Recapping Notre Dame –Temple with advanced stats: a dominant rushing performance, some questions in the passing game, and an improving defense that showed flashes but needs more consistency.

Introduction

If you’ve been with us a few years, you’ll notice a few tweaks and changes for 2017. I’ll introduce them as they arrive, but as always much credit to Bill Connelly (who invented the majority of these stats). If confused, check out the advanced stats glossary here.

The Basics

With the majority of our advanced stats we’ll discount garbage time unless otherwise noted. There’s no consensus on defining when it’s truly garbage time – it’s usually a lead of about three-four scores in the 1st half, and 14-17 points in the second. Since we’re watching all the games (I assume), I’m usually subjective with identifying when garbage time begins.

For all the talk about a more up-tempo offense, the Irish wound up with a pretty average pace in this one. Some of that may be Chip Long holding some cards in his Under Armour sleeves for UGA, some of it may have been the game situation with the Irish up by a lot early, but it’s worth keeping an eye on as the season progresses. The idea of tempo has been a perennial offseason talking point that is gone by late September, but if Long really has the keys now, we should see a difference.

There’s typically an inflection point where you can see the strategies of both teams change with desperation and goals of running out (or preserving) the clock taking priority. On Saturday that was with 1:22 left in the 3rd quarter, when a fifth ND touchdown put the Irish up 35-10. 29% of the games plays were then conducted in garbage time, and have mostly been filtered out from the numbers below.

Explosiveness

Some housekeeping first – in addition to comparing YPP (Yards per Play), I’ve added YPSR (yards per successful run) and YPSP (yards per successful pass) to measure explosiveness. These should help answer the same question IsoPPP, the explosiveness component in S&P+, attempts to – when you’re successful, how successful are you? But unlike IsoPPP, which assigns a value to yardage in different parts of the field, we’ll keep this simpler with just the average yards per successful play. I’ve also added two defensive stats – havoc rate and stuff rate – to capture a versions of “explosion” for the defense in addition to big-play prevention.

It’s tempting after Saturday to wave aside Notre Dame’s video-game numbers with a condescending “Well, Temple”. But this is a defending conference champion (in the 6th best conference) that hired an excellent DC as its new head coach. Yeah, there’s turnover and a big talent advantage, but this is a team project to be around the same quality as Maryland, Minnesota, Arizona State, and host of other major conference teams. Demolishing them on offense in this fashion is very, very nice.

After struggling last season to break long runs, rushing explosion appears to be back in a big way. While the game was still competitive, the Irish hit an explosive play (run of 12+ yards or pass of 16+) on almost a quarter of their plays. The passing offense hit a few longer passes to Equanimeous St. Brown and barely missed a few more, while still keeping things relatively vanilla. There’s not cause for concern yet, but a second viable receiving threat is in shadowy “a challenger may or may not be approaching” territory right now.

Mike Elko’s philosophy is much more “bend but don’t break” than Brian Van Gorder’s, and we saw that executed fairly well against the Owls. There were just three gains of 20 yards or more for Temple before garbage time, and while some of the missed stops were frustrating, the Irish forced an inferior opponent with an inexperienced QB to attempt to string together many successful conversions.

That “bend but don’t break” tilt also doesn’t mean the defense wasn’t disruptive. After tallying a havoc rate (% of pass deflections, TFL, and forced fumbles) of just 13.4% in 2015 (102nd nationally), the Irish put up a strong 19.4% against Temple. 11 tackles for a loss helped, forcing multiple passing downs where the defense mostly took advantage and forced stops.

Efficiency

There aren’t many surprises here – the Irish rushing attack was ultra-efficient, while the defense was inconsistent and capitalized on a shaky Temple passing offense. As Eric pointed out in his recap, the Notre Dame run defense yielded a lot of successes early but tightened up substantially in the second half. The Owls averaged 4.9 yards per carry on their first eight rushing attempts on first down, then the Irish stuffed their last four before garbage time for total of -6 yards. There’s your “I need a drink” and “start drinking the kool aid” moments getting ready for UGA in two small stretches.

If there’s an area for concern on offense, it’s if Notre Dame can pass the ball when everyone knows it’s coming. The Irish converted just four of sixteen passing downs (2nd and 8+, 3rd and 5+ – not necessarily passes, but scenarios where passing is the likely course of action). Brandon Wimbush faced six 3rd and longs of 7+ yards, which included his early touchdown scramble. But in the other five attempts he was 1-5 for 4 yards and the costly interception.

The receivers will have to help for passing efficiency to improve, and outside of St. Brown there weren’t a lot of answers in week one. Cam Smith seemed to be the second target at receiver, but was only able to turn five targets into 10 yards. The tight ends received 12 of Wimbush’s 30 targets and were efficient options but Alize Mack had some costly drops and miscommunications. Kevin Stepherson would provide a much-needed threat, but he doesn’t seem destined to return any time soon.

Defensively the Irish did a nice job with the leverage battle and forcing Temple into passing downs (granted, some was the Owls to themselves with penalties). Once in those passing downs the Irish were just ok against a pedestrian offense – the screens given up and some poor tackling were reminders that Mike Elko is not a wizard and this will not become a good defense overnight.

Scoring Opportunities, Field Position, and Turnovers

It’s tough to complain much about converting scoring opportunities when Notre Dame converted every red zone visit into a touchdown. The Irish weren’t perfect with scoring opportunities, but Justin Yoon’s missed field goals weren’t by much. I appreciated BK’s call to go for it on 4th and 2 at the Temple 41 in the fourth quarter, but it was a little underwhelming with a vanilla run by Tony Jones stuffed after an incompletion on third down.

The field position battle was fairly even in this one – both teams received their best starting points off turnovers, but generally special teams were solid and unspectacular. The Irish started on average at their own 27 while Temple started at their 31. The Tyler Newsome / Julian Love combination was lethal, but kickoff coverage was a little lackadaisical.

Turnovers were even – the Irish recovered the only forced fumble of the game, and the Owls were able to snag one of a few Wimbush throws into tight windows.  Both teams were only able to get their hands on a few pass deflections, and Notre Dame got a bit lucky that Tony Jones was barely down before losing the ball on a third quarter run.

On to Georgia

Three things to watch for on Saturday in a huge game against the Bulldogs:

Leverage rate

Leverage rate is the percentage of plays that are standard downs (versus passing downs). How often are the UGA and Notre Dame offenses forced into passing downs and third and long situations? How will they perform on these downs? The Bulldogs ranked 80th in Passing Downs S&P+ in 2016, and there’s no reason to believe that will improve with a freshman quarterback making his first start on the road. Mike Elko’s Wake Forest defense also ranked 21st on Passing Down S&P+ defense last year, and I think he probably has some fun wrinkles up his sleeve for Saturday night.

The Irish defense forcing so many stuffs against Temple is a great sign looking toward a shaky Georgia line, but tackling wasn’t consistent and the level of competition goes several steps up against Nick Chubb and Sony Michel. If Georgia is in a lot of 3rd and 4 yards or less situations, it’s going to be a long day. The ND offense as a whole will also face their biggest challenges of the early season trying to block of huge, talented, and athletic front that was 29th in Passing S&P+ last year and brings almost everyone back.

Both quarterbacks will be susceptible to mistakes on third and long, and this is where Fromm and Wimbush will try to avoid beating themselves. Both made more than a couple ill-advised throws in their openers, and will need to prevent turnovers that could swing a pretty even matchup (see: FSU-Bama).

Run Success Rate

Last season UGA was only 57th in rushing success rate, with the poor offensive line performance making things hard for Chubb and Michel. It seems impossible for a unit with Georgia’s talent to stay as bad as they were last year on the OL, but Notre Dame still has questions about run blocking and interior DL depth. When the home team has the ball, Georgia’s defense is stout but wasn’t penetrating last year, ranking better in limiting explosiveness (17th) than efficiency (43rd). The Bulldogs also struggled in power run situations, allowing opponents to convert 75.6% of runs on 3rd/4th and two yards or less (110th in FBS). Both defenses won’t give up many big plays, but the more consistent success the better the chances of breaking a long run (and setting up play action).

Yards per Successful Pass

Both the Irish and Bulldog defenses have serious question marks in the secondary – the Dawgs are strong at safety but have had injuries plague a couple top corners. They’ll both face challenges staying disciplined against run-first attacks that are tempting to cheat up against, especially if they’re finding success. Georgia was very good limiting big plays last season (20th in IsoPPP+), and Notre Dame prevented the big plays against Temple (thanks in part to some QB inaccuracy). I don’t expect either passing game to be very efficient on Saturday night, but the one that can break a few long gains will have the upper hand (and maybe free up some breathing room for the run game).