Two straight weeks, two straight heart attacks, 2-0. Notre Dame nearly suffered a massive upset against Toledo despite dominating the efficiency battle, as several concerning storylines from Tallahassee followed the Irish home. For a second straight week, the defense dominated long stretches of the game and wreaked tons of havoc, yet surrendered huge plays to keep the Rockets in the game. Again, the Notre Dame offense looked hopeless running the ball (except when Tyler Buchner infused life), adding three costly turnovers to make things even more difficult this week.

No garbage time in this game, which was disheartening! The only plays excluded from the data are end of half and end of game kneel-downs. Confused? Check out this handy advanced stats glossary here or reach out in the comments.

Explosiveness

 

The Marcus Freeman era continues to be extremely volatile, with incredible stretches punctured by massive chunk gains. With four plays allowing 60+ yards, the Irish defense has now given up more of those gains in two games under Freeman than three years under Clark Lea (two in 2020, none in 2019, one in 2018).

It would feel downright Van-Gordian if it wasn’t for how successful the Notre Dame defense has been for the vast majority of snaps. The “take out the big plays and now the stats look good” game is cheating, but it’s far from meaningless – consistently limiting efficiency, creating havoc and negative plays – those are signs of potential. The Irish allowed 63 yards combined in the second and third quarters against Toledo. Unfortunately, in that same stretch, the Rockets outscored Notre Dame 10-7, thanks to a pick-six and short field goal drive after a failed fourth-down attempt.

The $64,000 question is if ND can drastically reduce these explosive plays. It’s entirely plausible that these are underestimated growing pains in the Lea-Freeman transition – it’s only two games, with many new starters in the mix and Freeman understanding the strengths and limitations of his personnel. It’s easy to envision a world where the defense dials the aggression back a touch, tackling improves, and these dominant halves start stretching into games.

Still, it’s troubling these big gains have come against a shaky FSU offense and Toledo. However you’d like to judge the Rockets, there will be many better offenses coming later on the schedule that will be more difficult to create havoc against, make inefficient, and clamp down on the chunk plays. Schematically it seems like there’s some inherent conflict between the way Freeman wants to play and the Irish personnel – how many players can hold up in man coverage, what is being asked of defensive ends, and how the Irish line up against receiver heavy formations.

Both defenses generated a ton of negative plays, with impressive numbers stuffing runs behind the line of scrimmage and rushing the passer.  Players at every level stepped up to generate disruption for Notre Dame, including Jayson Ademilola, Isaiah Foskey, JD Bertrand, and of course, Kyle Hamilton. For the Irish, this was expected, but the Toledo defensive line causing this many problems…not so much.

Efficiency

Bill Connelly’s tweet may have ruined the surprise, but the Irish dominated the success rate battle under the radar. Teams with a margin of +10-20% in success rate win 92% of the time with an average margin of +17 points. It was a close call reminiscent of Virginia Tech in 2019, where Notre Dame had no business playing a close game down the stretch, but turnovers and a few big plays nearly led to a horrific outcome.

We’ve somehow made it this far without talking about Jack Coan, Buchner, the offensive line, and the conundrum that combination presents for Brian Kelly and Tommy Rees. It’s a minor miracle that the Irish scratched together efficient offense with the offensive line struggling mightily, requiring defibrillation with Buchner’s legs to get anything going on the ground and constantly allowing Toledo to harass Coan.

Even with Buchner’s rushing contribution, including his presence helping open things up for the long Kyren Williams touchdown run, the running stats are abysmal through two weeks. Notre Dame is 121st in stuff rate allowed, 119th in offensive line yards, and 104th in opponent havoc rate. With Coan in the running game has been virtually nonexistent, with Williams and Chris Tyree routinely facing contact immediately at the line of scrimmage.

The Notre Dame staff seems caught between two paths, although they may continue to split the difference as they did in the home opener. It’s worth noting Brian Kelly is no stranger to playing two quarterbacks, from the ill-fated DeShone Kizer and Malik Zaire ping-ponging in 2016 to a pretty successful Tony Pike – Zach Collaros timeshare at Cincinnati.  Buchner’s talent and allure are incredibly tempting, and his ability to assist the run game is desperately needed. However, it’d be foolish to assume he’ll be just as effective against better talent that has time to prepare for his running ability. Fully turning to the true freshman could also mean losing some rare offensive components working right now despite the line – quick reads to Mayer, screen passes to the backs, and back shoulder throws to Austin that Coan has excelled at.

Then through no fault of his own, Coan is simply a poor fit with the state of the offensive line. The pick-six was horrific, but he’s averaging 8.7 yards per attempt and completing 70% of his passes (when he can get the ball away). But a traditional running game is dead in the water with Coan in, and his style of staying in the pocket is going to lead to a lot of sacks every game. Rees and the offense can help him out more – give Coan more play-action and continue to spread the field horizontally with more receivers. Leverage more pre-snap motion, opening up quick passes to the flat that act almost as runs but avoid the weak line and still allow Tyree and Williams to shake loose. Add more misdirection and eye candy with the threat of receivers in the run game. Still, no matter what, the rushing attack will have an inherent ceiling with Coan that doesn’t exist with Buchner. The path to success with the Wisconsin transfer requires a pass-heavy attack that’s diametrically opposed with Notre Dame’s recent offensive identity (note – this isn’t a reason not to go this route, simply an observation of why it may not happen).

Finishing Drives, Field Position, & Turnovers

The Irish barely edged Toledo in generating scoring chances and were fortunate the Rockets had to settle for so many field goals in the red zone. For a second straight week, a team averaged over 7.0 points per red zone trip, thanks to Avery Davis’ insane 2-point conversion to give Notre Dame a three-point lead.

Notre Dame was slightly unlucky in the turnover battle, losing both fumbles and the only team to throw an interception despite similar pass break-up numbers for each team. Over the course of a season a team is expected to recover around 50% of fumbles (truly a coinflip, although individual fumbles can vary based on where they take place) and about 22% of passes defended turn into interceptions. For the Irish not to come away without a pick in this game (according to replay, at least) was also unlucky.

Of course, the big story with the turnovers was just how consequential they were – no arm punts on 3rd and long here. In fact, three of Notre Dame’s four biggest plays by absolute EPA on offense with the three turnovers, which lost approximately 18 points by EPA calculations.

On to Purdue

After one week we always caution against overreaction but find plenty of storylines and red flags to keep an eye on. The concerning themes from the Florida State game continue to be worrisome, for the most part. If anything, the introduction of Buchner to the offense just introduces more uncertainty to a team that already seems to have a hard time knowing its identity. The Boilermakers were quietly solid on offense last year, have a defensive end I feel very confident predicting Notre Dame cannot block and are only a single-digit underdog in the early lines.

At the very least, this isn’t boring, right? While the opponents don’t match up cleanly, there are a lot of parallels between the start of this season and 2018. After the Irish wheezed past Ball State and were outplayed in many aspects by Vanderbilt but escaped with a win, I wrote some perspective that feels somewhat fitting three years later:

S&P+ gave Vanderbilt a 56% win probability looking at the final stats of this game – one where the YPP edge went to the Commodores, along with more scoring opportunities and some bad turnover luck. These numbers echo what a lot of Notre Dame fans at this point feel – that this team is maybe a bit overrated (18th in S&P+) and due for a letdown any week now.

While by no means is this team a finished product, even if that is the case, I’d argue we should embrace it. These weekly reviews are a lot about the numbers and projecting things moving forward, but speaking from the heart instead of the brain for a second, how fun would it be to scratch out a bunch of close games with a clutch defense, streaky offense, and lethal kicking combination? Would anything make the Notre Dame-hating college football world madder than an Irish team like, say, 2014 FSU, that just keeps winning close games and getting hype despite not being great? I’m all for winning these ugly games, maintaining a spotless (or close record), and having Kirk Herbstreit putting us on upset alert every week.

… I would love to see Notre Dame come out and dominate against Wake Forest, but if they win by three or something it will be time for full-on Trolltre Dame, the top-10 team everyone thinks is overrated but just keeps winning.

Do not mistake this as a prediction for 12-0; at this moment I’m not confident this is a better football team than six or so teams left on the schedule. The expectations and formula are different this year, and we’ll see if a quarterback change ends up sparking the offense as it did with the beginning of the Ian Book era. But the outlook can definitely be applied as long as the winning continues, and in the big picture, that has to remain the goal even if expectations are being readjusted.

Preparing and developing young players for the future is important but so is recruiting, and recruits tend to like ranked teams, great atmospheres, major bowl games and big games. On the table this year is still:

  • A Soldier Field battle against Wisconsin already in one network’s #1 spot
  • A potential top-10 matchup hosting Cincinnati that could very well draw ESPN Gameday
  • The road trip to Lane Stadium that sneakily could see undefeated Virginia Tech against a hopefully unscathed Irish team
  • A chance to shovel the final dirt of Clay Helton and David Shaw’s graves (although I wish they’d both stay, they’re trying hard and doing great)

Buckle up, everything is still in play. Despite the early struggles the Irish are a top-20ish team in most advanced metrics and has already seen three of its scariest opponents pick up ugly losses two weeks in.