By now we’ve all had a chance to digest the painful loss in Austin – beyond the obvious defensive failures, what did we learn from the opening game about the 2016 Irish? Checking out the five factors (with some new additions!) shows how poor leverage rates and first down performance doomed Notre Dame, and just how significant an impact losing Torii Hunter Jr. had for the Irish offense moving forward.

Explosiveness

texas ypp

 
The top question for the Irish defense this offseason was if they could limit the long, explosive plays that killed them in 2015. It seemed like a reasonable goal, in particular since so many of 2015’s mistakes seemed correctable – better tackling and discipline with trick plays and assignments were responsible for the vast majority of the chunk plays given up.

The answer was a resounding “NO”. Freshman Shane Buechele was able to pick on a young secondary, in particular Nick Coleman, and hit the two most impactful plays of the game with a 72-yard touchdown to John Burt and 68-yarder to Jerrod Heard down to the Irish one-yard line. Sterlin Gilbert leaned on experienced running backs early, and every time he picked a spot to take a shot downfield it seemed to be open.

texas explosive rates

 
The Irish offense flashed big-play ability as well, with Equanimeous St. Brown and C.J. Sanders providing encouraging sparks. Replacing Will Fuller will be impossible, but there are still a lot of weapons at the offensive staff’s disposal.

Notre Dame was fairly explosive running the ball, but I’d echo Eric’s comments from his recap in wondering if Tarean Folston taking the majority of the carries at running back may hinder the Irish a little bit here. While Folston’s always been an efficient runner, and to his credit broke off the long 54-yarder on the opening drive, he’s never been particularly dynamic in the open field. It may be a small difference in carries going to Adams versus Folston, but unfortunately with the defense looking miserable early on, the offense has to optimize every single area it can.

Efficiency

texas success rates

 
Not only were the Longhorns more explosive, they were also more efficient than Notre Dame both on the ground and in the air. That was unexpected. Looking ahead to this game, it appeared Notre Dame would have the likely edge in both trenches!

Both of those advantages never materialized – the Irish offensive line was inconsistent, and struggled with communication and penalties in a hostile environment. Kizer and the line also weren’t helped by the young receiving corps, who struggled in particular after the loss of Torii Hunter.

Charlie Strong’s defense in 2015 was a top-20 unit last season in S&P+ passing defense and adjusted sack rate, and they may be even better last year. But their run defense should have been susceptible, and in key moment down the stretch the Irish were unable to impose their will on the home team, with just one successful run in eight attempts in the 4th quarter/OT after taking a 35-31 lead.

texas leverage rate

 
I had doubts about Sterlin Gilbert’s offense totally overhauling a unit that couldn’t pass or protect the quarterback last year, but at least against Brian Van Gorder it worked perfectly. There wasn’t anything unexpected – run-heavy using experienced backs and quick throws to get Buechele in a rhythm, then taking some deep shots down field.

But the Irish looked unprepared for all of it. No matter what wrinkle that was thrown at them – extremely fast tempo, the 18-wheeler package with Swoopes, or empty five-wide formations – the Irish struggled. The run defense, going mostly with 3 down-linemen for yet to be explained reasons, was gashed – taking out two bad snaps that were total gifts, the Horns rushed 56 times for 267 yards – 4.77 yards per carry.

In particular Texas was able to keep things simple for Buechele by establishing the run early and avoiding passing downs. Notre Dame’s in theory should have had a huge advantage in passing downs, even with a lackluster pass rush, and they actually fared well when Texas had to pass. But they couldn’t force those situations often enough – the Horns ran it 29 times on first down for 5.5 yards per carry. That opened up the deep shots and easy, quick reads for Buechele and was a huge yet somewhat hidden part of the defensive ineptitude.

Field Position

 

texas field position

The Irish won this battle but lost the war – and they should have won this battle by more. The defense was really boom or bust in their contribution to field position, causing multiple 3-and-outs but also letting up long, sustained drives despite a long field for Texas.

Much of the advantage here came from Shaun Crawford’s pick of an errant Buechele throw and return inside the Texas 10. CJ Sanders was also very strong in the return game, but the rest of the special teams contributors had rough days. Tyler Newsome had poor punts of 24, 37, and 38 yards, and thankfully several Texas penalties negated some poor kick coverage by the Irish. Justin Yoon had a kick blocked, but also took over kickoff duties and was excellent, forcing touchbacks on the majority of his (many) opportunities.

Finishing Drives

Texas finishing drives

Neither defense could really force a stop in the red zone, which may be saying more about Notre Dame’s offense at this point than its defense. Red zone play calling in particular has been an area of focus for BK and company, and they were very good in Austin.

The lone red zone opportunity not resulting in a touchdown included the Hunter to Kizer pass that was a fantastic play-call and barely incomplete, followed immediately by the targeting penalty that wasn’t. A couple other scores came from just outside the official red zone, but overall that was an encouraging performance against a very good defense when the field shrank.

As for the defense, well, they couldn’t stop a nosebleed. Only one of the Longhorns red zone possessions was held to a field goal, with the other six possessions all ending in touchdowns. There were some nice efforts on the goal-line, but not consistent enough to keep the 18-wheeler package out of the end zone, with some poor tackling often to blame.

Turnovers

A clean game turned in by the offense, with no turnovers and little danger. No one put the ball on the ground, there were few passes put in areas where it could get picked off or deflected, and that’s what you love to see.

Defensively, no real fumbles for Texas either – bad snaps were handled with maturity by Buechele, who made sure to secure the ball instead of trying to pick it up and throw it away. Shaun Crawford showed nice hands on the interception and great athleticism on the return, and Cole Luke almost came away with one as well.

How much should we worry?

Coaching

Brian Kelly put himself under the microscope with two major decisions this offseason – how he handled the two potential starting quarterbacks, and deciding to bring back Brian Van Gorder. Both of those had a decidedly negative impact on this game, and while it’s far from putting him on the hot seat like some message boards would like, it did very little to help alleviate pressure from fans and media close to the program.

The (in)decision at quarterback in my mind is mostly defensible – Kelly is far from the only head coach (hi Nick Saban and Urban Meyer!) that’s opted for a rotation to begin the first game. I wasn’t in favor of a quarterback rotation without defined roles, but confirmation bias doesn’t do anything for us here. The decision to put Zaire out there on the first possession of the second half though? That one is hard to justify.

On the other hand, it now seems clear that the Van Gorder era will be an all-out failure at Notre Dame. We can debate how much is due to scheme versus execution and talent, but ultimately it all lands in the coaching staff’s purview under Kelly.

The flaws in the Notre Dame defense during his tenure have been remarkably consistent – poor against the run, unable to rush the passer, few turnovers caused, and lots of explosive plays surrendered. This was true in 2014, marginally better with a lot of talent in 2015, and those hallmarks were found throughout the 2016 opener.

Concern level: low for Kelly, DEFCON 1 for BVG. The quarterback rotation should be decided, and lots of young players should continue to improve over the course of the season. It’s clear the defense will not be good, but what can Van Gorder salvage? Hopefully failure accelerates change of some kind, instead of leaning as much in the past on focusing on executional improvement versus flexibility with scheme.

Receivers

The penalty on Torii Hunter has now been dissected enough, but it’s worth re-stating just how costly it was. Notre Dame’s offensive success rate before Hunter’s concussion was 50%, and then plummeted to 20% in his absence. Small sample size, but his absence likely allowed Texas to be more effective defending the run and forcing rookies like Kevin Stepherson to beat them.

Concern level: Low, pending Torii Hunter’s health. St. Brown, Sanders and Hunter should be a very good unit that improves as the year goes along, with opportunity for other folks like Javon McKinley, Miles Boykin, and Stepherson to also make an impact as they grow in knowledge and experience.

The schedule

While it’s hard to feel confident about giving up 50 points to Texas, the offense was humming under Kizer and will not see many better defenses (Michigan State, maybe). Very few teams look complete this year, including those on the schedule – USC was demolished by Alabama, Michigan State looked sloppy on offense, and Stanford was just ok after a fast start.

But if Sunday’s game is an accurate reflection of what the Notre Dame defense will look like most weeks, it puts lots of games in the danger zone. Do you know who else besides Sterlin Gilbert is an Art Briles disciple? Dino Babers at Syracuse. If you can’t stay in front of John Burt, how will we feel about JuJu Smith-Schuster and Adoree Jackson?

Concern level: Medium. The next few weeks will tell us a lot about the defense and if this team has the mental resilience of past teams. Before Stanford, they get teams in Michigan State, Duke, Nevada, and NC State that they will match up better against defensively, and Syracuse will be a test to see what the Irish learned from this loss. The Irish have just two true road games (NC State and USC) remaining on the slate, and the offense should allow them to compete with anyone.