A punt from the Pitt 39-yard line, a couple bad penalties, and more injury news were some of the bad things that happened on Saturday for Notre Dame. Other than that, the Irish left Pittsburgh about as happy as can be expected following a 45-3 romp over the Panthers.
In what has become shockingly familiar since 2017, Notre Dame played another much-too-easy game against a Power 5 program and was never in danger of losing. Since that rebuild after 2016, this was the 22nd win for the Irish by at least 20 points, including the 15th against P5 teams.
Stats Package
| STAT | IRISH | PITT |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 45 | 3 |
| Plays | 83 | 53 |
| Total Yards | 434 | 162 |
| Yards Per Play | 5.2 | 3.1 |
| Conversions | 12/19 | 3/13 |
| Completions | 17 | 12 |
| Yards/Pass Attempt | 9.6 | 3.5 |
| Rushes | 50 | 20 |
| Rushing Success | 41.3% | 18.7% |
| 10+ Yds Rushing | 2 | 4 |
| Defense Stuff Rate | 30.1% | 20.4% |
Early on, the game had the feel of another close, low-scoring affair where the first team to score 3 times would likely win. However, Notre Dame steadily applied pressure and eventually broke the game open with Ian Book’s arm and a timely blocked punt. Notre Dame hogged the ball (30 more snaps!) and never let Pitt even think about a comeback. Welcome to 5-0, everyone!
Offense
QB: B+
RB: C
TE: A-
OL: B-
WR: B+
Leave it to 2020 for us to find out Kevin Austin broke his foot again and is out for the season (again) only to see the Irish passing game finally get going and hit some long passes in a game when they really needed to loosen the defense up. As expected, Pitt stacked the box and left their secondary on many islands to poor results.
Up stepped Northwestern transfer Ben Skowronek who caught only 2 passes, a 34-yard touchdown and a 73-yard touchdown. That helps the old YPA for Ian Book. Those were the first 2 scores for the Irish and it appears Skowronek injured his finger or hand not long after and didn’t have another catch the rest of the way.
Quietly, I thought this was one of the more impressive offensive performances of the Kelly era. Against the No. 17 SP+ defense with a stout front and great run defense–normally a deadly combination that can bring Notre Dame to a halt–the Irish churned out plenty of positive plays, kept the chains moving, and put the ball in the end zone.
A full of quarter of garbage time without Book dampened the offensive efficiency numbers quite a bit. However, before Book left the game Notre Dame scored 38 points on offense across 9 drives and had a healthy 51.7% rushing success rate. If they can do about 75% of that effort against Clemson they can win.
Book continues to have moments where he lacks sharpness and missed on about 5 throws that could’ve been the difference between a really good day and a career-day. The fact that he had 14 incompletions is a clear sign things weren’t exactly humming in the passing game.
However, you can’t fault the clutch performance on the whole. The passing game had 11 first downs, Book finally got things going with 3 passing scores, and he added another 40 yards (with the only 2 runs of 10+ yards from the team) on the ground, too. There were moments where the offense looked like it was going to get bogged down but Book converted 3rd downs on 4 occasions with his arm and twice via his feet. It was his 7th career game with 300+ passing yards but only the 3rd time since the start of 2019.
Rushing Success
Williams – 9 of 17 (52.9%)
Book – 4 of 5 (80%)
Tyree – 0 of 3 (0%)
Flemister – 6 of 12 (50%)
Armstrong – 0 for 8
Clark – 0 of 1 (0%)
The box score may say only 115 yards on 50 carries but I’m telling you this was a very good rushing performance. The traditional and advanced stats had Pitt as the best rush defense in the country and through 3 quarters Notre Dame kept making plays.
Just look at Kyren Williams’ performance, for example. He only had 38 yards but 9 successful runs!
Before the 4th quarter, the offense was 4 for 5 converting on 3rd & short with the only miss being the sack near the goal line before Doerer’s field goal. In general, when the offense needed some yards on the ground they got them.
That being said, I thought the line played just okay–not many lanes were opened up for big runs and Pitt did come through for 12 tackles for loss. There were a couple big penalties (a silly facemask call on Banks and unsportsmanlike call on Eichenberg that was never shown) and Book was harassed quite a bit which was to be expected against this Pittsburgh defense. Although 7 of Pitt’s 17 stuffs on the day came after Book left the game there was a lot of penetration from the Panthers and too many negative plays.
Defense
DL: B
LB: B+
DB: B+
The 162 yards gained by Pittsburgh on Saturday were the fewest allowed by a Notre Dame defense in the Kelly era, just edging out Texas’ 163 yards in the 2015 opener. It was yet again another Clark Lea masterclass. Over the last 24 drives they’ve faced, Notre Dame has allowed just 1 touchdown and are now averaging 9.8 points per game given up through the first 5 contests.
That brief lapse of dominance in the Florida State game now feels like 100 years ago.
Pitt actually had 7 plays for 10+ yards, though! Those plays went for 33, 22, 19, 13, 11, 11, and 10 yards respectively. Unfortunately, their other 46 snaps went for 43 yards. The Panthers effectively gave up on the running game before the ball was kicked off and finished with only 3 successful rushing plays.
Bold decision, but that’s what this Lea defense can do to you.
Offensive coordinator Mark Whipple wanted to put the game in the hands of backup quarterback Joey Yellen as starter Kenny Pickett was out with injury and at first it seemed plausible it could work. Pitt put together a 10-play opening drive to answer Notre Dame’s touchdown, and thanks to a wonderful 22-yard catch from Shocky Jaques-Louis, were able to put their only points on the board.
It just wasn’t a sustainable long-term gameplan for Pitt. Eventually, Yellen broke from the pressure.
To give you an idea of how quickly this game got out of hand: It was only 7-3 in favor of Notre Dame when Yellen connected on his longest pass of the day. From that moment forward he would go 4 of 14 for 23 yards with 3 interceptions (including his last 2 throws being picks) before he was benched and the score was already 45-3.
Stuffs vs. Pitt
Ademilola, Ju. – 3.5
MTA – 2.5
Pryor – 2
Hinish – 1
JOK – 1
Crawford – 1
White – 1
Liufau – 0.5
Hamilton – 0.5
Foskey – 0.5
Ovie – 0.5
Lacy – 0.5
Ademilola, Jay – 0.5
Finally, some turnovers! Notre Dame had only lost 3 turnovers and caused 3 turnovers on the year heading into the game so it’s nice to be back in the +3 column once again.
Yellen threw the ball directly at Bo Bauer but JOK and McCloud’s interceptions were objectively amazing catches. Shaun Crawford and D.J Brown easily could’ve added their own picks on Pitt’s opening drive, too.
I can’t say I noticed him in a big way but 3.5 stuffs for Justin Ademilola is pretty great. He only had 4 tackles so that’s some potent playmaking ability!
I did notice the return of MTA who looked awfully disruptive and who had the only non-garbage time sack.
Final Thoughts
Did it feel like Shayne Simon played a lot less against Pitt? He got the start again at Buck linebacker and even had a pass break-up and a quarterback hurry. Still, zero tackles on Saturday. He just doesn’t seem to be around the ball at all and only has an abysmal 5 tackles in 3 games.
The word from the media covering the Irish this year has suggested Isaiah Pryor won’t be making much of an impact. He made a couple big plays later in this game and looks so athletic when he’s in the open. I hope they can start to get something real out of him at Rover now that Moala is done for the season.
The curious case of Jafar Armstrong continues to confuse. The one-time starter (this feels like a long time ago in this new Kyren era) totaled -4 yards on 8 carries on Saturday afternoon. Yes, I know most of that work was late in garbage time when Notre Dame wasn’t threatening to pass, but still. 5 out of Pitt’s 7 stuffs in the 4th quarter came on Armstrong carries. Zero successful carries overall is not good and Armstrong has shown little in nearly 1.5 years that he can recapture his 2018 self.
The same cannot be said for C’Bo Flemister who also was put in bad running situations late in the game but continues to run like his hair is on fire and the defense insulted his entire family.
Give the people what they want. pic.twitter.com/HdXNg3eKpG
— 18 Stripes (@18stripes) October 25, 2020
Pitt’s uniforms were dumb and an inexplicable decision to wear them for the second time already this year.
Are you ready for Jordan Johnson and Xavier Watts now that Austin is done for the year and Braden Lenzy came up lame with his hamstring again late in the game? Sounds like that’s not happening, per Kelly after the game. He’s happy with the receivers (hmm, okay?) and said they’re getting Lawrence Keys back from injury and they like Joe Wilkins a lot. That’s not happy news for most fans, I realize.
Stud freshman tight end Michael Mayer now leads the team with 12 receptions on the season. He had 8 targets against Pitt and all 5 catches went for either a first down or touchdown. Kelly mentioned after the game that he’s quickly becoming a go-to weapon. He also mentioned that Tommy Tremble is banged up, which makes sense why he hasn’t been featured much lately in the passing game.
How important was this touchdown pass for Ian Book and the offense?
Let it rip, trust your reads.
In my opinion, opponents have realized as an abundance of game tape is out there on Book that it’s best to have the ends drive out wide and upfield. Very often, Book gets rattled when there are players coming at him from the sides even if they are blocked. How many times have we seen Book run out to his right on a play like this when Hainsey pushes his defender 10 yards upfield? Instead, Book slides up into a nice clean pocket and gives himself an opportunity and time to make a throw. It’s not the most accurate pass in the world but he does get slightly bumped and I’m just excited he decided to make this throw towards one of the ACC’s best defensive backs and to a receiver who wasn’t completely wide open.
Isiah Foskey is a punt blocking ninja.
Football is a funny game. The Irish punted from the Pitt 39-yard line in a tight game early on and then the Panthers (thanks in part to an iffy pass interference call on third down on Hamilton) drove into Notre Dame territory. It was maybe the only sketchy moment in the game, one where your worst instincts imagine Pitt taking a lead and forever regretting that punt. Then, Pitt’s drive stalled, they punted at the Irish 37-yard line, and Book connected to Skowronek on 3rd & 14 for a 73-yard score 4 plays later.
Did anyone think Brandon Clark’s throwing motion looked really weird? Also, how strange was it that they threw Drew Pyne in there for the second-to-last series before putting Clark back in?
I think C’Bo might jump Tyree on the depth chart. This was the 2nd game in a row that I wasn’t impressed with Tyree. He could just be wearing down.
I think that you may be right. I always thought it was tough to ask Tyree to really be the second feature back as a true freshman. I still like the idea of handing the ball off to him 2 or 3 times a game but would prefer to try to get him another 3 or 4 touches via jet sweeps or quick screen passes to get him into space.
C’Bo has looked good and could then easily and effectively be the true second back in the offense to spell Kyren. Something like Kyren getting 18 touches, C’Bo getting 8-9 touches, and Tyree getting 6-7 touches seems to be the way that I would distribute things right now.
We need to protect Kyren from wearing down so it’s important that C’Bo take some carries because clearly Armstrong is not up to it, other than maybe being an OK passing down back.
If Lenzy is going to continue to act like he’s made of papier mache, then Rees should probably focus on Tyree being the gadget guy for a few plays a game in the short term.
I wouldn’t hate it. Although, I don’t think C’Bo is really refined, he’s basically running forward as hard as he can…won’t hit many cut-back lanes, make guys miss, etc. He’s a good 3rd choice back, but if Tyree is getting worn down I agree you have to put C’Bo out there a lot more.
This is very true, but in many opponents’ cases (including Pitt), it comes at a price — If Book takes off up the middle, it’s an easy first down, because no one is there. That happened a number of times early in the game yesterday, and it prevented Pitt from dragging this game down into the 11-8 poo-flinging contest they wanted.
It reminded me of Navy last year, trying to bring outside pressure and getting shredded up the middle.
Yup, this is largely why Book is 2nd all-time in career rushing for an Irish QB.
It only resulted in a pass interference, but my favorite play was the lob into single coverage to McKinley. For whatever reason, Book has been reluctant to give his big receivers 50/50 balls. But if your pass catchers aren’t going to be speed guys who can create separation, at some point you just have to trust that they can use their size to win 1-on-1 battles.
Obviously don’t toss it up into double coverage, but any time McKinley or Skowronek have obvious single coverage, Book needs to be using the Brady Quinn method of just chucking the ball up high to the big guys. Force defenses to either attack the running game or attack the big receivers (like Stanford seemed to do for years with Arcega-Whiteside and their big tight ends).
Agreed. Didn’t they have like a 2nd and 26 and run it two times? That should be prime “throw a vertical route and see if you catch it or draw a flag on an undisciplined defense” territory. Instead they ran two draws into the teeth of a solid run defense. That was frustrating.
But I think this point kinda touches on also why we’re not going to see Johnson or Watts. If they don’t know the playbook and Book doesn’t trust them, he’s not going to target them. Look at last year, Book was fine going downfield for Claypool, because, duh, Claypool is awesome and will come through. He hasn’t thrown like that much this season and doesn’t seem to trust his WR.
We’re seeing that confidence and connection grow with Skowronek, but otherwise, I think we all know it’s just not going to be much from WR’s this year. Hopefully they can get Tremble and Mayer involved.
My cousin complained about that play sequence. I had no problem with it. If the first draw play gets 8-10 yds then you have 3rd and 10ish and you can go for it with a pass play. When the 1st draw fails and it’s 3rd and 25, run it and punt. Conservative? Yes. But not bad coaching. Play to your teams strengths, not it’s weaknesses.
Was hoping for a screen to Lenzy or Tyree, but agree that I was ok with conservative plays in that situation. Never easy to be that behind the sticks, especially backed up in your own end.
I understand that, I just don’t agree. Run, run punt is weak. At least put the ball in the air and give the chance for a DPI or a Pitt safety just not wanting to tackle Skowronek. Don’t just quit. That’s the same thing Narduzzi did only to get his punt blocked for a TD to kill the game. Safe is death.
45 – 3 doesn’t seem like death. Perfectly understandable what ND did. It was hardly “quitting”. You not liking it doesn’t make it bad strategy. It wasn’t at all like what Pitt did. Pitt was trying to run out the clock. ND was trying to make sure they didn’t make a foolish mistake. They didn’t..,.Pitt did.
Yeah I’m with hooks and your cousin. That was a promising looking drive before whatever Eichenberg did. But unless your goal is just to punt / not turn over when you end up in 1st and 20+, running three times is brutal. You need 10+ yards to get back in a reasonable place to convert – are you odds of doing that better passing or running? Throwing for sure, and you can’t rely on the defense to be playing super light until 2nd/3rd down. Running it is the same logic of running on 2nd and 10 to get a more manageable 3rd down that has been proven out to be less effective.
No doubt passing gives you a better chance of converting at 2nd and 25. As Blackledge said a little later in the game, “Pitt needed it’s defense to create turnovers”. Their offense was not going to drive the field. Being conservative there was simply not playing into their hands. I find ND’s play calling to be totally defendable, if not the only course of action they could have taken. You can argue against it but, it wasn’t quitting and it certainly didn’t cause them any issues towards winning the game.
When I said it was quitting, I meant it was quitting on the drive to run multiple draws and not throw the ball in long down and distnce. It obviously didn’t matter in the big scheme of things, but it’s still way too under-aggressive of a play-calling strategy in 2020. Between DPI or busting a long pass against a poor pass defense there was no reason to quit. If you’re scared of Pitt creating a turnover, you’re too scared.
Or you could argue that ND’s approach was smart and exactly the opposite of being “scared” of Pitt. Avoiding turnovers is smart football in 2010, 2020 and will be in 2030.
Again, I’m not saying it was the only way to approach to the situation but, it was totally reasonable, especially with the opponent ND was facing.
Avoiding turnovers is smart, but running to avoid the chance of a turnover is unreasonably conservative, because Pitt’s pass defense is weak and far more likely to give up a penalty (12 flags on the day!) or a first down (Book season-high passing yards!) than they are to take the ball away.
It wasn’t the only example of unncessarily conservative and wrong philosophy, ND was also wrong and made the bad choice to punt from Pitt’s 39 yard line. Plenty of chances for better coaching to take out of this one.
I am issuing an 18S Supreme Court ruling: The court sides with tlndma.
Trust your defense, going conservative is a wise choice on 1st & 24 and 2nd & 29(!!) in a spot where Pitt knows you have to be aggressive to move the chains & and a turnover in your own territory is just about the only positive thing your opponent could do in the whole 1st half.
The defense rests.
My objection is this happened on the 3rd overall possession of the game, with the score 7-3 (meaning each team scored on their first drive). One would have no reason to think this at the time that the only thing Pitt could do was capitalize on a mistake!
Sure, with hindsight of how the game played out, being conservative was fine. But it’s still poor playcalling and an outlook for where the game was at the time.
It’s not hindsight. I understood it as soon as it happened. You can ask my cousin(haha). It was quite reasonable play calling. Especially early in a close game. Many a good coach would have done the same thing. You didn’t like it. Oh well. You can keep looking for holes in my argument, fear, quitting, too early but, there are no legit ones. Again if you wanted to call something different, fine. That doesn’t make ND’s approach wrong.
Ehh, a difference of opinion is no biggie. The interesting aspect to me is the approach itself and not just if fans agreed with it or not. Calling 3 runs instead of trying to pass against a bad pass defense then punting from the +39 on the next drive sets a certain tone.
Being conservative on offense isn’t typically a formula for success. I highly doubt you’ll see a modern NC winning coaching staff calling 3 straight runs on 1st, 2nd, 3rd + 20-25 against a team with a stout rush defense and porous pass defense, though.
Not having the confidence in the offense vs Pitt is going to be brutal playing against an actual good team would be the root of my bigger fear, regardless of whether they were “right” to call what they did.
“Being conservative on offense isn’t typically a formula for success.”
It was Saturday. Different opponent, different situation, different play calls? More than likely.
Wondering, If Pitts 27th ranked pass defense is “porous”, what would you call NDs 64th ranked pass offense ?
In theory, this would be great. But I doubt this holds up. These conservative calls come one week after bold and recklessly aggressive decisions (i.e. the fake FG debacle) cost ND vs an inferior opponent in Louisville.
With that context in mind, Saturday’s needlessly conservative decisions vs. Pitt can’t be explained away as just based on that one opponent, but a course-correction from mistakes made the prior week.
The problem is this would indicate an over-correction that creates new problems.
Ahh, stats. Surely playing one team with a capable passing attack and seeing an early schedule featuring teams like Austin Peay and Syracuse mean we can just rely on that, right? (And this coming from the person who said *I* was looking for holes in someone else’s argument, lol).
Anyways check this: “The Panthers have allowed 21 completions of at least 20 yards this season, which ranks 67th nationally. Among Power 5 teams, only LSU, Duke and Georgia Tech have allowed more.”
In this situation where 20+ yard shots were necessary, passing would have been a wise move! I don’t really know why you’re still trying to pick at this, so hopefully we can just leave it at this.
You want to appeal this decision!???
Okay, the only higher power in this court is Whiskey our original site founder!
Ha, I won’t file any motions to appeal. Is what it is, and luckily is a mostly irrelevant detail anyways.
But, like I said, IMO the bigger deal is with some of coaching decisions where he chases points or fakes field goals or goes very conservative or punts from the other team’s 39, I feel like you just never know what he’s going to do in the moment. And often times it feels like the wrong call, or ends up in that moment not paying off.
You certainly would not have me defending Kelly for other play calls he has made. We could start with the fake FG last week. That’s a different discussion.
That was a really good ball, too.
The receivers have to either win the one on ones and Book has to trust they will or they need to create separation. He seems to have some trust inMcKinley who doesn’t seem to separate that much. If Skowrenek is actually hurt, we are down to Wilkins, Keys, McKinley and Davis. We will have to play Watts and Johnson.
I’m just going to take a step back and enjoy the fact that I kind of take this result for granted and look at Louisville as the aberration. Sure, we have warts, but still being scarred from so many years of Davieweisingham, I am pretty happy with where we are.
On another note, this is one more year where it seems like Clemson, Alabama, maybe tOSU, and everybody else. Anybody else find it interesting that top 5 UGA can lose by three scores to Bama after hanging with them for a half, and nobody calls them pretenders? Imagine if we put up a similar result against Clemson, how the haters will howl…
The national fascination with Georgia is really something, isn’t it? It’s like pollsters are just willing them to actually be good to break the monotony of Bama/Clemson/Ohio State.
Yeah they are really not very good at all. They also really struggled with Tennessee — who is just terrible — for a half plus. It chaps my ass that we didn’t at least split with them because that result sort of positions them above us, psychologically speaking.
Would love to have gotten to see how that 2017 game between the two teams could’ve gone once both teams got rolling. It was a bit of a crapfest at the time because Fromm was in his 1st start and we had no idea what our offense was yet.
I feel like it’s like this most years!
Georgia doesn’t have enough horses on offense this year, so it seems.
Harsh grades on the defense!
Also, I think at this point we can say Kyren Williams is already the best ND running back in the last 15 years. He gets at least 1 or 2 more yards than it feels like he should on like 80% of runs. That’s super valuable.
I would take Josh Adams in a heartbeat. But I think Williams is fantastic and truly a joy to watch after last season.
Kyren seems like more of a multi-purpose threat to me, but Adams was more of a home-run hitter, to be fair to Adams. If you took Kyren’s skills but had Tyree-level speed, though, you’d probably have a first-round running back (even in this day-and-age where like only one or two running backs get drafted), whereas Adams didn’t even get drafted.
Agreed, I think the defense got knocked here just because the Pitts backup QB stinks and they didn’t try to even run.
But someone deserved an A. Probably Clark Lea. Just look at Jordan Addison’s game log below, including 8 for 147 last week against Miami. Most Notre Dame fans still don’t know who Jordan Addison is because they rotated safety help over him all game and took him away (ended with 3 for 40) for his quietest game of the season.
Pitt didn’t have a lot of muscle offensively and Pickett being out doomed them, but the ND defense was still exemplary.
https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/players/jordan-addison-1/gamelog/2020/
Clark Lea deserves an A. This was exactly the type of game where, 10 years ago, Pitt’s nobody backup QB would have lit us up with stupid wounded duck passes.
Grading against a poor offense. I don’t think a single Pitt player impressed even a little bit. That’s really hard to do for a Power 5 program.
I’d take Adams over Kyren at the moment, too. But Kyren is still young.
Adams over Williams? Wow. I loved Josh, but I honestly think KW is our best RB in decades. Kyren fights like Tyson for an extra half yard.
I love the way Kyren runs, but it’s not like Adams didn’t run hard too. If Williams does end up having a better career than Adams, we’re going to win a hell of a lot of games the next few years, regardless of who ends up being our QB.
Whoa, are we underrating Adams already? 3,201 rushing yards at 6.7 per carry is so damn good.
I think Kyren can get to that level, though. He’ll be more versatile and have a better success rate thanks to his shiftiness and desire on each carry. I do think we’ll need to see a few things though:
1) How does he hold up with so much work?
2) Are we close to seeing his ceiling?
3) How does he perform against better defenses?
Adams was always banged up. I don’t know if Kyren’s skill-set allows him to get a ton better. We really need to see him against better opponents, though. So far, 2020 has been a relatively easy ride.
I’m trying to compare apples to apples. I am much more excited about KW as a sophomore than I was at the same point in Josh’s career.
Josh had a fantastic final season. But, I’d take soph KW over soph JA. I just love his attitude.
I am not sure which one is faster, but Williams has been run down from behind on more than one occasion. Williams seems to be the better receiver.
I think the main difference, and it may be in the blocking scheme is that Williams is a little more patient waiting for a hole, and then decisive when he sees it than Adams was. Adams tended to run to where the hole was to be, and if it wasn’t there, it was a stuff. Williams seems to wait and then wriggle. Neither tended to get strung out to the sideline. I am not sure Williams has yet. The TD against Pitt was Williams in a nutshell. He may have been able to outrun the defender to the edge, but he needed two and knew he could get it at that point by cutting up and lowering his shoulder, so he did.
I was impressed by both as blockers though. However, Williams as a sophomore is where Adams was at the end. In all honesty though, all three of the backs (Armstrong I haven’t noticed as much) seem much better at picking up a blitzer than any backs I can remember in the Kelly era. Prosise was pretty good too, but most of the rest besides their heart not being in it (not saying that Williams, Tyree or C’Bo have their heart in it), would not react and get across the line if necessary to make a block. I have noticed Williams and Tyree do it on multiple occasions.
Not to take anything away from this team, but this has to be the weakest first five opponents ND has ever played, right? My God, the ACC is awful.
They have been saying for years (or decades) that independent ND needs to join a conference so that they can play a real schedule against some real competition. Well, that was a sham argument
This should forever put to bed the idea that conference membership is any particular warranty of a team’s quality. It won’t, of course.
Oh hey, Georgia, didn’t see you there.
If Notre Dame gets out of Charlotte with a trophy, it should. But still a long way to go for that.
ND isn’t winning the ACC, but it’s because Clemson is a blowtorching death machine, not because conference membership made them one.
I noticed that rotation of Clark and Pyne and thought it was odd. Most years it seems like we are clamoring for a backup QB to get in the game, but this is the first year that the backup(s) does not seem appealing (even though we know that Book has some holes in his game). Of course, it is tough to get a good feel for these guys when we have not seen them in the spring game and then, when they finally got some game action, all they really did was hand-off.
They went Clark-Pyne-Clark, just seemed to be rotating drives for them. Maybe that says that Pyne is closer to being 2B than 3 on the depth chart? I didn’t mind it, no eligibility draining restrictions in play this year so might as well give them both a taste of more game action. Especially since like you said it’s not like either had a lot of QB’ing to really do.
or it could have been Clark-Pyne-Clark because Clark missed the last game with garbage time because of Covid. Plus, you never know. Last year, Jurkovec and Clark split some garbage time as well. Plus, both of them need experience handing or tossing the ball to Jafar Armstrong for losses.