What Really Happened on Third Downs: Notre Dame v. Michigan State

For a team that’s started the season an acceptable 3-1, the angst among ND fans is surprisingly high.  Has the team been perfect?  No.  Far from it in fact.  If you’re a fan of the team and want to avoid the grand conspiracy theories, I’d suggest you refrain from visiting many of the normal chat boards which amazingly are flooded with calls to fire everyone on the team.  Fire the student-athletes.  Fire Diaco.  Fire Kelly.  It’s really and truly mind boggling.

There are reasons for concern, and Michigan State did not do much to quell those fears.  The offense lacks rhythm.  The rushing attack has gained very little traction.  I’ve been pushing the position that the rushing game isn’t that different from last year’s squad season-to-date, but the fact is, the ground game is reverting whereas last year at this time it was strengthening.  The defense looked better, but I’m reluctant to give it too much credit.  Michigan State might be the worst offense the team has faced thus far.  Oklahoma just days away will be a better indicator of whether the defense is making strides or not.

With all that said, the seeming lightning rod of controversy this past weekend was the offense’s decision to throw the ball deep so frequently.  From a scheme standpoint, this was the correct game plan.  Michigan State crowded the line all game to stop the run.  They played tight man coverage on the outside and a shallow, aggressive zone on the interior.  They wanted to take away the screen game and the short passing game and force Tommy Rees to beat them deep.  Notre Dame made the decision to accommodate Michigan State.  The reads for Rees were almost all pre-snap.  Whichever corner was playing up the most became the target if Rees made the decision that there was a one-on-one match-up.  Several times he read this wrong and threw into double coverage.  Fortunately, the pass interference gods favored the Catholic Irish on this day.

The other area of ire from many I saw was the third down play calling.  Watching the game, I had the same reaction as many “why the heck do we keep lining up empty and throwing deep???”  As so often happens, anecdotal observation was misleading.  Here’s the breakdown of third down plays:

3^rd Down Plays Breakdown:

Situation:	Attempts:	Conversions:	Conversion %:
Total	17	6	35.2
Passing	11	5	45.5
--- 5 or less to go	6	3	50
--- +5 to go	5	2	40
Running	6	1	16.7
--- 5 or less to go	5	1	20
--- +5 to go*	1	0	0
By Package:	---	---	---
--- 2WR/1RB/2TE	5	1	20
--- 3WR/1RB/1TE	2	1	50
--- 4WR/(1)RB/1TE	9	4	44.4
--- Victory	1	0	0
First Half:	11	5	45.5
Second Half:	6	1	16.7
Own:	8	3	37.5
Opponent:	9	3	33.3
By Back:	---	---	---
--- Atkinson	2	1	50
--- Carlisle	9	4	44.4
--- Folston	1	0	0
--- McDaniel	4	1	25
--- Other*	1	0	0

* 3^rd and 14 kneel down at end of game.

On the day, Notre Dame converted just 6 of 17 official third down attempts.  The 35.2% conversion percentage was Notre Dame’s lowest for any game so far this season and well below the season average just below 50% (30/61).  This number is somewhat misleading.  Notre Dame benefited from four pass interference calls on third down that are not recorded as official attempts.  If we add those in, the team ended up 10/21 on third downs.  Additionally, one of the “failed” attempts was Tommy Rees taking a knee on the final play of the game.  Taking that into account, the team practically finished 10/20 on converting third downs into first downs.  50%, or right at season average.

So….what about those third down passes?  As highlighted above, Notre Dame attempted a pass six times on third and five or less.  They converted three of these (50%) for a first down.  From an expectation standpoint, this shouldn’t be seen as a horrendous performance.  Rees’ overthrows throughout the course of the game may have led many fans to believe that culprit for poor third down performance was also long passing.  Overall, passing the ball the Irish converted five of eleven attempts excluding the pass interference calls.  If we include those, then the Irish converted nine of fifteen third downs when attempting a pass.  Debating the validity of the pass interference calls is a different debate.  If we’re assessing the reality of actual results, then the Irish were above 60% when passing.

The far bigger issue was converting rushing attempts for first down.  Five times the Irish lined up on third and three or shorter and chose to run the ball.  The team was only successful on one of those attempts.  Every back was responsible for this failure.  Atkinson, Folston, and Carlisle each received one carry under these circumstances and each failed.  Even the ever growing legend of Cam McDaniel was successful on only one of two attempts under these circumstances.  Whether these failures were the result of an anemic running game or Michigan State’s game plan, Notre Dame needed to pass the ball on third down.  Given Michigan State’s conscious decision to jump the short crossing routes all game, the decision to throw deep was correct even if difficult to comprehend when the team only needed a couple of yards.

As highlighted above, all five rushing attempts came from the 2WR/1RB/2TE set.  This is Notre Dame’s “power” set to the extent they have one.  The major culprit for this set’s failure has been the horrendous play of Ben Koyack.  The only area of Koyack’s season that’s been consistent is his inability to effectively block.  Given that this is the only time he gets on the field, it is troubling and infuriating to see him continued to be used.  He has not been able to lead blog at all, and his pass protection has been equally bad.  While the fans may be clamoring to see Troy Niklas get more looks as a receiver, the team cannot even deploy him into routes due to Koyack’s ineffectiveness.

Finally, the usage of running backs has been questioned.  One place the decision should be simpler is third downs.  Amir Carlisle’s versatility continues to keep him in the game more frequently on third downs than the other backs and for good reason.  Carlisle is trusted the most as a pass catching option if asked to line up in the empty backfield set, and the coaching staff appears to have faith in him overall as a pass blocker as well.  Without trying to harp on it too much, all four of the pass interference calls occurred when Carlisle was on the field.  Going back to the effective 10/20 Notre Dame was on third downs, that means that Carlisle was on the field for eight of those….or 80% of Notre Dame’s successful attempts.

For expectations to rise for the remainder of the season, the team is going to have to improve in many areas.  Third downs is one of them.  However, for those wanting to bash Kelly for calling so many third down passes, they might want to reconsider the results.

- Moons

Rees Hits the Quarter Post

Apparently the quarter mark of the season might be renamed “Ordaining the Reesus” week.  Many of the ND Bloggers have already written their pieces on Tommy Rees’ emergence this season.  Twibby at Her Loyal Sons pointed to the differences between 2011 Turnover Tommy and the shiny, polished 2013 version.  Much to the chagrin of the Rees detractors, there was an emphatic defense of Rees and why we should like him by Aaron Horvath.  Keith Arnold got into the act by focusing on Tommy becoming a leader.  Fair to say, the market has been saturated by Rees commentary.  Whether you’re all Rees’d out or not, here’s my review of Tommy at the quarter mark.

As always, let’s start with the stat line season-to-date:

Att:  107

Comp: 65

Comp. %: 60.75

Yards:  967

TD: 7

INT: 2

Sack: 3

Yards/Game: 322.33

Att/Game: 35.67

Yds/Att:  9.04

Yds/Comp.: 14.88

Okay, raise your hand if you predicted “Tommy Rees will throw for at least 300 yards in each of the team’s first 3 games.”  Yeah…me neither.  How about, raise your hand if you had Tommy Rees would have twice as many touchdown passes of 30 yards or more as he would interceptions at this point?  Seriously, from a productivity standpoint, Tommy Rees has gone well and above any reasonable expectation.  He’s been smart, efficient, and comparably mistake free.  The detractors will certainly point to the one horrendous decision made in the Michigan game.  Not only was it an incredibly poor choice, but from a timing perspective seemed more important in the overall review of the loss at Michigan.

Rees has done a great job of getting the ball out quickly reducing the number of sacks he’s taken (in fact, I’m not sure we can pin any of the sacks on Rees’ mistake) and has reduced the number of awkward throwing on the run attempts.  That’s a good thing.

Given that so many words have already been written, I’m going to select some areas of Rees’ performance to consider, but not everything.  Read some of the articles written above to fill in the gaps if you so choose.  Otherwise, please, just read mine and say “damn, you did it right.”

The first thing I was curious to explore was Rees’ performance by down:

1^st Down:

Category:	Attempts:	Completions:	Completion %	Yards:	Yards/Comp.	TD:
TOTAL:	48	28	58.33	494	17.64	3
RZ:	5	1	20%	20	20	1
Own:	24	18	66.67%	369	20.5	2
Opp:	24	10	41.67%	125	12.5	1

Analysis:  If you wanted to select a sub-set of Rees’ performance to have an idea of how his season’s gone, you’d be best selecting first down.  Completion percentage, yards, TD/INT ratio are all right about where we’d expect them to be as a sub-set of performance.  I thought the most interesting aspect was the breakdown between Rees on his side of the field as opposed to the opponent’s side.  Given the defense's sub-par performance thus far, Tommy Rees’ efficiency moving the ball on his own side of the field is an area of hidden value that he’s created.  By completing 2 out of every 3 passes thrown on first down and averaging a staggering 20.5 yards per completion, Rees has generally done a good job of moving the chains early and keeping the team from getting pinned deep in their own zone consistently.  Oh yeah, he’s also thrown touchdown passes of 82 yards and 66 yards from his own side of the field on first down.  By contrast, Rees took a nose dive on first down passes when entering enemy territory.  Rees’ completion percentage dipped considerably, and when he did connect, it was for less average yardage. Yes, I’m aware a shorter field and lack of 82 and 66 yard passes will suppress that average. 

2^nd Down:

Category:	Attempts:	Completions:	Completion %	Yards:	Yards/Comp.	TD:
TOTAL	28	19	67.86	251	13.21	2
< 5 to go	5	3	60	56	18.67	1
Pass 10+	10	5	50	147	29.4	2
Opp:	17	13	76.47	173	13.31	2

Analysis:  I’ve always considered 2^nd down to be moving down.  Conventional attack wisdom suggests picking up nice yardage on first down and then getting an opportunity to be more aggressive on second and shorts.  I was surprised to see that Rees has only had 5 opportunities to throw the ball on second and 5 or less.  Well, I was surprised until I looked back at some of my Golson data.  It turns out that when the team picks up good chunk yardage on first down, Kelly likes to run the ball on second and simply pick up the first down rather than taking a more aggressive chance down field.  However, the Irish got aggressive 10 of 28 times attempting passes that went at least 10 yards through the air, and when they connected averaged 29.4 yards per completion.  I also wanted to see whether Rees picked up the slack on second down in enemy territory.  Simple math suggests that 58% of the time that Rees passed on first down on the opponent’s side of the field, he left the team in a second a long.  To Rees’ credit, he completed 76% of his pass attempts on second down in the opponent’s territory! 

3^rd Down:

Category:	Attempts:	Completions:	Completion %	Yards:	Yards/Comp.	TD:	Conv. %
TOTAL	29	18	62.07	222	12.33	2	48
+5 to go	17	9	52.94	116	12.89	1	35
< 5 to go	12	9	75	106	11.78	1	66
Trailing	21	14	66.67	154	11	2	52

Analysis:  To date, the Irish have converted approximately 54% of third downs overall.  When Tommy’s passed the ball, they’ve converted 48%, which is perfectly fine.  Third and long passing is never a pretty place to be, and the stats are what you’d expect.  More successful on third and short when the defense has to defend the run as well, and less effective on third and long(er).  I also took a look at how he faired on third down passes when the team was trailing (a position that’s happened too frequently for most of our liking).  While his conversion percentage was right in line with the overall average, he did demonstrate a slight uptick in completion percentage and has yet to throw a pick. 

Red Zone:

Category:	Attempts:	Completions:	Completion %	Yards:	Yards/Comp.	TD:
TOTAL	16	7	43.75	49	7	2

Analysis:  It took until the Michigan game for Rees to attempt a red zone pass.  The numbers are less than spectacular, and if there’s one area more than others that I hope to see improvement from in quarter 2 of the season it will be in converting red zone opportunities and pass attempts.

Game Score Within 7 Points:

Category:	Attempts:	Completions:	Completion %	Yards:	Yards/Comp.	TD:	INT
TOTAL	42	25	59.52	518	20.72	5	1

Analysis:  Pressure situations are always an area most scrutinized by fans.  Not all situations are created equal, and when the game is within a touchdown one way or the other, scrutiny will be at its highest.  I find it encouraging that 5 of Rees’ 7 touchdown passes to date have come in these close situations.  He’s also thrown for 54% of his total passing yards in 39% of his total pass attempts under these circumstances.  Unfortunately for him, that “1” in the last column will be remembered by the detractors more than the 25 completions  for 5 touchdowns will be.

By Area of Field Thrown To:

Category:	Attempts:	Completions:	Completion %	Yards:	Yards/Comp.	TD:	> 10 Com %
Left	47	29	61.70	367	12.66	1	38.89
Middle	25	15	60	305	20.33	3	62.5
Right	35	21	69	295	14.05	3	41.66

Analysis:  I had contemplated looking at Rees’ numbers by individual targeted, but I decided to focus on area of the field thrown to regardless of what body happened to be in that area.  The completion percentages are fairly even across the board.  The two things that stick out:  1) Rees has been most effective throwing to the middle of the field on passes through the air of 10 yards or more.  It’s currently the only area of the field where on such passes he’s throwing over 50%.  As we proceed forward, it will be worth noting whether he finds a way to exploit Notre Dame’s talented wide outs to the sidelines in a more efficient manner.  2) When Rees is making his quick reads, clearly he has a left to right progression and is told to take the quick hit if it’s there.  Kelly lines Jones up to Rees’ left a good amount of the time, but if I was scouting the Irish, I’d be moving my corners up to Rees’ left to take away that quick strike and make him prove that he can extend the field.  The question will be whether this route continues to be there or whether the opposition starts to creep up on the left side to take away Rees’ primary read on a more frequent basis.

Alright, now let’s take out Sparty!