At times it looked like Notre Dame was scrimmaging against the annual fantasy camp members made up largely of middle-aged men who looked awkward in full pads and a helmet. On Saturday, a completely overwhelmed Bowling Green team tried their best to compete with the Top 10 Fighting Irish and came away with a goose egg for their efforts. The first shutout in 5 years for Notre Dame will largely be remembered by an easy passing day for Ian Book that completely overwhelmed the MAC visitors.
Let’s review Notre Dame’s 4th win of the season.
Stats Package
| STAT | IRISH | BGSU |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 52 | 0 |
| Plays | 61 | 69 |
| Total Yards | 573 | 228 |
| Yards Per Play | 9.39 | 3.30 |
| Conversions | 8/11 | 8/21 |
| Completions | 21 | 15 |
| Yards/Pass Attempt | 12.59 | 4.07 |
| Rushes | 34 | 42 |
| Rushing Success | 72.7% | 45.0% |
| 10+ Yds Rushing | 8 | 2 |
| Defense Stuff Rate | 34.7% | 10.1% |
Offense
QB: A
RB: B
TE: A
OL: A-
WR: B+
The day in the office was so easy that it’s difficult to rate players for doing anything incredible. The backs ran through some massive holes, Book largely had a ton of time to pass, and completions were to extremely wide open receivers most of the game.
For what it’s worth, my favorite play of the day was the long completion to Brock Wright down the sideline. Interestingly, the Irish followed it up with their worst offensive snap of the day with a failed reverse from Avery Davis that lost 9 yards.
We knew this game would mean very little for Ian Book unless he struggled and that he did not. Last week, I talked about the up and down nature of playing quarterback at Notre Dame and after a stellar performance against a weak opponent Book is now 15 points better in passer rating in 2019 compared to 2018.
Run Success
Jones – 6 of 7 (85.7%)
Flemister – 8 of 8 (100%)
Davis – 1 of 3 (33.3%)
Book – 0 of 2 (0.0%)
Jurkovec – 4 of 4 (100%)
Lenzy – 0 of 1 (0.0%)
Assaf – 2 of 4 (50.0%)
Smith – 2 of 3 (66.6%)
Averaging nearly 7 yards a carry for 233 rushing yards is pretty good. What’s even more impressive is Tony Jones Jr. and C’Bo Flemister combining for 14 successful runs on 15 carries.
This felt like a game to get Michael Young’s confidence back from his collarbone injury and yet just 1 catch for -2 yards. That was pretty strange. I’m getting more impressed with Javon McKinley’s instincts at receiver (team-leading 5 catches for 104 yards) as he’s able to flash a little bit of quickness at his size.
Defense
DL: A-
LB: B+
DB: B
If you had told me Bowling Green would have 14 first downs, 18 successful rushes, 10 catches by Quintin Morris, and 4 drives into Irish territory I would’ve been ready to complain heavily about this defensive performance. That just goes to show how some stats don’t always explain how the game played out.
Although to be fair, there were a few stretches in this game where Notre Dame was pretty sloppy to allow a couple Bowling Green drives to continue. On the other hand, it was hilarious to watch quarterback Grant Loy (who replaced Darius Wade early) run for his life on most drop backs and never have a completion go further than 10 yards from the line of scrimmage.
Stuffs vs. Bowling Green
(season stuffs in parentheses)
Okwara – 2.5 (6.5)
Jones – 2.5 (4.5)
MTA – 2 (7.5)
Bilal – 1.5 (7)
Simon – 1.5 (1.5)
Hinish – 1.5 (5)
Moala – 1.5 (2)
White – 1 (11.5)
Gilman – 1 (7)
JOK – 1 (7.5)
Ademilola, Jay – 1 (5.5)
Hamilton – 1 (2)
Bracy – 1 (1.5)
Bauer – 1 (3)
Ogundeji – 0.5 (4)
Cross – 0.5 (0.5)
Of course, the stuff rate in this game was insanely high. That’s a good way to force 8 punts.
Final Thoughts
The first offensive series with Book taking off on third down and running into a flooded zone of linebackers elicited a nice long groan from me. That was really Book’s only faux pas on the afternoon as he finished with 5 touchdowns and 4 incompletions. He should’ve thrown a little bit more accurate ball on a would-be touchdown to McKinley although the receiver should’ve brought it in anyway.
It was noteworthy to see Joe Wilkins start at kick returner and eventually replaced Chris Finke at punt returner. He continues to be an intriguing option to develop but has yet to catch a pass this season.
Did anyone laugh when they saw Brian VanGorder up in the booth for this game?
Some roster news came out this weekend as Houston Griffith is getting work (again) at safety while receiver Cam Hart has moved to corner. The latter is certainly an interesting move for a nearly 6’3″ athlete.
On Sunday, Brian Kelly mentioned they are currently planning on giving a redshirt to true freshman running back Kyren Williams as well as senior corner Donte Vaughn.
With the injury to Shaun Crawford, the Irish rolled out Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah as the nickel against Bowling Green. Kelly mentioned he will get safety help in this role against USC which means the corners better be prepared to play at a high level.
It remains super weird that Notre Dame can’t put together a bunch of plays on offense this season. Just 61 snaps on Saturday! They’ve yet to break 65 in a game yet this season.
Following their visit to South Bend, the Falcons from BGSU are now the worst team in the country according to the latest SP+ rankings.
Notre Dame is currently an extremely healthy +2.49 in yards per play on the season. That includes being 10th best on offense and 23rd best on defense. According to SP+ the Irish will finish the season facing the 2nd, 41st, 51st, 55th, 61st, 72nd, and 102nd best defenses in the country while the 19th, 31st, 48th, 66th, 68th, 73rd, and 78th best offenses in the nation. It’s not difficult to overstate how important the next two games will be as USC has the best remaining offense and Michigan the best remaining defense.
The switch to Loy at quarterback kept this game from getting absurd. I believe wade had three 3 and outs with 0 successful plays. ND was gonna be up 50 at half if that continued. Bowling green was able to sustain one of those drives with just blatant OPI, but frankly I didn’t care it kept the game moving. Like I said pregame I think one of those opponents per season is ideal.
Loy was annoying accurate for the most part and didn’t make any big mistakes, which if he had thrown a couple more picks would have been 70-0. But this game was also one of the fastest 3:30 kickoffs I can remember so I’m fine with it.
That’s an absolutely devastating (and beautiful) lede from Eric.
Let’s discuss the hot topics — the position switches and redshirt plans. As I was watching the game, I was thinking that Williams must really be in the doghouse if he isn’t getting any snaps…the redshirt plan explains this. As to moving Hart to corner, this sounds like either a future utility player who might never have a home (like Davis) or a transfer waiting to happen. The idea to redshirt Vaughn seems okay, as long as they really don’t need him this year (or does he have some nagging injury that is keeping him out?).
Hart was considered a swing CB/WR prospect as a recruit, and in fact today Kelly talked about how they discussed that with him when they recruited him. To be honest he always had an uphill battle to see the field at WR just because of the sheer number of bodies in front of him.
Vaughn is going to play against USC, per Kelly, but that will be his fourth game so it’ll have to be it if he’s going to redshirt. I think Crawford might be back for Michigan; if he can stay on the field I think the Vaughn redshirt could work. If he can’t, I don’t know how they’ll hold Vaughn back for the rest of the season.