Notre Dame certainly is not making the playoffs so the season is more than half over now. During the Stanford review I promised some player grades and I come to deliver the goods. I thought it’d be a good idea to grade each unit based on expectations as a good way to provide some talking points. Let’s get after it.
QUARTERBACK
Expectation: B+
Current Grade: C+
I tried to warn you. Goodness, I tried to warn everyone. Quarterback competitions are typically messy affairs and they are compounded when a team commits to playing more than one guy. Things have changed so drastically for Notre Dame in this department that it’s easy to forget how sky high the expectations were coming into this season. Both guys are in the top 5 best players on offense, they both have to play! What quarterback depth! Such envy!
Nevertheless, I thought we’d still see very good quarterback play once things settled down–just not quite nationally elite production.
For sure, Zaire drags this grade down. On the one hand, he hasn’t played that much. On the other hand, he’s been dreadful in the snaps he’s taken. It’s still shocking how 16 months ago Zaire was talking about how he wanted to be the best quarterback in the NFL and now he looks completely lost.
How bad are things for Zaire? He’s taken 52 snaps, completed 6 passes, rushed for -1 yards, and has 71 total yards of offense.
I’ve gone back and forth with Kizer. If we put aside the NFL hype and scouting I think he’s done a little bit better overall this season than he’s been criticized for in recent weeks. His completion percentage is down 4.8% which isn’t good but overall his passing numbers are pretty similar to last year. In fact, he’s right around the same YPA and TD:INT ratio as 2015. He’s taken more sacks (more on this in a second) but even with that his rushing numbers basically mirror last fall. Factor in he’s rushing roughly 11 times per game (same as 2015) and he’s actually producing a little more on the ground.
The problem is that Kizer isn’t getting much help and because we’re putting so much on his back (and expecting him to blossom into a dominating No. 1 pick-type of player) that it FEELS like he’s not playing well. Is he regressing? I don’t know if I’d say that but it doesn’t look like he’s really improving all that much. It’s obvious to everyone that he’s lost his patience in the pocket, keeps missing easy check-down throws, and his insistence on finding the deep receiver seemingly on every other throw is leading to too many bad sacks.
RUNNING BACK
Expectation: B
Current Grade: D+
Harsh, right? We can add some blame to the offensive line, the scheme, that damn hurricane and all the rest. To be fair, each of Adams, Folston, and Dexter have had moments of really good play. It’s just been far, far too minimal this year.
I didn’t look at the rushing stats in a while and I was shocked how poor things have fallen. Both Adams and Folston are under 5 YPC and combined for a whopping 2 touchdowns. Dexter’s been the most consistently good of the bunch with a much smaller sample size.
There have been injuries, too. Adams was banged up for most of camp and who knows if he’s actually 100% at this point. I’m a little concerned because he kind of looks the way I thought he’d be coming out of high school and he proved me so wrong last year. I want to be wrong! Folston also might not have been 100% to start the season and then had to miss a couple games with an ankle injury. Let’s hope they both get healthy over the bye week.
WIDE RECEIVER
Expectation: C+
Current Grade: B
If you ask some Notre Dame fans we don’t have a No. 1 receiver until he’s 6’5″ benches 450 pounds and has caught no fewer than 180 passes in his first 15 games. I joke around, but it’s clear Torii Hunter hasn’t ascended to the No. 1 receiver role. His concussion clearly set him back but he’s still had a very quiet 25 receptions and 1 touchdown.
This grade revolves heavily around Equanimeous St. Brown who is averaging almost 20 yards per catch on a team-leading 31 receptions. He also has half of the touchdowns from the receiving unit and has been one of the unquestioned bright spots on the roster this year.
It feels like C.J. Sanders has been a disappointment but then he’s on pace for a 400 to 500 yard season which is pretty normal for the slot receiver position. Being able to get 10 catches, 209 yards, and 3 touchdowns from true freshman Kevin Stepherson also boosts the whole units grade.
TIGHT END
Expectation: C+
Current Grade: C+
Our tight ends are boring and I don’t want to talk about them.
OFFENSIVE LINE
Expectation: A-
Current Grade: C
Here are some stats for everyone to digest. The offense is averaging almost 60 fewer rushing yards per game than last year. The run game is unlikely to reach 2,000 yards on the season and is on pace for the lowest total since Kelly’s first season. The rushing average at 3.98 YPC is also the same as the 2010 season–the previous Kelly low.
The line has had a bit of everything. McGovern has dealt with an injury and missed time. Mustipher some snapping issues. Nelson and McGlinchey shockingly looking below average at times. A fairly average season by Bars flying under the radar if only because of everything else going on with the line.
They’ve also given up 19 sacks already–on that pace they’ll finish with 32 on the season. The 2013 pass blocking this is not. We can lay some of the blame on Kizer for holding the ball too long but not all of it.
Overall, the offense started out well and while they haven’t come crashing down to earth a case can be made they are really underachieving relative to expectations. A lot of that blame falls at the feet of the offensive line which is kind of fitting in a weirdly terrible year that the supposed strength up front has been disappointing.
Sad!
“Our tight ends are boring and I don’t want to talk about them.”
So true. I wonder if I can use this in class:
“The reading on the environmental development of the city of Chicago was boring, Professor, and I don’t want to talk about it.”
I really hope Alize Jones is making straight A’s!
We must be on pace for a record low for TE receptions.
Not sure about historically. But last year we had 16 receptions and we’re at a whopping 7 this year.
What do we want?
Sack Film Room!
When Do We Want it?
As soon as it is convenient to do one!
That might be the most unintentionally NSFW request I’ve ever seen. I hope you’re current on your #18SAD subscription fees.
I agree that Kiser holds on to the ball too long, too often. Why aren’t there outlet pass receivers for him to use?
I’m wondering if (a) Fuller’s deep ball ability last year created a bad habit, where Kizer assumes the deep route will be open in just another second; or (b) Kizer feels the pressure of having to carry the team and responds by looking for the big play on every down.
I too wonder how much losing Fuller is really impacting this offense – not in theory – but in practice with Kizer being able to easily go to him, or defenses doubling him and opening up the run game so much (or maybe the OL is just that bad this year on their own and would have been with Fuller in the lineup).
It’s tough to see sometimes, especially if there’s a linebacker lurking just off screen, but I feel like Kizer really ignores really easy check down throws a lot of the time.
Tough to argue any of those grades, TE might even be too high but they are too boring to discuss.
The pre-scouting of Kizer for the NFL will be the most interesting storyline for the next few months. My gut tells me he’ll get a 1st round grade based off size and strength alone, but it’d be so much better for him (and the program) to reload for one more year. I do believe that Big Glinch will come back, play alone proves that. Same really for Nelson, not sure what he’s put out there to justify leaving early.
Torii Jr signed with a baseball team and is getting married this weekend, he seems like he’s in a hurry to grow up and get out of college (no clue why, but hey it’s his life). Wouldn’t be shocked if he wasn’t back next season but that’s just a personal feeling I get. Other than that, hopefully everyone on the offense is back and 2017 could be special, though I do have the sinking feeling that the NFL will lure Kizer out, so hopefully Wimbush is using this year off wisely.
The Angles picked him in the 23rd round, which may have been more of a courtesy move than anything else. I can’t find any details on his contract, so I don’t know if it’s big enough to make him move on, but per NCAA rules he could play minor league ball for the Angels this summer and still be eligible to play football next year.
Yes, we will see, I don’t think there will be a ton of money in minor league baseball for him, but it is an option and a path that he could start down if he so chooses. He could just as well delay the final decision by playing baseball this summer and coming back for his last year of eligibility…That was just my personal (probably wrong) speculation that this kid has a lot going for him and like some others we have seen lately (Robinson, Elmer), I personally don’t have him as a certainty to return to the ND football team next fall. I hope he does.
Yeah, isn’t he not really good enough to even play much for the ND baseball team? That could be football-related, though I guess.
Idle speculation for the bye week: where do folks think Zaire will be next year? It seems exceedingly likely that he will grad transfer, but I really have no idea where to. If he were playing up to expectations, I’d think he’d be a perfect candidate for the yearly Oregon plug-and-play, but he might be playing himself out of that and into a MAC school (if he wants to ensure that he basically walks into a starting job).
Kansas?
Isn’t that where all washed up Irish go to di…(thinks about Rockne).
Never mind.
too soon
Somewhere MAC sounds reasonable to me. I hope he learned the lesson of his “buddy” Golson and doesn’t go to a top-tier, P5 team, because they’re going to start whoever they think can win, and any incumbent has connections and a leg-up on experience that is mighty difficult not to turn to when times get even a little tough.
The NFL will find him if he plays well enough (which at this point seems worlds away). But I would like to just see him get the chance to finally be the top QB somewhere and hopefully wherever that is, he finds it and finally gets his chance to play.
He’s a 6’0″ quarterback without a particularly strong arm, and his arm strength is better than his throwing accuracy. I would be shocked if he ever made an NFL roster past initial cuts.
Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!