One of the things our writers discussed as I was putting together the 2010-16 run success rate for the Notre Dame running backs was what constituted success for other programs? How do we compare? What’s considered average? What’s considered top of the line? It was a good question and one that I felt needed to be addressed as a recap to this series.

But which teams to include?

Well, I chose Alabama because everyone loves to compare themselves to the Tide. Then, I chose a heavy pro-style team (Wisconsin) and a heavy spread team (Oregon) for balance and looked at some of their most successful seasons on the ground in recent memory. Here are the running back success rate results juxtaposed with Notre Dame since 2010:

Run Success & Explosiveness

The results fit with the educated guess we made based off looking at Notre Dame over the last couple months. That is, once you get into the high 50’s somewhere around 58% you’re probably entering the territory where the best rushing teams reside. Anyone over 60% is in elite company.

I found myself utterly fascinated with the Wisconsin 2014 running game. For one, they ran the ball as much as any pro-style team in recent memory–almost 100 more carries than the next closest pro-style offense (Georgia Bulldogs) that year. They rushed for 320 yards per game and Melvin Gordon finished a distant second in the Heisman Trophy voting to Marcus Mariota while also coming up just short* of Barry Sanders’ NCAA single-season rushing record.

*This may be the craziest stat from Gordon’s 2014 campaign: He fell 42 yards short of breaking Sanders’ single-season record and had only 3 successful carries out of 17 total against Western Illinois.

And yet, the Badgers run success rate wasn’t that great.

How does that happen? If you’ve been paying attention (or looked at Wisconsin’s rushing average for a hint) to this series the answer is simple: explosiveness.

Look at it this way, would you prefer an offense that was 60% in run success rate but above average in explosiveness or an offense 56% in run success but Top 15 in explosiveness? As much evidence as I’ve gathered for this project I can say you should definitely choose the latter offense. And it might not even be close.

The simple correlation is that explosiveness equals more scoring, and that’s the name of the game. The more long runs you rip off the more some will be touchdowns, or lead to easy field goals. Conversely, we Irish fans are well aware of an offense that is very good on a per play basis but succumbs to getting bogged down, having less success in the red zone, and settling for too many field goals. All brutal signs of a non-explosive run game.

I hope it’s not lost on anyone that Notre Dame went to the damn Fiesta Bowl with a VanGorder defense primarily because the offense was as explosive as its ever been under Kelly.

Wouldn’t a better run success rate cause less bogging down? Sure, but not as much as better explosiveness will allow you to score more points. Think about all of the times we’ve talked about Kelly’s offense, nearly everyone talks about the passing game having to be on point in order to open up the run game. The run game has never been explosive enough to open up things for the passing game except for maybe 2015.

In the 2014 and 2016 reviews readers asked why Kelly’s offense struggle so much on third (and fourth) and short. Yet, the Irish were just 0.1% less successful running the ball in those situations than Alabama over the last 3 years. People like to point to Notre Dame’s red zone problems but the Irish even finished ahead of the Tide in red zone touchdown percent last year.

Yes, but surely the 2014 Wisconsin offense (#10 S&P+ rushing team, by the way) was great in short-yardage situations, right? Come on, it’s pro-style with a fullback that rushed for almost 4,500 yards! The funny thing is they only converted 58.5% (24/41) of those opportunities which was 14.5% worse than Notre Dame’s 73.0% (19/26) success rate on 3rd & short in 2014.

It’s the perception that lingers. Despite evidence showing that a team like Alabama isn’t in some way enormously “tougher” in short-yardage they are still viewed that way by virtually the whole world. I’ve argue this perception is because explosiveness (and other team factors, primarily defense) disguises a lot of the short-yardage debate.

For example, from 2014-16 the Fighting Irish were right there with Alabama in short-yardage success rate but Notre Dame had 32(!!!) fewer carries from running backs of 20+ yards. The Irish only had 34 combined runs of 20+ yards from tailbacks in the 2014 & 2016 seasons, for more reference.

Now, let’s go back to 2014 Wisconsin to really hammer things home.

For 2014 the Badgers led the country in 20+ yard runs (57 overall, utterly insane) and also led the country in 30+ yard runs with 33 overall (even more insane). Those figures beat 2014 Notre Dame by 39 carries and 29 carries, respectively.

Just think about that explosiveness for a moment. Those 57 runs of 20+ yards are just 4 fewer than Notre Dame’s seasons over the last 3 years.

While researching for this article I came across Melvin Gordon’s NFL Draft profile and it stated he was stuffed (0 yards or loss of yards) on 19.2% of his carries. It’s so weird how from afar this Wisconsin run game gets all sorts of gritty labels and yet Gordon was the very definition of an always-kick-it-outside home run hitter. For example, his 52.8% success rate from 2014 was the exact same as C.J. Prosise from 2015.

More Carries for Backs

There’s been a lot of talk this off-season about Chip Long using Notre Dame’s running backs a lot more. Don’t hold your breath on a major increase. You can look above and Notre Dame flat out doesn’t use the running backs a ton.

Long’s lone season at Memphis saw the running backs get 335 carries on 964 snaps, or 34.7% of the time. Last year, the Irish ran the backs 274 times on 826 snaps, or 33.7% of the time. Kizer ran the ball a ton but Wimbush is bound to get quite a few carries, as well.

Additionally, don’t forget that you win to run.

As crazy as it sounds, the 2011 Oregon offense cited above ran the ball 58.8% of the time in the 1st quarter and then just 46.3% of the time in the second quarter. Of course, the Ducks also nursed heavy leads after 2 quarters and then ran the ball 70.3% and 73.9% of the time in the remaining 2 quarters thanks to an overall +300 point differential.

If Notre Dame’s defense doesn’t improve enough we’re not going to see any substantial increase in carries by the running backs. Fair warning!

Speed Kills?

Notre Dame’s offensive system has often been labeled as soft and lacking in toughness by its critics. Yet, I’m left wondering why we’ve seen 7 years worth of snaps and such poor explosiveness by the running backs. Do the Irish need better athletes in the backfield? Do they need more speed?

Here’s the 40-times for all of the backs who have cycled through South Bend under Kelly:

Gray 4.58
McDaniel 4.59
Wood 4.56
Atkinson 4.48
Allen 4.52
Riddick 4.68
Hughes 4.89
Prosise 4.48
Carlisle 4.46
Folston 4.75

Atkinson and Melvin Gordon are roughly the same size and yet the latter’s 40-time was slower at 4.52. However, Gordon was significantly better in the 20-yard and 60-yard shuttle. Gordon’s balance, acceleration, and ability to cut at top speed were otherworldly while GA3 really struggled in these areas.

By the way, Irish commit Markese Stepp recently reported a 4.49 time in the 40 at 220 pounds. Don’t expect that to be even close to accurate.  

Here’s what’s bothered me about Notre Dame’s running backs. This scheme should be leading to far more explosive runs and we have 7 years of evidence to the contrary. I feel like some of the backs gained too much weight, others weren’t fast enough, and a couple others packaged good speed with poor skills in other areas. Some of it has to be scheme and some of it has to be coaching, too.

We also haven’t seen many running backs get a lot of carries over a long period of time in order to develop. From the above list only Cierre Wood would qualify as someone who received a lot of carries over multiple years without injury. This is why I’m excited for Josh Adams. His first two years he’s displayed probably the best explosiveness of any Kelly era running back and he’s already carries the ball 275 times in his career.

Let’s hope the Irish can rip off more long runs in 2017 because it could do wonders for the offense and the team overall. If not, we can probably expect more of the same multi-loss season especially if the defense doesn’t take major steps forward.