Notre Dame averaged 3.6 yards per play on offense, was stuffed on more than a third of its runs, and had the same number of offensive scoring chances as Wisconsin. Jack Coan was injured and Tyler Buchner unavailable, and the Irish averaged 4.2 yards per pass attempt to trail Graham Mertz who threw for 5.7. With some late defensive and special teams heroics, this somehow translated into a 28-point win! Despite all of the defensive disruption Notre Dame still managed to win the efficiency battle, essentially playing the Badgers to a draw until the turnover floodgates opened in the closing minutes at Soldier Field.

Finally some garbage time! However, it only began per SP+ definitions once the Irish scored their final touchdown to lead by more than 22 in the 4th quarter, so only the final Wisconsin possession was thrown out.

Confused? Check out this handy advanced stats glossary here or reach out in the comments.

Explosiveness

Spoiler alert: these breakdowns will be nowhere near as fun as the result of the game and gaudy final score. The core, repeatable stat categories reflect the first 50 or so minutes of game time – an ugly, even, defensive battle. You do not need advanced stats to recognize this, yet somehow every national recap has turned into a story of brave truth-telling about how actually this wasn’t a 28-beatdown. Wisconsin outgained the Irish in yards per play by a healthy margin but neither team was able to move the ball consistently, especially on the ground where both finished under three yards per carry. Wisconsin surprisingly held the big-play edge through the air (especially since the long Chez Mellusi shovel-pass counts as a pass), but was forced to lean on their inefficient aerial attack much more than usual, passing on 60% of offensive plays.

For a second straight week, Marcus Freeman’s defense made a Big Ten opponent earn their points, limiting long explosive plays and forcing the Badgers into passing downs where Mertz struggled. The prototypical UW rushing attack is a little like Navy in their intent to run for at least 4-5 yards per carry on early downs and keep things on schedule. As ISD’s Jamie Uyeyama pointed out, the Irish held the Badgers to 1.8 yards per carry on 1st down and 0.8 yards per play on 3rd down. The vaunted Wisconsin rushing attack had a long run of ten yards, and the long passing plays came from a shovel pass (with a tough missed tackle) and making Mertz hit a deep ball to a second-string tight end.

The Notre Dame offense was able to cobble together scoring chances (with major assists from the defense) on 5 of 13 drives despite the very good UW defense constantly creating negative plays. No one expected much from the Irish rushing attack, but they were stuffed constantly with 8 of 23 runs going for no gain or negative yards. Pass protection wasn’t any better, and in total, the ND offense lost 61 yards in negative plays. Despite the big win, the ominous question of “How do you produce offense with this offensive line?” looms like a dark cloud over Tommy Rees.

It’s fitting that the most impactful plays of the game (by total EPA) were dominated by both defenses and the Tyree kickoff return touchdown. The first Kevin Austin receiving touchdown registers as the most impactful positive play by either offense and is all the way down at the 10th biggest in the game in terms of EPA on a single play.

Efficiency

Notre Dame was able to to MacGyver together close to average offensive efficiency with some streaky passing success and a workmanlike ground game. Getting to a near-40% success rate rushing while averaging 2.4 yards per carry is some statistical voodoo – it featured a couple of 2-yard successes on 3rd/4th and 1 (a Kyren run and Coan sneak), and a bunch of 5-6 yard gains on first down runs when backs weren’t stuffed.

 

It deserves mentioning that this was another epic performance by Williams in blitz pickup, rivaling last year’s Clemson game that earned national hype. This season surely hasn’t gone as expected for the junior with NFL aspirations, as he constantly tries to break tackles at or behind the line of scrimmage, but he just keeps doing the dirty work, setting the tone as a captain, and plugging away every play.

With Coan going out with an ankle injury, we saw our first Drew Pyne appearance since his single pass attempt in the Rose Bowl against Alabama. While it was a really small sample size, Pyne moved a bit more smoothly in the pocket (and just a bit – he did take a sack trying to escape running into his own linemen) and delivered some accurate medium range passes into traffic with touch and some zip. His performance was pretty favorable compared to Coan’s in just a few possessions:

Good thing no one will wildly extrapolate those numbers to argue who should start! At this point Coan, Pyne, and Buchner are all offering varying degrees of pocket passing, mobility, and running threats. It’s hard to know which can be more successful with the state of the offensive line, other than that the QB has their work cut out for them. A snapshot of Notre Dame’s OL advanced stats paints a very grim picture through four games:

  • Rushing Success Rate: 123rd
  • Power Run Success: 112th
  • Line Yards: 127th
  • Run Stuff Rate: 130th!
  • Havoc Allowed: 121st
  • Sack Rate Allowed: 122nd

It’s a minor miracle the Irish are 63rd nationally in offensive points per drive despite those struggles. Is it sustainable? Unlikely, but top end talent capable of breaking big gains like Williams, Tyree, Mayer, Austin, and Lenzy make a compelling case. It’s a thin margin for error offensively, and leaves Notre Dame vulnerable if the elements or a bad day leave the offense unable to manufacture big plays.

Adding to that margin of error, however, is the Irish defense. Even throughout the struggles against FSU and Toledo the defense was outstanding on 90+% of plays, just the few that didn’t go right were all busting for 60+ yard gains and touchdowns. Now with some time and adjustments, that small percentage of bad plays hasn’t been as costly, and defenses have largely been unable to put together long drives against the ND front.

Notre Dame is up to 18th in rushing success allowed, 6th in preventing opponent power runs, 15h in stuff rate, and 9th in standard down success allowed (with passing success rates wildly improving every week). The Badgers only averaged 6.6 yards to gain on 3rd downs (compared to 8.4 for the Irish) but were just 1-for-14, and had a 14% success rate on passing downs. Not all opposing QBs will go full Mertz, but that feels like a repeatable formula – making the stops and keeping things in front to ensure offenses have to face and convert many 3rd downs, knowing ND can be very effective in those situations.

Finishing Drives, Field Position, & Turnovers

Scoring chances for each offense were even, and Notre Dame’s special teams and defense would have been in the mix with three. Again situationally the Irish defense was strong, getting a critical 4th down stop to avoid an early deficit in the 1st quarter and holding the Badgers to a bad, long field goal attempt late in a two-score game.

No one should make sweeping conclusions based on nine red zone visits and Notre Dame settling for five touchdowns (81st in points per red zone trip). However, given the bigger sample we have of running and passing results, it feels safe to say the Irish should avoid an old-school running mentality close to the goal line and continue to look for one-on-one opportunities for Mayer and the wide receivers.

From the box score, Notre Dame benefitted from a ton of turnover luck. While the fumbles meet the 50/50 expectation of losses versus recoveries for each team, there were close to an even number of passes defended, yet the Irish snagged four interceptions versus none for the Badgers.

There’s luck involved there, to be sure, but the final two interceptions (and points), while fun, weren’t necessary to secure the win. For the season Notre Dame’s turnover luck has been pretty good – they’ve broken up 6.25 passes per game, tied for 7th in FBS, and converted 36% of them into interceptions (average is 22%). Meanwhile, opponents have only intercepted 11% of Irish passes defensed, and yikes do we not need additional turnovers for the offense.