It’s been seven straight weeks of football and three consecutive games against ranked, undefeated foes but the show must go on. The unstoppable march of history waits for no one, and as much as Notre Dame would probably love an off-week that’s just not an option. Following a demoralizing loss to Louisville, the Irish will attempt to rebound and enter the BYE with momentum. The only problem is that they have to go through USC and Caleb the Tormentor, no easy task by any stretch of the imagination.
#10 USC at #21 Notre Dame (-2.5)
Notre Dame Stadium
South Bend, Indiana
Date: Saturday, October 14, 2023
Time: 7:30 PM ET
TV: NBC
| Advanced Stats | Irish | Trojans |
| FEI Offense | 20th | 7th |
| F+ Offense | 19th | 2nd |
| FEI Defense | 15th | 86th |
| F+ Defense | 11th | 69th |
| FEI Overall | 12rd | 15th |
| F+ Overall | 13th | 11th |
USC’s Offense
So, we meet again Mr. Caleb Williams. Williams transferred in to USC last year and was instantly the best quarterback in the nation, winning the Heisman and all that jazz. In the process, he made the Irish defense look utterly incompetent in the Coliseum, ducking under sacks and toying with Notre Dame’s front seven for most of the night. I know, it’s not fair that Lincoln Riley imported a team of All-American mercenaries and skipped all of the hard work of roster building but this is the new norm in LA. Prepare for this every time we play USC for as long as Riley isn’t NFL-curious.
SC’s star QB has some new toys to play with this year and of course most of them are fellow portal travelers. USCe transfer Marshawn Lloyd has had a great season for USCw so far, rushing for 519 yards at nearly 8 yards per carry. He has taken most of the carries from backup Austin Jones whom you might remember gashing ND’s defense last year for 154 yards. Lloyd is a short, stocky runner with better acceleration than you might expect and the Irish front seven are smarting after allowing a season-best performance by Louisville’s Jawhar Jordan.
USC usually has elite talent at wide receiver and this team is no exception. Tahj Washington and Brenden Rice are the bell cows with a combined 890 yards and 12 touchdowns so far this year. By comparison, Chris Tyree and Jayden Thomas have combined for 521 yards and three touchdowns. Mario Williams is a good third option (who would probably be WR1 for the Irish) while freshman speedster Zachariah Branch is a terror in the open field. To give you an idea of how Lincoln Riley built this offense, every single player I’ve mentioned so far is a transfer with the exception of Branch (who is questionable with an injury). Welcome to the modern era of college football, ushered in first by Riley before Coach Prime stole the spotlight.
The arrival of three transfers on the offensive line has solidified a good starting lineup. Left Tackle Jonah Monheim is the best one here and is a good player in pass protection. Right tackle is another story, as Florida transfer Michael Tarquin struggled to begin the year before being benched last week. He was replaced by Mason Murphy who was nothing special last season, so this is a situation to monitor. It’s worth noting that this dicey situation on the offensive line still hasn’t mattered so far for the nation’s 2nd ranked offense by F+.
USC’s Defense
USC’s defense cost the Trojans a spot in the playoff last year and there was a lot of hope in LA that DC Alex Grinch could turn things around after another infusion from the transfer portal. The first game against San Jose State was a mixed bag before the Trojans shut down Nevada and Stanford. However, since then the bottom has completely fallen out. SC allowed 28 points to Drew Pyne-led Arizona State which ranks 98th in F+ offense before giving up 41 points each to Colorado and Arizona. Colorado and Arizona rank 49th and 22nd respectively in F+ but there’s no excuse for a team this talented to get gashed like this. Both Colorado and ‘Zona managed to out-gain USC’s offense!
I find Alex Grinch to be a confusing character in college football. He was a well-regarded defensive mind who was the secondary coach for some salty Missouri defenses before moving on to Washington State where he undeniably did a good job as DC. Then he oversaw a tumultuous defense at Ohio State in 2018 before three roller coaster years at OU. Last year’s defense was a disaster and he probably should have gotten the reverse-Brian Ferentz treatment. Keep your opponents to under 25 points per game… or else.
USC's offense is 2nd in plays of 20+ yards from scrimmage. USC's defense is 130th in plays allowed that are 20+ yards from scrimmage. It all makes for unpredictable match up with Notre Dame https://t.co/bJDO2BGA11
— Jamie Uyeyama (@jamieuyeyama) October 11, 2023
Grinch and Riley brought in a boatload of transfers to paper things over but these guys haven’t gelled the in the same way as the offensive transfers. Former Georgia Bulldog Bear Alexander was the headliner on the defensive line along with former Notre Dame target Anthony Lucas from A&M. Additionally, defensive tackle Kyon Barrs (Arizona) and linebacker Mason Cobb (Okie State) were all expected to shore up the operation.
If you dig deeper into SC’s numbers, you can see where the Trojans have improved. A year ago, USC gave up touchdowns (not just any points, but offensive touchdowns) a whopping 37% of all opponents drives which ranked 119th in college football. This year, they have cut that number to about 24% which is good for 52nd. The Trojans have gone from allowing 6.77 yards per play to 5.42 ypp, improving from 122nd to 46th. Most strikingly, USC’s defensive stop rate (how many drives you prevent a touchdown or first down) has improved from 120th in 2022 to 44th thus far this year. While this is still nowhere close to an elite defense, improvements at the margins are cause for some hope if you’re a Trojans fan.
So why are their overall defensive numbers so bad and where are they vulnerable? Perhaps the biggest reason is that the turnover well has dried up. USC last year ranked #1 in college football in turnover rate, forcing a fumble or interception on almost 20% of all offensive drives. However, that number has been cut in half to just 10.8% which has sent USC’s turnover rate tumbling to 75th. They are more susceptible against the pass, getting shredded by Shadeur Sanders and Arizona’s backup QB to the tune of 674 yards and nine touchdowns at nearly 70% completion. Furthermore, all of those numbers I listed where they had improved aren’t necessarily that impressive considering the Trojans began the season by playing four cadavers in a row. This defense has reverted right back to where they were last year when faced with even slightly competent offensive football.
Three Questions
Is this just how the offensive line is now?
It’s been a jarring two weeks. Following one of the best big game performances by a Notre Dame offensive line since who knows when, the line has completely collapsed. Duke was somewhat understandable with Mike Elko’s defense a tough nut to crack, but getting skunked like that against Louisville? More alarming is the overall play of ND’s returning starters. We expected the new guards to struggle, but something is definitely wrong when Zeke Correll, Blake Fisher, and to a lesser extent Joe Alt have all regressed from last season.
The musical chairs bit at Louisville did very little to inspire confidence. Joe Rudolph is considered one of the best offensive line coaches in America, yet this line looks worse than it did at this point in 2022 or 2021. Fisher and Pat Coogan are dealing with injuries but what was the point of rotating in the seventh game of the season? It boggles the mind.
The opponent this week might be their saving grace. As previously noted, USC has talent but this is still a defense which has ranked in the F+ top-30 exactly once since 2013. They have not played anything resembling tough football in years. Despite that, they decisively won the battle at the line of scrimmage last year against a far superior Notre Dame offensive line which was one of the most puzzling outcomes in a season full of them. Alex Grinch likes to confuse offenses by stunting and creating a lot of movement pre-snap to induce mistakes. Making mistakes on the offensive line is Notre Dame’s MO right now, but is a rebound in order? Well, it better be because I can guarantee that this will not be a close game if USC owns the LOS again.
Can Notre Dame leverage its strengths into victory?
“Apollo 13” is one of my all-time favorite movies and one of my favorite lines comes shortly after the oxygen tank explodes and scuttles the moon landing. Ed Harris’ character asks one of the NASA engineers, “Let’s look at this thing from a standpoint of status: what do we got on the spacecraft that’s still good?” I feel similarly looking at Notre Dame right now, the team blew it against Ohio State and then looked abysmal against Louisville. The ultimate goal of making the playoff is gone, but this could still be a successful season, just like how the Apollo 13 astronauts still had a chance at making it home after things went wrong.
So what does Notre Dame have on the team that’s still good? For one, Sam Hartman hasn’t forgotten how to play QB. He threw his first interceptions of the season against Louisville last week but you can hardly blame the guy for forcing the ball in the fourth quarter. Furthermore, the line was so atrocious that he had microseconds to react which destroyed the entire offense. Yet USC currently doesn’t even resemble a good defense so surely there will be yards and touchdowns to be had, right? Just give the guy an extra second to throw.
Unlike last year, Notre Dame will enter this game with an intact and healthy secondary which also has an argument to be the nation’s best passing defense. In 2022, the secondary was without Cam Hart, Tariq Bracy, and Brandon Joseph which led to predictable results. This time around, the Irish are allowing just 146 yards passing per game and are battle-hardened after going up against the likes of Marvin Harrison Jr., Emeka Egbuka, and Jamari Thrash. There’s no Jordan Addison to contend with, and every second that Williams waits for his receivers to get open will allow the Irish to collapse the pocket.
It’s pretty obvious that while Notre Dame’s offensive line and wide receivers are either in a slump or just plain bad, but the running backs and tight ends continue to be a bright spot. Notre Dame might rely more on Payne, Price, Love and Ford considering Audric Estime looked beat up against UL. The good news is that we have evidence that all four of those guys are good, especially Love with his tantalizing skills. Mitchell Evans has surprisingly turned into one of the best players in the country at his position while Holden Staes is a natural pass-catcher. This is still a good, talented team. They just need to get out of their own way.
Who steps up: Gerad Parker, the wide receivers, both, or neither?
This has not been a good week for Parker or the people who believed in him. Regardless of whether you think Parker is an unimaginative offensive coordinator or blame the execution, we can all agree that last Saturday night looked horrible. The offense played like the 2007 Irish rather than the unit which scored 45 points on a bad day against NC State.
This is the defining question for the rest of the season. It’s also a chicken and egg situation, is the offense bad because of the WRs or are the WRs bad because of the offense? The lack of separation on the outside hurts, but there is a legitimate argument that the offense is not putting them in a position to succeed. A major source of frustration is the complete disappearance of plays which worked earlier in the season. Gone are the fake double handoffs which confused Ohio State’s defense and play action passing has gone AWOL. Running into boxes with ten or even eleven defenders has gone about as well as you would expect.
Give the ball to #12 more
It is possible that teams have “solved” the Parker offense which is a difficult thing to overcome. Once defenses have zeroed in on your weaknesses on offense, there’s little you can do. Ask the 2017 Irish offense what happened when teams figured out Brandon Wimbush couldn’t throw. In 2014, Northwestern moribund offense (83rd in F+) racked up 43 points and 547 yards against Brian VanGorder even though ND had natural talent advantages. Every team gets “figured out” to a certain extent, but those teams without an effective counter are in real trouble. We’ll see if Parker has that in him.
As for the wide receivers, it’s now or never. USC’s secondary is reeling after a string of bad performances and their defensive backs are the least talented part of their team. The Jaden/Jayden duo should be back in action which will help and it sure sounds like Jordan Faison will play a bigger role. Honestly if the Irish wideouts can’t get it going this week, it’s just not going to happen this season.
Prediction
Can the Irish stop this slump or is this who they are now? That answer depends on how the team bounces back after a grueling stretch of games. This is a tough spot for Notre Dame with midterms, fatigue, and general dissatisfaction eating away at the program. It seems like everything is going against the Irish right now after such a promising four games, 59 minutes and 57 seconds to start the year. Now, the Irish must rebound against one of the best quarterbacks of the past decade in college football.
Discipline can help overcome these issues. Unfortunately, discipline has also been severely lacking. Penalties, blown assignments (those with stronger stomachs can see this on Jamie’s Twitter feed), and questionable special teams decisions are really hurting the team right now. These are correctable things but Marcus Freeman is still a super young coach. This game is a massive test of his ability as a gameday coach and the culture he is trying to build.
A quick aside on special teams: they are killing the Irish. Chris Tyree has not made good decisions as punt returner, costing the team about 20-30 yards of field position every game. Furthermore, Freeman’s proclivity for trusting Spencer Shrader’s leg over going for it on 4th down in no man’s land has put the defense in bad spots against good teams. Improvement here will go a long way towards turning the season around.
From @statsowar on X, look at those field position numbers YUCK
Last year, the Trojans profoundly embarrassed the Irish in LA. Notre Dame’s defense fell flat on their faces every time they tried to bring down Caleb Williams and one of the worst defenses in America owned the Irish offensive line all night long. A loss here would make Freeman 0-2 against USC after Brian Kelly righted the ship in this rivalry. Kelly never had to deal with Lincoln Riley, but Pete Carroll also got to coach against Davie, Willingham, and Weis. Marcus Freeman needs to beat USC to be a successful coach at Notre Dame and he might not get a better opportunity with an Alex Grinch defense coming to South Bend.
The good news is that Notre Dame has tangible advantages in this matchup. The defense is better-equipped to slow down SC’s offense this time and the Irish offense seems due for a bounce-back game. Caleb Williams is terrifying but I do think the defense will make things really difficult for the Trojans. Unfortunately, I fear this offense simply does not have the personnel to truly take advantage of USC’s flaws. In a weakness-on-weakness matchup, I think Notre Dame’s offense is too frail to pull this off. Brace yourself to swallow yet another bitter pill.
Part of me thinks this is going to be like UNC last year, where we came out of a hideous three-game stretch against an undefeated, all-offense, no-defense opponent and showed them what actual American collegiate tackle football looks like.
The other part of me has that 2000s feeling of dread before a game against SC. I’m afraid we’re going to roll out a misguided ball-control gameplan that ends up wasting possessions and kicking field goals while SC is busy scoring touchdowns.
I hate to predict it and I hope I’m wrong, but 35-19 SC.
Bonus prediction: Guidugli becomes co-OC during the bye week.
The feeling of dread has hit me too
Just my 2 cents but Freeman should’ve just hired Guidugli as the sole OC in the offseason. He did a credible job at Cincinnati last year and mentored Ridder.
Except for all your bad takes, you nailed it
Oh man 22 points in a loss to usc would get pretty dim around here. To be fair any loss, a 5-3 record things were get pretty dark and the freeman era would officially be on the hot seat from the fans perspective.
They lose and this season will have turned markedly not fun and quick. Starting with BK era, the least fun seasons are 2010, 2016, 2013. Man this would probably slot somewhere in there.
I think we’re forgetting how not-fun 2014 turned out to be.
2011 was a turd sandwich too. Aside from 2012, the early Kelly era was pretty rough.
Something to keep in mind when we’re talking about decisive games of the Freeman era.
Oh man 2011 was decidedly not fun. I mean that michigan game is still an all time worst loss. I guess ibhad just blocked that year out…to say nothing of usf, getting killed at home in first ever night game or blowing double digit lead to cap off the year. Yes there was a lot of competition in kelly’s first 5 years for least fun season
And then having a defeated regular season in 12 followed by blowing all the momentum in 13 and 14.
You know I almost out 2014 third and that november was awful, but it was truly fun for almost 2 months. 2013 was just a 12 week dental exam
The 2013 team was pretty miserable to watch but they did win some games against really good opponents. Beat 13-1 MSU, 10-4 USC, 10-4 ASU, and almost took down 11-3 Stanford. Unfortunately USC and MSU were unranked when they played which took a lot of shine off that season.
I don’t know if I’d call the MSU and USC games “fun” to watch.
Oh in no universe were those games fun, but it is funny that the meh 2013 team still ruined MSU’s national title hopes.
Well, heck. Here I am, just landed in SB last night, feeling like, why did I fly 5,000 miles to suffer vs the stinkin’ Trojans, getting on to my favorite site for some sunshine — and here you are, all Debbie deep downers.
So, in a perverse way, I guess I’ll have to throw a little positive energy into the discourse. Let’s draw attention to the weather, which is predicted to suck, and remind ourselves how much USC hates playing in bad weather. And that, despite all the genuine weirdness that seems to have infected the team since forgetting that the rules allow playing with 11 on the field, we do have some very high character players on the squad.
And, as a notable sign from Zahm Hall said once in the day, “Trojans burst under pressure.”
So there. I’ll see you in Section 4, row 25, seat 17. Working on my pushups.
Go Irish!
Temperature in the low 40s, wind gusts up to 24 mph, possible patchy rain in the second half. Perfect for a rushing offense against a defense that is second to the last in the PAC giving up 157 rushing ypg against FBS teams (Stanford is last). Pound the ball, play action, short passes. For the Nervous Nellies, ND 35, USC 21.
Get used to Midwest weather in late October and November, Trojans.
Oh, yeah, to the filthy animals, I want to see Irish with “Fuck USC” on their fingers for TV.
The problem with your plan is that it involves play action.
I’ll admit to underestimating that awesome Irish defense. I hope the Trojans look on the bright side. They’ve won one of the last six games and their players got to see the Jeweled Shillelagh.
This week does feel somewhat similar to post-Stanford last year and the team did rebound from that. With absolutely no confidence I’m predicting they can do it again and that handling adversity is a strength of HCMF’s that I wish he wouldn’t have to use so much.
38-27 Irish
In Apollo 13 Ed Harris’ character is Gene Kranz, the Chief Flight Director at NASA. The only two “celebrity” signatures I have are a copy of Failure is Not an Option signed by Kranz and a mini Notre Dame butterscotch helmet signed by Derrick Mayes.
All due respect to Gene Kranz but I’d like to see him set every receiving record at Notre Dame.
Au secours! Two of my cousinns cant come! I have two tickets for 18 Stripers???
These could go for free, I just want… more noise!
True dedication to the cause!
Absolutely!
So far no takers. Buit I am darned if I try to sell them on whetever the app let’s you do that from, some sc__ b__ SC folks might still be hanging around.
Actually the same dang thing happened to me in Dublin, and at least there Irish Spring came through (shout out to you, David!)
My family members are definitely being lax. Anyway, I’ll keep checking in.
I wish I could unfortunately I couldn’t give off work today and it’s a 6 hour drive for me
*get
I honestly can’t believe we’re favorites here but Vegas isn’t in the game of losing money. That gives me more confidence than anything
The fact that the betting line hasn’t moved all week baffles me. Maybe this will be a bounce back week? Guess we’ll find out…
Also, hopefully last night counts as Stanford’s annual “how did they win that?!?” game