Notre Dame Team to Date and a Succinct Analysis of the Michigan Game

Good Lawd I’m tired of looking at this Temple game!  But, like Cam McDaniel facing the backwards gauntlet, I just do it!  No fear.  In future weeks, the goal will be to track week-to-week and yearly trends of what Notre Dame’s doing, but when it’s one game….well, it’s just overkill on this Temple match-up. 

When analyzing the plays run, I exclude penalties and special teams plays.  For those curious, I submit the following:  Special teams sucks until further notice.

Irish by the Quarter:

As alluded to in the earlier posts, and if you had eyes you were probably able to notice that the Irish buttoned it up early on.  After running 16 passes and 13 rushes in the first half, Kelly, Martin, and Co. elected to run the ball in the second half.  Only 33% of Notre Dame’s offensive plays in the second half were passes (11/33).  There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, but the lack of production in switching strategies leaves questions about the new attack.  I’m sure the general theory was to control the ball and beat down Temple.  However, the Irish amassed only 83 rushing yards in the second half after gaining 105 in the first.  Yards per carry decreased from 8.1 in the first to 3.95 in the second. 

It wasn’t just the rushing game that saw decreased efficiency.  Tommy Rees was at 268 yards passing and 3 touchdowns in the first half.  The second half saw the team throw for just 87 (9 from Hendrix on 1 of 4 passing late in the 4^th).  Notre Dame had as many incompletions (5) in the fourth quarter as they did the rest of the game.  Yes, three of those passes came from Hendrix with the second team in the game, but you still hope for more versus an opponent as weak as Temple.

Finally, the number of “chunk gains” diminished drastically.  I am defining a “chunk gain” as a play from scrimmage which nets 10 yards or more.  Notre Dame had 11 such plays in the first half, including the three long passing touchdowns.  In the second half, just 6 such plays.  For all the optimism the first half provided, the second half reminded us that the offense is still quite a work in progress.  Here are the numbers:

Quarter:	Plays:	Passes:	Pass Yd:	Rushes:	Rush Yd:	TD:	Plays 10+
1st	15	7	130	8	77	2	5
2nd	14	9	138	5	28	1	6
3rd	14	4	72	10	49	1	5
4th	19	7	15	12	34	0	1

Percentage Pass:  44%

Percentage Rush:  56%

Yds. Per Pass Attempt:  13.14

Yds. Per Pass Completion:  20.88

Yds. Per Rush Attempt:  5.37

First Down: Irish!

Nearly half of all of Notre Dame’s offensive plays came on first down (30/62).  This was, by far, Notre Dame’s best down as a number of their long plays came on first down.  They had 7 passing plays of 10+ yards and 3 running plays of 10+ yards.  In other words, 33% of Notre Dame’s first down plays resulted in a large gain and another first down.  I’ll take that every single day of the week.

The final stat line is no less impressive.  The 30 plays resulted in 320 yards or 10.67 yards per play.  Interestingly, it was the effectiveness of the first down passing game that ran the show.  Tommy Rees was 8/10 on first down, and 5/8 went for 15 or more yards.  While the rush:pass ratio was nearly 2:1 (19/11), it was the passing game that paved the way.

Second Down:  Umm…Irish?

While second down was not “bad,” it wasn’t great either.  19 second down plays went for 150 yards (good!), but the team struggled to capitalize on 2^nd and 5 or less.  Notre Dame got 7 opportunities to run a play on 2^nd and 5 or shorter, which is when as the saying goes “the whole play book is available.”  When the Irish passed it, good things happen.  Let me re-phrase, the one time the Irish passed it, good things happened.  Davaris Daniels’ second touchdown of the game was the only pass Tommy Rees threw on second and short.  On the 6 rushing plays, only 2 were converted for first downs (or scores), the longest of which was a 14-yard run by George Atkinson.

I’ve said it a lot, but I’ll say it again:  It’s just Temple, but there is room for improvement on capitalizing on second and short.

Key Third Downs:

By far the most pass heavy down for Notre Dame was third.  Not unexpected, and fortunately, third downs didn’t come up too frequently.  A 5/13 on third down conversions is just not going to cut it, particularly against weaker competition.  The positive, Notre Dame was 5/8 on converting third downs of 5 yards or shorter.  The negative, they were 0/5 on third and long(er). 

Trends by half didn’t emerge.  Notre Dame was 2/5 in the first half….3/8 in the second.  Of the 8 attempts in the second half, 6 were passes, and 9 of the 13 attempts for the game were passes.  That, by itself isn’t all that strange.  However, given that the Irish had 8 attempts of 5 or fewer yards, it is a bit surprising that Notre Dame ran only 4 third down rushing plays all game.

Another question we might ask is who was getting the carries?  Is there a “third down back” emerging?  The 4 carries were by 4 different running backs.  Carlisle and Atkinson both had receptions on third down as well.  My guess is that Carlisle will be the third and long back with a greater mix and variety on the short down situations with Run CMC and Atkinson leading the way. 

To sum up the downs:

Down:	Plays:	Runs:	Passes:	Yards:	Yds/Play:
1st	30	19	11	320	10.67
2nd	19	12	7	150	7.89
3rd	13	4	9	68	5.23

4^th Downs and Red Zone:

As the season goes along I’ll summarize performances here, but when you don’t run a 4^th down play (and maybe we should be given the state of the kicking game), and most of the red zone attempts came in garbage time, there’s not much to discuss.  Worth noting though:  Outside of garbage time, Notre Dame ran 2 plays TOTAL in Temple’s red zone.

The Game Ahead:

It’s Hate Week.  We’ve got the skunkbears at 8:00 PM on ESPN Saturday night.  If I provide analysis, am I acknowledging they’re a rival?  Insert your favorite 4-letter word before (or after) “Michigan”, and well, you’ve summed the game up quite nicely.  Go Irish!

- Moons