If you’re a Notre Dame fan the red zone woes for the Irish offense have been talked about endlessly for years. Get ready for another dose on the topic today.
One of my big issues with red zone criticism is that there is a massive lack of context surrounding a fairly complex issue. Think about it–different systems, different coordinators, different players, varying degrees of experienced players, different levels of defensive productivity, and different opponent scheduling all for a small amount of plays in one particular section of the field with a plethora of different scores and individualized in-game situations.
In this sport, the red zone offers the Dumb Football Fan the opportunity to proclaim bold statements with virtually no in-depth evidence to back up their assertions. I’m not claiming to add much to the topic today (sadly, the days of 15,000 word mini-magazine articles are behind me) but I’ll try to add something.
I looked at the national winning percentages since 2010 and chose Georgia since they were right behind Notre Dame over the last 6 seasons. They are a great choice to compare with Notre Dame because they are a pro-style offense with running backs like Isaiah Crowell, Todd Gurley, Keith Marshall, Nick Chubb, and Sony Michel. The ManBall™ fan’s wet dream.
I looked at the scoring percent and touchdown percent for both programs from 2010-15 so let’s get these out of the way since they’re usually the only stats or context ever cited with the red zone.
The drive-by commentary is to say that Georgia has been easily better in the red zone. The Dawgs were better in scoring in 5 of 6 years and better in touchdown percentage in 4 out of 6 years.
I wanted to know more, though, and kept digging. If you’re curious about the run percentages between the two teams in the red zone they are as follows:
Georgia: 62.6% running
Notre Dame: 57.1% running
That’s a 5.5% difference which isn’t small. For what it’s worth, Notre Dame has run the ball 62.2% of the time in the 3 non-Tommy Rees seasons.
Still, in terms of 6-years worth of touchdown percentage Georgia leads Notre Dame by 4.9% which almost mirrors the total difference in rushing. The answer is to run the ball more, right!?!??
Well, let’s take a look at scheduling first. Georgia played one FCS team in each season and scored touchdowns on 21 of 29 opportunities for a 9.6% increase on their overall average. Not a huge deal, but a small boost nonetheless.
Georgia did play 3 more Power 5 teams and 3 more ranked teams while Notre Dame played 7 more FBS winning teams.
Looking at the touchdown percentage in each of those categories:
Power 5
Georgia: 59.04%
Notre Dame: 53.78%
Ranked
Georgia: 53.53%
Notre Dame: 55.17%
Winning FBS
Georgia: 56.7%
Notre Dame: 56.3%
That the Irish are slightly ahead against ranked teams and almost even against winning D-I teams which seems to suggest that strength of schedule has helped Georgia a little bit with their FCS programs added, as well. That’s not to say that it’s big enough of a discrepancy that we can say Notre Dame had a better red zone offense but it closes the 4.9% difference somewhat.
We’ve already gone this far without mentioning the great bogeyman for Notre Dame’s red zone.
Over a 6-year period Georgia had 28 more red zone opportunities with 15 fewer interceptions. When it comes to “fixing” the red zone for Notre Dame it’s interceptions as the first, second, and third issue to be dealt with. No other issue comes close.
Again, is the answer simply running the ball more?
The weird thing for the Irish is that 2012 (64.3%) and 2014 (62.8%) have the highest run-percentage and yet they each also led all seasons with 12 non-scoring red zone drives apiece for a total of 6 interceptions. The 2010 season saw Notre Dame run the ball just 44.1% of the time and yet the 8 non-scoring red zone drives and just 2 interceptions are both 6-year low figures.
That could just be an odd outlier but it’s really difficult for people to see 22 interceptions (or 3.6 per season!) in the red zone and not think the solution is to take the ball out of the quarterback’s hand more often. Can we infer anything from looking at the 2015 season’s red zone interceptions?
Georgia Tech INT #1
1st & Goal at Tech 5 – False Start
1st & Goal at Tech 10 – Prosise rush for 5 yards
2nd & Goal at Tech 5 – Kizer incomplete pass
3rd & Goal at Tech 5 – Kizer intercepted in end zone
Temple INT #2
1st & Goal at TEM 17 – Kizer incomplete pass
2nd & Goal at TEM 17 – Prosise rush for 3 yards
3rd & Goal at TEM 14 – Kizer intercepted
Temple INT #2
1st & 10 at TEM 11 – Kizer incomplete pass
2nd & 10 at TEM 11 – Kizer incomplete pass
3rd & 10 at TEM 11 – Kizer intercepted
Boston College INT #4
1st & Goal at BC 7 – Kizer intercepted in end zone
Boston College INT #5
1st & Goal at BC 9 – Hunter rush for 4 yards
2nd & Goal at BC 5 – Kizer rush for -1 yard
3rd & Goal at BC 6 – Kizer intercepted on screen pass
4 rushing plays, 9 passing plays, while running on 1st down on 2 of the 5 series. Is that too much responsibility for a young redshirt freshman?
Something that piqued my interest were the opponents and game situations–adding context! Both Temple and Boston College had great defenses with sub-par offenses (an extremely generous description for the Eagles) while 4 out of the 5 interceptions were in the first half. Even the 5th pick occurred early in the 3rd quarter at Fenway Park. Notre Dame never trailed at any point during these turnovers with the 5 scores being during game score of the following:
7-0, 7-3, 14-10, 0-0, 10-3
Building a two-score lead in 80% of these situations against two Top 20 defenses and a triple option team would have been crucial. This is why context matters so much with red zone offense. For one, from what we’ve seen from Brian Kelly he definitely favors being aggressive and getting the opponent out of its game via building a lead. He also has spent most of his career, 2012 notwithstanding, having most of his success with high powered offenses. It’s just in his blood at this point.
Perhaps defense plays a crucial part of the red zone offense decision making? After all, here we are discussing the red zone as a major problem following a highly successful offensive season while the two teams in the National Title Game in Alabama (56.45%, 90th) and Clemson (60.00%, 70th) were likewise poor at scoring touchdowns in the red zone, too. Yet, both those schools featured Top 10 national defenses and could afford to (presumably) be more conservative and settle for field goals in most games.
Solving the red zone offense doesn’t seem as simple as running more or running more in heavier sets. Maybe it could help given other factors surrounding the team as a whole but if the defense isn’t stout we could still be here complaining about settling for field goals with a poor touchdown percentage leading to losses. Still, those turnovers loom large and are tough to ignore.
Earlier this year Brian Kelly mentioned some thoughts on the topic:
“Red zone efficiency is running the football and having a quarterback who is experienced down in that zone. It’s not really scheme down there as much as quick decisions, being efficient, accurate and having a really good running game.”
A lot of people blame Kelly’s scheme for the problems there’s no doubt about that. The funny thing is that aside from the turnovers the Irish generally do some really good things down there. If they didn’t AND had turnover issues Notre Dame would virtually never beat any good teams.
There are no easy answers although I tend to believe red zone offense in general is overrated. I mean, Purdue was 5th nationally in touchdown percentage so what can we really take away from that? Still, efficient and smart quarterback play (as Kelly himself notes) is a huge deal in such a condensed area. For whatever reason, be it poor teaching, using freshmen in half his tenure, or an unwillingness to trust his defense something has to change in the way Notre Dame quarterbacks throw the ball to the other team in the red zone.
In my opinion there are a couple of opposing forces colliding to cause problems. On the one hand, you have Kelly’s offensive philosophy that takes risks (first down throw to the end zone from the 21-yard line? Sure!), puts a lot of responsibility on the quarterback, and looks to build leads early and often. On the other hand you have the long history of Irish football grounded (for the most part) in low-scoring, dragged out wins, particularly on the big state. For example, from 1988 to 1993 the Irish beat 12 ranked teams (at the time of kickoff) while scoring 28 or fewer points. In 6 seasons since 2010 the Irish have beat 6 ranked teams while scoring 28 or fewer points.
The problem is exacerbated by the increase in scoring today, as well. That’s where I think Brian Kelly is fighting some demons. He just coached a season where Notre Dame finished 8th in S&P and 6th in FEI offense, yet the red zone woes continue. Is he thinking, “I’d better dial it down and get a little more conservative in the red zone?” Or does he think a more mature Kizer/Zaire will lead to greater red zone success? Biggest of all, can he even trust the VanGorder defense to hold up to the point where Kelly can make any kind of adjustments to the offense?
“Biggest of all, can he even trust the VanGorder defense to hold up…”
No.
Fair.
Interesting article.
If I can cherry pick one sentence that annoys me:
That tells me the coaches looked at Tommy Rees and thought “Yeah, that’s the guy whose hands we should put the ball in when we’re trying to score.” Not that it matters in 2016, it just still annoys me.
Anyway, I think Kelly’s “big chunk” philosophy has been a contributor to the red zone woes. I can’t point to anything specific schematically, but it seems like we’re really good at picking up 20 yards on long runs or passes but can’t grind out 3 or 4 yards when we need it.
Or conversely, the defense wanted TFR to throw, so they attempted to take away the run. Which generally resulted in a “TOMMY, NO!!!!” type of result.
I generally think we run pretty well down there, all things considered. But it’s that lack of patience that I think has always saturated the whole offensive philosophy down there. Plus a lot of rookie QB mistakes.
I definitely think QB is the main culprit here and the turnover numbers are the biggest proof of that. The ball is in his hands and when we are running the zone read which, even in a run requires decision making by the QB, you have to have someone who will make the right call there. Those turnovers are SO devastating, not just because they negate a chance for points but because of the momentum swing it gives the other team as well. I’d much rather lose out on points because of downs or end of the half because at least we give it our best shot and just come up short. Turnovers are major screw-ups and cant be tolerated. Get #8 back behind center and fix this thing
You can’t stump for a quarterback when you don’t even know his number.
According to the spring roster listed on the website, he’s #8
<img src=”http://i.imgur.com/lD6fpLe.png”></img>
I’d keep the joke running but he’s switching to No. 9 this year.
I thought I’d read that, but couldnt remember so went to the site to look it up. Since that’s what was there…
Fire Kelly
Hi folks! Y’all know me–I’m Greekactor1 on OFD. Really enjoying the new site.
I appreciate the analysis here, but I think it’s overlooking a crucial point:
Why are we even throwing the ball in the red zone? This is why God created FULLBACKS!
What percentage of red zone interceptions occur when you handoff to a FULLBACK? ZERO PERCENT.
Here’s what you do: take a halfback, fill the other half. FULLBACK.
FULLBACK literally means “touchdown.”
But I guess I’m just a Dumb Football Fan.
fullback.
see 0:25 mark
Although one could argue this man is only half a back.
Cognitive Dissonance hurts.
Wrote a long comment and accidentally refreshed, so here’s a short version of some thoughts:
1) I think the vast majority of “red zone issues” criticism stems from red zone turnovers, which in turn makes that the lens that every drive is viewed through. If you start with the assumption that you should always be running first in the red zone, which a lot of NDN types do, it becomes confirmation bias as soon as anything bad happens in the red zone that involves a single passing down.
2) I do think there is a philosophical debate to be had regarding aggression in the red zone – the best single stat to measure would probably be points per red zone possession. I may incorporate it into a post later this week, but it’s one you have to calculate since it isn’t really published by anyone I’ve found (but is easy to do the math). Anyways, I don’t think there’s anything inherently good or bad about aggression in the red zone – essentially if you decide to be aggressive, you’re hoping your points per red zone possession is good because the benefit of the aggressive play-calling (higher TD%) outweigh the high-risk trade-offs (turnovers, turnovers on downs). For ND, that hasn’t been the case lately, so I think questioning the aggression is legitimate.
3) Another good analog for the Manball wet-dreamers is Stanford, who if you subscribe to DFF theory should dominate in the red zone. Mauling offensive line + red-first offense + fullbacks = red zone total domination! But they’ve actually been below average in the post-Luck era, moving the ball much better in the middle of the field than in the red zone, where they really struggled in 2013/14 (last year was their best since 2011, but still was outside the top 25 in TD %). More good evidence that it’s way more complicated than everyone wants it to be.
Lots of good points, Mike.
I think the biggest factors are continuity under center and quarterback experience; offensive strategy is certainly some kind of a contributing factor to the interception problem, but we can’t really have any idea what the opportunity cost of changing that strategy is. How many times has Kelly’s aggressive strategy gotten us seven points when otherwise we would’ve had three or zero? We can’t know. Likewise, we don’t know how many picks would’ve happened with a moderate or red zone strategy, so it’s hard to say how much it really contributes.
Quarterback experience is pretty obvious. Windows are much tighter in the red zone and therefore things happen much faster, putting an additional premium on instinctive decision making. Kizer had some pretty bad red zone picks last year that were simply him not seeing things right or getting overly anxious. Growing pains with a new QB – I don’t think you can just junk the playbook and go ultra-conservative because it makes you too predictable.
Continuity… I mean, I know we’ve talked about it here and elsewhere, and what exactly caused it is a separate discussion, but man, Kelly’s quarterback situation has been absolutely absurd. Without any continuity, the offense can’t build on competencies from year to year. Taking away the first 30 minutes of the USF game, which never happened anyway, Kelly will start year seven at Notre Dame still without having the same quarterback start consecutive seasons. Yes, that means my money is on Kizer, and if you really want to have fun, imagine if Kizer has a monster season and goes pro – if Zaire stays and beats out Wimbush in 2017, and Wimbush then succeeds him, that means Kelly will have a consecutive opening day starter for the first time in 2019, year 10. That’s nuts.
Here’s our well-documented QB1 odyssey since 2010:
2010 – Crist
2011 – Crist/Rees
2012 – Golson/Rees
2013 – Rees
2014 – Golson
2015 – Zaire/Kizer
Conversely, here are some others:
Georgia:
2010 – Aaron Murray
2011 – Aaron Murray
2012 – Aaron Murray
2013 – Aaron Murray
2014 – Hutson Mason (attempted 100+ passes in 2013)
2015 – Greyson Lambert
Clemson:
2010 – Kyle Parker
2011 – Tajh Boyd (attempted 60+ passes in 2010)
2012 – Tajh Boyd
2013 – Tajh Boyd
2014 – Cole Stoudt/Deshaun Watson
2015 – Deshaun Watson
Alabama:
2010 – Greg McElroy
2011 – AJ McCarron
2012 – AJ McCarron
2013 – AJ McCarron
2014 – Blake Sims
2015 – Jake Coker (attempted 60+ passes in 2014)
Stanford:
2010 – Andrew Luck
2011 – Andrew Luck
2012 – Josh Nunes/Kevin Hogan
2013 – Kevin Hogan
2014 – Kevin Hogan
2015 – Kevin Hogan
TL,DR: Read Mike B.’s comment instead.
Read both, your comment is dead on too.
If you can pin anything on Kelly, it’s perhaps expecting a bit too much and not simplifying in the red zone. It’s clear that often the red zone turnovers were Rees/EG/Kizer making the wrong decision, but if that’s a concern (and we haven’t had the QB play long enough consecutively that he learns consistency), then the coach needs to take the decision and simplify it or call a play where the QB has a binary “do or do not” decision without complex reads.
Of course, if we could figure out how to get a 3-yard push when we need a 2-yard push from our AMAZING offensive line, that’d be a huge help too. Some of the decisions/calls that seem bone-headed are likely made because the coaches watch the game just like we do, and see our line, who can open holes in the open field to spring guys 99 yards, can’t push back one on one to get 3 yards on 3rd down.
Good points. I seem to remember one game last year – maybe BC? – when Kizer threw a really bad pick on a roll-out, half-field read with the defender right in his line of sight. Sometimes kids gonna kid, you know?
/Rees throws into the endzone against Tulsa, despite specifically being told to throw it away.
Tulsa!
AND MAN WASN’T THAT A PREVIEW OF THE NEXT COUPLE YEARS
BUT HEY THIS REES KID MAY NOT HAVE CRIST’S MEASURABLES BUT HE’S A HEADY PLAYER, MAKES REALLY SMART DECISIONS, STUDENT OF THE GAME, GYM RAT TYPE.
Also, I think your point about “Kelly expecting too much” is a really good one – meant to mention that in my first reply to you. I get the sense that in all things, including his gameday tactical decisions, Kelly expects perfection. If I call a roll out with a short and intermediate read and tell you to throw it away if neither is there, I damn well expect you to do exactly that. I think that’s what ignited the purple face in 2011; he’s hard-wired to expect perfection in everyone, and he wasn’t even getting 80% execution. Catastrophe waiting to happen. I read something I think about Bear Bryant, not sure, saying something similar – if he told you he wanted an 8-yard square in, he would be on you like a fly on poop if you cut at 7.99 yards or 8.01 yards. Eight meant eight, and if you didn’t get it you would ride the pine.
I think as fans we tend to see everything binary with tactical decisions. The play call was either right or wrong based on the outcome, the coach is right or wrong in his player utilization, the player is right or wrong in his decision making. The reality, and as a military guy you know this, is that they’re far more complex and have a ton of grey area in them. Certainly, we can look at decisions in hindsight and say “that was a bad idea.” But for the most part, no individual decision stands alone and all of them have many more factors going into them than we generally appreciate.
Yeah, part of why I can recognize that in Kelly is that I’ve gone through my own frustrations with that, especially in the military. I’m the type that hates group projects, hates delegating, etc. because I have certain expectations of what it means to do “X” and it really bothers me when someone doesn’t deliver. Of course, that’s what leadership is about–training and coaching your folks so they deliver to the standard you expect of them, and I believe our coaching staff does a good job of that. But it’s also about ID’ing what your guys can and can’t be trained to do. When I led an instructor team, I had a warrant officer working for me who was a really nice guy, and very competent at his specialty, which was knowing how to take apart, repair, and put back together weapons systems. The problem was, we were a 15-person instructor team teaching Army units about the Asian partner militaries they were deploying to work with. And despite being a warrant officer, this guy was a HORRIBLE instructor. I cringed watching him in our rehearsals (I made every team member practice the classes we had to give in front of the rest of the team, hypothetically so we could all teach if necessary). I had another guy, a supply NCO, who was amazing (as these guys are) at finding things we needed. And he was Vietnamese (born there, grew up US) so was an asset in regional knowledge. But again, couldn’t get in front and handle leading a class. So guess which 2 guys were my behind the scenes logistics and errands guys? Meanwhile, I had some NCOs, typical “grunt” infantry guys you’d expect to have the personalities of rocks, who were freaking amazing at the front of a class. Give them an hour to read the slides and prepare, and they could teach a 3-hour block on Thai social etiquette like they’d lived there for years, at a level that the students understood. The long-winded point is that I had to ID what my guys could and could not do, put them in position to contribute to the overall goal, and fill in whatever they couldn’t do to the right standard myself. Hypothetically I could have directed them to give the classes we had on Japan, but even my great NCOs couldn’t teach those at the same level I could, purely based on experience. So I taught every class we did on Japan. I kind of feel like Kelly had certain expectations of what “do X” meant, and it took a little bit for him to realize that he needed to teach his guys what “X” meant. Before I put instructors in front of a classroom, I made them practice over and over and over, with the rest of our team acting as the audience, asking questions and giving them all the “problem” situations we could. If Kelly’s at fault for something, it’s not identifying in practice that Rees… Read more »
I dont give college coaches a pass on continuity. This isnt the NFL where you have a guy on a 5 year contract or can keep him around for a decade and a half. You MIGHT get 3 years with the same QB every now and then but most of the time you’re going to have a kid for maybe 2. Gotta just live with that as the nature of the beast.
Except looking at the teams Brendan highlights (ie good teams), having QB stability is a trend. Bama the last 2 years has been an exception, but looking before that, they had McCarron and McElroy. And it’s not like Saban expects much from his QBs, he’s fine with a game manager.
BK gets a bit of a pass from me because none of it was coach-caused turbulence. Crist’s knee, then his nerves; Golson comes in and becomes the man, but then gets caught cheating on a test and is gone for a year, then comes back as a turnover machine, then decides to leave. BK hasn’t exactly been a Spurrier-type, rotating QBs for the hell of it. He’s dealt with the hand he’s been given–not always as well as we’d hope, but overall pretty well.
Well thought out article, with in-depth analyses and commentary that anyone could learn from.
This is a good article. But my favorite part was Eric using “virtually never beat….” rather than the often misused “literally.”
Kudos, good sir.
It is literally impossible to misuse the word literally now. Literally literally means the opposite of literally. Thanks a lot dictionaries.