Notre Dame sits at 3-0 and ranked in the top ten this week. You would think that’s a good place to be, but many Irish fans understandably grumbled about the offense’s performance to date. Now it looks like that performance might have the coaching staff grumbling too; word leaked out yesterday via multiple outlets that Ian Book took a lot of first-team reps in practice this week, with some even saying he would start. Brian Kelly seemed annoyed at his press conference about the leaks, which is also understandable. Whatever’s going on, it certainly seems like something is afoot.

What’s the right decision? I don’t think there is one. Let’s do some quick point/counterpoint review.

The Case for Each Guy

  • Point: Brandon Wimbush is 11-3 as QB1 (excluding UNC and LSU last year). That’s pretty good, guys. I think if you asked most coaches and fans if they’d be happy with 11 wins in a kid’s first 14 starts, the answer would be yes.
  • Counterpoint: He was a major contributor but not the primary reason for the 11 wins, and you could make a very reasonable case that more consistent play would’ve turned around one or two of those losses. It’s a more complicated question than just the W-L record.
  • Point: Ian Book picked apart LSU’s defense in the Citrus Bowl to the tune of a 72% completion rate, 8.6 yards per attempt, and a passer rating of 170.4. Which happens to be the highest rating LSU, ranked 20th in S&P+ passing defense, allowed last year.
  • Counterpoint: Take out the exceptional individual effort by Miles Boykin on the game winner and he averaged a pedestrian 6.1 yards per attempt – which was right on his year-long average. He also completed just 54% of his attempts in his other meaningful action (UNC and Miami) for 4.8 yards per attempt, with one touchdown and three really bad picks.
  • Point: Book is more athletic than many believe and can gain some yards on the ground, so we’re not losing that much in the read-option game with him. Last year, he gained 7.4 yards per carry (sacks excluded) on 32 runs. Opponents sacked him and Wimbush at about the same rate, so the numbers don’t support an escapability loss.
  • Counterpoint: Wimbush ran for 914 yards (without sacks) and 14 touchdowns last year. In the last 10 Irish seasons, only Will Fuller and Golden Tate have found paydirt that often. No Irish quarterback not named Tony Rice has ever rushed for more yards in a season, and even with Rice, it’s close. That’s a lot of production to sit on the bench.
  • Point: Wimbush has shown improvement this season, with a much more consistent performance (all games between 54-55% completion rate) than at any point last year, better composure in the pocket, and significant growth in the intermediate passing game.
  • Counterpoint: The short passing game is not the total disaster it was last year but it’s still bad, and that hamstrings an offense built on RPOs. The deep connection also hasn’t been there, for reasons not entirely connected to Wimbush, but if those passes aren’t connecting it lowers Wimbush’s value.

Many Irish fans have clamored for Book since the Citrus Bowl. I think there’s some significant sampling bias there, as the rest of his season was just OK at best. That’s not to say that his 4.7 yards per attempt against UNC is the “real” Book, but rather that I don’t think anyone knows who the real Book is at this point. Wimbush’s flaws are well-documented; I think they’ve been magnified a bit, but clearly they’re real and some of them seem to be insurmountable. Book’s flaws are less well-documented, and occasionally glossed over by those who do acknowledge them. They’re also very different from Wimbush’s flaws. The reality is that both quarterbacks have substantial strengths and weaknesses.

What’s the Play Here?

Another big question, aside from whether there should be a switch at all, is just what kind of a switch it’ll be.

  • Will Book just play a bigger role than he has so far? This has to seem reasonable to even the most dedicated Wimbush fans. While Wimbush is a red zone nightmare for defenses, there’s no question Book could move the offense more efficiently over most of the field. A mix of them could prove very effective.
  • Speaking of the red zone, will Book be the guy outside the 20? That makes a lot more sense than what we’ve done to this point, which is to have the red zone guy move the offense down the field and the efficiency expert come in on the goal line.
  • Will Book start? This is the big one, and it’s fraught with many implications.
  • If Book starts, is it because he’s now QB1 or is it because he’s a better matchup for Wake Forest? Wake’s secondary is weak and their defensive line is respectable. That sets up well Book’s strengths, and poorly for Wimbush’s weaknesses.
  • How much of this, if any, is gamesmanship for Stanford and Virginia Tech? Who knows?
  • If Book has ascended to QB1 and he falters, in this game or later, how long does the staff wait to switch back to Wimbush? What happens if they do?

One helpful point is that the dynamic here is night and day from the Kizer/Zaire fiasco. In 2016, there were clear factions in the locker room that preferred “Their Guy” and the Guys themselves couldn’t stand each other. Book and Wimbush get along very well, and both are liked and respected by the entire team. Whoever sits won’t be happy to sit, but it’s not going to be a locker room issue like we saw in 2016.

Wrapping Up

If you could combine Wimbush and Book, you’d have a Heisman-contender quarterback leading a playoff-quality offense. But we can’t, absent some Dr.-Moreau-style shenanigans, so it would seem that Kelly wants to do the next best thing: Combine their play to lead a more effective offense. I don’t know if it’ll work, but as Pete Sampson said yesterday, it sure is a ballsy move to make with a 3-0 team. Maybe by tomorrow evening Kelly will look like a genius. Maybe he’ll look like an idiot. I get the distinct sense, though, that the most likely scenario is that we win with some warts and we come out of it with no fewer questions than we had going in. The questions might change, but I don’t think the list will be any shorter.

 

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