There’s an old quote attributed to Lou Holtz that sums up fans insatiable desire for more that goes: “First they told me we didn’t win enough, so we won more. Then they said we didn’t win them all, so then we went out and won them all. Then they said we weren’t winning by enough.”
In many ways, Ian Book is the perfect quarterback for this late-era Brian Kelly program at Notre Dame. He’s been a big part of the post-2016 turnaround injecting a level of stability at the position that has been more than welcomed, helped the team to a playoff run last year, and possibly leads a lot more success this season.
Yet, fans are itching for more.
That eagerness for something better when you’re getting close and can taste greatness just around the corner is identifiable for most fans. It’s why I’ve been more critical than most of the recruiting at Notre Dame–it just needs to get better in order to truly enter the next (or final?) stratosphere of college football. Eventually, fans will get tired of banging their head against the wall even if the current level is better than all but 7 or 8 other programs.
With this in mind–of wanting more and needing something better offensively–do we dare say these words? Should we be happy if Ian Book decides not to return next season?
Be careful what you wish for, Irish fans! When I look ahead to 2020 I can’t think of a bigger story line than Ian Book returning for a 3rd year of starting. From what I’ve seen to date I’m not really excited to start over at the quarterback position.
That’s not to say I refuse to see the frustration. Notre Dame needs a game changer at the quarterback position, Ian Book hasn’t delivered to that level, so why be upset if he moves on? We typically think this way with every other position on the field so why not quarterback?
Of course, this whole idea assumes Phil Jurkovec will be as steady as Book, and even if he’s a little less efficient early on in 2020 (ND should open 4-0 regardless of quarterback the schedule is that easy) at least he provides a perceived higher ceiling with better running and a bigger arm. Jurkovec offers a sense of hope (as does any backup who fans think is really talented) in a way Book cannot right now. There’s also a belief with Book out of the way it’ll afford Jurkovec the reps necessary to reach his potential quicker in addition to making the 2021 and 2022 teams stronger with an extra year of Jurkovec’s development.
IB12 taking it in with the corner boost for the calculated W.#GoIrish ☘️ @Gatorade pic.twitter.com/2Pbm21D6wb
— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) October 15, 2019
This isn’t exactly crazy talk. Jurkovec may be a superstar-in-waiting who steps into the starting role and breaks Notre Dame through in the big games against the top 10 programs in the country.
I’d bet against it though and would still much rather have Book come back for his final year with the Irish because if Jurkovec really is that good he will eventually prove it whether Book is here or not, and I’d rather have Book here as insurance. My perception is also colored by two important factors:
1) I haven’t seen enough from Jurkovec to put all my eggs in his basket. He’s still largely just an idea, not a concrete reality. He’s surrounded by way too many maybes. We can talk about his inexperience in a positive light but he hasn’t shown anything yet to think he’ll be a top college quarterback next year and I’d expect plenty of growing pains if he’s starting in the 2020 opener in Ireland.
2) I don’t buy that this program is really that close to gridiron glory. Or at least that that things are so close that it necessitates moving on from Book or putting most of the blame on him for why the program can’t turn the corner. I might feel different if Jurkovec was like Tua or Trevor Lawrence but he’ll be entering year 3 soon and has been given plenty of time to show himself as that type of generational quarterback.
There is a catch to all this, though.
Should the Irish defeat Michigan this Saturday night and Book looks anywhere in the range from serviceable to great he’ll be in a position as The Guy that wouldn’t be quite unassailable but it’ll be damn close. If Notre Dame gets past Michigan then Ian Book has a good shot at a career 20-2 record as starter by the end of the regular season and with a bowl win could bump up his starting winning percentage to .913 which would surpass Tony Rice for second-best in Irish history.
Maybe that makes Book much more likely to try a shot at a pro career this January but if he’s holding up the large trophy with oranges in a couple months I don’t know how you wish him well and want him to leave.
However, a loss to Michigan could weirdly flip things dramatically especially if Book doesn’t play well. Then you could look at his record and say he’s beaten 8 teams from 14 career wins who were .500 or worse (or currently .500 or worse) and his 3-3 record against ranked teams (kindly including the LSU bowl win) doesn’t feature wins against anyone better than No. 15th in the country.
Is it fair to say the Michigan game could be a tipping point for Ian Book?
Win and there will be a lot of good feelings around the program. Lose, and not only do you feel the ignominy of being defeated by Michigan but the Year Two Brian Kelly Quarterback Regression debate likely kicks into high gear for the rest of the season.
Saturday night is also a monumental game for Brian Kelly and the program in general. We don’t need to cover how satisfying a win in Ann Arbor would be while sending Michigan reeling toward (at best) an 8-4 season and the Irish towards a major bowl game. With no other games scheduled in the series it adds another layer of intrigue to finish things off for Kelly on a high note with 3 straight wins and 4 out of the last 5 against Michigan.
Even though statistically speaking this is by far the most likely loss for the Irish from the remaining games a defeat nonetheless would sting considerably. Just like a poor performance from Book would begin to color his history differently, so too would a loss for Notre Dame as a program. Instead of “This is a really impressive and fun 3-year run where 34-5 is in play” it feels like a loss at Michigan could turn things towards a spiked level of frustration over losing big games, lack of post-season hardware, and a precious missed opportunity to lord superiority over weirdo Jim Harbaugh.
Nice article. Plain and simple Phil Jurkovec isn’t even close to being a better QB than Ian Book in 2019 and I doubt anything would change that for 2020, either if both of them had a truly open hypothetical position battle. Book may be no more than a game manager, but he’s a very effective one that has done pretty well at producing yards and points (unlike, say Wimbush and Rees). I also think when dust settles and we analyze the loss of Armstrong and Kmet it will be more a feather to move the ball without top weapons in first half the season 2019..
My biggest fear is that Book is Notre Dame Shea Patterson, putting up good numbers against middling competition but not being able to rise to the level of better competition or develop year over year.
I agree with this idea. Our narrative right now is that we’re on an upward trajectory, and getting ever closer to becoming a true powerhouse at the highest levels of college football. For years, we’ve been decent, but since the end of 2016, there’s been a push to not settle for “decent”. If we lose at Michigan, we’ll still be decent. But, the upward trajectory narrative will definitely be sidelined.
I so want to win on Saturday night. Go Irish!
I find it interesting that the two QBs in recent history that have been marked improvements from their predecessor were ones that the fan base were NOT calling for.
Zaire was supposed to be a better EG – he was not.
Kizer was supposed to be skipped over to the new shiny BW – Kizer ended up clearly better than Zaire.
BW was supposed to still be shiny, even if not new – we saw how that turned out.
Book was the 3 star that no one wanted to switch to – except Murtaugh who clearly is smarter than the rest of us
Now Book is “not good enought”…
I think the tendency is to look at the Lawrences and Tuas of the world and say what if we have one of those in hiding. Newsflash: the Lawrences and Tuas don’t hide, they’re so good they force their coaches to supplant the incumbent with the new player. If we had one of those, it wouldn’t require fan clamoring to get him on the field.
Excellent point. Though hopefully in 2021 it’s not Clark as the starting QB because Jukovec doesn’t fare well, which would seem to be the next step in this type of evolution.
But to your last point, who is the next Tua for ND? Are we waiting until 2021 and hoping Buchner lives up to immense hype? (Which I mean, by definition a ton of highly rated high school QBs don’t even have good college careers)…Maybe some are very hopeful on Pyne but to me, it would seem the next potential gamebreaker/elite QB for ND might not be for quite a long while, unless Book does leave and Jurkovec makes a huge leap and basically plays to an absolute best case scenario while cleaning up mechanics and improving mightily, which obviously is a low-percentage grasper of a hope.
Yeah, that’s the thing is everyone wants the next Tua (hope springs eternal), but there’s no guarantee there will be one any time soon. These are the exception, and the rare exception at that, not the rule.
I saw some film of Buchner over the weekend. He’s really impressive. Arm and legs.
Thank God Buchner has limbs! How could he QB the team without legs and an arm?
😉
QB without legs or an arm to speak of…sir welcome to the Tommy Rees experience
I thought the Book TD at the end of the USC game was a scramble, watching the embedded video now I’m pretty sure it was a planned run… other’s thoughts?
Yes, I think he decided to run pre snap.
I think it was a called run. If you think about it in the context of the entire drive the only two passes were the third play of the drive, a 3rd and 7 completion to Kmet to move the chains, and a 1st and 21 completion to Kmet following the personal foul. The only other called pass was the 3rd and 10 Book scramble two plays prior to this. Other than those three plays the Irish had a TE lined up inline every play and ran the ball.
The Book run for the TD was on a 2nd and 5 from the 8 after a successful first down run, so the Irish had two or three downs to pick up five yards on the ground and then a further three or four to pound it in from the three. They came out spread for that play with only 18 yards to work with and no great reason to throw the ball.
The draw there was a great call. It prevented USC from bringing in a more heavy defensive package, and they only needed a couple yards to set up a third and short. Final evidence for it being a called draw is that TJJ comes out of the backfield with no intention of doing anything other than locking down the Mike, which would be both illegal and really bad strategy if it’s a pass play.
Yep, it was TJJ’s block that made me realize this was probably a run all the way.
So with a 5star WR and the #1 APB coming next year, as well as having a great shot at the #1 APB 2021, is that the recruiting improvement we need? Is Book a much better QB with a Fuller or Tate type at WR and a Home run hitter at RB?
Book waits until guys are open to make the throw. To beat 90% of college teams, that’s good enough. With our current weapons, I don’t think it would ever be good enough to beat the elite teams. Lawrence (last season) was throwing guys open, or at the very least, throwing before they came out of their breaks. I think 2018 Lawrence with our weapons would be good enough to keep you in a game with elite teams, but maybe not beat them.
If Book got multiple years with an elite WR, I think we would be talking about him as a completely different college player, as a guy who can beat the big dogs. I really think there have been very few times where he has missed an obviously open player (although I can name a couple this year); rather, his biggest problem (for me) has been his unwillingness to take a shot. If he had guys that were running great routes and getting open (see Kmet, Cole), I think we would be talking about a national title contender.
I’m still a bit convinced that Kelly has basically told him to NOT take those shots. To play it safe and hold onto the ball. Kelly really only goes purple Kelly after turnovers. If you’ve seen that time after time, you probably pretty quickly become more of a game manager, rather than the guy who took the shot to Miles Boykin in tight man coverage against LSU. That game manager, with this defense, can win 10 games per year. But can’t beat the elites.
tl;dr I think it’s 25% Book’s limitations, 50% the weapons around him, 25% the coaches saying play it safe.
I mean, maybe, but the whole offseason all we heard vis a vis Book was Long’s mild frustration with him taking check downs too often and pushing him to take more deep shots. In fact Long even spoke publicly about how he wanted Book to be more aggressive.
So I don’t think Book isn’t looking deep because the coaches told him not to. I think he just doesn’t see stuff as well deep or doesn’t trust what he sees, more likely.
I suspect that, on the plays that allow for a deep shot, he’s not seeing an open receiver because there isn’t one, most of the time.
I’ve seen a couple plays per game where there were deep shots open that he didn’t throw to, for whatever reason. Maybe he didn’t see them, maybe he didn’t trust what he was seeing or his ability to hit it.
Have you ever seen Brian Kelly explode on the sideline for a guy completing a 7 yard pass? The message that they might be saying to Book in practice is “throw it downfield,” but the message Kelly sends on the sideline during a game is “if you throw an interception I will end your life.” Those mixed messages can’t be fun!
With regards to the Michigan game I wish I shared Brendans optimism from his second half preview. To go up there and win (let alone win comfortably) would be awesome and would make November a lot of fun and frankly I think we would see ND go on a roll. Loving though would make November pretty blah and frankly I think we’d stumble again.
With regards to next year I think book returning is my preference and it’s not really close. Like another poster said, with better talent would he look better? I think definitely. And I think he’d be better and developing the younger talent than Jurkovec who could be backyard football and a lot. Book with this OL, Armstrong, Jones, Kmet, plus tyree, Johnson, hopefully Austin, Lenzy and keys and young seems like it should be pretty good. If book leaves I would want to pursue a transfer option for qb or as an insurance plan.
I’m not sold on Tyree and Johnson making an impact right away. Kyle Hamilton is the first true freshman I can remember really making an impact in a long time, and even he isn’t playing as a starter.
I agree, kelly doesn’t have a huge track record of freshman breakout players especially at skill spots but josh Adams has a big freshman year and Tolstoy was pretty involved. Freshman receivers though, hard time of thinking of anyone during kelly era. Then again no top 50 players at either position
Yeah true, although Adams didn’t break 50 yards against a team not named UMass until game 8. And with Tolstoy, one wonders if War and Peace would have been as highly acclaimed as it was, had it been published under its original title War, What Is It Good For.
I agree that Kelly typically favors experience. I also think a lot of it will have to do with the ability to be “complete” (do they block, can they learn the playbook, etc.). That said, with both Claypool and Finke moving on, there’s plenty of room for a freshman to compete. … Anyone know if either Tyree or Johnson will be early enrollees?
“War, what is or good for.” I learn so much in here.
It was certainly a “Crime” to change the title, for which Tolstoy should have been “Punished”.
You’re going to love my preview that’s going live on Friday.
Great insight on Book. I’m torn on who I want to be the QB next year. Part of me thinks Book will never be that guy that can take us to the next level. I’m hoping one or more of Jurkovec/Pyne/Buchner are.
It’s just impossible to know when things will click for a QB – we expect really clean, linear year to year development like Brady Quinn or Jimmy Clausen, but that just hasn’t been the norm in the BK era for a variety of reasons we know too well. Look at Joe Burrow’s stats from last year – he started miserably, over the last few games he made a leap, and now he’s the Heisman frontrunner! Alternatively, you have guys like Jake Browning who was good early in this career and never really improved.
Maybe I’m an optimist, but there’s enough good things from last season’s film and the Georgia game to make me think Book hasn’t reached his ceiling yet. This year there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit in terms of areas from improvement. They won’t make him Tua, but it could be enough to win 11 and a bunch next year, and with good enough talent around him and on defense you’re at least in the conversation even without a QB that is necessarily the “game-breaker” others have.
I think by the end of this year we’ll have a feel for Book’s ceiling and how dependent he is on his first read and talent around him. Hopefully to Eric’s point that allows Chip Long to perfect what that type of offense looks like, Book can show room for growth, and if God-willing someone more talented usurps him so be it.
It doesn’t have anything to do with BK, linear QB progression simply isn’t the norm for QBs (at least in efficiency).
These are the ratings by year for some of the biggest names at QB. These are only seasons where they started a significant amount of games (usually more than 8, or about 150+ pass attempts).
Recent Stars
Baker Mayfield (at OU) – 173, 196, 198
Danny Dimes – 126, 112, 131
Josh Allen – 144, 127
Dwayne Haskins – 173, 174
Lamar Jackson – 126, 148, 146
Deshaun Watson – 188, 156, 151
Marcus Mariota – 163, 167, 181
Jameis Winston – 184, 145
Braxton Miller – 138, 140, 158
AJ McCarron – 147, 175, 167
Andrew Luck – 143, 170, 169
Tim Tebow – 172, 172, 164
NFL Stars
Peyton Manning – 145, 146, 147, 147
Tom Brady – 133, 138
Drew Brees – 137, 130, 132
Big Ben – 146, 138, 165
Aaron Rodgers – 146, 154
Russell Wilson (at NCST) – 133, 147, 127
ND
BQ – 93 (woof), 125, 158, 146
Jimmy Clausen – 103, 132, 160
TFR (excludes JR year when he barely played) – 132, 133, 135
Golson – 131, 143
Kizer – 150, 145
Current Good P5 QBs
Tua – 199, 212*
Fromm – 160, 170, 152*
Lawrence – 157, 147*
Patterson (at UM) – 149, 131*
Ehlinger – 124, 146, 162*
Purdy – 169, 165*
Hurts (at UA) – 139, 150
Herbert – 148, 167, 144, 165*
Book – 154, 157*
Burrow – 133, 216*
Just eye balling this, I would say most QBs have maybe one big jump, but it’s generally pretty inconsistent. That said, most jumps are after their first year starting, I only see Mariota and Miller as being consistent for 2 years, then a big jump.
While I definitely agree with this assessment to an extent, I would note that comparing a college QBs efficiency year over year can be a major challenge because college schedule strength can vary so so significantly from year to year.
And yet this point is never considered (or a least brought up in my experience) when talking about ND QBs not progressing.
Very true. It takes a ton of context to actually decide whether a QB improved. Golson is a great example. His efficiency improved by 10%, but most people would probably say he regressed.
But, on the whole, I feel like these numbers are convincing enough to me that there is no consistent pattern.
Put me in the camp that wants Book back for sure. An experienced very good QB is a rare commodity.
I think we underrate how weak the playmakers are around him. I think our offense is mostly held back then by the skill positions rather than at QB even though I readily grant that if we had a top 2 QB he could overcome that lack.
I genuinely believe this team will have a legit shot at a national title in 2020 – as in, clearly one of the five best-looking teams going into the season, which really hasn’t been the case since 2006 – if Book, Kmet, Gilman, and Austin are all on the roster next year. But that requires Book coming back.
I’m a Jurk skeptic. Obviously he looked real bad in the spring game, but looking at his stats it’d seem like he’s over it. But, to my recollection, his throws have Wimbush-level bad ball placement on short completed passes, and the rotation on his passes is ugly-looking. There have been stories about how the coaches have now shifted to a focus on pass accuracy in recruiting (e.g., going hard after Pyne, who has a pretty weak arm), and I think that’s a response to Wimbush and Jurk. By contrast, Clark has looked pretty poised and accurate when we’ve seen him. I would not be surprised if he starts more games for ND than Jurk.