In a score line no one will remember or frankly paid attention to the gold team beat the blue team 27-17 on Saturday afternoon in the 88th annual Notre Dame spring game. As usual, a running second half quickly finished the scrimmage and packed the majority of the action into the first two quarters.
Let’s review our little bit of official Notre Dame football action…
Wimbush Holds His Own
I thought Brandon Wimbush was okay. In the big picture he looked and felt like a veteran quarterback in terms of how he ran the offense. The offense moved pretty quickly at times and it was nice to see him working things pretty seamlessly.
You can tell the talent is in full abundance for Wimbush. He had a very healthy 9.4 yards-per-attempt (303 yards on 32 attempts) while not really ever getting into the rhythm and I wouldn’t say the defense played so terribly that they made it easy on Wimbush, either.
Here are 3 throws that show why Wimbush is going to do some damage in the fall:
The first throw really flashes Wimbush’s natural arm strength. He’s entirely flat-footed after a half pump fake and just flings the ball 25 yards like it’s nothing. The accuracy with such ease is probably just as impressive.
The offense ran a ton of bootlegs for both quarterbacks and in the second GIF you can see Wimbush’s big arm on display. You almost take for granted that the ball travels 45 yards and across a quarter of the field. It’s not the most accurate ball but it’s a nice, safe throw and easy decision process.
The third throw (from under center!) was the highlight of the day for Wimbush. Although, if the quarterback is live then linebacker Jonathan Jones probably breaks this play up it’s still a ridiculous throw from the Irish quarterback.
On the critical side, Wimbush was far too patient in the pocket and pretty sloppy with his reads. Then again, this has typically been a hallmark of all starting quarterbacks in the spring game. They know they’re not live and won’t get killed so they take the extra time looking for the big play.
Still, allowing 7 sacks–or one every 4.5 snaps–is really, really bad. Wimbush should be able to use his athleticism to escape some of the two-hand touch sacks but still. Sacks were a really big problem last year for Chip Long and Memphis (35 surrendered, t-106th nationally) and I’m curious to see how big of a problem this will be for the Irish in an offense that, at least so we’re told, will be relying heavily on the running backs. Getting off schedule won’t help that plan and will only necessitate throwing the ball more often.
For what its worth there were 29 rushing attempts from running backs and 59 passes attempted in the spring game.
Wimbush also threw a really bad pick in the end zone, while a second pick (see below) was just a great play from the defense. He was also super close from throwing another bad pick to Grier Martini, as well.
Book Excels
In terms of size, Ian Book looks like a smaller running back under center that’s about to take a wildcat snap or something. Other than that, he looked pretty damn good. It was tough to tell in such a short game but Book’s athleticism probably won’t be a huge part of his game and that’s okay. However, his skill-set as a passer is far better than I believed.
Book’s ability to push the ball down field was really impressive and he finished with a bit of an outrageous 12.6 YPA on 22 attempts. There were a handful of throws in the spring game where he looked far more advanced for someone his age. The reviews coming out afterward have been all spot on–technically Book looked better than Wimbush and although it’d be silly to read much into that at least he’s showing himself to be a worthy No. 2 quarterback.
Offense Quick Hits
Josh Adams had a very Josh Adams-esque touchdown run for 25 yards but really didn’t do much besides that–just 14 yards on his 7 other carries. Tony Jones (45 yards on 8 carries) looked pretty good. No doubt, Dexter Williams (98 yards on 10 carries) stole the show. I was a bit disappointed to see McIntosh only receive 3 carries.
Pretty solid day for most of the pass catchers. A full 11 players caught at least one pass of 10+ yards and 7 players caught at least one pass of 25+ yards. The emergence of Miles Boykin this spring really manifested itself during the Blue-Gold Game as he led everyone with 102 receiving yards.
The pass protection kind of seemed awful overall–11 sacks against both quarterbacks is bad no matter how you slice it. We’ll see if it means anything for the fall. I’m betting most aren’t too worried.
Frustrating Safeties
The first Wimbush interception was my favorite play of the entire spring game because of the safeties! Converted corner Nick Coleman makes a heck of a play here. He backpedals to just inside the 20-yard line, diagnoses the route, and explodes into the receiver with perfect timing.
Fellow safety Jalen Elliott is also right there to pick off the tipped ball! Two safeties doing good things on a single play! We’re turning a corner, everybody!
God, this was so nice to see. Stuff like this makes you think the defense really has the chance to turn around in a big way in year one of Mike Elko.
Unfortunately, Josh Adams’ touchdown run highlights why there’s still a long way to go on the back end. You can see it in the official highlights at the bottom of this post. Elliott comes up at the line of scrimmage and gets absolutely shaken out of his cleats. Coleman gets a chance further down field to stop the bleeding with a free shot on Adams and whiffs on the tackle. Touchdown.
DTR (Drue Tranquill Rover)
In the interception above you can see why I’m not crazy about Tranquill as a Rover covering receivers. Technically, that’s a tight end. Just one cut and Tranquill gets left in the dust in a small space. I think the coaches can say they’ll rotate in Bilal or Crawford when he’s healthy in passing situations but the truth is the game is never that cut and dry. We’re going to see Tranquill put in these situations in pass coverage and lose more than he wins.
The positive side is that while Tranquill struggles in these quick bursts of changing direction he’s equally effective coming down hill with authority. I’d imagine this ability is more than enough to off-set some of his disadvantages as a bit of a clunky hybrid safety.
That’s a heck of an impressive job by Tranquill of getting behind the line of scrimmage and closing down on the running back for the TFL. He also added another tackle for loss later in the game.
By the way, can Jay Hayes get a high five!?!??
Defense Quick Hits
It was tough for me to get a handle on the backups, although I felt like Isaiah Robertson was among the best. That’s a good thing for Robertson but probably a bad sign for the defense overall.
We should credit the defense for its 18 tackles for loss in the game. Still a bit weird given the Irish offensive line should be the best positional group, but still. To put that number into perspective it would be a Kelly era high but a wide margin. In fact, Notre Dame has only had 10+ tackles for loss in a game 3 times since Kelly arrived.
If Daelin Hayes is even half as effective as he was in the spring game he’s probably on one of the All-American lists following the season. I’m pretty sure most of his work (team high 7 solo tackles, 3 sacks, 4 TFL) came in the first half.
Random Notes
Give thanks that there weren’t any major injuries. Freshman tackle Aaron Banks went down with a scary looking roll up job and thankfully it doesn’t appear to be long-term.
Doug Flutie is the most generic color guy in the business. We’ve fixed the play-by-play woes in the NBC booth but can’t get a quality two-man team together. Flutie essentially talks about 3 things on every broadcast: 1) Talking points directly from pre-game meetings with coaches 2) super general comments on the action 3) mostly uninteresting stories from his playing days. If you’re reading this you probably follow the Notre Dame program to a great enough degree that Flutie has never said anything you didn’t already know. Maybe he’s great for someone who literally doesn’t read anything about the Irish for 5 months at a time?
Here’s an updated look inside Notre Dame Stadium. @SBTribune pic.twitter.com/a91NZr471M
— Robert Franklin (@TheRobFranklin) April 22, 2017
I know Downinthebend is itching to break down some of the new intricacies of the Irish offense displayed in the spring game under new OC Chip Long. While that will be fun to read I’m not sure we’re going to see something that for the average fan looks all that different from past Kelly offenses. A few years ago, TCU went from a spread offense to a full-throttle air raid. It might not have been a complete 180 for the Frogs but it was markedly different. The Irish will probably be making something akin to a 15 or 20 degree turn, and that includes going under center 1% of the time instead of 0.01% of the time.
CLICK HERE FOR CONDENSED 20-MINUTE BLUE-GOLD GAME
How little are special teams covered during the spring? Apparently Justin Yoon “missed” (he dressed in gear for practice but may not have kicked much) all of spring nursing his knee tendinitis and I just found out after the Blue-Gold Game. It wasn’t a bad day in the office for senior walk-on kicker Sam Kohler who looks like he’ll be about as good of a 3rd option as you can get assuming incoming freshman Jonathan Doerer ascends to the backup spot immediately.
Is it fair to say the defensive line looked a little better than expected on Saturday? One guy I was anxious to see was Micah Dew-Treadway and I didn’t see much–he didn’t even end up on the score sheet. This defense really just needs to find 6 quality bodies at minimum on the line and coming out of spring I’m not sure we learned a whole lot. Not a great sign.
It looks official that Alize Jones has adopted his step-father’s name and will be Alize Mack now.
The only tight end to not have a catch in the spring game was freshman Brock Wright. Not a big deal of course, but it does point out that he probably won’t really need to play this fall. However, he could be needed big time next year and is likely to get his feet wet in 2017. Just don’t expect a huge impact.
I get a chuckle out of the people thinking they can tell if the players are bigger or smaller while they wear all this equipment on television. You can’t tell either way!
If Boykin can truly be relied upon as, let’s say a dependable 4th receiver with 40-catch ability, that unit is in great shape after spring. However, you can tell just how electric Stepherson can be and just how much more playmaking he adds to the team off a few catches in the spring game. He’s someone Wimbush definitely will need this fall.
To my untrained eye, I thought there were three things to take away from the game:
1) Book is going to be a fine backup for the next 3-4 years. I was worried about QB depth this year especially, but now not so much.
2) Our defense would be pretty good if all they had to do to sack a quarterback was get close enough to touch him.
3) Jack Swarbrick is willing to straight-up lie to the American people on national television, as he referred to Flutie as “the best analyst in college football.”
I’m sure Fr. Jenkins was on standby for a special impromptu confessional for Swarbrick following that interview.
Kiss of death for Flutie ☠️
Bring Mayock back!
Watching on TV, I definitely thought the hit by Coleman on the interception came early and should have been interference. I can’t tell from the gif though.
Have we gotten any update on the Stepherson situation? For a while, weren’t there reports that he was injured? Because he sure looked completely healthy during the game. If he isn’t a starter, he needs to be seeing more reps than any other backup on the roster at any position. He’s just so explosive.
Wimbush almost looked like he had the opposite problem that our recent QBs have had; he looked too hesitant to take off and run. I’m going to guess that was partially because it was the spring game, but I could see the coaches also telling him not to run much this season, since there isn’t much QB depth. He’s such a greater runner, so I’d hate to see them limit him there. Then again, I really don’t want there to be any situation where Avery Davis is getting snaps in an important game this year.
It also has to be tougher to run when the defense is playing one-hand touch on the QB. I believe there was a play where a hole opened up in the front of the defense and Ian Book took off, but was “tackled” when one of the d linemen was able to get a finger on him as he ran past. In a game situation, he probably gets a first down on that run.
That seemed to be the case for Wimbush as well, even more so as you’d expect him to be able to power a bit more than 5-foot-nothing Book. They blew the whistle any time anyone go within a breath of those guys, and you could tell they’d have had some yardage had it been real. It wasn’t hesitation, it was the format.
Would you guess book weighs about a hundred pounds nothing as well?
Stepherson has had a legitimate nagging hamstring injury that has kept him out some but obviously wasn’t an issue Saturday. He missed the open practice the other day to be at his sentencing for the Kokomo Five incident – that’s the “personal matter” Kelly referred to in the post-practice press conference.
Nothing official or even leaked has come out to explain his exact status with the team, but… From open practice reports he has not by any stretch had a sharp spring, and I think it might be fair to assume that he needs to get his poop together before he’ll be a bigger part of the offense. Last year he had to play even though he had the occasional mental breakdown, this year the staff has other options and he needs to step it up.
One other note on Stepherson – his long catch from Book came against a walk-on corner. He certainly showed us some stuff last year, but it’s worth pointing out that he was going against a third-stringer on that route.
I think a previous article mentioned Stepherson and court. What is the deal with that?
Also, I take 0 things away from the B-G game, but I’m not sure there is anyone out there that was disappointed to see 11 sacks. Probably lots of people disappointed to see 50+ passes.
And thank you for the link to the condensed B-G game! Really appreciate that.
Agreed on the sacks. I’m not worried about the pass/run ratio from the B&G game. The RBs and OL are a fairly well-known commodity. The QBs and WRs, not as much – in spite of the latter two being a talented group. The B&G game isn’t really a warm-up for the season as much as it is one last chance at some reps for players and to show off for the fans. For that matter, I like that they showed up what looks to be a deep and dangerous WR corps, especially after last year’s young group and underachieving veterans struggled to pick up where Fuller left off. Saturday was a good chance for this group to show off and build up some swagger. And if future opponents see the B&G game film and roll safeties to help with our giant WRs, all the better for when the RBs get their carries in real-game situations in the fall.
I don’t care about the play calling the in B-G game, or anything other than injuries. The run/pass ratio was a comment on the general opinions of the ND fan base.
And you are probably correct in your assessment of the fanbase.
Luckily, we here at 18S are a much more refined gathering of fanatics.
#troof
By the way – if you didn’t happen to notice it on the YouTube channel, our own Downinthebend does the condensed game footage we use here. Yuuuuuge service to the ND fan base [drink!].
“11 sacks” When they blow the ball dead when any D lineman looks at a QB, I’m going to curb my enthusiasm. The D line needs to show it against a real team. It is what it is.
I don’t think that anyone who follows ND enough to actually watch the B-G game is enthused about the DL. But still doubt you can find someone disappointed in 11 sacks.
LEMME TELL YOU I USED TO BE ON THE SAINTS WITH DREW BREES AND WE’RE BOTH SHORT QUARTERBACKS AND
/entire offensive series goes by
He played with a tall guy in the CFL.
Flutie is a ladies’ hygiene product, that makes them feel fresh and clean.
Just watched that 20 minute cut up. Really can’t thank you enough Downinthebend.
My only comment on the game is that we didn’t look sloppy. Sure plenty of missed tackles and blocking assignments. But very few drops, poor ball handling, poor block reading, penalties, botched snaps, unrushed throws into totally empty space, completely blown coverages. These are all things I expected to see more of during a spring game.
That doesn’t necessarily mean anything other than the game was much more enjoyable to watch than most spring games (never going past 2nd string QB probably helps).
My one real takeaway was at least Book looked confident, decisive and like he understands the offense and how to operate it. I had no idea what to expect from him, and I mean I’m not trying to oversell his importance but my default for an unknown, young QB is that he probably stinks. Of course, this wasn’t a real pressure of a game and he didn’t have to worry about getting hit, but I just feel better about the backup QB situation now.
And, boy Adams is good but I don’t think there’s any way that Williams and Jones can get enough touches during the season. Fun to watch those guys get the ball.
What was that big rectangular thing, on top of the wall at one of the end zones? 😂
They should have turned it on as a surprise for the players and blasted whatever the hottest song of the day is for pregame warmups. I’m sure that would have gone over REALLY well among the whole fanbase. (More importantly, recruits woulda loved it though).
Technical note: very often this site doesn’t update or reload or whatever (that’s technical talk) on pc for me. For example, I never saw the review of the BG game yesterday. It would refresh and have the preview of the game as the lead story still. I use Firefox and this is the only site with that kind of issue. Just passing that along to whomever is your tech expert.
For example, right now the Chuck Long and Big Board stories do not appear on the pc, but I can see them on an iPad.
I have had that issue as well (and also using Firefox); although, I am getting both new stories, so it is not happening for me right now. No clue why.