Saturday’s game against Virginia Tech presented the Irish with a chance to exorcise the demons of last year’s loss in South Beach by going into a hostile road environment and coming out with a victory. But to football nerds like me, it also gave us a chance to see Chip Long – Notre Dame’s promising young offensive coordinator – match wits with Bud Foster – universally regarded as one of the best defensive minds in college football. And it did not disappoint.
Play 1
It’s Notre Dame’s first drive, and Bud Foster is loud and clear about how he’s going to attack the Irish offense – he’s going to pack the box, stop the run, and hopefully muddle Ian Book’s RPO reads. The deepest Hokie defender is only 8 yards off the line of scrimmage. However, the corners are forced to play soft coverage since there isn’t any safety help over the top.
And this allows Ian Book to hit Miles Boykin on a slant off of play action. The linebacker is sucked down on the run fake and Book fits the pass over his head into Boykin’s open arms.
Play 2
Once again, Foster has packed the box. This time he brings a blitz and leaves Notre Dame’s receivers in single coverage. We saw in the previous play how this can still leave Tech’s defense susceptible to the quick passing game, but this time Ian Book is going deep.
Chris Finke, lined up in the slot, runs a stop-and-go and completely blows by the safety. This is an easy touchdown, but Book overthrows Finke.
This would be a theme in the first half. Irish receivers were constantly running free but Book didn’t hit any of them. What should have been multiple deep touchdown passes turned into incompletions which turned stalled drives. Chip Long was poking holes in Bud Foster’s defense, but it wasn’t amounting to points just yet.
Play 3
One of the complaints about the offense (especially in the first half) is that the Irish didn’t run the ball effectively. Well, here’s a running play.
Once again, the defense is packed in tightly. There are nine(!) defenders within seven yards of the line of scrimmage. Notre Dame tries to run outside zone to the boundary…
…with predictable results. Loss of three yards.
The best way to attack this defense (outside of praying for bad gap discipline and poor tackling – hello Dexter Williams’s 97-yard touchdown run!) is to punish them through the air, as we’ve seen in the previous plays. The defense is then forced to back off. This allowed the Irish to go from -3 yards rushing in the first half, to around 170 yards in the second half.
Play 4
We’re still in the first half but it looks like Bud Foster has decided to back off. It appears Notre Dame has even numbers in the run game – five offensive linemen versus five defenders – so that means it’s time to run the ball, right? Except Bud Foster is still up to his old tricks. Tech brings the linebacker (#4) lined up over Cole Kmet in the slot on a blitz, meaning the defense should suddenly outnumber the Irish on a run.
But Chip Long makes the right call. Instead of a straight run, it’s an RPO. Look at how far inside #4 goes. Book reads him and flips the ball out to Kmet on a quick screen. Chase Claypool makes a nice block and it’s an easy first down.
Play 5
Now we’re in the second half. Brian Kelly talked about the need to make “layups” in the passing game instead of getting greedy. Here’s a good example.
Bud Foster still hasn’t backed off his safeties. In the first half, the temptation was to try and hit the deep ball. But that led to overthrows and punts. This time, Book is just going to hit Miles Boykin on a simple out route.
The corner still gives Boykin plenty of cushion. Pitch and catch, easy first down.
Play 6
Finally, we come to the drive where Notre Dame put Virginia Tech away. It’s third down, so Foster brings a corner up in press coverage on Boykin. But there’s no safety help over the top, so if you have a 6’5 receiver against press coverage, it’s time to throw a jump ball.
Book makes a good throw, but “throw it up to the tall dude” is a pretty easy play to execute, as anyone who has played backyard football knows.
Final Thoughts
I know I’m a biased observer, but I have to give Chip Long the win in this fight. Bud Foster had a pretty good game plan, but Long made the right calls all night to attack Foster’s defense. And if Book had connected on a few deep passes in the first half, this could have been a blowout before halftime.
But Book did miss those passes and the offense bogged down at times in the first half. Receivers were open so it would have been understandable if Chip Long had stuck with that strategy, counting on Book to eventually hit one or two. But instead of stubbornly expecting his quarterback to execute a play he clearly wasn’t capable of (at least in this game), Long decided to go back to the intermediate game that Book has thrived in all season. And the result was 28 points in the second half and a comfortable win.
Fantastic breakdown Burgs. Great cat and mouse game between the coordinators – it’s interesting to see what risks Foster was willing to take to offset his personnel disadvantages. He was in a tough spot.
This is awesome stuff, always leave these articles feeling like I’ve learned a lot.
I’d agree Long won, but I don’t think Foster was wrong with his strategy. His pass defense stinks so with a fairly young/green QB on the road, stack the box and show pressure and make him beat you. Plan was almost working until the Dex run. Seems about as good as Foster could have hoped for given the personnel he was working with.
Oh, I don’t think Foster was wrong at all. You’re right that it was the best plan for what he had to work with. But when Book started tearing them up in the short passing game, he had nothing to fall back on.
Football nerds and Chip Long may be interested to learn that Pitt’s leading tackler, middle linebacker Quintin Wirginis, is out following a non-contact knee injury. That is a really bad guy for Pitt to lose against the combination of Ian Book and Dexter Williams.
Man, this is awesome. Great work and thank you. For those of us who know very little about x’s and o’s and want to learn more, this is eminently helpful and just a plain ol’ blast to read.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s not quite as sage as “RUN THE DAMN BALL” or “FIRE KELLY,” but it holds it’s own for sure
Well, not everybody can be a damn genius, ya know! I mean like them RTDB, FK boys.
Heh… In all seriousness, this shows why “a dedication to the run” isn’t really as simple as it seems. Jamie Uyeyama mentioned that Book made correct checks to passes against a lot of 8- and 9-man boxes in the first half, so it’s not even that we weren’t calling runs – we were, we were just adjusting out of them to avoid a replay of the Charge of the Light Brigade.
Also, fun fact: Counting sacks as passes, we have 252 run plays versus 194 pass plays this season, which is a 57/43 mix. Scrambles vs. designed runs would require me to rewatch all offensive drives and classify them, which I’m not going to do, and it probably wouldn’t make a huge difference anyway.
57% run calls. And BK runs a sissy offense that passes to set up the run…
@put Wimbush back in, RTDB and grind out one score wins the way college foot-baw was meant to be played!!!!@
/Embarrasses family by STILL responding with “and also with you” instead of “and with your spirit”
//fires up NDNation
///waits 5 minutes for page to load since I’m on dial-up internet, no need to this highfalutin technology
////yells at cloud
/////gets confused about what element of football program I was going to complain about since webpage still has yet to load
//////falls asleep with hand down pants Al Bundy style
@hooks this whole comment was awesome, but i gave you a +1 for ////yells at cloud
REWATCH THEM ALL AND REPORT BACK TO US TOOT SWEET YOU BK LOVIN’, PASS HAPPY, MANBALL KILLIN’ SISSY
Depth chart massages this week:
Moved Shayne Simon and Bo Bauer to second on the depth chart from third at their LB positions, probably should have done this sooner, but both have now burned their redshirts and seem to the preferred backups. Armstrong is still injured, but Hayes (out vs VT) and Jones (limited vs VT) are listed as available.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Tuz1FdIW9k2JGIFk7CiWwDHx_hvHRoIqHSMGVQRiGBM/edit?usp=sharing
Wimbench
This made me laugh really hard. Now I feel guilty. I must have some catholic roots somewhere in my ancestry.
Awesome, thanks. Is there a list somewhere of which freshmen have/are likely to burn their redshirt and which players are likely to take one? Relatedly, are there any upperclassmen for whom we appear to be saving a redshirt year, a la Jay Hayes (other than MTA, I suppose)?
Already burned –
Houston Griffith
Shayne Simon
Bo Bauer
Tariq Bracy
Jayson Ademilola
Kevin Ausitn
Played fewer than four so far –
Paul Moala (1, VT)
Justin Ademilola (2, Wake and VT, played quite a bit against VT without Okwara and Hayes)
Jamion Franklin (1, Wake, season ending quad surgery will redshirt)
DJ Brown (1, Wake)
C’Bo Flemister (2, Ball State and VT)
Jahmir Smith (2, Wake and Stanford)
Joe Wilkins (2, Wake and VT)
Jarrett Patterson (2, Wake and VT)
Phil Jurkovec (1, Wake)
Hasn’t played yet –
Michael Vinson
Derrik Allen
Noah Boykin
Jack Lamb
Ovie Oghoufo
Lawrence Keys
Braden Lenzy
Micah Jones
Tommy Tremble
George Takacs
John Dirksen
Cole Mabry
Luke Jones
Non freshmen candidates to redshirt –
Myron Tagaviola-Amosa (1, Michigan, broken foot questionable to return near end of season)
Jordan Genmark Heath – Burned already
Jamir Jones – Burned already
Isaiah Robertson – Burned already
Nicco Fertitta – Burned already
Kmet, Wright, Hainsey, Young, Claypool, Coleman, Love, Vaughn, Pride, Okwara, Hayes, Kareem, Coney, Tillery, Yoon, Doerer – all burned to no one’s surprise.
Let me know if I missed anyone you’re interested in.
Even if MTA returned at the end of the season he could still red-shirt having played in 4 games or less. He could play at USC and the two playoff games and still red-shirt.
“He could play at USC and the two playoff games and still red-shirt.”
I see what you did there…
Well, this does raise an interesting question: if he is like 90% for Cuse week and we are 10-0, what do you do? Do you plan not to play him, but if someone goes down and/or the game is close put him in? Or do you just play him when he’s ready to play and if he gets 5 games, he gets 5 games and you just accept that because, after all, you play to win the games? An interesting conundrum, if that ends up being the timetable.
For me, it’s pretty simple. Play him as soon as you can play him. Put your team into the best position to win every game possible. At the same time, he’s getting more playing experience. There is going to be a big hole to fill in the defensive line next year for sure.
This is awesome. Thanks! Also awesome: we are probably going to get a dozen-plus redshirts out of this freshman class.
I’ve been on the Bauer hype train all season. Ever since he surprise committed, I’ve been excited about him. Would love to see him make a major impact and become the next Manti/#GODBACKER
CBS Sports has this quote from Swashbucklin’ Swarbrick this week: “We’d be happy to play a 13th game. There’s only one other school that’s told they can’t play a 13th game. We would love to do it.”
Would people here be in favor of either an annual game against BYU or some type of FBS Independents Championship game? I’d envision the FBS Independents Championship being the top two teams who had signed on prior to the season subject to whatever tiebreakers you want, neutral site, split the TV money and tickets.
For selfish reasons (holding degrees from both schools), but also some logic, my vote is Hawaii: they get an extra game each year anyway, and criminy there’s talent in those islands. I don’t see any advantage to playing BYU other than they’re also an independent. So are Army, Liberty, New Mexico State, and UMASS. The only one worth playing is Army (seriously, F Liberty) and we already play them sometimes, and since we already play Navy why play Army any more than we already do? Utah isn’t exactly a recruiting hotbed, so I see no value to playing them just because they’re an independent. Let’s play in the islands every other year and build up that pipeline to angry Samoans (and maybe a future QB or so).
I’d be okay with an annual 13th with Hawaii particularly if its in “Week 0” to start the season. Most years it would be a good warm up game, and if we did lose, its early and we now have the 13th data point so it would still be our 12 wins against another one loss team’s 12 wins if that’s how the season played out. But the most valuable reason is because when August comes around every year, ND football can never start soon enough!
That said, I don’t think it’s really important or to our advantage when the playoff goes to 8 teams (which seems inevitable eventually).
1000000% against a 13th game against another Independent scrub. Or another non-Independent scrub.
Same. It doesn’t do anything for us. It’s not a 13th game per se that gives them an argument, it’s an extra end of season game against a top-15ish opponent. Playing BYU or Hawaii or whatever does nothing to address that. And no top-15ish team would want to risk bowl standing by giving us a late-season chance to beat them. So it’s a non-starter IMO.
I assumed this would be the general feeling, but I like the idea of making being independent an easier concept for other teams. I’ve also had nothing but positive experiences with BYU people the 2004 loss notwithstanding. I watched that game in a Bdubs, it sucked.
I agree–let me be clear that I’m only suggesting Hawaii IF we decided we needed a 13th game.
Everyone in the media freaks out about scenarios, because they’re trying to fill air time. Everyone wants to say how important that conference championship game is, but that’s only because we’ve yet to have a favorite lose the game and have it cost them a playoff spot. The Big12 added their game because they’d been left out before, but I’m really hoping that an ACC Coastal team beats Clemson, or a Wisconsin knocks off tOSU. I’d say Bama lose to UGA, but that’s really just two playoff contenders anyway, and one would just take the place of the other (and the loser might still get in). But the moment a Virginia Tech knocks out Clemson, people will start screaming about how these games are a liability and not an asset.
I call bull___ on the 13th game criticism of Notre Dame. Why should we consider playing a 13th game when teams like Alabama only play nine games and only get to a tenth if they make their conference championship?
Alabama doesn’t get to say they play a 13th game when their schedule is littered with three games each year against teams like Chattanooga, Mercer and The Citadel.
Not in favor of a 13th game, but would love to see a home/away series against Hawaii.
Fantastic breakdown Burger — I love learning about the x’s and o’s! The multiple play examples in this article was very interesting. One tiny little nit to pick — I miss the colored circles / stars that are used to highlight the key players in the clips (as it is difficult to read jersey numbers in most of these shots). Thanks for the analysis!
That’s a perfectly reasonable request. Laziness is the only reason I can give for the quality of the screenshots. My original plan was to just tweet two or three interesting pictures, but then I went a little overboard and decided to just write an actual post. At that point I was too lazy to go back and annotate the pictures. I can offer you a free month of 18 Stripes Premium Membership as an apology.
yeah put it in laymen’s terms, nerd