It turns out, yup, Notre Dame is really good this year. On the flip side, NC State has the ingredients of a really good team but hasn’t put it all together yet and needs more seasoning before winning these big games. For the second straight home game the Fighting Irish looked like a nationally recognized playoff contender against quality competition. With the regular season now 66% complete the month of November is about to heat up in a big way.
PASSING OFFENSE
Well, the start sucked that’s for sure. Isn’t it funny how when you lose things like getting down 7-0 early and punting on your first 2 possessions are indictments of “not being prepared” or “not getting up for big games” but when you win handily it’s entirely ignored? Well, not by this guy!
For sure, there were some troubles in protection early on. In fact, both of NC State’s sacks came on back-to-back plays on Notre Dame’s first offensive series. From there though things were actually fine. Wimbush was only 10 of 19 for 104 yards but I think we can all agree he looks so, so much more comfortable from top to bottom.
I still contend he’s actually pretty accurate most of the time it’s just he’s not quite putting the ball right on the spot especially when throwing downfield. Or, in the case of the drop on the play in which Alize Mack was injured he’s not getting credit for a really fantastic (sidearm) throw.
With the confines of this passing game we have to give credit to Durham Smythe for 3 catches, 52 yards, and a touchdown. It may not be a career day for him but with the excellent third-down tippy-toe catch along the sidelines it felt like maybe his best game in a gold helmet.
RUSHING OFFENSE
Okay, here’s the scary thing. Josh Adams keeps himself well in the Heisman race with a 202-yard effort and I think a case could be made he has a not insubstantial room for improvement. Am I crazy?
Adams had 11 carries go for 2 or fewer yards, including 5 carries that lost yardage. I actually think if the entire backfield can get healthy it might be the exact thing Adams needs to rest a little bit. Imagine him right now running with 60% success rate!??
| Player | 1st/2nd Yes | 1st/2nd No | 3rd/4th Yes | 3rd/4th No | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adams | 11 | 12 | 2 | 2 | 48.1% |
| McIntosh | 7 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 81.8% |
| Dexter | 5 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 62.5% |
| Wimbush | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 60.0% |
| TOTALS | 24 | 19 | 6 | 2 | 60.0% |
Of course, Adams mixes in plenty of 4, 5, and 6-yard runs with the long runs which makes him so devastating. In this game, he totaled 3 more runs of 20+ yards.
Josh Adams will break into the Top 10 school-record for rushing yards in a single season next weekend and from there he’ll be making an assault up to the top spot. After his performance against NC State he needs exactly 269 rushing yards to become #1 in school history past Vagas Ferguson’s 1979 campaign.
You know what’s crazy to me? I’ve always wanted to watch an Urban Meyer-esque ground attack at Notre Dame and right now the Irish are doing just that but at an even higher level with pretty meager passing and a banged up running back corps behind Adams.
Case in point, Notre Dame seemed to gameplan NOT to run Wimbush much on standard downs against a tough NC State defense. And yet, they still ran for 318 yards. Is this a dream?
Welcome back to Dexter Williams who looked mighty good once again (only to get dinged up again, ugh) although I did find it odd that Tony Jones didn’t see any carries on Saturday. On Sunday’s presser, Kelly mentioned Jones suffered a hip pointer, presumably on special teams.
PASS DEFENSE
How about 7 pass break-ups on the afternoon and it honestly felt like there were a few more, too!?! I mean, how much swag was this pass defense playing with in this game? They clearly scouted NC State’s offense and were not impressed with their ability to push the ball downfield. They were sniffing out virtually everything on the short-to-intermediate routes and the Wolfpack were left dizzy and unsure what to do to adjust.
Count me kind of not that impressed with Ryan Finley, as well. I actually thought Notre Dame’s pressure wasn’t that great with 5 hurries and 1 sack. Finley definitely had time to make plays but I thought his arm wasn’t great and besides a couple nice throws he looked entirely like an Average Upperclassman Power 5 Starter or AUP5S for short.
The Julian Love pick six was one of those plays when things are going right they’re always going right. In a game we thought NC State’s ability to protect the football could give the Irish trouble that was one huge momentum swinging moment.
RUSH DEFENSE
I’m writing this portion of the review late Saturday night and I’m not sure whether I’ll be dreaming more about the Irish ground game or the Irish run defense.
While the offense is deservedly getting most of the headlines I think we need to throw some appreciation towards the defense because they are a freaking load to handle lately.
Irish rush defense is EATIN’ in 2017
NC State attempted 23 non-sack rushes against Notre Dame and were successful 4 times.
4 successful runs in a Top 15 matchup. Just 17.3% success rate is ridiculous.
Sure, the speedy Nyheim Hines left the game early with an injury (he was 0 for 2 on success rate, by the way) but I don’t think it would’ve mattered all that much. He’s pretty good but not Marshall Faulk.
We should also mention some rather curious play-calling from Dave Doeren and the Wolfpack. On their first offensive drive following their blocked punt TD with the game tied at 7-7 they chained together their second-longest drive of the game. With only 2 successful carries in the 1st half they were already pass-heavy at this point then ran the ball on 3rd & 9 only to punt on 4th down from the Irish 38-yard line.
They also passed up an easy field goal (well, their kicker does suck) only trailing by 14-points with 22+ minutes left to play in the game and then weirdly ran the ball again on 3rd & 7 late in the 3rd quarter.
SPECIAL TEAMS
I want to get mad about the blocked punt but:
1) I tend to think they are fluky and/or just a really good job by the opponent
2) I think it just pissed Notre Dame off more than it helped NC State gain momentum
Otherwise, another boring special teams game featuring no field goal attempts from either team (Yoon only has 1 attempt over the last 3 weeks) although Chris Finke had a 15-yard punt return so that’s nice. However, the Wolfpack did have a 58-yard kickoff return and Yoon booted another out of bounds, as well.
TURNING POINT
Man, that Love pick 6 is the tempting choice. In a way, that seemed to break NC State a little bit and was super deflating. But they got the ball back and were deep in Irish territory with the opportunity to cut the lead to 7 points.
Then, they tried the aforementioned 4th down attempt. It didn’t work out too well.
First of all, can I just say who would’ve guessed that a line of Okwara, MTA, Tillery, and Kareem would be playing together in a huge moment like this AND performing at a high level?
Anyway, NC State tries to block towards the boundary and MTA’s speed off the line allows him to shoot the large gap between the center and right guard. Finley hasn’t even handed the ball off before MTA is past both linemen. This totally takes away all of the fullback’s aggressiveness and allows Te’von Coney an unimpeded lane to make the sure tackle for a loss and turnover on downs.
3 STARS
- Josh Adams
- Julian Love
- Te’von Coney
FINAL NOTES
This game felt like a blowout for a handful of reasons but one of them is that NC State’s final 9 drives featured 6 punts, 1 interception, and 2 turnovers on down. Their last 4 drives were 3 & outs. The Wolfpack averaged 3.7 yards per play from the moment they scored their only offensive touchdown.
Te’von Coney might be not-so-secretly the best player on the defense right now. He’s leading the team in solo tackles, overall tackles, and is tied for 2nd with 5.5 tackles for loss.
My very first post I wrote for OFD when we were at FanTake was asking if Kelly’s 2010 team could rush for 2,000 yards on the season. I just looked and oddly enough every single year from 2011 through 2016 there were 4 teams each season who rushed for 4,000+ yards. WE ARE ON PACE TO BE ONE OF THESE TEAMS IN 2017. The only non-triple option Power 5 programs to do that since 2010 are Oregon, Auburn, Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Baylor and no one did it last year.
How about some comparisons to the Holtz-era rushing, if you’d like? The best-ever yards per carry average for Holtz came in the 1992 season when the Irish averaged 5.6 per attempt. Notre Dame is currently averaging 6.9 per attempt and is on pace to surpass the ’92 total rushing yards sometime in the 3rd quarter of the Miami game this year. On the current pace, this 2017 team will be surpassing Holtz best total rushing season (1989, 3,452 yards) sometime in the second half against Navy.
What was up with NC State’s Jaylen Samuels? He was held by Shaun Crawford on a play that resulted in a flag and acted like a penalty wasn’t enough retribution. He was just constantly chirping and maybe should’ve focused on gaining more than 39 yards on 10 touches.
YPP UPDATE: The Irish fell just a tad (-0.02) following the NC State win and really needed one of those deep passes to connect to boost the offensive numbers. Still, the 4.31 YPP surrendered was the 2nd best effort of the season for the defense and NC State’s 263 total yards were the fewest allowed by the Irish this season. A quick review of the updated YPP for the team’s that were ranked ahead of Notre Dame in the AP Poll this past week:
Alabama (3.08) – Bye week
Penn State (2.09) – An astonishing -0.64 drop after playing Ohio State!
Georgia (2.78) – Increase of +0.28 after playing Florida. The Gators, everybody!
TCU (1.77) – Same -0.02 drop as Notre Dame in a loss at Iowa State.
Wisconsin (2.16) – Drops -0.26 following a game against Illinois. This team isn’t that good.
Ohio State (2.85) – A small -0.07 drop in a huge comeback win against an undefeated team.
Clemson (1.65) – Workmanlike effort against Georgia Tech drops their mark by -0.09 overall.
Miami (2.00) – A significant -0.20 drop in a lackluster win at North Carolina.
It was a tale of two halves in terms of penalties. In the first two quarters NC State had 11 flags called and Notre Dame 3 flags. Each team only had one penalty in the second half.
Thanks to the above 4th down stop NC State only scored a touchdown on 1 out of their 2 red zone trips. The Irish are currently tied for 5th nationally allowing TD’s on just 40% of attempts.
Hat tip to Tyler for this find during our Slack game day chat: If it wasn’t our powerful run game or stout defense we’ve officially become the toughest program in the country with a ball girl in shorts during a game when there were some snow flurries. #BallGirlTrucking
It’s 66% complete. Or did I not carry the one or something?
You right.
Unpretentious Math Illiterate?
The coldest game I’ve been to since 12 Pitt. At least it was a few overtimes shorter. Fun game, nice to beat my Alma mater when they are looking pretty stout. Crowd was a little uneasy until the first of the long plays on the first ND scoring drive, then it came alive. Eric, I like what you said about the punt block just pissing off the team. That got the team ready to fight.
Was pretty disappointed in the student section. 5-10 rows just totally empty in 3 of the sections. I mean it was real cold, but it was not just-dont-show-up-for-a-top-15-matchup cold.
I thought this happens every game because the general admission seating let’s the students squeeze together to get closer to the field.
This is correct. Everyone tries to get as low and to the right as possible. It happens every game. They could probably sell another thousand tickets at the top of the student section, but it would violate a fire code or something.
True, but in the roughly 8-10 ND games I have been to, this was noticeably empty.
I want one of those hats.
Start: The lesson here is that we made adjustments. Someone else pointed it out in the postgame reaction, but after Chubb wrecked those first two drives, we adjusted, and he wasn’t that big a factor the rest of the game. He got tackles, but didn’t really impact the game. Doug Farmer (the new Inside the Irish guy) mentioned this as well–this is what’s different about this team. How many times have we seen them get hit in the mouth like that and crumple? This team shrugs it off, smiles, and punches right back. We saw it in the USC game, answering their drives to keep them at arm’s length. We saw it this game, when NCSt went up early. Hell, we saw it in the UGA game, even though we didn’t really recognize it at the time because we didn’t know how good either of these teams were.
Passing: Wimbush is getting better. The stats don’t reflect it, and he needs to kick Mack and EQ in the keister and give Smythe a big high five. But the bottom line is that Wimbush isn’t great YET, but he’s getting better, and is doing enough that he can burn a defense if they key on Adams.
Rushing: Adams ran for 200+ yards, and his average yards per rush went DOWN. I think on the short/neg yards, when you run 27 times, that’s going to happen, especially against a good rush D. It stands out more because we know he could go for a 70 yarder each time he carries.
Defense: Coney is a beast. Elko is worth his weight in gold and we need to do everything we can to lock him up. Anyone know if he’s got HC goals, or could we get lucky and he be a Venables/Arranda type that is happy as a well-paid DC?
Final Notes: Watching opposing teams give up with 10 minutes left is pretty fun.
Great post. KG. Me too I want a T33 hat. But damn, gonna be hard here in Pa-ree, esp as I need to have it for Palo Alto. Are they even for sale?
Really good point about the UGA game. I remember saying to one of the jillion Ga fans at the end how much I hoped they would win out, but that was an aspiration. Now… hell yes, le’s tee it up with them at the end! (As a vet of the OB in 2012, I have to think that would be better than facing that evil NS genius with a month of prep time again,,,)
If they end up selling them, I think there’s a way you can have one sent to a post office so that you can pick it up.
Seriously. Where can I get that hat? I have been googling and can’t find it. ND must be selling them if they think they can make $$$.
And how was this a boost to JA’s Heisman campain???? His averaged dropped!
Does anyone know where I can get a 33 hat?
My dad was mentioning he was going to check with the Irish Legion group and see if they couldnt get ahold of some
What is the Irish Legion? Is that something anyone can talk to?
The only sites that google returns that even mention the hat are 247sports. But it appears to link to posts on their premium Irish board.
This is it, I think: https://www.facebook.com/legionoftheleprechaun/
I had read some where that they only printed 500 of the hats to start. I don’t know if they are going to create more or not.
I heard or read, I don’t remember where, that the hat is not for sale yet, due to ND’s worries about NCAA rules…… Maybe SBT is where I read it.
LAAAAAAAAME
If I can’t get a 33 Trucking hat I’d take Momma Adam’s “HAPPY 21ST BIRTHDAY JOSH” sweatshirt as a consolation
While you nailed the turning point, I realized this game what it actually felt like to follow an elite team. After the pick 6, the game felt over. How could they possibly come back if our defense consistently holds teams under 20 and we run the ball at will in the second half?
I’m not sure I’ve ever felt that as an ND fan, and we just did it to a top 15 team! So much fun to watch!
McElwain out at Florida. What a s-show. Let’s scoop up some recruits!
Who do they have that we really want?
I don’t care, I just want to pile on the misery for Florida to see SBN squirm.
THIS!
And FSU! I consider this season karmic whiplash for their never-ending 4-8 jokes in the off-season.
“Josh Adams keeps himself well in the Heisman race with a 202-yard effort and I think a case could be made he has a not insubstantial room for improvement. Am I crazy?”
Nah, I wouldn’t say crazy. Maybe a little picky. Even Cindy Crawford has a mole, right? I’m fine with duck (0 yard gain), duck (2 yard gain), duck (3 yard gain) because soon and reliably enough, then always comes goose (60+ yard TD) for this RB and this o-line. I suppose Adams, like anyone, has room for improvement, but when he’s jammed up it’s usually not something an RB can control with a defender shooting a gap and having him dead to rights. And when he’s good, buddy nobody’s better when he hits a clean hole upright with speed it’s going far no matter what, so I don’t think I would mess with something that’s working so well.
All in all, yeah a better success rate would be cool but let’s remember the big picture of 27 carries, 202 yards on the #6 rushing defense. Not too much to complain about there for me even if some of the nitty gritty numbers aren’t quite as pretty. Such is life.
UGA and MSU are the only two games he hasn’t had a >60yd run. That’s a pretty sweet stat
On the other hand, I never feel like we’re not going to get it when we need it. Which is the exact opposite of every year until this year. Even 2015, with a good run game, I felt like 2 yards on 3rd down was a gamble. Now, we might get stuffed on first down, but then get 8 yards on 2nd and 4 on 3rd. I’m not worried about it in the same way. Honestly, I have a hard time believing the “success” stats, because it feels like we get stuffed way less often than before.
As I mentioned during the success rate off-season articles I think the success of a defense has a huge perception on the offense getting stuffed.
So far, here are the Rushing Defense rankings for the teams we’ve played to date (plus how many yards ND rushed for and how that compares to the average):
Temple, #77, 177.3 yds/game (422 yds or 2.38× opponent’s avg)
Georgia, #6, 94.8 yds/game (55 yds or 0.58× opponent’s avg) [ Big time 🙁 ]
Boston College, #109, 206.2 yds/game (515 yards or 2.50× opponent’s avg)
Michigan State, #4, 89.8 yds/game (182 yards or 2.03× opponent’s avg)
Miami (OH). #66, 164.9 yds/game (333 yards or 2.02× opponent’s avg)
North Carolina, #107, 205.1 yds/game (341 yards or 1.66× opponent’s avg)
Southern Cal, #65, 164.8 yds/game (377 yards or 2.29× opponent’s avg)
NC State, #19, 119.6 yds/game (318 yards or 2.66× opponent’s avg)
The average ranking for the first 8 opponents is #56.6. The average ranking for the next 4 opponents is #85.0.
Wake Forest, #88, 183.8yds/game
Miami (FL), #82, 179.7 yds/game
Navy, #75, 174.7 yds/game
Stanford, #95, 188.3 yds/game
I do believe there is room for improvement for Mr. Adams.
#33trucking
So the only games we haven’t doubled up our opponents average are UGA and UNC. That Stanford number is going to be tough to double in 60 minutes, but boy I am excited to try.
Man, we put such a hurtin on NC St their per game average went up like 25 yds.
Dropped from #6 rushing defense to #19. Ouch.
Nice stats, CSN – and here I was thinking you were just another clever image manipulator!
Definitely his most substantive post ever. And a good one at that. Hit virtually all our opponents for TWICE their average rushing yards is straight bonkers. How do you say “straight bonkers” en francais mon ami?
“bonkers droites”
Google Translate says so; must be true.
MTA was a heck of a recruiting find. He’s the best true freshman DT we’ve had since who? Day? Maybe (probably) before that?
Maybe Trumbetti, remember he was pretty good as a freshman!
Wasn’t he a DE as a freshman? I think he might be getting his first snaps at DT this year
Yeah, I thought you said D-line.
Mike McCoy ?
I believe Day was playing end in our 3-4 as a freshman. So must have been someone even before that.
Ian Williams played a lot as true freshman, if I recall correctly and was pretty productive
Man did Wimbush change his number to 38 cuz he was crisp like a McIntosh yo. He really made some incredible throws in the first half. If they call PI on that play where Boykin was half-nelsoned and if we hit on one of those deep throws late, the numbers look totally different. Once again nearly a quarter of his completionsgo for tdz, he takes care of the ball, he moves the chains with a couple huge throws, and he’s an absolute magician with his legs.
Man, have we come a loooooong way. And there’s still more upside.
I was one of the people who said Wimbush looked baaaad early in the year. And he did. He looks good now. His throws really LOOK good, even when he doesn’t complete them. Not just better, but good. He looks comfortable in the pocket. He still needs to work on his deep ball accuracy, but he has gotten sooooo much better at short stuff/intermediate stuff.
When I saw him throwing ducks into the ground during warm-ups at BC, I thought it would be at least a year, if ever, until he looked like a good QB. But he does now. If he cleans up a few things, which he’s shown he can do and do quickly, he will start putting up numbers that match his performance.
That said, I almost hope he never completes much over 60% of his passes, because I fear we would start passing more.
This – especially your last line – needs to be recc’d to the heavens.
I’d like to think they’re smart enough to know where the bread is buttered by this point. Also a good thing that Long is calling the plays.
I do think it will be fine next year to be a more aerial based attack next season when Adams and the left-side move on. Fits for Wimbush’s progression too.
This I must disagree with. When you’ve created an identity for yourself as a tough, run-first, smashmouth football team, you don’t move away from that. You double down on that. Can Wimbush get better at passing? yeah, I certainly hope so. Should we have an “aerial based attack”? I fear that would result in regression to BK’s mean.
I agree in principle. I also see that Nelson and McGlinchey and Adams will all be gone. Mustipher possibly too, right? We’re not going to put up 300 yards per game on the ground next year with new starters all over the line.
“We’re not going to put up 300 yards per game on the ground next year with new starters all over the line.”
That’s exactly what we want them to think…
Not with an attitude like that, we’re not!
We’re really only going to have one new starter – Hainsey isn’t technically a starter but he gets plenty of reps. Mustipher and Bars both have another year, and both need to put more on film to be first day picks no matter what happens the rest of the season.
Your happy thought of the day.
Indeed, one of the things that NDN perhaps irrationally fears (but still remains to be seen) is whether we will stick with this tough, run-first identity with a seasoned QB, or if this is just a better version of 2012 Golson offense.
I was a manager while I was at ND. Ryan Grooms isn’t really a fan of pants. His previous stops include Minnesota and Air Force where he wore shorts in the cold weather. My junior season with the football team, we weren’t issued pants. Subsequent classes were issued pants, but I’m sure the wearing of shorts year round is still encouraged.
No-pants party!
I’m not really a fan of pants either. #18SAD
While I know FiveThirtyEight’s numbers may a bit off here or there, what they’ve got up is the best thing going that I’m aware of, so I’ve been messing around on that. The most interesting thing is exactly how big the NC State-Clemson game is next weekend for us. Basically, if we win and NC State wins next week, it would require BOTH Miami AND SC losing (and all the other teams “ahead” of us for FiveThirtyEight purposes winning) for it to be considered a “bad” week w/r/t to our playoff odds (this all incorporates their perceived odds of who wins which game, so ND beating Wake doesn’t add too much but losing would obviously be disastrous from the playoff perspective; on the flip side, NC State is not expected to beat Clemson, so their winning shifts odds elsewhere – including ND’s – significantly). For example, even an ND win+NC State win combined with a Stanford loss (plus Bama/Ohio State/UGA/Wisconsin/Oklahoma/Washington wins) is a good day from ND’s perspective.
Kind of annoying, then, that the NC State-Clemson game is at the same time as our game.
In any case, though, there are games on all day that affect ND, which is fantastic. I’m already looking forward to Saturday. Winning and being In It really does make the season way, way more fun.
What should the over/under for number of yards Josh Adams finishes the season with be set at? He’s on pace for exactly 1,900. That’d shatter the current season rushing record by nearly 500 yards.
And Wimbush could make a push for Ferguson’s rushing TD record as well.
Well, if he can get another 95 yd TD against Wake you might assume he’ll get something on the order of 215 this weekend. We are going to completely run up, down, over, around and all over Miami so I guess 250ish there. Navy will be tough because I dont think we’ll get enough possessions to really rack up a ton of yards, so 115 there. Then Stanford will be just like us and run the clock down and keep us off the field. Probably only a little over a hundo there. Thats another 685 to add onto his current 1169. Thats 1,854 yards total.
*98 yard TD
#rememberthe3
I do. I was at that game. Guess I just thought it was a 95-yarder
Stanford digression: I’m calling 200+ for Adams against Stanford. Assuming they’ll run the clock down also assumes they’ll be able to sustain drives. That’s not going to happen. I think BK has an ax to grind with them, and if all goes well I think he’ll also want to help Adams make a Heisman statement.
My prediction: Pain.
Until such time as we can get some #33Trucking hats or “Happy 21st Birthday, Josh Adams” tees up in here, I think I’ll order some special OFD/18S (deal with it) merchandise to commemorate this special season.
Which do you prefer for the front?:
The back will, obviously, look like this:
I disagree with your pace projection.
Flaw #1: It is factoring his yards per game to include 8 games, when he’s actually only played in 7. Unless you see it as likely that he misses another game, he’s on pace for 2,004.
Flaw #2: It assumes only 13 games for the season. Just saying.
That’s true.
Who has only played in 7 games?
Claypool on the Wimbush TD run: https://t.co/QOy9j4rRWa
That’s glorious!
um wow
I really liked this one of Quenton and Sam, too: https://twitter.com/PeteSampson_/status/924688229865021442
Clearly, Chase Claypool scored in the 98th percentile in protective instincts, just like Michael Oher.
Read on another board that NC State’s RB Hines actually got injured on this play and not on the one NBC kept replaying: https://youtu.be/dEjgWb2n38Y
Nyles absolutely destroys him and Hines’ ankle buckles under the force
Ummm, that link takes me to the full 3 hour and 44 minute game replay in HD.
Can you narrow it down a bit more than that, please?
The play begins about 10 seconds after the video starts. Let me know if it’s still wonky and I can repost
Yeah it just starts at the beginning. Do you know the time in the video to go to?
Sorry guys. Can’t seem to share a cropped version using my iPhone. Time is 27:36
Ah yeah I was wondering; Nyles brought the wood there