Recently our friend and former contributor Jamie Uyeyama wrote a piece for Irish Sports Daily on the Irish running game regression during the final quarter of the 2017 season. It’s highly recommended reading for any Notre Dame fan.
Jamie describes how it was a “mixture of technical precision, schematic deception, and high-level execution” that led to Notre Dame’s prolific rushing offense through the first 75% of the games but a lack of respect of certain offensive capabilities by opponents through scouting tendencies which led to a drop-off late in the season.
This triggered a topic for me that I’ve been interested in covering recently on 18 Stripes. Namely, how much importance should Notre Dame put on the quarterback position? Jamie’s article was linked on Rock’s House–and while the usual empty platitudes and knee-jerk reactions are present as always–I was interested in these two comments especially:
“Having an offense based on passing (with its resulting dependency on high-quality QB play at all times) is anathema to many on this board.”
“The offense should not need a Heisman candidate and potential top draft pick to be able to function against good, well coached defenses.”
The first thing that jumps out to me is how (or if you really want to go deep, why) there’s disagreement over certain definitions involved with these sentences. For example, is Notre Dame’s offense “based” on passing? Was it so during 2017? Does throwing some RPO screen passes to open up the rest of the offense, and particularly the run game, mean the offense is “based” on passing?
How do we define “dependency on high-quality QB play?” How do we define Heisman-level play? Were the shortcomings of Wimbush in 2017 because he couldn’t execute Heisman-level plays? And who do we call “good” defenses?
These are all really important definitions that need to be agreed upon, and as many well know, Rock’s House isn’t known to do this in any unbiased way. One glance through that thread and you’ll see a lot of excuses for why an offense that rushed for 3,500 yards and 35 touchdowns actually sucked (surprise!). I guess the Irish have to rush for 6,000 yards in a season to get some compliments?
At any rate, there’s a massive Grand Canyon-like difference in the passing emphasis between a school like Texas Tech and Notre Dame. When the latter is treated as the former it’s difficult to have an honest discussion about how much to use the quarterback’s throwing abilities. Seventy-two other qualifying quarterbacks threw the ball more than Brandon Wimbush in 2017 and yet things are STILL too quarterback-centric?
Nevertheless, I think the importance and use of the quarterback is a worthy topic and for me it really gets down to a philosophical discussion on how you think Notre Dame can best use its talent.
For me, if you’re not going to rely on good/great/outstanding quarterback play you’re putting a lot more of an emphasis (or is it stress?) on teamwork, recruiting, and defense. Those things sound good!
These things 100% worked back in 1993 when, as I love to remind people, Irish quarterback Kevin McDougal accounted for a paltry 1,626 total yards and 11 touchdowns for an entire season of college football. The ’93 team was the epitome of team > quarterback, even slaying the 325 passing yards per game Florida State Seminoles, and it seems a lot of people have had a hard time moving on from that position as The Recipe™ for success in the quarter century since.
The mythical Kevin McDougal in 1993.
The question you have to ask yourself is whether Notre Dame can recruit well enough to sustain less emphasis on the quarterback position. Or alternately, if there are current examples of programs doing this at a high level and how they are recruiting. Notre Dame had an astonishing 7 players picked with the first 92 selections (including 3 in the first round) in the 1994 draft–that team was loaded with talent.
The Catch-22 is that even the top programs can struggle to recruit to this type of system, in fact, Notre Dame learned that fate in 1995 when the Cerrato-era recruiting classes cycled out and 5 losses quickly ushered in the end of the Lou Holtz dominance. The other curious aspect is that if you’re setting the bar at elite recruiting why not sign elite quarterbacks and let them play like one, too?
If we are to take our cue from the best, Alabama’s recruiting and system has been evolving to welcome more dynamic quarterbacks as the years have passed instead of sticking with game-managers. There’s a really good argument to be had that a game-manager QB with a run-heavy offense at Notre Dame is a little bit more consistent and sustainable over the long-term but that also seems like an uphill battle to beat the Tide and not a surrender to excellence.
I honestly don’t think anyone truly wants to have a mediocre quarterback to play offense with one hand tied behind the back but rather it’s in response to a fondness for a bygone era, a fetish with chest-pounding fan toughness, and currently an allergic reaction to Brian Kelly. More precisely, some people think an offense should still be potent and productive on the ground even with average quarterbacking and/or less production from the quarterback.
That’s really difficult to pull off with any consistency at this level. Even Jim Harbaugh is having a bit of a problem with this with S&P+ ranked offenses of 85th, 40th, and 38th since he arrived in Ann Arbor. He’s going backwards!
Florida State ’93
As Jamie wrote, “No one is going to be able to run the ball well when they are outnumbered in the box.” The key word in that sentence is well. It’s rare to see an offense with average quarterback play really humming along against good defenses. Urban Meyer is the best offensive head coach in the country in my mind and he’s had stretches throughout his career with a struggling passing offense where everything comes grinding to a halt against good teams–it’s not just some magical Brian Kelly phenomenon. We could go through several big game under Lou Holtz where the offense stalled, too. This is the nature of football.
I brought up the 1993 Florida State game above and was interested in looking at things from perhaps the best Irish victory over the last 3 decades. Notre Dame played the vast majority of the game in I-formation alternating between 2 and 3-receiver sets as the offense continued its move away from the triple option reliance of the late 1980’s. On the first offensive series the numbers are even in the box and the Seminoles eat things up led by linebacker Derrick Brooks.* Runs of 0, 2, and -1 yards predict a mighty struggle on the ground to come.
*Brooks was injured early in the game and missed the rest of the first half which was a huge stroke of luck for Notre Dame. The future ACC Defensive Player of the Year and College and NFL Hall of Famer was a tremendous athlete and could’ve tilted the balance of the game if healthy.
As Lou Holtz was want to do, the Irish opened the second series with 4 straight successful runs (39 total yards) all against even numbers in the box–he was always so good at adjustments. Florida State then adjusted themselves for the first time adding an extra defender in the box, Notre Dame flexed out tight end Oscar McBride, and McDougal (gasp!) checks to a pass play!
On the very next play, Florida State’s defense goes +1 in the box again and McDougal misses a wide open Lake Dawson on a seam route down the left side. Despite the incompletion the standard is being set by Notre Dame–if the Seminoles want to add an extra defender the Irish will make them pay for it through the air.
For the third consecutive snap FSU goes +1 in the box and this time the Irish make them pay with some trickery.
That’s 5th-year senior Adrian Jarrell who hadn’t taken a rushing attempt since his freshman season. Classic Lou Holtz! A constraint play at this point to a receiver Florida State likely ignored as soon as he stepped on the field was a stroke of pure genius.
Notre Dame began the third series with even numbers in the box and had 2 successful runs for 18 yards–again the Seminoles respond and bring another defender into the box. To gain an edge, the Irish go with an option and a nice individual effort by Lee Becton gains 6 yards.
The Notre Dame offense faced 10 snaps in the first half of this game where Florida State added an extra defender to the box, throwing 4 times and running 6 times for 42 yards and a 50% success rate. That’s actually not terrible production but it’s still mostly tough sledding (5 carries for 10 yards with the reverse TD removed) for a talented offense like Notre Dame.
Later in the same series from above the Irish were faced with a 3rd & 3 situation and elected for a I-formation double tight end set. The Seminoles respond with 9 defenders in the box to Notre Dame’s 8 blockers. This time, the Irish elect to play things straight up with a run in between the tackles but can’t convert.
Notre Dame would run a quarterback sneak on 4th down on the next snap and fail against another situation where Florida State had an extra tackler in the box.
The Irish tried to go smash mouth football on 3 carries with -1 blockers in the box and didn’t get anything worthwhile which isn’t surprising, it’s really hard!
Lack of Respect
Notre Dame rushed for 165 yards in the first half against Florida State–69% of its total game rushing and 47.5% of the total game yardage. Things got a lot tougher in the second half when Derrick Brooks returned–FSU more than doubled up the Irish in yardage 252 to 118 and the Seminoles top-ranked offense started to get going. Be that as it may, when the Seminoles added an extra man in the box on defense the Irish weren’t afraid to pass and needed constraint plays to make some hay on the ground.
But what of McDougal?
Even though his numbers were never impressive they belie his importance. As a folk hero to this day many remember his calmness and ability to run the offense. During the 1st half against FSU he was on the nuggets and played one of his cleanest games of the season. He ran the option perfectly (including a couple early successful runs) and although his 6 of 11 for 64 yards first half passing doesn’t seem like much to modern sensibilities, he opened the game crisply and was 2 really awful drops from starting 8 of 9 for close to 100 yards. He also converted a pair of 3rd and long situations with his arm, too.
As good as the first half against Florida State was the following week’s first half against Boston College was the opposite. The Eagles put an extra defender in the box on 17 plays during the first half and the Irish passed the ball 9 times for 85 yards, including a fake-reverse 39-yard touchdown pass to fullback Ray Zellers.
When Notre Dame ran the ball with an extra defender in the box against BC they gained 29 yards on 8 carries, for a 28.5% success rate. The week prior the defense played outstanding against a high-flying passing offense and a tough Notre Dame offense did enough to always keep Florida State chasing. Against Boston College, the Irish defense couldn’t contain a high-flying passing offense and a banged-up offense was far less productive totaling 84 rushing yards while trailing by 10 at the half, ultimately blowing a possible National Title.
Football is largely a game about respect and talent. With great talent, Lou Holtz was a tremendous coach. With less than great talent he was 35-21-1 over 5 seasons. Times change, but the blueprint for success in the game isn’t radically different today. You can run the ball against +1 defenders in the box but you better be prepared to have great players performing at a high level to have a lot of success. Sometimes the Holtz teams could do it, sometimes they couldn’t do it.
Often, Brian Kelly gets criticized for never running against +1 in the box (not true) but it’s not exactly a huge indictment anyway. If aliens descended on earth and culturally valued circus catches (wait, is this the NFL?) while throwing into double coverage all the time we’d think that’s pretty silly. Sure, do it once in a while but preferably to an elite talented wideout with the capabilities to make that play. Work smart not hard.
Running against +1 defenders in the box isn’t smart, it’s only really necessary to keep the opponent honest. It’s just many have fetishized “playing smash mouth football” to overcome this deficit , when in reality, so much of football is a tango to try and get that extra defender out of the box with different programs finding different ways to achieve those results, with varying levels of success.
As Jamie noted in his article linked above, the Irish offense struggled running late in the season when the jet sweep wasn’t taken seriously and Wimbush was scouted to not read the option or quick screen game well enough–and unable to always be accurate enough to complete the screen when he did throw.
The Irish could run Power-I Counter but A) that’s not part of their offense and B) that play isn’t necessarily better, easier, or more successful than Wimbush optioning off a defender on the edge. The same people criticizing Kelly for never running against +1 defenders in the box are the same people who think a RPO isn’t a legitimate way of dealing with that extra defender.
I think there’s something to be said for Power-I Counter being easier on a quarterback, but at the same time, there’s also something to be said for an option read putting the success of the offense on fewer individuals and that it’s really not too much to ask a quarterback to read that correctly on a consistent basis. If he can’t do that regularly it’s a problem with coaching.
Bottom line, I’d want to recruit the best quarterback possible and let him use his array of skills–Deshaun Watson, has to be the model. A 420-yard passing and 43-yard rushing performance with 4 touchdowns in the National Title Game defeated Alabama. I don’t believe Notre Dame can consistently recruit at a high enough level on defense (Alabama ripped apart the best Irish defense in a quarter century after all) where through talent or scheme you wouldn’t want the opportunity for your quarterback to be this potent. Even if you can recruit an elite defense I still want the highest ceiling for a quarterback.
If Brian Kelly has struggled to develop an elite quarterback that doesn’t mean he or any future Irish coach should scrap trying to get the position to reach the highest level of the game. In certain situations you’ll want to play to your quarterback’s strengths, but if you’re limiting the quarterback, then you’re ultimately back at being criticized for recruiting and player development. It’s funny, quarterback is the only position on the field where, despite mountains of evidence to its importance, there’s a segment who prefer it to be devalued and that’s based on personal preference and tradition more than anything else.
I think the smarter version of the RH view is that we can’t get the skill talent to run a (relatively) pass-heavy offense, so we shouldn’t have a coach that wants to do so in an ideal world. With some obvious Explosivan/Prociseian etc. exceptions, we generally do not get enough speedy wideouts or talented speedy running backs to make it worth running a spread, and instead should play to our natural offensive recruiting strength of big offensive linemen, a la Wisconsin or Stanford. I think there’s a lot of truth to that – look at, e.g., our current 2018 recruiting. We’re in on a whole bunch of blue chip offensive linemen and are very likely to get three if not four, whereas we are in on *maybe* one low-four star RB (with a wide open future RB depth chart, no less) and no real WRs at the moment.
Of course, as you get at, RH may not have such a relatively nuanced view of the situation and instead just wants things to feel like 1991 again.
I think there’s some truth to that side of the argument. But I also don’t think it’s fully developed, either.
For example, if we were to adopt a Wisconsin-type of offense we’d have to see a notable increase in running back talent. Now, you could argue if we switched we’d start getting better talent but over the last 15 years I’d say the Top 30 offensive players at ND are not littered with running backs.
In general, I’m just not that enamored with any system that shies away from speed. I didn’t really get into it in this article but for all of the mythology about those 88-93 Holtz teams and their power/toughness/grit they were really dependent on very skilled, athletic, and fast playmakers.
I’m more of a power spread guy, and would like to see last years offense be the staple, and I think there’s plenty of evidence ND can recruit to that system at a top level.
I agree, I think there’s definitely validity to the idea that if OL is your strength (in recruiting, and recently in development), build an identity around that. The common criticisms of “Kelly’s offense” I think are a lot of confirmation bias – the numbers simply don’t support the idea that he’s got this super pass-happy, abandon the run guy, “finesse / soft” scheme that they make him out to be a proponent of. In fact, I think if anything the issue has been the lack of identity on offense – from one year to the next it’s not really clear what the core things BK wants to do, and that makes it a trickier sell in recruiting too. I don’t think it’s as bad as the worst critics make it out to be, but I do think he’s been slow at times to adapt when things aren’t working or when things that were presumed/diagnosed as strengths turn out to be less than that.
And despite all the hand-wringing about abandoning the run, red zone, etc, ND’s offense over the past five years is pretty on-par with the type of run-heavy, POWER MANBALL schemes that everyone loves on paper. Average S&P+ Ranking (Median) over the past 5 Seasons:
Oklahoma (ahhh pass heavy sissy spread!): 9.6 (7)
Ohio State (how do you succeed with the spread!): 10.6 (7)
Bama (platonic ideal): 14.6 (10)
ND (soft): 23.6 (24)
Stanford (2nd platonic ideal): 34.4 (29)
Wisconsin (poor man’s talent platonic ideal): 45.4 (41)
QB Recruiting at ND has also been far better than has been acknowledged – after OL and TE, it’s probably the next best in terms of historical ability to recruit. And given the bust / transfer rate on top QB’s, I don’t think simply landing top guys fixes much – I’d consider that more a developmental failure than a recruiting one. The idea that ND can be successful against top teams without a very good QB is just crazy – the only program that’s been able to pull that off over the last decade is Bama, who has the luxury of balancing that out with unprecedented talent on defense, RB, and OL.
THIS. One of the weirder things about the BK era is that we didn’t really have a consistent offensive identity after 2012. A huge issue there is that Kelly seemed to want to build around a qb but they kept losing their minds, but I digress.
I strongly disagree with this. The incoming class has both a top 100 WR and potentially the fastest WR recruit in the class. Dexter Williams is one of the fastest RBs in the country (if he’s healthy). Stepherson was behind his defender every single time he ran a go route. Will Fuller was probably the fastest receiver in the country.
This doesn’t even account for a guy like CJ Sanders, who Kelly has never been able to find a way to use. It doesn’t account for Equanimeous St. Brown, who was never the fastest receiver on the team, yet still ran a 40 time that was only .05 and 0.01 seconds slower than two of the presumed top 4 WRs in the draft (Ridley and Kirk).
I think we’ve got enough speed to stretch defenses, we just need to be able to use it.
Also Wimbush is a dynamic quarterback who is going to gain a lot of yardage if they can get him in space. He’s not Michael Vick or college RG3 anything that unique, but also an example of team speed. ND has done well with running QB’s of late which is another element of importance in the modern more spread offense.
And, unlike Golson, Wimbush has done very well with ball protection and doesn’t lose the ball, which at least if he’s not an accurate passer he’s not turning the ball over very frequently. Surely that’s a point the whining element would love to bring up that it’s too risky and dangerous to run such an offense, but luckily there’s nothing to support that narrative.
They’ve done well to hopefully even have an improvement on Wimbush in the ranks in Jurkovec there for finally the elusive quarterback who is the best on the team at running AND passing!
There goes our apparent last chance of getting a four-star RB recruit this cycle – https://twitter.com/steelechambers/status/986801885528117248
Our RB recruiting has been pathetic recently.
You don’t think we have a shot with Austin Jones or Kenny McIntosh?
No and no. I’d imagine Kenny McIntosh is less than zero at this point given that his brother is getting kicked off the team.
Austin Jones is very much on the board for now, although I agree that it’ll be tough to pull him from the West Coast. And completely agree on Kenny McIntosh, he was going to be tough to get away from Miami anyway but with Deon getting bounced forget it.
Further, in the 2015-18 classes ND got RBs with position ranks of 11, 14, 19, 26, and 26 plus a handful of lower ranked guys. That isn’t pathetic, it isn’t even terrible. The 11 and 14 are still on the roster as well. Denson is shaping up to be a pretty good coach and recruiter. i think we pick up one of those 4* guys in the 2019 cycle.
Also, Eric, on your scholarship chart you don’t have Tony Jones in bold, yet 247 has him as a 4* in the composite. 247s assessment was 3* but your chart legend says composite.
Denson has recruited Tony Jones, McIntosh, Holmes, Jahmir Smith, and Flemister. Two out of five are already character scratches, Tony Jones Jr. was a low 4 star, and Smith and Flemister are guys who should be at the bottom of an ND recruiting class in a given year. Now, he has had some bad luck with Stepp not being admitted, but, still, combining last year’s class with this years (and given the wide open depth chart available to this year’s class), I’d say “pathetic” is harsh but at least arguably fair.
I think he’s a pretty good coach, but the kindest thing you could say about him as a recruiter is that the jury’s out. Whatever he’s doing just isn’t resonating with the small handful of good RBs who we have a real shot at (and yes, it’s a small handful, which is another topic).
To the “character scratch” point below, I’d add that two of Tony Alford’s three big signees – Greg Bryant (RIP), Dexter Williams, and Tarean Folston – have also proven to be, shall we say, mercurial. Bryant could never quite get everything together off the field. Dex, in addition to having a puzzling propensity for not running where the play is designed to go, was arrested for making a weed run with a loaded gun in the car. Lest we forget. Also, CJ Holmes’s primary recruiter was Scott Booker, FWIW, although that doesn’t change the point much.
So what’s the point of my addition? I don’t know, maybe it’s that flame outs happen and that in itself shouldn’t necessarily be an indictment. I’m much more concerned about not getting enough traction with guys like Steele Chambers than I am with some of the guys we get not working out.
“I honestly don’t think anyone truly wants to have a mediocre quarterback to play offense with one hand tied behind the back but rather it’s in response to a fondness for a bygone era, a fetish with chest-pounding fan toughness, and currently an allergic reaction to Brian Kelly.”
Possibly the most true sentence ever written on the internet. It’s not 1993 anymore.
To beat Bama you need dynamic QB play. To win a National Title you need to beat Bama.
I never actually realized the Rock’s House was NDN. I always thought there was another website that was actually called Rock’s House.
There are, at times, 2 worse boards on NDN than Rock’s House too. Scary stuff.
Don’t speak so lowly of this place 🙂 🙂 🙂
I can see saying that of the PBR, but I really don’t think anything else qualifies.
I agree RH and PBR are especially toxic environments – I’m not sure what else you’re referencing – but the back room, in contrast, is usually a very pleasant, and often interesting and informative, online community. I haven’t read Rock’s regularly in years, and I don’t think I’ve posted there since 2012, but I routinely read and post in the back room
This is the truly great debate about ND football. I am not sure if it was the 1993 game or the year before or after, but my favorite running play against FSU was Becton breaking free for the long TD run. He was hardly a speedster, there were probably 6 guys on the FSU defense at least as fast as he was. He was able to go the distance because he got a step and an angle. A 4.4 guy generally can’t run down a 4.5 guy (if Becton was even that) with a step and an angle. Similarly, the Florida games where Bettis broke those two long runs. He was not the fastest, but once he was through, nobody was catching him.
The purpose of the game is to give playmakers a chance to win a one on one battle. Josh Adams was not the fastest guy on the field last year. The OL would get him the step and he would do the rest. You need to create that step. Was Boykin really faster than the DB from LSU he beat deep last year? Absolutely not. He faked, created the space and then Book and Boykin executed. The trick is to get the step and execute. Without that, elite playmakers are nothing special.
You can clearly win an NC without an elite QB. I don’t think Alabama has had one since Stabler (don’t quibble). Our last NC was won by a guy who was an elite option QB. If Kelly started him today and we went full option, RH would melt down that we are running an out of date offense. How will we recruit elite WRs? QBs? At some point the Kelly allergy is annoying.
The fact is the game has changed since 1993. The rules have changed. Pass interference changes, the ability to not hold the WR up favors passing. BIgger, stronger QBs have made it possible. Spreading the field on offense opens lanes.
You can have successful running plays against +1 in the box, but you can’t guarantee success. You need balance. A good running game keeps the LBs closer to the line giving more seams for the passing game. A good passing game keeps teams out of +1 and helps the running game.
I think Jamie’s article was right. Once defenses learned what Wimbush could not do, or plays we would not do, people stopped looking at the sleight of hand.
I disagree that you can clearly win an NC without an elite QB. Bama is the only one that can, because they are so much better at every level than everyone else. They are a complete outlier. Every other team needs elite QB play to beat them.
Here are the non Bama QBs to win NCs as far back as I can remember who the starting QBs were.
Watson
Cardale Jones
Winston
Newton
Tebow x2
Matt Flynn
Vince Young
So outside Cardale Jones and Matt Flynn (who holds the Packers single game passing yds and tds record), every NC winning QB was incredible.
McCarron was definitely an elite QB. 67%, 9,000 yds, 8.8 y/a, 77 TD, 15 INT.
“Every other team needs elite QB play to beat them.”
And yet, in the last game they played Fromm took them to OT with a stat line of: 16/32, 232 yards, 1 TD, 2 INT. (And take away the 80 yard bomb and he had a 4.9 Y/A, give it back deservedly and it’s 7.3).
Granted, UGA had 2 NFL RB’s (even if only 1 played well) and a defense seemingly full of 1st round picks, but still…Just sayin.
I’m not sure I’m endorsing DCIrish’s point completely but I think you’re sort of speaking to it when you praise a guy like Tebow, who is basically what he was talking about if I understood him correctly as a non “elite” QB in terms of being well-rounded and throwing the ball. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t a super college player, obviously he was, but I think he meant more that you can scheme to strengths (ala Adams) and win games and titles with great coaching and execution. I see a lot of validity in that, but it’s obviously a fine line. Come out flat or have a bad game and it gets ugly as we saw vs Miami. Not much margin of error if you don’t have truly elite players.
Tim Tebow completed at least 64% of his passes, averaged at least 9.2 Yards Per Attempt, and at least a 4:1 TD to Int ratio all 4 years. It helped that he was playing with some unbelievable playmakers, but dude was an elite QB.
Use of the word “elite” may be my mistake. Clearly he was an exceptional player. I was speaking in regards of his skill set and usage. He had a sizeable number of rushing attempts (692) as compared to passing attempts (995). Tebow was a lot of great things, but I meant to use him in the scope of player in a system set well for both and enhancing both. I guess it depends what you would prefer to call an “elite” college QB but just in terms of passing the ball I don’t believe Tebow was. He did have some decent stats, so I’ll concede that perhaps I’m being harsh on him. But I meant it comparing his well-roundedness to better throwers like Manziel, RG3, Watson, Mayfield, etc who I would consider better passing college QB’s.
Trivia! Tebow was the only QB in 2009 to finish with a higher QB rating than Jimmy Clausen.
I would hardly call Tebow elite, at least in terms of QB play. He executed within a scheme very well. There is no reason that Wimbush can’t do that.
Interesting all the QBs you put on your list as elite/won the NC would all (other than Flynn) be considered dual threat QBs. So is Wimbush.
I think when you play Bama, or for the NC, the QB has to elevate, but so does the entire team.
If we had played K State for the NC in 2013 and won, would you have listed Golson as elite?
Eh, I think NFL bust Tebow has colored how strong he was in college. His throwing numbers were exceptional – over 9 YPA and about 65% completion rate every year. Some of it was due to scheme and elite talent around him, with lots of future pro talent at skill positions and OL, but he was a very good/accurate thrower with good protection. Attempting to change his throwing motion for the NFL, where he wouldn’t have the same advantage in terms of OL and time, really screwed him up.
Tebow finished 4th all-time in college passer rating, too.
Bradford, Mayfield, Mariota, Tebow, and Kellen Moore are the top 5.
I hate Tebow more than any non-USC player ever. I hated him then. I hate him even more now. But Tebow is elite by every possible measure. Here are a few external references.
https://athlonsports.com/college-football/college-footballs-top-50-quarterbacks-bcs-era
#2 in BCS era
https://www.ranker.com/list/2000s-college-football-quarterbacks/ranker-college-football
#1 in the 2000s
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2610723-power-ranking-the-10-greatest-college-football-qbs-of-all-time
#1 all time.
http://www.footballperspective.com/college-football-the-best-passing-quarterbacks-since-2005/
#5 best PASSING QB since 2005.
Who are the USC players you hate more?
My list would be full of Michigan players and not many USC guys.
That is probably a fair point, and that is true of all of the QBs. You don’t think of McCarron as elite or even Vince Young, and it probably largely due to their NFL production or lack thereof.
I think Cam Newton has settled in as a near elite NFL QB, one great year does not make you elite, IMO. The jury is out on Winston, but I think he has potential to get there, and probably more likely to get there than Newton. The jury is definitely out on Watson, but he got off to a good start.
I was taking the definition of elite in the context of ND’s offense as a QB who could, largely passing, carry the team on his back. Regularly connect on all the throws, hit 65% completion. Then, you would probably want to have him go on to the NFL and do it again. I am thinking an Aaron Rodgers or Peyton Manning type of guy. To borrow a new baseball stat a QB that is at least +3 in wins above replacement. I don’t think that person is necessary for ND to execute at an NC level, and if you look at the list of NC winners, it is not necessary for anyone.
Then when you look back at the recent/current elite NFL QBs, none of them won an NC, and other than Peyton Manning, you would not have predicted that status.
On an aside, your point about Tebow is well taken. I had no idea he had those kind of numbers in college. That said, I wonder how many of his YPA are largely from long runs after short throws. I don’t remember him well enough to think about how accurate he was on deeper balls or more complicated seam and crossing routes.
Tebow was a top 25 recruit and the #1 dual threat QB in his class. Pretty much all the guys winning championships come in as “elite” recruits and finish with “elite” passer ratings. If you think there’s “no reason” why Wimbush can’t do what one of the greatest college players of all time did, you are quite possibly the biggest optimist in the world! (Or, perhaps just celebrating today’s fine holiday)
This means that there could be a huge step back this year on offense. We we’re worse the last 25% of the season and we are losing some top OL. That means we are counting on wimbush to make a big jump in those particular skills to keep defenses honest. And that’s just to break even (with the loss of the OL 1st rn draft picks).
I don’t think we need Brandon to make a big jump. We need him to be able to complete *easy* passes. If he just completes the gimmes last year, he’s right around a 60% passer, which is enough for him. We just have to keep defenses honest.
I don’t think I agree….the poor performances as Jamie pointed out were Miami and Stanford, which had something to do with it. In between was a Navy game where the offense was actually very solid, just per usual with that game didn’t have the ball much at all. I think what the coaching staff probably realizes, in hindsight, is that if between scheme and QB ability they aren’t keeping defenses honest, it’s going to catch up to them.
The scheme piece is on the coaches to fix, and the QB piece has two options with a reasonable chance of either one working – 1) Wimbush improves enough to make that happen (and developing confidence/accuracy on those short throws *should* not be that great of a leap 2) Book takes over because he can make those throws more regularly. The loss of Glinch + Q does increase the dependence on better QB play compared to last year, but a huge step back seems unlikely to me – Year 2 with Chip Long in theory should pay dividends as well.
I don’t see any way this year’s offense is better than last year:
1) Lose 2 first round OLinemen
2) Lose your #1 RB who was unreal
3) Lose your deep threat at WR in Stepherson, plus EQ
I don’t see it happening unfortunately. If the offense is better this year, Chip Long deserves a head coaching job.
This reminds me of when everyone thought wouldn’t be much worse after Esplosiva and Prosise left. But it was. I am totally with you in that the O will be worse, possibly much.
Wimbush would need to make about a 10% jump in comp% to make up for the sure loss in rushing production. That is a BIG jump.
In theory, I agree with you but teams lose top players all the time. Each team is different with different variables accounting for rises and falls in production. Still, to look at each point:
1) That was an all-time combo. They won’t be replaced pound for pound. Maybe ever. But ND has recruited and developed OL well. Sure, there will be a dropoff, but it’s not like OL should be a weakness. It will probably still be a comparatively strong unit.
2) This one hurts, but the pace he was on early was unreal. He wore down and was really not much of a factor for the last 1/3 of the season. It shows that in today’s game, you simply can’t rely on that kind of sustained production from one guy at RB all season. Each year in college football there are only a couple top RBs who pull that off, and yet there are still top teams who can run the ball who don’t rely on one player for 150+ yards every game. They are going to have to find the right mix and take some pressure off of the running backs as individual players.
3) Stepherson was fast and show playmaking ability. He also accounted for 19 receptions, 359 yards and 5 TDs. Sure, some of that was QB play. Some of that was Stepherson being an unreliable immature knucklehead whom his teammates couldn’t rely on. St. Brown? 33/515/4. He ran sloppy routes and had very bad concentration at the point of the catch. He’s talented, but extremely replaceable.
So how could they improve? It’s kind of the point of the article, isn’t it? QB play. It’s a great equalizer in college football. And as said, they don’t need elite QB. They need reliable QB play. If teams have to account for the short and medium passing game, they can’t load the box and the running game will be fine. The deep ball was actually there, last year, but the WRs were inconsistent catching the ball deep. BW seemed more comfortable hitting guys deep behind that loaded box than throwing through the lanes to short and medium routes.
So yeah, a little consistency from the WRs wouldn’t hurt, either. They don’t need Will Fuller numbers, but Stepherson’s and ESB’s numbers should be very very easy to surpass with only a little consistency.
They offense may not be better than the first 2/3 of the season. But if they can be just a little worse than the first 2/3 and sustain that level, you could make the argument that it’s an overall improvement. Especially if the D takes the next steps, as many expect.
Generally, when teams lose top players, they’re much worse the next season. The greatest predictor of success at the college level is returning production.
Somewhat…biggest predictors are a combination of returning production, recruiting, recent track record (last 4-5 years). Most projections are applying some kind of weighting to returning production on to a baseline of last season’s (or the average of multiple previous seasons) performance. But there’s complicating factors, which is why recruiting matters, and track record matters, and those thing in this case would seem to work more in ND’s favor than an average program.
Again, I’m not arguing the offense will be the same or better, just that predicting a huge drop-off seems excessive to me. The OL can drop off a substantial bit from last season and still be a strength. The passing game is almost certain to improve, one way or another.
Also, one interesting comparison ironically enough is the 1992 to 1993 offenses.
Lost 4 picks within the first 45 selections in the ’93 Draft and a step back was expected. But, production was pretty similar–and although the ’92 schedule was tougher and maybe the better team–the ’93 team was soooo close to a title.
Who will be the playmaker in the passing game though? Unless it’s one of the freshmen, there’s nobody who can get behind a defense.
What he said^^
Fascinating discussion. I had been on the point of recommending to folks on this board to read Jamie’s article but had to catch a flight. Now that you have done it and you have all done such a nice job of dissecting the issue, I do have a basic but genuine question: Can he get better? Eric has been very skeptical on that point.
Sorry — I must have cut out a phrase — I meant can Brandon get better in recognition, and especially throwing short balls? It seems like it shouldn’t be hard; he has plenty of arm strength?
I think there’s a few things that Wimbush struggled with last year – some is recognition, some mechanics, some mental/confidence. Those are all probably interrelated to a degree – losing confidence leads to pressing, which leads to sloppy mechanics or poor decision making. If I was evaluating QB’s, I would want 1) BW to be just about perfect in the RPO reads. Hard to tell which plays are designed with fakes vs true RPO’s, but he seemed to miss a lot of reads last season with gives/fakes/throws 2) to see marked improvement with the more lateral passes and 3) solid decision-making when throwing downfield. He did a fine job taking care of the ball – especially when under pressure – but it seemed like his picks were a result of not reading the defense / seeing guys.
Makes sense; thanks!
Reading options is not something any QB under BK (at ND anyway) has ever done well.
I don’t remember how good Crist was at the read option, but aside from him the sample size is really two years of Golson and one year of Wimbush, right? We didn’t ask Book to do it much last year but when we did he was reasonably good at it.
More germane to Mike’s point, Wimbush actually had a major problem with pre-snap RPO reads – he was missing simple counting stuff, like a a receiver and two blockers out in space against two defenders. That’s really, really simple, and I’m not sure what the answer is. I would guess he got swallowed up by the moment and forgot to count. It must’ve driven the coaches bat-poop crazy, because I’m sure they went over it in the film room many times.
Anyway, that pre-snap failure led to a lot of what looked like bad post-snap reads – in reality the play was never going to work because he went away from the numbers advantage that was designed into the play. Getting those pre-snap reads fixed has to be a major priority.
I thought the read option was a fairly common critique of Kizer as well. Am I mis-remembering that?
Possibly, but I thought most of Kizer’s runs were called. Or maybe most of Golson’s runs were called? Or maybe I’m just crazy?
I think they both optioned a fair amount, and a fair amount were called.
Who can ever remember 2 years ago. Good to have a short memory with ND football.
It seems like these discussions always break down to the same sides. Those that can’t get over the 4-8 season(I agree that 4-8 is unacceptable) and want BK gone, and those that want the university to ensure the next guy is better.
I do see this season as a glass half full kind of year. I don’t think we will have the same dynamic offense as the first 2/3s of last season but I think we will have an improved defense to compensate for that. Any slight improvement on BW’s part could bust the scheme aspects of this offense wide open. I do think BW will start against the skunkbears.
We should have a good idea after that first game. Hate em as much as you want, and I do, but Michigan has a force defense. If we can score on them, I think our offense should be ok.
Count me as one of the pessimists, I guess. I just can’t see an improvement coming from the offense with more being needed from Wimbush. Also no clear indication of where we’re expecting rushing production from.
I hope that defense will improve with consistency in the system, even though Elko left. I agree that the Michigan game, unlike some openers in recent years, will tell is a lot about this team