Notre Dame got off to a hot start, hogged the ball again, and used a steady performance on both sides of the ball to dispatch a young Georgia Tech team in Atlanta on Saturday. If not for a jolting fumble return touchdown for the Yellow Jackets this one could’ve been really ugly. However, the Irish still cruised and were never threatened as they move to 6-0 on the season with a Trevor Lawrence-less Clemson on the horizon.
Stats Package
| STAT | IRISH | TECH |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 31 | 13 |
| Plays | 70 | 59 |
| Total Yards | 426 | 238 |
| Yards Per Play | 6.1 | 4.0 |
| Conversions | 10/15 | 5/14 |
| Completions | 18 | 15 |
| Yards/Pass Attempt | 7.65 | 5.76 |
| Rushes | 44 | 33 |
| Rushing Success | 63.4% | 62.9% |
| 10+ Yds Rushing | 9 | 5 |
| Defense Stuff Rate | 27.1% | 20.0% |
This was Notre Dame’s 30th win in the series against Georgia Tech. Geoff Collins has his program trending upwards in the ACC but they do seem quite far away from building a consistent football team.
Offense
QB: B
RB: B
TE: B+
OL: B
WR: B-
This game was fine from the offense, pretty much an average game from this group and what we’ve seen so far in 2020. Georgia Tech is a pretty average team right now and Notre Dame finished right at their 2020 average of 6.1 yards per play on offense.
The good: Efficiency remains a strength, the run game continues to carry things, Book hits timely passes and timely runs, and they are converting in power scenarios (7 for 7 on 3rd & short in the game prior to Flemister’s frenzied goal line plunge to end the game).
The bad: Untimely fumbles (are they ever timely?), a lack of explosive plays, and a passing game that couldn’t build off it’s success from last week. A 34-yard reception from Javon McKinley and 21-yard runs from Chris Tyree and C’Bo Flemister were the longest plays of the game from the Irish.
Mike Golic in his Notre Dame broadcast debut pointed out a couple times how Ian Book leaves plays on the field. He overshot a couple balls down the sidelines which fell out of bounds, plus just missed tight end Michael Mayer on a wide-open play. If a couple more balls can be completed this would feel like an offense with a much higher ceiling, stating the obvious. Giving the make up of the roster we’re not going to see Book throwing for 300 yards every game but I think it’s important to get him into the 240-yard range so when his feet are considered you’re getting about 280-290 yards every game.
Rushing Success
Williams – 9 of 15 (60%)
Book – 5 of 6 (83.3%)
Tyree – 4 of 5 (80%)
Flemister – 8 of 15 (53.3%)
Obviously, a big game is coming up against Clemson which will have a lot of tests to pass for the rushing offense. They’ve been so good this year that even a very poor performance against the Tigers won’t drop the success rate too much but everyone knows we’ll judge things more heavily on what they can do in primetime.
Hopefully, the rushing attack can break one or two long ones soon because it’s been missing lately. Kyren Williams was his usual self with 100 yards from scrimmage. Chris Tyree quietly had a good game and is back on track to being in the conversation as a freshman All-American. It was clear that Flemister was given a lot more opportunity this weekend and he largely handled it well.
McKinley and Davis (combined 9 receptions for 122 yards) had nice days and the tight ends (combined 5 receptions for 37 yards) did too. Despite being seemingly off the radar lately, Tommy Tremble only trails Michael Mayer by 3 receptions on the season which I thought was interesting.
Defense
DL: A
LB: B
DB: B
At first, this looked like it was going to be a historic game for the Irish defense. With 1:44 remaining in the 1st half following a John Doerer field goal, Georgia Tech had 35 yards on 16 plays from scrimmage. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you this should’ve been a 24-0 game at halftime.
Notre Dame’s defense line finally broke through (4 sacks for the group from 5 sacks overall on the day) and made Tech quarterback Jeff Sims incredibly uncomfortable all day. The Yellow Jackets actually did run the ball pretty well all things considered, with sacks removed they carried the ball 28 times for 122 yards (4.3 per rush) and finished with a very good rushing success.
They simply could not get into a groove and keep moving the chains, a hallmark of playing against a Clark Lea defense. Plus, give the offense credit for keeping the ball away, including that damn fumble!
Sims connected on a pair of long passes for 73 yards. The rest of his day he went 13 of 24 for 77 yards which wasn’t enough to support a ground game (10 first downs) willing to keep them alive.
Stuffs vs. Pitt
Hayes – 4.5
Ogundeji – 2.5
Hamilton – 2
White – 1
Foskey – 1
MTA – 1
JOK – 1
Ademilola, Ju. – 1
Crawford – 1
McCloud – 0.5
Kiser – 0.5
However, Georgia Tech did have a stretch of 6 drives that totaled 222 yards on 39 plays (5.69 per play) and they started to look competent. Sure, 16 yards on 20 other plays isn’t very good! Nevertheless, I thought the Yellow Jackets did just enough to keep this from being an embarrassment for their offense.
How good was it to see Daelin Hayes finally have a breakout performance? He finished with 5 tackles, 2 sacks, 2 forced fumbles, 1 hurry, and a Notre Dame season-high 4.5 stuffs. He set the tone early with a pair of stuffs on Georgia Tech’s first 4 plays. It’s kind of unbelievable to see that Hayes only had 6 career sacks prior to Saturday afternoon, let’s hope he’s turning a corner late in his development.
This defense should be fresh and ready for Clemson. I’m interested to see how they react if Clemson can move the ball fairly easily at times and rack up a lot of plays. To date, Notre Dame has only faced 357 plays through 6 games. Last year, they faced 420 plays over the same time frame. Effectively, the Irish defense has saved themselves an entire football game of plays.
Final Thoughts
Shayne Simon started again and finished the game with an assisted tackle. That’s now 5 tackles in 5 games. It’s so weird that this defense has been so good and yet I still feel like we really don’t know that much in a good way about Buck linebacker, all of the non-Bracy corners (McCloud seems okay), and anyone at safety beyond the starters. In that light, it does remind me so much of the 2012 defense.
Speaking of safety, it hasn’t been a highlight reel season thus far for Kyle Hamilton to be fair. On Saturday, he engaged in several highlight reel plays and flashed his dominance in front of a hometown crowd.
I think Geoff Collins is a weirdo. He’s that 49 year-old coach who tries to put out that 30 year-old coach vibe and it’s been fascinating to see him try to reimagine a cool vibe at one of the nerdiest schools in FBS. I’m not saying don’t wear a super tight and too small shirt underneath a vest but I think it’s a weird look for a football coach. He’s also the looks-way-way-different-without-a-hat guy, too.
Quite the vibe from this coach.
Jude Kelley’s 44-yard missed field goal for Georgia Tech was hilariously ugly. I feel bad for him.
Notre Dame continues to be outraegeously good on third down this year–currently 7th nationally in conversions on offense and 4th on defense.
Chris Tyree feels like he’s ready to break a kick return for a touchdown soon. He has the burst and he’s willing but hasn’t quite figured out how to make a couple guys miss in that second wave of tacklers. I also kind of wish he’d seek out less contact when he gets carries from the backfield. He tends to go right at a tackler at times, hey man you can use your speed too!
I really don’t want to say it but I get strong Matt Millen vibes from Mike Golic in terms of announcing. Let’s hope it doesn’t ultimately go down that road.
Despite the jokes that they looked like Purdue, I really liked Georgia Tech’s black uniforms. One thing I don’t understand is why they’re name the Yellow Jackets and don’t use black and yellow colors.
At this point, Kyren Williams’ season is most comparable to Cierre Wood in 2011. That doesn’t seem like a compliment but Wood’s 2011 is one of the more underrated performances of the Kelly era. Here are the comparisons:
2011 Wood vs. 2020 Williams
Carries per Game: 16.69 vs. 17.50
Yards per Game: 84.77 vs. 100.00
Rushing Average: 5.08 vs. 5.71
Rushing Success Rate: 56.20% vs. 56.10%
It does feel like Kyren has been more successful than the stats show. However, he’s on pace to be only the third back (joining 2011 Wood and 2017 Adams) of the Kelly era to eclipse the 200-carry mark in a season and, assuming a berth in the ACC Championship Game, Williams is on pace for a top 5 rushing season in Notre Dame history behind Vagas Ferguson (1,437 in 1979), Adams (1,430 in 2017), Allen Pinkett (1,394 in 1983), and Reggie Brooks (1,343 in 1992).
I won’t be doing this weekend’s preview for Clemson (good because it’s a tough prediction!) and I think there’s a belief the pressure is going to be through the roof for Ian Book and the offense to score around 30 points. That seems obvious. I think Clark Lea should have just as much pressure, too. Without Trevor Lawrence this is an opportunity to put in a season-defining defensive effort. The Notre Dame defensive stats are awesome right now (1st in scoring among P5 teams who have played more than once and 4th in YPP among P5 teams who have played at least twice) but allowing let’s say 35 points to Clemson would negatively color what’s been a very weak schedule to date.
Ahh, you just hate to see it though.
I really like the Cierre Wood comparison for Williams. I’m also feeling a Tyree return TD and sticking with the 2011 comparisons I think it’ll be a GAIII against Michigan State type play that really kicks the game into another gear next week
OK, schematic question — and forgive what is perhaps my ignorance, I never played:
It seems to me that our offense frequently gets itself into unfavorable numerical matchups. Specifically, a lot of opposing defenses will bring an OLB who is very obviously blitzing up close to the line, and we either don’t see it or don’t change protection to address it. Opposing OLB comes flying from the outside and blows up the play, usually a pass that turns into a Book scramble. It’s like we literally do not have enough guys blocking.
Am I way off base here?
I thought immediately of this play:
I have a hard time believing they’re bad in setting pass protections. It was perhaps Rees’ greatest skill and Book certainly has never seemed bad at it.
On this specific play, it looks like they’re running a RPO. But it doesn’t even look like a real read (Book & Kyren half-ass their mesh point) and Kraemer/Tremble are pulling as if it’s a run. If Kyren got the ball this looks like a big running play for ND.
So, this looks set up for a quick throw. But Book doesn’t let it go.
IMO, I think this play highlights that Book struggles throwing into a blitz. Both because he’s not very tall and probably has trouble seeing over and through defenders, but also because he’s allergic to throwing interceptions. This looks like a tricky little zone coverage from GT but all in all a quick throw to the slot receiver should be a somewhat easy throw.
It wouldn’t have amounted to much but it would’ve been a first down instead of a big sack taken.
“Allergic to throwing interceptions”.
I’ll take that any day. 26-3 now for Book.
I’d take a completion over a sack, though.
This is helpful, thanks. So would you say it’s less of a protection issue and more of an issue of the execution of the particular play? i.e., we know the outside pressure is coming and the play is designed to take the ball away from the pressure, but Book didn’t get the ball to who he needed to?
I think so. Throwing into blitzes like that has never been a strong suit for Book, IMO. Especially if the defender is truly free and relatively close to him. Conversely, I thought Golson was great at this for a little guy.
Nice breakdown thanks. I didn’t re-watch this play, but I remember in live action it looked like Book pump faked to the right before pulling it down. Bad decision making all around as it looks like either the run or the quick throw would have been a first down
I think it might be the design of the play plus Book’s height. The slot guys open for a first down but, I don’t blame Book for not making the throw with that LB closing in. Perhaps that play design needs to be tweaked.
Looks like there is a lineman about 3-4 yards downfield, so probably an RPO that Book had pre-decided would be a pass (which would have been a fine read if he had thrown immediately).
ABC coverage drives me nuts sometimes. Liufau gets ejected and I don’t think they ever even showed the replay. Same thing last week when one of our OL got a personal foul and they barely even mentioned it, much less showed a replay.
I think during a review yesterday they didn’t even bother showing a replay…just cut shots from coach to coach. I realize things might be difficult with everyone working from Bristol or whatever, but come on guys!
I agree about Collins. The man is very odd looking. He has no neck at all. He looked like he was wearing one of those bomb disposal suits from The Hurt Locker.
Yeah, I thought this was terrible TV coverage. Bound to happen when the play by play and color guy are doing it from home but this game felt like a scrimmage or a spring game or like a random December 26th no-stakes bowl game to me at times with the level and ability of the announcers. Not sure how given the circumstances it can be different but I think we’ll all be happy it’ll be Tirico next week.
They definitely did show a replay, and on replay, you could clearly see why he got the gate.
Yeah, I think they went to commercial first, maybe? I do recall thinking, “wait are they going to show the replay?” but they did eventually.
Perhaps Collins should be coaching the Terrapins.
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Agreed on the point about Simon. I’m actually worried about the defense next week against a superb running back in Etienne, who is now a legit weapon catching the ball out of the backfield too. I’m sure they’ll scheme it up to stop him, but I think you could say pretty easily the 10th and 11th least effective players on the defense right now are Drew White and Simon. White only has 9 solo tackles in six games which feels like a quiet regression! (1.5 per game this year down from 3.7 per game last year).
If the LBs aren’t great in run support next week, yikes. Maybe they can scheme it up with Wu more in the box, but I feel like if Clemson spreads it that will draw him out into space more and let Etienne hit the middle of that second level of the defense which seems to be the weak point. Tbh, that’s what I would do if I were them, and obviously with a green QB on the road and a stud RB, surely the big riddle for Lea to solve will be how to limit him as much as possible without wrecking the game.
The good news is, Clemson has been surprisingly pedestrian running the ball this year. They’re averaging 4.5 YPC on the season. They only had 3 total GAMES last season at that number or worse. Etienne still needs to be our priority Saturday, but there’s a chance we’re catching them at the right time (even putting the Trevor Lawrence situation aside).
The 5 star frosh looked good, and Clemson still has a range of threats. Gonna be an interesting matchup. I am also wondering how we can do against Venables this time around, he ate our lunch last time.
I hope you’re right. FWIW, Etienne is at 5.9 y/c this year, but that’s been supplemented by having 62 yards/game in receptions.
Also the only big game they’ve had all year was Miami and he was 17-149-2 td on the ground and 8-73 in the air. That scares me.
But I guess you could say last game vs BC, 20 carries for only 84 yards is pretty good. He rarely cracks 20 carries in a game. But he also went 7-140 1 td through the air. So even if you take him away on the ground, he ended up with 224 total yards vs BC.
Has fumbled in 3 straight games, though. But I’m afraid he’s going to get lose against the non-JOK LB’s and if Etienne is getting towards 200 yards, that could mean a long night.
Oh yeah, if I were a betting man I would still put money on Etienne basically winning this game for Clemson. He’s so good. The recent “struggles” for their ground game just gives me a bit more hope that we can slow him down.
Speed-wise, I would think that ND would want to put someone like Wu or Pryor on Etienne instead of one of the other backers
I’d think you can run away from a LB though based on where he lines up. Or be able to get him blocked on the second level by the linemen. Point being, ND needs more out of the buck and middle LB than what they’ve gotten so far, it’s not like just one player is going to be able to stop or limit Etienne.