This article last year had a lot of conflicting feelings as the entertaining and productive Kyren Williams was moving on to the NFL leaving behind a huge hole in the running backs room. But at the end of 2021 there were a lot of bad rushing stats left behind and Jeff Quinn was not retained under Marcus Freeman with Harry Hiestand brought back into the program as a steadying force.
With the change, we also believed the switch from a very immobile Jack Coan to a very mobile Tyler Buchner was going to immediately give the running backs a boost and open some things up. However, Buchner would have surgery on his shoulder and play in fewer than 3 full games.
Good news, the running game got much, much better in 2022 anyway!
Every season has a dud or two, though. Like the rest of the offense and team as a whole, the running backs didn’t get off to a promising start. There was also a really disappointing effort against Navy later in the season. In all of the other games, Notre Dame really picked up good to excellent performances from the running backs.
2022 Running Back Stats
| PLAYER | CARRIES | YARDS | AVERAGE | SUCCESS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Audric Estime | 156 | 920 | 5.90 | 59.6% |
| Logan Diggs | 165 | 822 | 4.98 | 52.7% |
| Chris Tyree | 100 | 444 | 4.44 | 52.0% |
| Gi’Bran Payne | 2 | 5 | 2.50 | 0.0% |
Note: I use the “old” advanced stat of measuring running success (40% of available yards on 1st down, 60% 2nd down, 100% on 3rd/4th down) because I’m not going back and re-calculating years worth of data. So, for most current success metrics these numbers are actually a bit kinder than you’ll see elsewhere. I generally think 52% (using my numbers) is the starting point for a good back unless you’re really explosive.
The top 3 backs all at 52% success rate or higher while carrying the ball at least 100 times is outstanding. Prior to 2022, only 11 running backs since 2010 had achieved that feat in a single season–or roughly one player per year. Being able to have 3 running backs do it in one year is a big achievement.
Audric Estime deserves special mention for his season, too.
Since we’ve been tracking this back to 2010, Estime’s success rate from this past season is the 2nd best performance for a tailback with at least 100 carries, trailing only the immortal Jonas Gray season from 2011 when he finished with a ridiculous 71.9% success rate. This would seem to back up the eye test with Estime–he should probably be a solid 1A option at running back heading into 2023.
In 2021, we expected the percentage of running back carries to spike with Coan under center and it did all the way to 71.4%. Amazingly, the Irish running backs received 79.5% of all the carries in 2022!
That does include only 3 starts with Buchner (the backs received 66.3% of the carries in those games) which means Tommy Rees and the offense really, really, really leaned on the running backs in Drew Pyne’s 10 starts. They didn’t even seem all that interested in help from the wideouts either with only 6 combined carries on the season.
Explosiveness does continue to be dismal, though.
Notre Dame only gained 19 rushing plays of 20+ yards in 2021 and that number fell to just 18 carries in 2022. Runs of 30+ yards fell even more from 9 in 2021 to only 4 in 2022.
Creating chunk plays is going to be the topic all off-season, both for the running backs and passing game with Sam Hartman assuming the starting role. Will Hartman’s proficiency in downfield throws open up lanes for the running game to do more damage? We’d like to think so but it doesn’t always seem to work out that way.
In a different offense at Wake Forest, it clearly did not work them. The Demon Deacons only gained 9 rushes of 20+yards in 2022, 8th worst among Power 5 teams! Can we blame the slow mesh?
Stoked for these numbers, thanks for the article. Curious, what was the longest rush for each back? The trio was definitely fabulous to watch this year, but I dont know if estime will ever be that guy who can go for more than 40 on one carry. That being said, my guess is his number of 10 yard runs would be higher just because he’s a human bulldozer. So like his bell curve graph of yards on a rush would be much tighter than say a chris tyree type, who felt more boom or bust.
I process all this in my mind as: what do you value more, consistency with less explosiveness, or higher variance but with home runs? Obviously, both would be great, the first college back that comes to mind who did that was travis etienne (eye test), but from an EPA and modern college football standpoint, I’m not sure what’s more advantageous.
I think given the passing games constraints this year, missing 30+yard home runs on the ground hurt (duh), but with an upgraded QB room next year and more bodies at WR, that may shift the running game focus towards consistency: avoid stuffs, keep downs and distance manageable, and that feeds the home run shots.
Also, it’s great to see such promising rushing stats from the season, especially with the passing game constraints. A strong oline played as such mostly, the backs made the blocks better, and the hiestand/rees/freeman culture focus of being maulers up front feels justified. And as a slightly more than casual observer, it did feel like this team ran a little meaner than most of the kelly squads. Itll be exciting to see more deep play action shots burn defenses to keep them in 2 high looks…. finally hopefully.
Longest Runs of 2022:
Diggs: 51 yards vs. BC
Estime: 46 yards vs. BYU
Tyree: 26 yards vs. BC
I value explosiveness more than consistency without bigger plays.
More stats!
10+ Yard Runs:
Estime: 31
Diggs: 18
Tyree: 11
20+ Yard Runs:
Estime: 7
Diggs: 6
Tyree: 1
Seems like the carries should be 60% Estime, 30% Diggs, and 10% Tyree/Other next year.
I feel like RB passing targets should be flipped for Diggs and Estime. Diggs averaged 21 yards on 10 catches! Estime was no slouch either, 15 ypc on 9 targets.
And then Tyree, as disappointing in the receiving game as in the running game. I would love to see what a healthy Jadarian Price can do as the explosive third back option on screens/jet sweeps/misdirections/two back sets etc.
Up until the bowl game I think the longest td run of the year was like 11 yards, which is just brutal.
What was the qb long run of the year? buchner against marshall and then against carolina? Not much help there.
Surprised tyree success rate that high, just disappointed that his long was 26 yards.
It’s kind of difficult to average under 4.5 y/c with a 52% success rate. I don’t think he was getting a lot of 3rd/4th and short carries. So that’s a lot of 4 yd runs on 1st down, and 3 yd runs on 2nd and 5. Crazy considering he’s so fast and goes down when someone sneezes near him.
If you had told me Tyree had a 4.4 yd avg, I would have thought his success rate would be around 35%.
He was weirdly (given his skill-set) pretty good at getting 5 yards on 1st down or 4 yards on 2nd & 6, and it felt like all of his carries were a variation of these type of plays.
Tyree has very good inside run vision, like I thought he always did a great job of setting up blocks and he had a power back execution on inside zone and duo. The real sticking point was his open field breaking tackles. I think this led to those effective shorter gains, but our fan perceived schtick for him was home run 80 yards running away from people.
Is there a way to check yards after contact? I would be really interested to see Estime’s stat in that, and how it relates to the field.
Good article! Really like Estime and happy the coaches didn’t punish him too much for the early fumbleitis.
Also, with those explosiveness numbers/long run of 26 yards, plus Price coming back I think we can definitively say: Tyree should probably play slot receiver next year.
If you’re Chris Tyree, you should probably play at a different school next year. Don’t see much upside for him to stick around, getting passed up by better players. Not saying he will, but from his perspective, I don’t see why he would stick around in what’s going to be a limited role in 2023 at WR or RB..
You’re probably right – assuming he can get his degree by May, he’s probably best-off not playing at ND next year assuming he wants to get a lot of touches in his senior season. OTOH, he has a 0% chance of making the NFL as a running back, and he would provide a body type at the slot that ND otherwise does not have. If he had a surprisingly good year in the slot – unlikely, for sure, but not no chance – he could have a chance to get a shot at the NFL. And not sure where he would be better-placed to do that than ND.
But, to your point – he might get like 25 touches all year next year if he sticks around. So maybe not the best decision.
Yeah, I think so too. The way I look at it is ND had, what, like 4 or 5 healthy scholarship receivers at some points of this season? They didn’t do much explore using him as a receiver in the last 12 months, I don’t see how or why the next 12 are going to be that much different on that front. And didn’t he have a couple of really costly and unfortunate drops too?
I see the reason for intrigue to try and find a spot on the field where you would think with his speed if you can get him the ball in space he can create some big plays, but at the same time, it’s kinda been a disappointment overall to not put it all together maybe as well as hoped.