With the move to the new site I hadn’t decided if I would tweak my usual post-game reviews or not. I was leaning towards change in some fashion and the outcome on Sunday night in Austin locked up that I wouldn’t be doing the usual review. It’s the first game of the season, and it’s a loss. It’s time for a stream of consciousness review.
VanGorder Failed
There’s a golden rule in football, and especially college football, not to take too much from one game of football. But man, when you combine the overall VanGorder era with this game it’s completely deflating. Of course, I could say the defense will play better, that they’ll look better following this. Heck, we should match up well with the next 3 offenses and might play decent defense.
Yet, we’re officially in territory where there’s no going back for VanGorder. If I were a player on the team I’d have a hard time really believing in this guy and that’s not a place we want the program to be in right now. It was going to take a huge season for BVG to get off the hot seat. Too many people had already jumped ship that even a modest improvement in 2016 wouldn’t be enough. Again, this improvement could still come over the next 12 games and it won’t even matter, especially if we’re talking about 3+ losses.
Texas just put up 37 points in regulation and 50 points overall. If Texas doesn’t end up ranked this will be just the 2nd time in the AP era that Notre Dame gave up half a hundred to a team outside the Top 25. Sure, the era of offense have changed this stat but this hasn’t happened in 55 years, should Texas be unranked by the end of the year.
Texas racked up 517 total yards at 6.0 per play. Even if Shane Buechele turns into a great quarterback he should not be throwing for 280 yards on 16 completions. Each completion went nearly a quarter of the field!
The worst part is that Notre Dame has nowhere to go for help. The program is cornered and trapped by VanGorder. Retaining the defensive coordinator is looking like a potentially fatal blow to the 2016 season and who knows what adverse effects it will have for the next year or two. Can the program hit re-set? Can they do it right now? Waiting until the end of the season sounds like it could be possibly one long root canal. Nothing is worse than dread. The dread that things are really broken and there are no answers around the corner. Heck, if not answers some change would be welcome for changes sake, right? Dread is so damn boring.
What are the options on staff if it comes to this?
Mike Elston – Linebackers
Elston was doing good things when he coached the defensive line then folks got awfully disgruntled with him once Nix and Tuitt ate themselves out of dominant college players back in 2013. Whether that’s fair or not he really hasn’t been an assistant coach on fire over the past 2+ seasons. He’s fit in well as the recruiting coordinator but doesn’t seem ready to be The Guy as DC.
Keith Gilmore – Defensive Line
Gilmore has done okay since coming aboard last year but hasn’t really lived up to his potential and hype that came along with him from North Carolina. From an experience standpoint he’s okay with a decade coaching at a high level. Yet, he’s seemingly the affable “players coach” and not someone about to take the bull by the horns if tasked with the responsibilities of being DC.
Todd Lyght – Defensive Backs
Honestly, is this looking like a huge mistake? Is that too harsh? Lyght was sensational as a player both in college and NFL but he was really, really green as a coach before coming to Notre Dame. The secondary has been a mess under his watch and he shares a lot of blame in that. He’s miles away from being a DC.
If VanGorder is scheme-heavy and all that noise he’s not being backed up by a great support staff. Lack of tackling and fundamentals falls not just on VanGorder but the whole staff. It goes all the way to the top, too. It’s year 7 and Brian Kelly is staring at a pretty underwhelming defensive staff from top to bottom.
Could he do something like fire VanGorder and place Bob Elliott in as interim DC? He’s into his mid-60’s and had some health concerns before being moved out to pasture in the Special Assistant to the Head Coach honorific title. If he’s up for it he last was a DC back in 2008. It doesn’t seem likely but it’s possible. I can see the players giving some passion to someone they know well and care about in a stripped down, bend-but-don’t-break, defense that stresses limiting big plays.
Kelly could also let VanGorder go and make a new in-season hire. That just seems so unlikely, though. No matter I don’t think there’s hope for a great decision full of great solutions.
Quarterback Carousel Over?
Deep down, everyone knew the juggling of the quarterbacks was going to be a problem. Shame on you for thinking that Notre Dame of all places–with distractions, hype, academics, Bleacher Report filming everything, players getting interviewed twice as much as the average Power 5 student–could manage this situation in a healthy manner. Plus, maybe both QB’s looked good in practice because they were going up against our defense? Heck, how good did Wimbush look during camp!
Is the carousel over? Following Sunday’s loss Kelly stated it was something they’d review. I know he wouldn’t just give it up in the heat of the moment right after a game. Still, this team cannot afford to compound the issues on defense by lowering the ceiling on offense.
Zaire was afforded the opportunity for 3 offensive series and 17 snaps overall. That came out to 22.3% of the snaps in this game–not a lot by any means but when you lose in overtime there are questions and missed opportunities. On those 17 plays with Zaire the Irish gained 45 yards (2.64 per play) and a screen pass to Adams for 15 yards was the only snap that gained 10+ yards. I thought this going back to the spring but Zaire doesn’t quite look as explosive running the ball post-injury, either.
Following the loss Charlie Strong came right out and said that with Zaire the Longhorns could pack the box and feel confident that the quarterback wasn’t going to make plays with his arm. This is pretty much the worst-case scenario for Zaire. He didn’t get to play enough to get into any rhythm, he’s not experienced enough for us to believe he has a true high-level consistency, he’s not young enough to trust his growth with more snaps, he still hasn’t shown he can effectively throw the ball and go through progressions quickly without perfect protection, and Kizer (77 yards, 1 TD) might flat out be a better runner for the system Kelly wants to run anyway.
This was the back-side of the two-quarterback coin that not enough people were talking about. After tonight, does anyone want to limit Kizer’s snaps and lower his ceiling?
Kizer accounted for 6 total touchdowns, didn’t turn the ball over, and the offense averaged 6.76 yards per play with him on the field. Insert Kizer in for Zaire’s snaps and that averages out to 70 more yards gained by the Irish in this game. We lost in overtime. Do the math.
Offense Off the Hook Otherwise?
It’s a testament to how high the bar has been set in recent years that even in a game where Notre Dame scores 47 points it didn’t really feel like a bunch of fireworks outside of a handful of plays by Kizer.
Folston had a nice 54-yard run in the first series and then was limited to 34 yards on his 17 other carries. Josh Adams didn’t have a run over 10 yards and his 43 yards on 11 carries were pretty modest.
This wasn’t a great performance by the Notre Dame offensive line. The run game largely stalled as the game wore on and Texas did a decent job affecting the pocket, adding pressure, while picking up 3 sacks and a couple hurries. And yet, Notre Dame remains potent on offense. Who knows where the limit is with the offense? Looking at them in comparison with the defense is downright fun. Let’s hope it is because Notre Dame might have to score 35+ points in 10 out of the next 11 games if they want to think about something better than 8-4 on the season.
Quick Hitters
This has been a staple of the Kelly offense for years–sometimes we’ll see effective use of the jet sweep and testing the edges of the defense with the run game and then it just disappears. Outside of a few snaps (and one pass by Hunter) did the Irish do anything like this on Sunday? Texas was swallowing up a bunch of runs in between the tackles and we didn’t give them much else to think about.
Speaking of which, the ball has to get into C.J. Sanders’ hand more often. At minimum, I’d make sure to get him 2 to 3 jet sweeps per game so I know he’s getting touches. I don’t think he got any targets outside of 3 receptions against Texas and he put up a gaudy 55 yards anyway.
Quite the positive review for St. Brown in his starting debut with 75 yards on 5 catches, including 2 clutch touchdowns. If he can grow into a quality No. 2 receiver good things are ahead.
What more is there to say about the hit on Hunter? It was blatantly targeting and should have been called as such on the field and in the replay booth. Notre Dame would go on to take a 35-31 lead anyway, but whose to say it’s not a 42-31 lead in the 4th quarter if that penalty is called?
With Nevada on deck and the short week I’m expecting Hunter not to play on Saturday. He might not be cleared per the concussion protocol anyway and even if he is I would think they’d try and rest him. Receivers need to step up ASAP (and this is even more reason to make Sanders a huge part of the offense) because no one outside of the starters caught a pass against Texas.
Where are we with the tight ends? Just one catch by Smythe for 8 yards. I’m not really married to the idea that Notre Dame needs great tight end play by birthright but damn if this position hasn’t taken a nose dive, save some Niklas plays, over the last 3 to 4 seasons.
Early returns, I thought McGovern really struggled at times at right guard but settled down. Ditto for Mustipher in his first start at center. Hopefully, this unit takes a big step forward over the next couple weeks.
I know this is tough to say when Adams didn’t light the world on fire but if this season is Folston getting 2 carries to every 1 carry for Adams then I think there will be some frustration. Folston is rock-solid and does a lot of things really well. He’s just not that dangerous at the second and third level. It’s a weird situation as Kelly apparently loves Folston but his style of play of wearing defenses down with a bunch of 3, 4, and 5 yard runs doesn’t mesh well with his philosophy at all.
Remember how I thought a little more skepticism should have been surrounding Sterlin Gilbert? Well, I was wrong as the new Texas OC coached circles around Notre Dame. The Horns’ tempo was destroying the Irish all night and Gilbert was tremendous at mixing tough running with two tank-sized running backs combined with deep shots down field. He even managed the QB juggling far better than Kelly, largely because Buechele and Swoopes had defined roles that made sense. I’m interested to see how they deal with that throughout the entire season. Given the age discrepancy it could work well but at some point there will be issues.
We definitely made Buechele’s job pretty easy. Still, give him credit. He was quick on hot reads and handled the blitzes well, plus his deep ball accuracy was phenomenal. Who knows how well Texas maintains this pace in the wide-open Big XII yet Buechele looks like someone who is going to really shine more often than not as a true freshman.
Gilbert’s Baylor-inspired offense is effective at 3 things: Quick hitting passes to the perimeter, fast up-tempo runs to keep the defense off-balance and tired, plus deep shots at key moments. For some reason, the Irish appeared to think Texas would primarily rely on the first route. Not a terrible scouting job but the adjustments were dreadful. Notre Dame spent almost the entire game in a 3-3-5 scheme while Texas pounded the ball 59 times for 237 yards. That was the most carries by a non-triple option opponent during the Kelly era, and yet, at times we were rolling out a front consisting of Rochell, Cage, and Tillery. Even worse, sometimes the 3-3-5 saw Trumbetti substituted on the edge for the defensive tackle. Kelly mentioned in the post-game that they liked something due to personnel with this look but that was an utter failure on the coaching staff’s part not to adjust. Notre Dame briefly switched to a 4-3 then abandoned it soon after.
I’m not sure if it was just the Texas gameplan but Morgan and Onwualu had strong games. Especially the former who racked up 13 tackles and 9 solo stops. Still, there was a lot to clean up just because Texas ran the ball so much with bigger-bodied players. Outside of these guys there was nothing too positive to take away from the linebackers. Martini especially looked bewildered at times and unable to come up and make plays. My snap judgement was that our 3-man front was handled a little too easily and the linebackers were very hit and miss covering their gaps.
Full caveat, it’s hard to be a secondary player in college. Texas is supposed to have really good corners and at times they did not look that strong when facing Kizer. Such is life at this level. However, Coleman was picked on endlessly and lost most of his battles. Crawford struggled early and then settled down. Cole Luke was serviceable but that’s just not going to help this defense out right now. We desperately need this position to be a strength.
Safety is such a mess. Late in the first half Crawford blitzed off the edge and Buechele hit the slot receiver for a touchdown while Tranquill was late stepping up on the slant. From that point forward I think Tranquill didn’t see the field. After the game Kelly said it was a personnel decision. Injuries or not, Tranquill was the one semi-experienced safety coming into the season and we just dumped him after less than a half of football. These types of moves do not engender much confidence. We’re anger benching Tranquill after putting him in a situation where we should know he won’t win a battle but can’t make seemingly obvious adjustments to the defensive front to slow down Texas’ run game?
By the end of the game when Swoopes barreled through for the game-winning score Notre Dame was using Studstill and Elliott at safety. Two true freshmen. Honestly, if all of the safeties are going to be mistakes why not just roll with these far, far, far, higher ceiling players right now and move forward? If we can assume this will be a “lost” season of sorts and the last for VanGorder why not just get these kids as many snaps as possible?
I’m not even mad, I’m just shocked that Brian Kelly ran the ball on 3rd & 12 with roughly 2 minutes left and the game tied at 37-37. This was Kelly’s 79th game at Notre Dame and prior to Sunday the Irish had only run the ball 71 times in situations where it was 3rd & 10 or more. It doesn’t even happen once a game on average and that was a time where you take the ball out of Kizer’s hands? Yeah, I don’t get that at all.
So where are we? Heck if I know! We just put up 47 points, didn’t turn the ball over, and lost to Texas. My positive side sees a somewhat vanilla win this Saturday but a big win over Michigan State in a couple weeks. If the offense can hit its stride a 5-1 start is still easily in play. Still, I’ll echo my comments at the beginning of this review. There’s no way forward for this defense that I can see. The absolute best I can see is that 5-1 start while holding opponents to 28 to 30 points while we convince ourselves the offense can carry the team. We’re good on offense but I don’t know if we’re a machine to the point where we’ll outscore everyone or overcome some horrid 1st half against someone like Syracuse where we are down 27-16 at halftime. Tell me that won’t happen.
A silver lining is that we were down 17 points in this game and fought back really hard. That’s very tough to do on the road in this big national moment. I don’t know if it signals anything super bright for the future but given some of the inexperience and new starters there’s some hope the team could rebound and not make this a failure of a season.
Hoo boy. Before I read this I couldn’t help but think that this was destined to be a rebuilding year with all the new parts on offense. I still think next year is really the year on O where our skill position and QB recruiting will really come to fruition. Add in that we get back the whole O line (probably minus McGlinchey) and Alize Jones, and next year really looks like it could be special on O. But I was really not feeling good about our personnel on D. We’re just not getting much out of our current front 7 personnel, the young guys aren’t developing, and there aren’t any bodies to provide good depth at LB. So now after reading this review, I feel better (about our personnel) and worse (about the coaching). So joy. I’m just going to enjoy a rebuilding year.
I got disgusted enough last night that I went to bed. This felt like a Chuck Weis led team. Huge offensive performances and a sleeping defense. I’m not sure I can handle another season of that.
I’d be shocked if they fire BVG now. Not because I don’t think it is deserved, but it would open a can of worms about BK’s judgement for not doing it last year. So, politically speaking, I don’t see it happening.
The most discouraging thing about last night to me was how easily Texas ran the ball. I thought the strength of this D would be the front 7 but it sure didn’t look like that last night. The secondary play pretty much confirmed our fears. Sheesh.
Yeah keep in mind that Brian Kelly has never really fired anyone. It’s always been an arranged soft landing kind of thing. No real way to do that mid-season with VanG. Again not to say it won’t/shouldn’t happen.
Agree with all of it. Also, for team performance reasons I don’t see how firing BVG one game could possibly actually improve the defense. Last night was rough and confirmed all the worst fears that the defense is going to be pretty bad this season, but at this point it’s pretty much too late to drastically improve it.
And, while it’s easy to point a finger at coaching, the execution left a lot to desire too. Rochell and Morgan were very good but the rest of the defense played young and inconsistent, which they are both. Hopefully there’s a lot of growth and development during the season of those players, because it doesn’t look like scheme-wise the answers are going to come from there.
I will point out that Charlie Strong fired his offensive coordinator after game 1 last year and that seems to have worked out OK
Though I do take the point that there doesn’t seem to be any options if Elliot won’t come out of retirement.
Even if Zaire can elevate his game to the level that Kizer displayed, that is no reason to play him. If they’re equal(they’re not), it’s still best to play just one QB.
The Oline had three new starters and another playing a new position. There will be some growing pains but, they will be good.
I’d like to see someone else on kick returns. I don’t want to see Sanders getting smashed like that. I think you need a little bigger body type for that job.
As far as that late QB draw call. Thankfully Texas messed up as they were getting into FG range. There might be more talk about that call, if they hadn’t.
You have to play the kids in the secondary. Tranquill and Sebastien aren’t much help to the corners.
132pts. against in the last 3 games. We’ll all be watching CFB this season with an eye out for next DC.
I think the biggest missed opportunity was the drive in the 4th quarter with about 8 minutes left. We had just gone up 35-31, forced a Texas 3 and out, and really needed to go on and put up another score to make it at least a 7-point game. It didn’t help that Newsome had a poor punt that gave Texas a short field. If we had gone up there and taken another few minutes off the clock with another score, I think that could have sealed the game.
I still don’t get why we stayed in a 3-3-5 so much. I can buy the explanation that we wanted to provide a lot of coverage for Buechele so maybe he gets confused and holds on to the ball too long but that CLEARLY wasn’t going to be the case with how quick he was getting the ball out. Would our best bet would have been to collapse the pocket quickly with a big front?
1. It’s too bad Kizer couldn’t have piloted those extra series instead Zaire. I can’t imagine the QB race was actually too close to call in the fall. Everyone has seen what Kizer can do against even the best competition. Zaire is an intriguing athlete with loads of potential, but I still can’t believe it was an actual tie. Perhaps Kelly felt an obligation to keep his word that this was Zaire’s team, he’d have his spot when he came back, etc., and wanted to give him an equal shot. That cost us points. 2. Kizer passed for 5 TDs, ran for 1 more, and would’ve had a 6th passing TD of Hunter doesn’t get blasted and goes unconscious. 3. Receiving core is young, but they’re not THAT big of a concern given the above. 4. Interesting play calling tonight. 3rd and long draw plays stop being cute after the third quarter, and should be banned in situations where an opportunity to get the game-sealing score with time running out is on the line. We also so much less creative play calling in the running game. Seems like there wasn’t much misdirect, jet sweeps, and the like. 5. I’ve been on the “benefit of the doubt” side of the BVG debate. No more. Setting the scheme aside for a second, if you can’t even get your players lined up right for basic concepts like cover three… On his scheme, even if run right, it may just not even be fit for college. The Baylor-style hurry-up seems like the perfect counter to an attacking defense. College scheme are shifting to those that make the QB’s reads as simple as possible and make him throw as quickly as possible. That would seem to be exactly what you want against a blitz-heavy defense. Against a hurry-up you need a defensive scheme that is simple, executable, and can quickly get lined up. And you certainly can’t be swapping in sub packages. That’s not what BVG’s scheme is. In fact I couldn’t even tell you what his “base” defense is. Insist have visions of delayed safety blitzes and linemen dropping into coverage. Diaco’s defense was brilliant in its simplicitly and ease of execution. Players had an assignment, knew it, and executed. They were better able to play, not think, and let their athleticism shine to full potential. But remember that Alabama exposed Diaco’s defense. Saban said he knew exactly how to motion his offense to get the defense to shift to where he wanted it. Diaco’s simplicity, once an advantage, became a liability in that game. I believe Kelly hired BVG when Diaco left because he made it to the promised land’s gates, found the defense that got him there lacking, and decided he needed an upgrade, something a coach like Saban couldn’t so easily exploit. So Kelly sought a defense built to beat Alamaba’s power running attack and to confuse Saban. But what it isn’t designed to beat is the 90% of college football that runs the spread, couldn’t… Read more »
I think we’re stuck with BVG for the rest of the year unless the wheels completely come off, and the team is giving up 30+ almost every game. And as has been noted, Kelly doesn’t seem to like to fire people.
I really like Brian Kelly. And I dread the search for the next head coach. But as much as I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, if he doesn’t get rid of BVG after this season, then Kelly will have lost my support. If he can’t see how badly this team is being held back by that side of the ball–how that offense is being wasted–then we’ll never get to where we want to be.
I would swap Kelly for Tom Herman is a heartbeat.
Same, but absent a complete collapse Herman is going to be at some blue-chip job before that comes into play. And unfortunately I’m not sure Herman would pick us over another blue-chip job anyway.
@Herman? Small-timey. Didn’t we learn our lesson with Kelly? Maybe after he shows he can coach with the big boys, but no way ND hires a coach from an AAC school. Let’s hire Stoops. No, not that one, his brother.@
Should one positive be that we should be talking about Kizer for Heisman? is 10-2 good enough to win the heisman? I mean seriously if we are going to put up 35+ points a game with Kizer doing all the heavy lifting (and few TO’s) that is a recipe for a heisman winning campaign.
I don’t see how letting go BVG makes us any better this year, and I don’t think there are any more tempo teams on the schedule. It is not easy to run tempo without practicing it a lot so even though teams see that weakness in us they won’t be able to exploit it like Texas.
I would like to an article/discussion about how to stop tempo (as a basis of a discussion for who should be our next DCoordinator). I remember reading an article a few years a go about Saban having difficulty stopping tempo because it neutralized all his specialized packages. I think he started recruiting a little differently with an eye less to specialized players so the guys he had on the field could do many things, but I don’t remember about scheme changes. I know Gary Patterson’s 4-2-5 has been presented as the best to stop spread/tempo but even they give up a ton of points. It seems it is just super hard to stop. So if we want something simple to run against these uptempo/spread but complicated enough not to get out-maneuvered in a NCG game (though this is lessened a little bit with the playoff set up), what do we do? It seems like we are asking for perfection, and so few teams outside the superhuman alabama consistently are able to stop all these kinds of teams. What has Stanford done to stop Oregon? Perhaps they are a model – not super talented, but stops oregon (more or less) and can play with the big-10 (different style).
Syracuse (new offense) and Duke (Cutcliffe’s offense) run tempo. They could give us some trouble.
I was at the game last night with my girlfriend and her mother (who were champs about it). A few thoughts:
1. Shout out to the Texas fans. They were incredibly friendly (we asked directions multiple times and ended up in the students section by mistake – everyone was cordial) and the environment was incredible.
2. I had trouble seeing a lot of the action. I appreciate the commentary on the defense posted here. A couple things stood out to me: (a) our corners got torched. 3 go route TDs and it would have been four if a TX receiver hadn’t let one slip through his fingers. (b) lack of interior push. I was hoping Jarron would have a monster season – remember, the narrative in this game was that Texas had a banged up offensive line. If we couldn’t do it here, I’m downright terrified about MSU, Stanford, and USC. (c) My main complaint is not about BVG’s scheme, although that is clearly not great. The main issue is that players are just not making plays – but when that happens three seasons in a row (or really, just all of one season), that’s on the coordinator. I’m not saying there weren’t mental mistakes last night, but I didn’t see the coverage busts I saw last year – I just saw a bunch 75th percentile defensive talent playing like 25th percentile talent. No push on the line, soft coverage (we lined up 10 yards off the receivers all night), and one pick against a rookie QB.
3. Let’s never play two quarterbacks ever again. It was so painfully obvious that Deshone was better than Malik that I can’t believe they looked the same in practice. Whatever motivated CBK to play them both, it cost us this game. In fact, this is the only thing moderating my “Fire BVG!” instinct. I mean, still fire BVG – but the loss last night also rests on Kelly.
Several times that Coleman got beat he was pressing at the line. Just a nit, i agree with your overall point.
Forgot to add that throw on the play Hunter got hurt was absurd. It’ll be in the highlight package when the NFL guys talk about him as a 1st round pick.
I noticed a couple of times it looked like he was using his eyes to manipulate the safeties, some NFL-level stuff. Kizer was very impressive, like your recap said it always felt like there was a chance with him back there. That’s probably the lone good thing to come out of this game is that the QB controversy ended in the best possible manner with one guy grabbing the mantle and proving it’s his.
It makes it all the worse that the targeting call happened on that throw. It was one of the most impressive throws I’ve ever seen.
Yeah even my wife gave a holy sh!t at that throw.
Wow…where to start. Another gut punch loss. Sure there were things that went against us, most notably the Hunter fiasco. Unbelievable that wasn’t penalized. But, it all boils down to the D and BVG. This is year 3 and they look like this? It’s way past time to move on. Good coaches make an impact right away. There is visible, tangible proof of the positives they are doing. Look no further than the new Texas O coordinator. Look at Houston. Heck, look back at when Diaco came here. BVG d can’t hang their hat on one thing they do good. They can’t even tackle soundly. Playing a 3 man line when everybody knew Texas wanted to pound the ball?! For most people if you are this bad at your job you are replaced. Why is Kelly sticking with him? Who knows but this team is going nowhere with this D. So do we replace him now or wait till the end of the year? Very tough call but I doubt they do it now. If Bob Elliott is up for it I’d fire bvg now and make him the interim coach for the remainder of the year before looking at a long term replacement. He’s not that far removed from coaching and he’d have the players respect right away.
The tl;dr version of the article is this: We got out-coached.
That’s unambiguous, undeniable, and sad. They had only three talent advantages in this game: John Burt vs. Nick Coleman, Malik Jefferson’s general existence, and their punter was way better than Newsome. That was enough to win the game despite our having equal or more talent elsewhere because we got flat out-coached.
Pretty much this. With regard to the offense, it was a few playcalls and the failure to settle the QB position in camp. For the defense, it was just about everything, including Kelly’s decisions to hire and retain BVG.
Kelly needs to take a long look in the mirror as well. The success of this season will be riding on the some big decisions.
“The 2016 Defensapocalypse – Is it BVG, a Lack of Talent, or Both?” The case against BVG is (a) the consistently horrible defensive performances of the past few years, and (b) the evidence that pro-schemes do not always work in college (see Monty Kiffin, USC). The argument for lack of talent is (a) the minimal amount of 4 and 5 star recruiting along the d-line since Nix, Tuit, and Lynch, (b) freshmen playing a lot of snaps in the secondary, and (c) the loss of talent to the NFL this past year.
As noted by someone else earlier, Diaco was very good against most opponents, but his simplistic scheme got steamrolled by Alabama. My opinion, though, is that BVG would also get crushed by Bama. So, let’s consider going back to a Diaco scheme.
I am in favor of changing D-coordinators – we know what we are getting with BVG, and it is not good. However, my fear with changing the D-coordinator is that we will have to go through a 1-2 year adjustment period, especially if the new D-coordinator wants different types of athletes (e.g., switching from a 4-3 to a 3-4).
In the “case for blaming the talent”, the problem is that the lack of talent is partially attributable to Van Gorder not giving effort on the recruiting trail. He has implied that he thinks recruiting is ridiculous these days, so he’s not inclined to get involved. The former may be true, but it doesn’t mean that the latter follows from the premise. You have to help get players who are good to make sure your brilliant scheme has a chance to succeed.
I think everyone knew that switching coordinators might lead to an adjustment. This would have been a great year for that adjustment! I think most of us knew this was not a playoff team (see your bit about losing all that talent), so going 9-3 or 10-2 while breaking in a new scheme and setting yourself up for next year is a whole hell of a lot better than 9-3 and feeling stuck with your defensive coordinator who blames players he doesn’t recruit.
That Alabama team had a month to prepare and their Oline was freakish. Lots of defenses would have been KO’d by that team. Thank God this ND defense doesn’t have to play against that.
And unlike Michigan State, we actually scored on that Alabama team.
And 2011 LSU, who had beaten the teams that finished #1, #4, #5, #17, #19 that year.
Won’t have to play them until January, you mean. 13-1!
21 of Alabama’s 22 starters in the 2012 NCG would go on to be either drafted or signed as UFA’s by an NFL team. Not all of them stuck, obviously, but that’s an absurd level of pro-level talent on one team. To use a baseball analogy, they were basically a AAAA squad.
wow I didn’t know that stat. Crazy.
I’m revising my season prediction to 8-4. I think ND will drop 2 of 3 against Stanford, USC and Michigan State, and contrive to lose another to one of the remaining teams on the schedule. The O is good enough that I don’t expect a total team collapse, but injuries could make it happen.
One play stood out to me and I was safety so I pay more attention to that position but here’s the play:
It was the touchdown on the long pass to Heard up the seam with Texas moving right to left as we saw it on television. I watched Drue Tranquill try and fail to help over the top. Tranquill was coming from the far sideline, so he was poorly positioned to provide that deep help down the middle. Now I haven’t broken down the play Larz style, so maybe the deep middle wasn’t his responsibility or he misread the play at first, but it seemed to me like he just started in a terrible position with respect to his zone. You consider that we all had concerns about his ability in coverage and you wonder why our scheme seems to accentuate the weaknesses of our players.
Very good article, Eric. As usual. I will stick my neck out and provide a target for the “get rid of BVG” crowd. I’m kind of agnostic about that, as I don’t see it as black and white. In fairness to him, his defenses played very well the first two years until they got devastated by injuries. Yeah, I know, lots of folks think that’s just an excuse, but count ’em up. On the other hand, I don’t think his scheme holds up well against a good tempo offense, and Texas appears to have that in spades. In your argument for firing BVG and his staff, I thought you mostly negated the argument when you went through the actual players we had on the field on defense. NONE of our safeties would start on any other top tier team. They probably wouldn’t even see the field except the young guys in mop up. Luke is the best of the DB’s, but “serviceable”, the term you used, is an apt one. Crawford isn’t the spectacular difference maker we were told he would be. The rest of the DB’s wouldn’t be playing much in any other top tier program, and that’s possibly also true for Luke and Saunders, at least as regards starting. Linebackers looked average at best, although its true that they got little help up front. Morgan looked OK, as did Onwualu, but neither is a difference maker. Martini would not start elsewhere (top tier) and would play little. Dline was supposed to be a strength, but got pushed all over the field much of the night. Notably, Jaron Jones was a shadow of his former self for some reason, but except for Rochelle, the others didn’t fare much better. One thing for those of you to consider who think its all a schematic failure by BVG: When Texas brought in the “18 wheeler” offense, everyone in the stadium knew what they were going to do. We packed the box, and they still just outmuscled our guys at every level of the defense. Hell, if Strong knew to stack the box on Zaire, that goes in spades for us when Swoopes came in, and they went through our guys like a knife through butter. That’s not scheme, that’s stronger players. None of our front seven was capable of getting to the QB. I didn’t see that many blitzes, actually, the game was moving so fast I may have missed some, but if they were there they were ineffective and we are still without a pass rusher. So maybe firing BVG is the miracle answer, but I doubt it. With the athletes we have this year, especially in the secondary, Vince Lombardi wouldn’t make a difference. Now, some have said that’s on BVG for not recruiting better, and that’s not a bad argument. I also think Kelly stuck him with Todd Lyght, a great guy but a mystifying choice for a CFP-goaled team. He’s essentially learning in real time, our time. BVG should have… Read more »
Good post. I agree with the majority of your points. In regards to Crawford, I don’t think it’s fair to say he’s “not the spectacular difference maker we were told he’d be.” I don’t disagree that he was a liability defensively in the first half, but he also had a giant INT and the return on the block. I think the way I understood Crawford was that he always was going to make plays someway or another, which he did. And remember, this is his first real game action in two years. I think it’s too early to say how he will be as a defender. But he made two huge plays for us last night.
Yeah, I’m not down on Crawford at all–he was a heads up ball hawk on both of those plays and they were absolutely crucial. The way he was described in camp was pretty hype-ful is all I mean.
I don’t disagree with most of that. I haven’t seen the numbers, but I don’t even think that Jarron Jones got all that many snaps, which Kelly’s sort of hinted at in pressers that he isn’t in shape/health enough to be more than a part-time guy. Which will be an adjustment even out-of-shape Nix or Tuitt still were able to take a lot of snaps and it seems Jones won’t be able to do that. Still, he can change games like his XP block showed.
I’m also agnostic on BVG still, and agree for sure on your point on the talent level. Arguably only 3 players on the defense (Rochell, Morgan, Luke) are getting much playing time on any other top 10-15 team.
Compare the 2016 defense to the 2015 defense and the personnel is much worse. Losing Day/Okwara on the line, Jaylon, Jaylon, Jaylon (and Schmidt too) plus the inconsistent (but still miles better than Tranquill/Sebastien) Redfield/Shumate….It’s a big time step back. There’s good reason to hope guys like Studstill, Love, Crawford, Cage, Hayes, Coney etc step up here soon and live up to their promise but we’re seeing the growing pains. Not sure really what people expected….As Kelly admitted they have to coach better, but they also need their players to make basic plays and tackles as well.
Also, I think the defense did pretty well in the second half- in between the long-bomb TD on the opening 3rd Q possession, and then the TD drive at the end of regulation. They were total trash in OT but they got a turnover and forced 4 punts in the second half. Not an ideal performance overall, by any means, but it was a team loss. The offense left some plays on the field, Yoon got a kick blocked, Newsome shanked one, the refs missed an obvious call on targeting, the playcalling late in regulation sucked. A lot conspired for that loss. The defense was a glowing problem, but it wasn’t the only issue.
Defensive talent –21 4*s 16 3*s (half are frosh) and 8/11 starters are 4*s (Martini and the two safeties being the exceptions) – didn’t count butler in this
Seniors (+5th) = 4 4*s
Jones .936
Rochell .945
Luke .932
Onwuala .895
Juniors = 6 4*s and 3 3*s
Morgan .972
Trumbetti .934
Watkins .923 (injured)
Hayes .906
Tranquill .896
Cage .892
Martini .883
Bonner .860
Mokwuah .837
Soph = 6 4*s and 5 3*s
Crawford .945
Barajas .938
Tillery .929
Bilal .920
Coney .896
Taylor .894
Tiassum .866
DT .865 (injured)
White .863
Coleman .859
Frosh 5 4*s and 8 3*s
Hayes .937
Kareem .921
Pride .909
Okwara .898
Vaughn .894
Jones .875
Elliot .872
Morgan .871
Love.871
Studstill .870
Perry .867
Ogundeji .858
Jones .841
I don’t know what other teams have but having this many 4*s is still far more than most teams have. Is it absolutely elite? No, but is it 15 top talent? probably pretty close actually. If 60% 4*s is supposed to championship level for a team, then having 56% on defense seems pretty talented (esp. considering that half of the 3*s are frosh – which might mean next year or the year after we’d be less talented depending on incoming recruiting classes but not so much this year). The one thing we lack that most other teams have that are close to this talent level is the one or two “difference-makers” but we still have a lot of talent. I’m not buying the “we don’t have the talent” argument (even we are a little light on safety talent but in fact most of the country is since there are not that many 4*s to go around every year).
Thank you for posting this. ND has the talent for a very good defense, even if it’s not Bama level.
So you’re saying, “don’t believe your lying eyes” eh? 😊
Hardly. He’s saying the defense is as bad as it looks, but not because of a lack of recruiting. There’s plenty of talent, but the talent just looks bad. Now, who could be responsible for coaching the talent up, getting them into the right schemes, etc…?
Ok, so be specific please. Which players in our defensive backfield this year do you think are good enough to be playing and winning against top talent, this year? Coaches don’t make players fast enough to keep up with burners, and none of our guys can do that. They also looked positively scrawny trying to tackle the big guys. They looked like boys playing against men.
Which specific front seven would be starting for a Bama, tOSU, FSU, Clemson and their ilk? Or even Texas?
Eric stated some facts on this subject, would love to hear your specifics if you have time. Thanks.
You utterly missed the point. I’m not arguing that our players are good enough against top talent, or even Texas. Clearly they aren’t. That’s my whole point.
The talent, as measured by the recruiting rankings, is top-20 or better. The defense, as measured by pretty much every statistical approach, isn’t close to top-20. Many, many defensive coaching staffs do much more with much less.
Good defensive coaches deal with burners by coaching and scheming, not leaving corners who can’t keep up in one-on-one coverage (or by having a safety who is theoretically supposed to help over the top, but doesn’t know where to line up or what angle to take). Of course a burner can be stopped, otherwise teams with super-fast WRs would just run the touchdown play every single time. How did rosters full of 2 star players (or lower) like Temple and BC last year keep Fuller from scoring 5 TDs a game?
Also, maybe our front 7 wouldn’t have looked so scrawny if we had more linemen in the game last night.
I see you don’t have specifics on who you think would start at other top tier programs. Still would love to hear your thoughts on that, rather than “we got talent” generalities.
sorry, I’m a headhunter, so I do look for specific answers to specific questions.
Cole Luke and Shaun Crawford would start anywhere this year. Devin Studstill could start for a lot of teams this year, and probably more by the end of the year. Tranquill is probably out of position at SS and Elliott probably isn’t quite ready. Still, generally speaking, our problem isn’t slow, unathletic, untalented defensive backs. Our problem is how they’re coached and how they’re deployed.
Coleman was playing press coverage on a guy faster than him, but literally making zero effort to press him. Deion Sanders would get beat every time doing that – it has nothing to do with talent level.
And, like I said below, from a holistic standpoint we don’t need a defense full of guys who could start for Alabama and Ohio State. We need a defense full of guys who can play well enough to hold the line for the offense. You should be able to do that with, as IC pointed out, 60% of your roster as 4-star talent. Yeah, it would be great to get a couple of guys like Ben Davis or Joey Bosa or Su’a Cravens every year, but we should be able to do well enough without them to be in the national picture. This defense has the guys to do well enough and isn’t even remotely close to doing that well.
Thanks for the replies Brendan. Remember, I’m asking relative to starting for top tier teams, team that have and will make the playoffs or in the good old days, the BCS championship game.
maybe Luke, but not a certainty. Studstill is at least a year away. Coleman and Tranquil wouldn’t see the field. Crawford might play, but not start at this stage. Could start as a punt returner though, love watching him do that.
I wonder how many of these guys would have started for Diaco in 2012, the year we actually made it to the BCS NC game? Not many if any.
You think this team doesn’t have guys that are more talented than Carlo Calabrese, Zeke Motta, and Bennet Jackson?
You really could not have missed the point more.
OK, that was mean, so I apologize; obviously I’m a little bitter. But the point is that there has been enough raw talent to be a good to very good (though perhaps not great) defense, so there have been coaching failures, either in development, scheme, or both.
There’s certainly enough talent to keep the defense from being historically bad.
“Many, many defensive coaching staffs do much more with much less.” There is no arguing against this statement.
Pointing fingers at the offense or the play calling, when the offense is scoring at or close to record amount of points and the defense is giving them up at record rate, that’s the defense for the DC ?
Ndo9, I didn’t take your comment as mean at all.
I think giving a pass on recruiting the talent needed if you expect to make the playoffs is an oversight. I think that’s partly on the coaches and partly on the various handicaps ND football operates under. Every now and then we luck out and get an under the radar Will Fuller, or win the battle for a true 5 star like Jalon or Manti, but we almost exclusively get the next tier down, as opposed to what Bama, OSU, FSU, etc can attract. Thus our never ending expectations of returning to the NC glory days are going to be frustrated. It only takes a few Randy Moss type guys to make a real difference. We used to get those guys and be loaded with the very top level of talent in the Holtz sweet spot years. We haven’t been since then.
The Texas running backs were both around 250 pounds. Swoopes is 6’4″ and 245 pounds. Any defensive back in the country and even most linebackers in the country would look small compared to them.
As Anachronism hinted at, Trumbetti is not a 3-4 DE. He’s going to look woefully undersized playing as one. That odd front decision was stupid beyond belief, both to start with and to not change as it became obvious it was getting destroyed.
Luke would play for anyone – he was a little shaky early but lockdown after that. Crawford would be playing for Michigan right now had we not flipped him. There’s a good chance Studstill would be playing for Miami right now. Coleman would be on the depth chart somewhere at Ohio State, but keep in mind he shouldn’t be playing – Watkins was the starter before breaking his arm this summer and he did well in the Fiesta Bowl. He’s definitely a legitimate starter for a top-20 defense.
The talent is there. The scheme is horrific and, quite obviously, there’s a glaring lack of coaching in fundamentals, which is why Coleman kept pressing (but not really) Hurt and why Tranquill lined up ten yards off the slot, with an outside shade on top of it, with the ball on his own 11 yard line.
Blame the defense, blame the quarterback indecision, blame the offensive line/defensive line/buffet line, I know one thing: this simply reinforces my absolute hatred of preseason hype talk. The O-line will be dominant! Both QBs are difference makers! The D will…well, it won’t totally suck, we promise!!
It’s all bull(stuff). I realize that’s no different than anywhere else–hell, LSU has said “oh, this time our QB has improved, we promise!!” for a decade now. For all of the consternation about BVG, how the heck Cam Cameron still has a job as OC in Baton Rouge should appear as an episode of CSI: New Orleans. But come the f on. The sky isn’t falling yet, but it doesn’t look cloudless either.
The sky is definitely not falling. In fact, I still think we could win out based on the strength of our offense (and a weaker schedule for us than usual), but our ceiling is limited with our D not being very good.
I think we all know much of the pre-season hype is baseless or based on what the coaches are telling us (which we must believe and can’t verify for ourselves). It is why we are often optimistic but cautiously so – knowing that the optimism is based on the coaches word and a little bit of objective data (like a recruiting ranking of a particular player, or a high school video of a frosh etc.).
On the other hand, I wonder how many times what we hear turns out to be more or less true (we too easily remember the times when it was blatantly false and naturally forget the times when the hype of a player, etc. was true).
I hope people saw the first series of Ole’ Miss where they ran tempo and just rolled FSU’s defense which I assume is pretty talented and is run by a pretty decent coach. Maybe they can make adjustments and so on, but busted a coverage because the Ole Miss ran the play so fast.
The point: a well executed tempo offense is tough to stop.
The difference is FSU made adjustments at halftime. BVG seems to struggle to adjust in game. I think against Texas we went 4 down linemen twice in the second half, and both times we got 3 and outs. And then the rest of the half we got destroyed with 3 linemen.
Yup I’m not saying its impossible to defend given relatively equal athletes but that it is difficult and everybody has problems with it. The fact that BVG made changes that were horribly set up for Texas’ heavy run game (3-3-5) makes it even worse. Agree not only on adjustments but the initial scheming. I don’t know if it’s because it’s unlike anything he has seen before in the pro’s or not but it seems like a fireable offense to me. Diaco got beat once (badly) by an option team – next time he had a better plan. That hasn’t happened here.
Yeah, FSU has had problems with it…like that time they played Oregon 2 years ago.
Come to think of it, they weren’t even able to stop Georgia Tech last year. Maybe they’d like to hire a DC who figured GT out?
The crazy thing about Buechele’s 280 yards was that there were a couple of near misses on wide open throws along the sideline in single coverage. BVG blitzes were just terrible, pointless. Especially considering 0 sacks and 250+ rushing yards. It’s tough to imagine a scenario where he’s not just a genuinely bad coach who brings absolutely nothing to the table other than fun fist pumps.
Right?? Such a weird call!
That’s the bad though. I’m not too torn up about this loss either. Would have been nice if this was the season where Notre Dame got back to winning a title, but oh well, it’s probably not. But it can still be a good one. Kizer looks so legit. I was rooting for Zaire – I felt like he was the more talented player and I always liked his DGAF-ness. And Kizer, I kinda assumed he was the overachiever. The Rees, the unheralded recruit who was forced onto the field by injury and game-managed his way into keeping the job. But that wasn’t the kinda player he looked like last night. He looked every bit one of the most talented quarterbacks Notre Dame has had in a long time.
Also, by the time C.J. Sanders is done, he may be one of my favorite players ever to wear the gold helmet. He is so dang fun to watch. I want him to touch the ball like 57 times per game. It’s good that I’m not the coach.
Other good news: maybe USC actually sucks, putting one of those games we had as a tough matchup into favorite mode. 10+ wins is of course very much still realistic, and that would still be a good season.
Hm. Never realized I was such a cheerful hangover.
Another option for dealing with the VanG situaish–just clip his wings. Don’t need to fire him mid season, just tell him he is running 4-3 cover 2 man under and nothing else unless (or other extremely conservative, and not literally nothing else you know what I mean) he wants to be fired immediately. Or Kelly can give Sanford the keys to the offense and Kelly can De facto coordinate. He couldn’t possibly be worse. He has just got to be considering these options.
I really think I could have come up with a better game plan 3 man fronts with only 3 LBs against that power running game is insane. How can VanG be so dense, having been around the game so long.
Will BK make a change with the DC…who knows, but I do think one immediate change that could take place is a new D backs coach….Lyght just hasn’t been getting it done getting it done.
Let me push back a little against you and Murtaugh on the Lyght hateration. Do we really think Todd Lyght can’t coach DBs to be DBs? Or is it moreso that the whole Defensive scheme from top to bottom is flawed and that the coaching staff’s in game personnel decisions sucked? Do we really know enough to say that Lyght is not getting the job done? I find it hard to move beyond VanG’s scheme in assigning blame.
Trapped by VanGorder? Sounds like the title of an 80’s hostage thriller, but it does seem true. Is there any decision we can make that will improve the defense this year? Seems like it’s too late.
Most disappointing units of the game (based on performance vs expectations)
Defensive Line (secondary was probably worse overall but we never expected them to be a strength)
Secondary
Offensive Line (tempted to put them higher, pass protection was still very good though
Better than expected
Kizer
WRs (Torii is rock solid, EQ is ready to breakout and CJ glides across the field effortlessly)
…got nothing else
Nevada can’t get here soon enough.
Didn’t really crawl into a cocoon and hide after the game, but had a lot of other stuff going on (including some perspective-inducing family stuff) that kept me away from the post ND-therapy we call come here for.
But it seems this board pretty much covered my thoughts. Count me on the anti-BVG side but during the season is not the time, save for some Bob Elliot heroics, but even in that case, it’s too late to change too much. The best best is to start looking for that BVG soft landing now and start poking around for the defensive version of Mike Sanford, as I don’t think the top experienced DCs will be an option.
Also count me on the side that thinks while this defense does lack the top-end talent to be consistently in the top 15, they are talented enough to do better than this. The “more with less” comparisons couldn’t be any more appropriate. Then again, this team doesn’t need a top 15 defense. It just needs one to give the offense a puncher’s chance and not immediately undo any good the offense does. An occasional timely stop or at least making an offense work to get downfield when you have them down is really not too much to ask.
On a positive but potentially worrisome for the future note – I am 100% convinced that while it may not be his focus, Kizer is playing for NFL money this year. If he looks like that all season, there will be very little incentive for him to come back in 2017. We may see a special year from a QB wasted on a crippling anchor of a defense.
We shouldn’t resign ourselves to fielding less than a top-15 defense because VanG sucks. Not that this is what you’re saying, but I don’t want us to lower expectations. I mean we have top-15-ish talent, so we shouldn’t have to settle for a defense that is less than top-15-ish defense.
No, I’m not lowering expectations at all. I’m saying that with this offense, the defense should be good enough with the talent on hand to win even if they are not a top 15 unit. That should always be the goal, but in not reaching that goal at least be good enough to offer up some level of containment. The talent is good enough to do at least that.
With this offense, a top 30 defense would make us playoff contenders certainly, and probably championship contenders.
Exactly we are over 60% of the team as 4*s (i’d have to check my numbers to say exactly and it would depend how you count butler, etc.), and with the defense at 56% then the offense is at least 64% so it means we would have a better offense than defense and yet have a TEAM that has championship quality talent.
Ok I got a chance to look at we are at 61% if you don’t count butler or redfield. I get that number by dividing the 52 4*s we have by 85 (whether or not we have 85 scholarships or not) because I assume that is what everyone else is basically playing with. It doesn’t make sense to say 60% but only hand out 60 scholarships (like USC – I bet their percentages those years were pretty high of 4-5 stars). So you need 51 4*s to have 60% and we have one more than that (before the season even a few more than that losing blankship, redfield, butler, anyone else?).
Next year the numbers are even stronger at closer to 57/85 = 67% of 4* depending on who comes back and any more 4* recruits we would get.
Took a quick look at some relative peers and their defensive recruiting (didn’t bother with tOSU/Bama/FSU/USC as I just assumed they were way above us). This is a bit of a deeper dive, but there’s little context. I know both our 5 stars are gone, but wasn’t about to inspect the other rosters.
For 2013-2016, here are the number of total 5/4 star Defensive recruits for some of the consistently top teams. Even defensively (which I think everyone will agree significantly trails offense recruiting/talent) we should be pretty solidly top 10 in talent this year.
ND: 2/22 (24 total)
Oklahoma: 1/15
Clem: 3/19
Mich: 2/18
UGA: 3/26
Texas: 1/20
LSU: 5/27
To be a downer, the 2 year split paints a much uglier picture (0/9, worst/2nd worst). But isn’t BVG’s scheme supposed to allow us to cast a wider net, therefor getting more 4 stars? Maybe D2aco wasn’t such a bad recruiter after all.
My feeling about star rankings is that raw numbers and percentages are meaningless at this level, other than the actual number of 5 stars recruited.
There are a handful of true 5’s each year. We get the occasional one, and even then , some pan out (Manti, Jaylon), some don’t (Redfield). I think it’s easier to spot and rate the very best, the 5 stars, than other ratings for the most part.
Where the rubber meets the road is in 4 stars. There is a wide gap between a high 4 and a low 4, unlike in the 5’s IMO. I think it’s kind of like tennis at the highest level. It’s not how many points you win or lose, but which ones. Same thing with 4’s, not how many but which ones. I don’t know where our 4’s fall on the scale of low, median, high, but I’d personally rather get the 4’s that the Bama, OSU, USC, FSU’s get than most of the ones we get, even though our percentages might look near equal.
I also think that things blur for the ratings guys the further down the ratings they go. It’s totally subjective, after all. If I were a betting man, I’d bet that in our good years we have a higher percentage of upper half 4’s than in disappointing years.
Just a guess, I’d be interested in someone who knows stuff commenting.
The numbers say that % of 4 stars is really what makes the difference in whether you can win a championship or not. That is why IrishChamp was discussing the 60% four star ratio.
Recruiting rankings definitely matter over time. They may not matter for a given player, but overall they absolutely do.
I’m thinking same thing re Kizer, sadly.
on another note, I’m sure glad we don’t play FSU this year. Once they got over the tempo shock, they looked in Bama’s league. The RS freshman QB was pretty awesome running and passing.
lots of good new QB’s around this season.
Here are some things I noticed from being at the game. Have not rewatched, have heard no commentary, have read nothing outside of 18S instant reaction and this piece.
1) I hate ripping on individual players, and I am usually one of the first people to come to their defense. But this is the single thing that stood out the most to me. Trumbetti played one of the worst individual games I can remember from an ND player. I don’t think the staff did him any favors with their gameplan, but he could not set the edge to save his life. I must have noticed close to 10 plays where they would run at him, or up the middle, and the giant RB would just bounce outside as AT was getting driven into the middle of the field. I think Onwualu was better at setting the edge. I don’t know why we didn’t see more of Hayes or even Bonner in for AT.
2) By contrast, it really looked like Rochell played quite well. After the first time I noticed AT get smothered like a delicious southwestern burrito in queso, I checked on AT and IR at the end of every run, and basically any run for 3yds or less was at IR and anything 4-8 was at AT. Didn’t help that our DTs looked almost as bad.
3) Morgan appeared to play very well, especially considering our DTs kept getting manhandled. I was surprised he didn’t make more plays in the backfield, but that could have been because of the DTs. Speaking of LBs, Malik Jefferson was phenomenal. I think he might be better than Jaylon was as a SO (granted it’s only 1 game).
4) Zaire did not look fast. There were a few plays that looked like he could scramble for a ways, and he got tackled easily. There was one play in particular, I don’t remember exactly which, but he dropped back, made a guy miss, then one side of the field looked wiiiide open, I actually thought he might rip off a 60 yd TD. It ended up being a sack, or maybe 1 yd gain. I couldn’t believe Kelly kept playing him as long as he did. The offense was completely inept with him in there.
5) CJ Sanders looked exactly like his HS highlight tape (which I loved, and probably watched more than any other recruit). This kid is good. Get him the ball.
I think some have said above that Trumbetti in a way was playing out of position essentially as a 3-4 DE. So perhaps another example of bad scheming or at least fitting players poorly for the scheme. When J.O. set the edge it was more as a 4-3 DE if I remember correctly.
Good stuff.
1) Trumbetti had no business as an end in a 3-man front. None. It was galactically stupid. The odd front was a horrible idea, but if they really wanted to do that they should’ve used a line of Rochell-Jones/Cage-Tillery. I could’ve told you before the game ever started that Trumbetti would be flattened repeatedly if they put him in that position – it was essentially the same as putting Dan Fox at DE in Diaco’s defense.
Jay Hayes, FWIW, wasn’t ready – his ankle isn’t 100% and he couldn’t get on and off the field fast enough to play against Texas’s tempo, according to Kelly. Daelin Hayes would’ve been steamrolled just like Trumbetti.
2) Rochell was a boss, no doubt.
3) The PF was bad and not, unfortunately, an isolated thing with him, but otherwise, I agree, Morgan was solid. Certainly didn’t show any reason for concern beyond the penalty.
4) Zaire looked tentative and gun shy throughout. Kelly needed to give him a substantial shot, but he got it and now it’s time to move on.
5) I love Sanders. That kid is a highlight waiting to happen.
Good additional info. Didn’t know that about J. Hayes, and yeah, D. Hayes wouldn’t have helped.
It was hard to tell exactly what they were trying to run from the stands. There was a lot of defensive movement before the snap, and it usually looked like that was because they weren’t sure where they needed to be, rather than intentional to disguise looks. But it was clear Trumbetti was seldom, if ever, playing outside shade of the weak side OT. Even someone like Mokwuah would have probably helped at DE. Me and my buddy could not figure out why Trumbetti was kept in there.
I had really high hopes for Trumbetti. He is one of the higher rated DL recruits we have had, and really had a great opportunity to take over WDE as a JR with a decent amount of experience (albeit not super productive). I get he was put in a position to fail, but even so, this game completely tempered any expectations I have for him.
I think Trumbetti could be fine in a limited role that fits his skills. He’s not going to overpower anyone – he’s an effort guy. Third downs, or as an even front WDE, he can make a contribution. As a 5-tech or an odd front DE, forget it. Preseason, Kelly talked about a passing-down defensive line of Trumbetti and Daelin Hayes at DE and Jarron Jones and Isaac Rochell at DT. I love that idea. A 3-man front of Rochell, Tillery, and Trumbetti, against a power running spread? Not so much.
Here’s Tim Prister with you nauseating stat of the day:
I thumbs down your nauseating stat of the day!
I blame Kelly for not choosing a starting QB this week.
Oops, forgot my “@ @”
Hey guys, did anyone see Malik after one of the scores–I think it was after we got to 28–well man he looked like someone had killed his dog. Decidedly not like someone whose team just went from DOA to in the game. Not a good look. He has to make an effort to at least look like a good teammate.
I’m willing to give him a little bit of a pass on that one – I mean, the door to his opportunity was pretty clearly being slammed shut, and ABC put the camera on him 900 times (roughly) while Kizer was tearing it up.