My father once said that the definition of mixed feelings is watching your mother-in-law drive off a cliff in your new Cadillac. That feels like an apt description of Notre Dame’s 2019 season – it was mostly very good, but the Caddy went careening over the precipice in Ann Arbor and it’s impossible for that not to color the way you feel about the year. But there was some good stuff that happened, like beating USC and hammering Stanford on the road. But that Michigan game… And hey, we hung tough with Georgia in Athens. Also had some youngsters really emerge as the season went on. But, at Michigan… Gah.

Soooo… Anyway, we talked about some stuff we expected in the preseason, and we talked a little more about that stuff halfway through. With the full campaign in the books, we’ll revisit it all one more time to see how everything held up.

Big Picture Questions

2019 Record

Most advanced stats metrics guessed Notre Dame’s regular season record would be 9-3; we were more optimistic, with 82% of the readers and 80% of the staff predicting we’d go 10-2 or better. Congrats to everyone who drank the Kool-Aid on this one! For the 33% of readers and 35% of staff who picked 11-1 or better, sorry.

Biggest Concern

30% tabbed the challenging road slate as the main concern in both surveys, which proved prescient – there were a number of things that were sources of some degree of frustration, but the most damaging factor by far was the Georgia-Michigan road tandem. Happily, the second concern in both surveys, inside linebackers, actually turned out to be just fine; Asmar Bilal hit a level we didn’t know he had in him and Drew White emerged in a very big way, finishing first in tackles and fourth in TFLs.

Superlatives

Offensive MVP

Ian Book ran away with this in both surveys, pulling 77% of the reader vote and 85% of the staff vote. You could make a case for him based on how dramatically he turned around over the final five games of the season, but I don’t think there’s any real debate here. I think the offensive MVP was pretty clearly Claypool, who spent most of the year as the only true offensive threat that demanded attention in the opposing game plan. In fact, Claypool won the team MVP award at the annual Echoes banquet a few weeks ago.

Defensive MVP

The readers and staff were highly confident that this would be either Julian Okwara (61%, 60%) or Alohi Gilman (24%, 25%). Gilman has been good, but I think even if you asked him he would say not as good as last year. Okwara had his moments, but his season ended prematurely with a broken leg against Duke. So many have contributed to what became a very solid defense over the course of the year that there are several guys who could get consideration here. That said, my vote goes resoundingly to Khalid Kareem – the senior captain led the team in sacks, TFLs, hurries, and forced fumbles, led all linemen in tackles, was Notre Dame’s best all-around lineman all season, and stepped his game up a notch when Okwara went down. He has mentored his replacement for next year, Ade Ogundeji, very effectively, but he’ll still be missed.

Play of the Year

This vote was just about dead even; 48% of you tabbed the offense, 48% the defense, and 4% special teams. Similarly, the staff voted 50% for defense, 45% for offense, and 5% for special teams. At the halfway point I said Lenzy’s 51-yard reverse against USC was probably the play of the year. I think that one is still in contention, and I’d add the following:

  • Book’s gut-check, tongue-wagging, game-tying touchdown scramble in the waning seconds against Virginia Tech – a played that saved a game, and perhaps a season, and perhaps a quarterback.
  • Punter Jay Bramblett’s unbelievably clutch recovery and hold of a bad snap on the ensuing extra point to secure the lead. (Not flashy, but if we’re talking season impact…)
  • Paul Moala tipping Navy’s option pitch to himself and taking it 27 yards for a score.
  • Lenzy’s 61-yard reverse against Boston College (sense a theme?).
  • Isaiah Foskey’s momentum-swinging punt block at Stanford, in a game that had been a slog to that point and would’ve put a very sad period on the regular season had it gone south.
  • The Ogundeji strip sack/Kareem touchdown to put the cherry on the sundae against Stanford – not a huge impact play, but very cathartic in that setting.
  • Tony Jones’s out-of-nowhere 84-yard touchdown run against Iowa State, capped off with a stiff arm for the last 16 yards.

This is a really tough call. I wouldn’t argue with sticking to Lenzy’s USC score, an electrifying play in what ended up as a tight game. Unlike the Boston College run, which was an electrifying play in a blowout… Feels like we’re going to keep seeing highlight reel plays from that kid, no? Moala’s play against Navy was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen against the triple option, but the game was very far out of hand by that point so it wasn’t quite as exciting as it could’ve been. Foskey’s play was huge and Kareem’s score was emotionally satisfying, but it was another game that for the most part wasn’t really in doubt. Bramblett’s work was enormous in terms of what it might have prevented, but Book’s run was the true gut-check moment of that game.

Notre Dame won its last five games by a combined score of 208-67, with no game closer than 21 points. The Irish coasted so thoroughly through the final month of the season that it’s easy to forget the dark place they were in on the afternoon of November 2nd. Book turned off his Instagram comments after the Michigan game because they had become toxic – overwhelmed by the sheer volume of people telling him he was trash and an embarrassment and so on. A week after being thoroughly humiliated by a supposedly inferior team in Ann Arbor, Notre Dame was fighting for its life at home against a Virginia Tech team that came in as a heavy underdog. Book took the field with 3:19 remaining, at his own 13, down six points and with one timeout. He then led an 18-play, 87-yard drive over the next 2:53 of game time, a drive that included two fourth down conversion throws, and capped it off with a designed run for a score with just 0:26 left.

The Book that led that drive and stormed through the next five games was very close to the Book we saw last year, that had gone missing so inexplicably for the vast majority of this year. If that drive failed and the Irish dropped to 5-3… Who knows? The team could very well have had one or two more losses in it down the stretch – the final group of opponents wasn’t as bad as the Irish eventually made them look. Book himself may never have found his confidence again. We might be having a very different conversation about this offseason.

All that said… The play of the year has to be Tony Jones’s run, which was the longest ever by a Notre Dame player in a bowl game and the longest in Camping World Bowl history (over the full 30-year history of the game). It was so emphatic, so unexpected, and so very well deserved for a kid who has given every last drop that he has to the program with little recognition in return. And it essentially ended a bowl game on the first offensive snap of the second half that many expected to be competitive or perhaps even a Notre Dame loss. If you want to name any of the other plays listed above, or even if you have something else in mind, I won’t argue with you. But I’m handing my own blue ribbon to TJJ with a smile.

Reception Leader

Claypool took about 60% of both the reader and staff vote here, and appropriately so – he led the team with 66 receptions, well ahead of Cole Kmet’s 43 and Chris Finke’s 41. If you’re looking for something to preemptively worry about for 2020, two of Notre Dame’s top three receivers are definitely gone and all three might be. Braden Lenzy and Kevin Austin, your time is now (then).

Touchdown Leader

Claypool took 49% of the reader vote and 40% of the staff vote here; in real life, he led the team with 13, far ahead of Tony Jones’s 7 and Cole Kmet’s 6. Jafar Armstrong was a close second in both surveys but, shockingly, found paydirt for the first time this year in the bowl game after scoring seven times last season. Finke and Tony Jones rounded out the main vote-getters, but combined didn’t match Claypool’s output. Your offensive MVP, ladies and gentlemen.

Third-Most RB Carries

What a wacky question this ended up being. The presumption was that Jones and Armstrong would be some kind of 1A/1B combo, so the real question was who would run third. The majority in both surveys (55% readers, 60% staff) picked freshman Kyren Williams, who impressed in the Blue-Gold game and fall camp. Well… Williams had just four carries on the season, all against New Mexico, and ended up redshirting. Armstrong tore an abdominal muscle on the first series against Louisville, didn’t return for six weeks, didn’t look like himself at any point down the stretch, and ended up behind the backup QB in rushing yards. Jones did yeoman’s work as the default lead back but actually didn’t carry it that much more than Book did – 144 carries to 112. Lenzy was third on the team in rushing yardage (200) despite being seventh in carries (13). And despite being a receiver. So it was a weird year for the run game.

Fittingly, then, heading into the bowl game I couldn’t even give you a real answer here, as sophomores C’Bo Flemister and Jahmir Smith tied for 2nd among running backs with 42 carries and Armstrong was fourth with 38. There literally was no third place. Go figure. Flemister got six carries against Iowa State while Smith didn’t play, so he ends up as the, uh, winner here. Quite the upset for a guy who took just 5% of the reader vote and 15% of the staff vote back in August.

Second-Most CB Snaps

Donte Vaughn and Shaun Crawford, in that order, ran away with both votes here, while Houston Griffith and TaRiq Bracy rounded out the tallies. Like the running back situation, reality ended up being a bit of a hodgepodge. Crawford seemed to have things pretty much locked down but then suffered a gruesome dislocated elbow against Virginia. Vaughn was fine overall, but the staff planned to redshirt him until Crawford went down. Bracy seemed to come on as the year went along and may have finished the season as the Irish’s most competitive corner – he fights through the completion of the catch I think better than anyone else on the roster. Crawford somehow came back into the lineup after what I assume was some Steve-Austin-like lab work by Notre Dame’s medical staff. Sooo… Who was second to Pride in corner snaps?

In years past I’ve found resources for snap counts, which unfortunately I can’t find this year. However, given that Bracy led all corners in pass breakups, was second to Pride in tackles, and had the group’s only forced fumble of the season, I think it’s fair to assume that he was 2019’s CB2. That’s great news for 2020, when Bracy will likely have to be CB1.

Most Impactful Frosh

Kyle Hamilton was a rotation player. Not a starter. He led the team in interceptions (4) and turnover return yards (66, hilariously not that far ahead of Myron Tagavailoa-Amosa’s 48), was just behind Bracy for the team lead in PBUs (6, to TaRiq’s 7), and was seventh in tackles. As a part-time player. He is arguably the most impactful true freshman defender in my memory – Jaylon and Te’o were very good very quickly, but both had their moments of looking out of place as freshmen. That didn’t happen with Hamilton. Going to be a fun two seasons remaining (sad emoji).

18S’s Kyle Hamilton cheering section rejoices

100% of the staff and 95% of readers tabbed Hamilton, with the other 5% being honest enough to note that they didn’t follow camp reports closely enough to be all in on the Hamilton hype train. Such integrity – Notre Dame really is just different.

Over/Under Lines

4.5 Wins in the First 6 Games
4.5 Wins in the Last 6 Games

92% of you and 95% of the staff took the over on the first half, while 82% of you and 89% of the staff took the over on the second half. We were all right on both, just in perhaps the least satisfying way possible. Caddy. Over the cliff.

32 Team Sacks
75 Tackles For Loss
10 Interceptions Gained

85% of you took the over on sacks, 64% took the over on TFLs, and and 64% took the over on interceptions; in the staff vote, it was 95% over, 50% over, and 70% over, respectively.

Notre Dame’s four sacks in the bowl game – against a team that had allowed 14 all season against 484 pass attempts – pushed the season total to 34, which matched last years’ Kelly-era high. The defense’s 86 regular season TFLs already topped the previous full-season high of the Kelly era, which was 84 in 2015, and they added six more in the bowl game to finish at 92. They juuuust missed the INT line, recording nine on the season, but with an absurd 19 fumble recoveries recorded the best turnovers gained number of the Kelly era (previously 25 in 2010).

1.5 Non-Offense TDs

83% of you and 84% of the staff took the over here and it hit super early for you, when Ogundeji took a fumble in against Virginia in game 4. Hamilton had already taken his first career interception to the house, against New Mexico. Moala and Kareem, as noted above, added defensive scores against Navy and Stanford. Four non-offense TDs matches the Kelly era high set in 2011; that year, Zeke Motta and Lo Wood logged defensive scores while George Atkinson III (RIP) had two kick return scores.

Long Field Goal of 44.5 Yards

65% of you and 45% of the staff were skeptical of the redheaded rocket-foot. Again I say, Jon Doerer laughs at all of us. He topped this mark four times – 45 and 52 (with at least 5 more yards on it) against USC, 47 against Boston College, and a 51-yard knuckleball against Iowa State.

Long Punt of 54.5 Yards

66% of you and 55% of the staff were left lamenting their lost funds on this one pretty quickly again, as Bramblett took the suspense out of this early with a 58 yarder against Georgia. He also had a 61 yarder and a 58 yarder against Michigan and gets honorable mention for a 52 yarder against Virginia Tech. The best part? All four were downed inside the opponent’s 20. Breathtaking.

3.5 Kickoff Returns Past Own 40

Lawrence Keys opened the New Mexico game by returning the kickoff to midfield, which sadly was the only time this season a kick returner crossed the 40. You may think Michael Young did against USC too, but when he inexplicably fumbled after breaking into the open he fell on the ball at the Notre Dame 36. The 76% of you and the 90% of the staff who took the under here have to feel pretty good right now, and in fact whatever this line is set at from year to year the under is probably a pretty solid play. Something to watch for next year is that Braden Lenzy returned all the kickoffs against Iowa State and was extremely aggressive, so maybe next year will be different.

5.5 Punt Returns of 10+ Yards

Surprisingly, given the history of punt returns under Kelly, this one actually hit the over – Chris Finke had returns of 17 yards against New Mexico, 25 and 15 yards against Bowling Green, 16 yards against Virginia Tech, 46 yards against Duke, and 21 yards against Boston College. 51% of you and 30% of the staff are happy.

10.5 Possessions Versus Navy

71% of you and 85% of the staff took the over, which I always set at this because it tends to mark the dividing line between a blowout and a close game. This year the Irish had 11 possessions. In a blowout. Worth noting, incidentally, that pending their bowl game against Kansas State, Navy had their lowest scoring output of the season against Notre Dame. And their two touchdowns came against second- and third-string defenders when the game was well out of hand.

3,500 Passing Yards by Ian Book

Wellll… 57% of you and 65% of the staff to the over here and his actual performance fell pretty far short of the line. Book threw for “just” 3,034 yards this season (third most of the Kelly era), as he spent most of the first seven games mired in some sort of mental quicksand. His performance in the final six games, however, was much more in line what what we expected from him coming into this season, and bodes well for next year. We’ll try it again this August.

800 total yards by Jafar Armstrong

67% of you and 90% of the staff took the over, and this is another one that missed badly due mostly to health issues. He was used somewhat oddly when he came back from injury, which didn’t help, and he seemed to be lost in his own head or maybe just uncomfortable on the field or something, which didn’t help either. He finished the season with just 219 yards from scrimmage.

70 Receptions by Chase Claypool

53% of you and 55% us took the over here, which seemed reasonable since Claypool had 59 catches last year and was poised to be the focal point of the offense this year. Book’s struggles kept the big canuck under wraps somewhat in the first half of the season, but he stormed back big time with a monster back nine. Claypool had 29 receptions after the first seven games and 37 over the next six, not coincidentally exploding as Book started to get out of his own way. With 66 receptions on the year he ended up coming just short of this mark on paper but topped it in our hearts.


We also have a Canadian cheering section, you know.

60 Receptions by Chris Finke

63% of readers and 70% of the staff thought Finke would breeze past this and were very, very wrong. He barely made it two-thirds of the way to this mark, in fact, with just 41 catches on the season. Even accounting for nagging injuries that we learned had been plaguing him, and for Book’s own troubles, this has been a bit of a disappointing year for the well-liked former walk-on.

40 Receptions by Running Backs

85% of you and 90% of the staff took the over here, and boy, we made it by the skins of our teeth. The backs had 42 catches (counting Avery Davis as a back, which he at least nominally is this year) after Jones and Armstrong combined for three in the bowl game. Phew.

13.5 Sacks by Julian Okwara

We were all pretty confident on this one, but it didn’t go so well. 13.5 would’ve been the Notre Dame single-season record, topping Justin Tuck’s 13.0 in 2003. Okwara said preseason that his goal was 18.5, a number he thought he could’ve hit last year if he finished better at the quarterback. He just about single-handedly turned around the Virginia game, when he was unblockable in the second half, but other than that his year was a bit of a disappointment statistically. He went down to injury against Duke, as we touched on above, and finished the season with 5.0 sacks and and 7.0 TFLs in 8+ games. Teams worked hard to avoid him, so that explains part of it, but it never quite seemed like he got on track anyway. His eligibility is done now, so he’ll look to fulfill his potential at the next level.

13.5 Havoc Plays Generated by Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah

44% of you and 40% of the staff took the over. The rest of you slept on this freakishly athletic bringer of doom. Wu finished well over this line, with 22.5 havoc plays – 13.5 TFLs, 4 passes defensed, 3 hurries, and 2 forced fumbles. He’s tailor-made for the rover position and, despite his greenness, is producing there at an uncommon rate for Lea/Elko defenses.

1.5 Interceptions by Kyle Hamilton

Kyle scoffs at the 41% of you and 30% of the staff who doubted him. Not only did he top this line but he led the team with 4 INTs, which is in a multi-way tie for the third best performance of the Kelly era; Harrison Smith (2010) and Manti Te’o (2012) each had a season with 7 INTs. I like Hamilton’s chances to top that in the next couple of seasons.

3.5 Single-Score Margin Games

65% of you and 68% of us took the over here, with most expecting the defense to slide back more than it did. We ended up just under, with Georgia (sigh), USC, and Virginia Tech falling into this category.

2.5 Meaningful Appearances by Phil Jurkovec

83% of you and 75% of the staff took the under, and wisely so as the actual number is zero. Phil has been a 20/20 guy, only coming in when the Irish are up 20 or down 20 (sadly, we have a data point for the latter part).

3.5 Games Played by Kevin Austin

82% of you and 50% of the staff took the over here, days before unofficial word of a season-long suspension came out. There were rumors for a while that he was on some kind of double-secret probation and would return at some point, but those were repeatedly shot down by the more respected sources around the program. Through the bowl game now and still with no sign of him anywhere but on the scout team, I think we have our answer.

As for 2020…

3.5 Penalties for Kickoffs Out of Bounds

59% of you and 44% of the staff took the over. Doerer, who struggled with this quite a bit last year, had just two go out of bounds this year and one of those has an asterisk. The first came against New Mexico and was your garden variety kickoff out of bounds. The second actually stopped near the sideline against Virginia Tech, and the Hokie return man made an extremely heads-up play to lie down with his feet on the sideline and grab the ball – by rule, that’s the same as the ball going out of bounds. Rule book vagaries aside, Doerer has been far more consistent than anyone expected him to be and deserves a ton of credit for that.

∞ Times Irish Fans Will Mutter “Shut up, Doug”

82% of readers and 95% of staff made the mathematically impossible choice here, which was smart because despite the impossibility of it the over hit. Trust me.

0.5 Viral Memes Featuring Brian Kelly

73% of you and 70% of the staff took the over, which is sad because BK was completely meme-free this year. Booooo.

Prop Bets

Notre Dame will have a 1,000 yard rusher in 2019.

84% of readers and 80% of the staff said no; that looked like a good play early, a bad play in the middle, and a super good play as the regular season wore down. The Irish’s leading rusher entered the bowl game needing 278 yards to hit this mark so there was little suspense regarding what would happen here, although he made it a bit interesting with the aforementioned 84-yard scamper. Jones finished the season with 857 yards on the ground.

At the halfway point of the season, Jones had just run for 176 yards against a pretty good USC front and was on pace for about 1,200 yards on the year. Then he got banged up against Michigan, sat out against Virginia Tech, and saw limited action against Duke and Navy while he worked his way back to full strength. Jones had 557 yards through the first six games of the regular season, just 165 over the next six, and 135 in the bowl game.

In addition to Jones’s injury issues, Smith fought a sprained toe and Flemister wasn’t quite ready, physically or mentally, to become an every-down back. Ian Book actually led the team in carries (by a bit) and rush yards (by a very wide margin) in the final six regular season games; I’m not sure people truly appreciate just how much was on his shoulders in November, even taking into account that he saw some soft defenses. Non-backs provided the lion’s share of the ground-based stress on our November opponents: Book, Lenzy, and Keys accounted for 465 rushing yards on 59 carries in November, while the rest of the roster accounted for 488 yards on 127 carries.

As noted earlier, it’s been a weird year for the running backs.

Notre Dame will have a 1,000 yard receiver in 2019.

74% of readers and 80% of staff took the over here, and Claypool rewarded that faith. He squeaked past the marker with a literal MVP performance in the bowl game, recording 7 catches for 146 yards and 1 TD (should’ve been 7 for 147 and 2 TDs, but I digress) to end up with 1,037 yards on the season. That makes him Notre Dame’s first 1,000 yard receiver since Will Fuller in 2015. Well done, Chase. Well done.

The Notre Dame defense will record its first shutout since September 6, 2014.

39% of you and 30% of the staff thought the Irish would blank someone for the first time since Max Redfield made the best play of his career and got flagged for it to take a touchdown off the board (so very Max). Notre Dame did in fact shut down the team that employs the architect of that previous shutout and came very close to two more down the stretch as well – Duke and Boston College each mustered a single touchdown with the help of some fluky plays. Against Duke, Bramblett had a very rare shank to give the Blue Devils excellent field position; they got almost 30% of their day’s passing yardage output (29 of 102) on a single play shortly after, when Donte Vaughn stumbled making a cut and lost his man. Against Boston College, the Eagles improbably “ripped” off a 16-play, 84-yard drive that included five third down conversions and a single play that accounted for nearly two-thirds of their day’s passing yardage output (40 of 63) (!) on a coverage bust.

So what I’m saying is, the D did good.

Jon Doerer will be less accurate than Justin Yoon but top Yoon’s career long.

This perfecta hit a backdoor non-cover (or something). Doerer easily topped Yoon’s career FG percentage, 85.0% to 80.8%. So very wrong on that count. He also just barely missed topping Yoon’s career long, rather choosing to match it with that 52 yarder against USC. 77% of readers and 80% of the staff took “no” on this one and probably didn’t envision it working out the way it did, but them’s the breaks.

Notre Dame will have a top 20 S&P+ offense and defense.

55% of you and 75% of the staff thought this would hit. The Irish entered the bowl game on the cusp, with the offense ranked 20th and the defense ranked 25th. We’ll have to wait a bit for the final SP+ rankings to come out, but with a 7.0-4.6 yards per play advantage and most if not all of the game not technically consisting of garbage time, it’s a pretty safe bet that both rankings will improve. I doubt the defense will make it all the way to the top 20, but I think we’ve fulfilled the spirit of this line if not the letter.

Notre Dame will head to Palo Alto in playoff contention.

57% of you and 50% of the staff believed this would hold true, including me, and sadly this was very, very wrong. Not only did the nature of the Michigan loss knock Notre Dame from any kind of remote playoff contention, it buried the Irish behind every other two-loss Power 5 team in the committee’s eyes. Something clicked and you started waxing people down the stretch, you say? DM, UM. Turns out that Virginia and Navy might actually not be bad? DM, UM. That you have more wins against currently ranked teams than Alabama has even played? DM, UM. Rough, but then don’t get beat down horrifically in a marquee matchup.

Notre Dame’s highest-ranked end-of-season win (not counting a potential bowl game) will be Michigan/the field.

67% of you and 80% of us took the field, which was in fact a smart play. The highest ranked win will most definitely be the field, but it might be hard to determine who exactly it is.

#22 USC is going to fall out of the rankings after getting punked in the second half against #16 Iowa. #24 Virginia plays #9 Florida in the Orange Bowl and would vault both USC and Navy if they somehow pull off that win, but that seems rather unlikely. #23 Navy is the best chance remaining at a ranked win; they’re a slim favorite over Kansas State on New Year’s Eve. Fingers crossed.

And that puts a bow on the 2019 preseason predictions. It was a great year with frustrating moments that leaves quite a bit of hope for better things next year. In the words of Wesley Crusher, closet… uh… Notre Dame fan: