Back-to-back night games inside Notre Dame Stadium is on the menu as the pre-season No. 10 North Carolina Tar Heels come to South Bend licking their wounds with 3 losses inside ACC play while they’ve fallen off the national radar already by early October. It’s been an extremely up and down rebuilding project for the 70-year old head coach Mack Brown who made the Orange Bowl a year ago but nonetheless carries 13 losses in a little over 2.5 seasons in Chapel Hill.
This weekend begins a bit of a do-or-die section of their schedule which will see UNC travel back home for currently ACC-leading Wake Forest next week and at division leading Pittsburgh the following week. With Clemson’s struggles this could’ve been a golden opportunity for North Carolina to waltz to an ACC title from a weaker division but that dream is on life support. If they lose 2 out of the next 3 or worse it’ll be really damning underachieving for a program that came into the season with big expectations.
North Carolina (+3.5) vs. Notre Dame
Notre Dame Stadium
South Bend, Indiana
Date: Saturday, October 30, 2021
Time: 7:30 PM ET
TV: NBC
The Tar Heels will be coming off a bye this week having played last on October 16th in a 45-42 victory over Miami. That makes it 3 straight wins for UNC and Mack Brown over the Hurricanes. Also going 3-0 would be Brian Kelly and Notre Dame against the Tar Heels in a series heavily tilted historically (19-2-0) toward the Irish, including a turnover-fest shootout in 2014, comfortable win in Ian Book’s first start in 2017, and last year’s 2nd half defensive dominance by Clark Lea.
North Carolina’s Offense
Let’s start up front where North Carolina brought back all of its offensive linemen from a year ago for a unit that was supposed to become a strength. However, experience hasn’t brought improvement as they were disappointing last year and remain poor again in 2021.
Through 7 games, UNC has allowed 27 sacks (the most per game among Power 5 programs) and 51 tackles for loss. Basically, the same as Notre Dame (except 2 fewer sacks allowed for the Irish) but whereas the Irish are trending in the right direction (fingers crossed!) the Heels have been dealing with issues at center where 5th-year senior and 3-year starter Brian Anderson has been banged up since August camp, former preferred walk-on 5th year senior Quiron Johnson has made 4 starts and even true sophomore Cayden Baker has seen snaps recently.
North Carolina had to replace running backs Javonte Williams (35th overall pick) and Michael Carter (107th) plus receivers Dyami Brown (82nd) and Dazz Newsome (221st) to the NFL this off-season, plus veteran Beau Corrales has missed 2021 with a hernia and sophomore Khafre Brown (younger brother of Dyami) was coming off 337 yards and poised for a big year, but fell down the depth chart and just entered the Transfer Portal this week.
In their place, sophomore Josh Downs has caught all of the passes. Well, nearly all of them. The former Top 100 recruit is 3rd nationally in receptions (60) and receptions per game (8.6) and has hauled in 837 yards and 8 touchdowns already.
At running back, the Heels have leaned heavily on former top 100 recruit and Tennessee transfer Ty Chandler for a 5th year who’s been solid throughout his career and comes into Saturday with 3,239 total yards from scrimmage and 24 touchdowns.
Best .580 winning college quarterback, ever?
He at least still has his job, but Sam Howell has joined Oklahoma’s Spencer Rattler on the list of quarterbacks whose NFL stock has fallen this year. Some mock drafts have Howell out of the 1st round although some still have the signal caller comfortably inside the Top 15 picks.
His numbers are down this year (YPG has fallen by 34.4 yards, YPA is down 1.5 yards and he’s thrown 1 fewer interception on 137 fewer passes compared to last year) but in total he’s put together an impressive career of stats:
- 32 games
- 981 attempts
- 625 completions
- 63.7% accuracy
- 9,078 passing yards
- 86 passing touchdowns
- 20 interceptions
Despite, a shaky line this remains a potent offense capable of doing damage. They’re still averaging 36.9 points per game, rank 17th in yards per play (6.76), and come into the weekend ranked 6th by SP+ on ESPN. They have run hot and cold throughout the Mack era, though. Some may argue this is a feature and not a bug of offensive coordinator Phil Longo’s Air Raid-style attack. In their wins they’ve averaged 50.2 points per game but just 19.0 points per game in their 3 losses.
One thing to keep in mind is how much more Howell is running the ball this year. With sacks removed he’s carrying the ball 9.8 times per game and has nearly eclipsed 500 yards on the ground already while being 2nd among all Power 5 quarterbacks in total rushing yards.
North Carolina’s Defense
With so much focus on North Carolina’s offense and the hype relative to expectations it’s gone a little under the radar that Jay Bateman’s 3-4 defense has continued to disappoint. This is a defense that was essentially bringing back 10 starters from a year ago, beginning to develop a lot of young talent from an uptick in recruiting, but has yet to take the next step.
They started out reasonably well in their first 2 games but gave up 553 passing yards to Virginia, got embarrassed for 45 points against Georgia Tech, and gave up over 7 yards per play in a stinging loss to Florida State a few weeks ago.
Heading into the weekend, the Tar Heels rank 54th in the SP+ defense rankings.
1 of 2 nationally prominent Myles Murphy’s from the 2020 class.Â
To be fair, UNC did play a lot of young talent on defense last year so it’s not like they’re swimming in a bunch of juniors and seniors with multiple years of starting. For example, they are projected to be starting 5 true sophomores against the Irish on Saturday night.
Two of those sophomores, defensive tackle Myles Murphy and corner Tony Grimes, highlight that young core of talent. The 5-star recruit Grimes infamously skipped his senior year of high school to enroll early in Chapel Hill last year and comes into the Notre Dame game with 9 pass break-ups in his career. Meanwhile, Murphy has blossomed in 2021 with 8.5 tackles for loss and 4 sacks so far.
Last year’s 2nd half defensive performance by Notre Dame (58 total yards in the 2nd half for UNC) will get a lot of attention in the lead up this weekend, however, the Irish should feel pretty good about their offensive performance from the 2020 matchup (6.93 YPP and one of the more balanced attacks of the season) and be able to move the ball again if the offensive line improvements are sustained.
Prediction
I’ll highlight 4 key topics as we prepare for North Carolina to come to town:
1) A 10-2 season is still extremely likely in my opinion and the 2 most likely culprits of adding that second loss for the Irish are either North Carolina or Virginia.
Of the remaining 5 opponents, UNC has the best quarterback (although there’s lots of Brennan Armstrong buzz which tends to happen when you’re averaging over 400 yards passing), with the best offensive weapons, surrounded by the most talent. That PFF had this game with a 83% win probability flashed during the end of the USC game feels insane to me. The professionals in Vegas beg to differ as well featuring a much tighter spread.
83% wait, what?
2) This should be a high scoring game. The over/under is at a healthy 62.5 points and I’m going over folks. Notre Dame’s offense appears to have stabilized a bit along the offensive line and should be feeling good going against North Carolina. On the other side, the Tar Heels have a potent enough offense to give the Irish fits and some explosiveness–to say nothing of a mobile quarterback–to put up points quickly.
3) The absence of Kyle Hamilton could be super bad. In my USC review, I figured the All-American safety would miss this game and likely isn’t coming back for a while.
Last year, the Irish played just over a half without Hamilton due to a targeting penalty and it went great. That was also with veterans Shaun Crawford and Nick McCloud in the secondary. Will a much greener secondary be able to handle North Carolina a second time?
4) How much will the home crowd at night matter? Due to its place on the schedule this has always felt like a let-down spot for Notre Dame coming off a spirited night game over rival USC. Many teams walk into these situations and aren’t able to quite bring enough energy and attention to detail, leading to an upset.
Will the energy be there again on back-to-back Saturday nights?
I generally think the night game atmosphere does help Notre Dame, though. It likely won’t have the same feel as last weekend but it’s still better than a 2:30 PM kickoff or God forbid this was a road game starting at Noon with the possibility Notre Dame doesn’t wake up until halfway through the 3rd quarter. I haven’t run the numbers but the home night game record and performances by the Irish in recent years feels really strong and they tend to play up to their potential.
Notre Dame’s front seven absolutely has to show up in a big way. Last year, JOK had a quiet game but Marist Liufau and Drew White played as well as we’ve ever seen. Now, the former has been out all year and the latter hasn’t quite been as impactful or disruptive. Last year, Ade Ogundeji had flashes of dominance and he’s now gone to the NFL. All 3 of Kurt Hinish, Myron Tagavailoa-Amosa, and Isaiah Foskey took turns making life hell for North Carolina and we’ll need to see that again this weekend.
I trust this Notre Dame defensive line, although I think the back 7 is going to run into a lot of problems with Howell’s arm and running ability. It dawned on me recently that this Mack Brown program is very similar to the Charlie Weis-era Notre Dame teams. Good quarterback play, nice offensive playmakers, shaky offensive line play, and a defense that should look more promising on paper than it ever proves on the field.
curious if they run back the light show to start the 4th quarter, and if so is it the same light show? is it accompanied by the same songs, I would hope not.
Every time carolina pops up on schedule I go back to when ASU had its opening ( I live in phoenix) and mack brown was on local sports radio openly lobbying for the head coaching job which here eventually got. it was the most bizarre thing ever. Although he really fills the role the ray anderson envisioned of hands off coach oblivious to what is actually happening
I thought the lights off, cell phone lights on, when they ran out of the tunnel was even better than the light show at the end of the 3rd quarter. It was much darker and very very cool. I also had no idea it was coming, so that might have played a factor. I don’t remember what music was played, but would love to see that become the standard night game entrance.
When did the students start taking their shirts off for the 4th quarter? I was impressed with the dedication considering it was a nice crisp 45 degrees.
Great stuff, the Mack at UNC to Weis comparison hadn’t entered my brain but feels spot on.
A few random thoughts:
1) Saw from Doug Farmer on Twitter this is only Carolina’s second true road game – the first was the opener at VT (not good for Mack + Howell!) and they also lost their neutral site game against Tech at Mercedes Benz (guessing that’s a mild away game – they only sold 37K for that game and closed the upper deck, very depressing for the Bees)
2) Howell’s running is scary but man, UNC might want to be careful – Jordan Travis and the VT QBs got really banged up by the second half
3) The BK at home night record as you mentioned is very good (12-3), with one of those losses narrowly to playoff UGA:
I don’t know how many times I had to correct my buddy last weekend when he kept referencing our 31-0 win over UM. The worst part is, we were both there.
#rememberthe6
Came with the research for me!
I guess I didn’t realize that every USC home game in the past 10 years has been a night kickoff. (and, technically, every Texas,UGA and Michigan home game, as well)
Fire Swarbrick
The rage against night games cracks me up. I prefer them, but even if you don’t, what do you expect ND to do? Just never play home night games, ever? There is no program in the country that does that.
BUT WHAT IS THE RECORD FOR DINNER IN CHICAGO?
But are expense account steak houses ELITE?!
Is anyone else less optimistic about the actual progress of our OL, and giving much more credit to the quality of opponent?
Not that UNC’s defense is good, but I don’t see us doing better than we did against USC on O, and do see us doing worse on D. I think a full game without Hamilton, and an offense coordinator preparing for no Hamilton, will hurt.
I do not feel good about this game. But, admittedly, I don’t feel good about most games against any average to good opponents. Why couldn’t I have grown up a fencing fan?
I’m kind of the opposite, I feel fine about this game. UNC is always less than the sum of their parts. They just lost to Florida State three weeks ago, and had to score in garbage time to not lose to FSU by 3 scores. They don’t need to be built up as a tremendously great opponent.
To your point on the oline, I see what you’re saying. But I think the quality of opponent goes the other way, don’t Cincy and Wisconsin both have like top 5-10 defenses? This ND line is just OK, but I think looked worse than they were because the early opponents were v good and “Sack” Coan has no pocket presence and ducks into pressure. Luckily, after 6 games, Notre Dame figured to adapt with quicker passes.
I’m perhaps overly optimistic about the defense. Front 7 mayhem will help cover for the secondary. Gonna be a big day for both Ademilola’s. I would love to see them use Botehlo as a LB to just shoot gaps and blow up the RPO similar to what Liufau did last year. That seems to be a strength of Botehlo to just run fast and crash into things, let him do that to the line and if last year holds, it will disrupt Howell quite a bit.
Intellectually, I completely agree with you.
The best way to beat air raid is the classic drop 8 rush 4 strategy. Which our DL is absolutely capable of.
As as to OL, true, UC and UW were overly good, so they looked worse than they would have against a top 30-40ish D. But I just can’t get the image of us trying to run the ball against FSU, Toledo, and Purdue out of my mind. It doesn’t feel like we were much worse against them than the good Ds. We do have new players now, so maybe there has been actual improvement, but I still don’t see the OL doing better than USC. That said, if we play basically the same game as last week, and get more Styles on the field, and good Austin shows up, we should be more than fine.
But alas, the whole ND fandom thing has taught me to trust nothing other than deep dark premonitions of eventual defeat and getting kicked squarely in the nuts. I fully expect an OMB moment that we just haven’t had since that rainy night in Ann Arbor. It feels long overdue.
Yeah, I feel ya on that. I’m more worried about UVA and even Stanford and GT having upset capabilities. And maybe if Howell is feeling it, he can be dangerous too.
You’re right, of course, about early season o-line struggles, but at the same time Alt and Kristofic didn’t play early season. And Madden possibly has less of an elbow injury now than earlier in the year and supposedly has been playing a little better as of late. So it’s worth remembering this is a different line than what struggled through Toledo or gave up all those sacks in the first 5 games.
This line def still has issues, and the scheme is still f’ed up too, when you have Coan running the zone read type concepts when HE HAS NEVER KEPT IT! Should we also consider the rush game metrics and yards/carry has been more than fine (in a small sample) with a mobile QB in Buchner who can actually keep the ball?
This is a very bad o-line by ND standards, but I feel like in some ways the results and perception is way more sour than the actual true level of play. Or possibility of what they could be with a more fitting QB for the offensive identity.
We did just fine without Hamilton against a better UNC team on the road last year. Of course, that was Clark Lea, but still.
Freeman just needs to avoid stupid stuff and we’ll be fine. Play them straight up and piledrive them into the ground.
IMO ND is a terrible matchup for a team like UNC. UNC’s plan is essentially for Howell to be perfect — he is everything they have, so he has to win every game for them. Like you said, it’s reminiscent of 2006 ND and Brady Quinn. Remember what happened when that team ran into great DLs? Yeah.
I’ll probably regret saying this, but I think we’re going to crush them. 38-17 Irish.
Talk to me ACS!
but the dakr hoarse
and the heisman trophy
and the feet helmets
i do not care for the university of north carolina
irish by fiddy bitches
This game worries me. 1, for the reasons you stated, 2, this line is fishy.
Do you think we have seen the last of Hamilton in an Irish uniform? Do we know what the injury really is? Selfishly I want him to play but could you blame him if he sat? He’s months away from making millions. On the other hand, watching him on the sideline last week it looked like he really wanted to play
Not worried about the game, but I kinda think Kyle has played his last at Notre Dame. Brian Kelly usually doesn’t rule anyone out early, but on Monday he said Hamilton was out. No way he’s coming back for Navy next weekend either, no point.
Ideally if the knee is healed, maybe he’s back for UVA after that, but really why bother? Notre Dame isn’t going to the playoff, and knees aren’t anything to fool around on at this point for him. As Pete Sampson said, the 5th overall pick spot has a $34 million guarantee for 4 years.
I have a bad feeling. The cost/benefit and risk/reward makes it look like an obvious decision, perhaps even no real decision at all. I wouldn’t blame him to shut it down after seeing Jaylon’s trajectory and awful injury. But that’s just my own opinion. Kyle has a lot to lose, pretty unique case. Even a guy like Kyren can pump his stock by continuing to be great, but for a top 3-5-10 pick, just too much on the line personally.
Anybody else going down for the game? It’ll be my first in a couple of years, so I’m pretty excited.
Wish I was, but, had to come back to Paris. Hope you have a super super time! I’ll be up at 1:30 am to watch you!
Last Saturday was great though. Tried to get some of you to come see me in Section 4, but nobody showed. Oh well, there were some wonderful fans and I did manage to do 31 pushups on my own, plus going up for 31 more. Would have gone for 38.
Eric is right, the crowd better show up. But yes, this has the earmarks of a trap game for the crowd, our progress has been good but spotty, so…
The songs for the 4th quarter blackout were voted on, hopefully better ones this time.
Yeah, I think Kyle’s family has intervened, based on BK’s pointed comment about how “everybody concerned will be consulted” or words to that effect. So let’s go, DB, Houston, game on, be disciplined. In fact, everybody be disciplined, probably our only chance to do any kind of containment.
The running of the QB will be a big challenge, and our DCs scheme ought to be interesting.
Let’s go, Irish!
Perhaps the strategy will be, if the QB is running, make sure it’s for his life.
Please, just use Buchner in 1st and goal situations inside the 10 yd. line.