition in their two opening games and then unexpectedly rolled LSU; on the opposite side of the coin, Stanford’s opening week beat down of Rice has turned out to be what any team with a pulse does to the poor Owls.

Three key stats to watch for on Saturday night:

#1: Michigan State running success rate

Dantonio’s best Michigan State teams have thrived on efficient, run-heavy attacks, and that approach has worked well again early in 2017. The stable of Sparty running backs all lean more towards between the tackles efficiency than explosiveness, and one of the few areas they struggled so far is with too many runs going for zero or negative yardage (20.8%, 80th in FBS). The Irish defensive line has been unexpectedly solid and disruptive, and if they can semi-regularly get Michigan State in 2nd and 3rd and long scenarios, I really like the defense’s chances to force some mistakes. If Notre Dame isn’t penetrating and tackling well, like it did at times against Boston College, then the Spartans will be able to put together some sustained drives.

#2 Irish passing explosiveness

This could apply to any passing statistic you want to pick out of a hat, but here’s my rationale for passing explosiveness. I think this Notre Dame offense can be successful without an efficient passing game, but not without one that is connecting on some big plays every so often. If the UGA game is the exception to the rule and the Irish have the type of rushing offense we saw against Temple and BC, defenses are going to be forced to put a ton of bodies near the line of scrimmage to stop the run. Even on passing downs, you can bet opposing DC’s are also scheming about how they’ll contain Wimbush scrambles. If the Irish can hit a couple deep balls or use defense’s aggression against them with some well-timed screens, very few opponents can stop them. This feels like a big statement game in terms of how Chip Long and Brian Kelly see the Irish offense evolving as the year goes on, and this is one potential route to explore.

#3 Notre Dame run rate on Passing Downs

Against bad competition, the Spartan defense has shut down the opponent run games, giving up successes on just 25% of runs (4th nationally). The difficulty this weekend goes from freshman to Heisman level though, and in a hostile environment I think we may see the Irish go extremely run-heavy early. How Notre Dame chooses to run the offense in this game and how successful they are could go a long way toward establishing an offensive identity – something that’s been somewhat lacking in the majority of the Brian Kelly era.