Yesterday we took a look at 5 things I liked from Notre Dame’s season opening victory over Temple, today we flip the script and look at some of the negatives from their performance that they will need to work on this week in preparation for Michigan.
1. Lack of push, concentration from the defensive line
It’s amazing how fast we Notre Dame fans have become greedy when it comes to the performance of the defensive line, but by now I expect dominance from the Notre Dame defensive line unless they are playing an elite offensive line like Stanford. Against a team like Temple, even with a vanilla game plan and lack of blitzing, I expected to see the Irish d-line dominant from start to finish. That didn’t happen.
The line played better int he second half, but it was actually quite alarming how much of a push the Temple offensive line was getting in the first half – even when they weren’t double teaming Nix and Tuitt. Tuitt ended up getting a big sack in the first half but that was the only sack the defense recorded on the day after they had 33 in 2012.
Throw in a couple false starts from Louis Nix and Saturday was not one of the finer performances from the defensive line in the last couple years. Again though, this is also a sign of how far the Notre Dame defense has come – anything short of dominance is surprising.
2. Lack of dominance from the offensive line
While the defensive line was a bit lack luster, the offensive line was not much better despite facing an inferior foe. Pass protection was pretty good as Tommy Rees was only sacked once, but I was hoping to see the line come out and dominant in the second half. Instead, Notre Dame only added one additional score in the second half.
First time starter Ronnie Stanley held his own, but it looks like Christian Lombard may need a little time to get used to playing inside at guard again. At one point, Lombard completely whiffed off the snap and Temple blew up a play because of it. The line still has time to gel, but they are going to need to get better in a hurry with Michigan on tap this weekend.
3. Both kicking units were a train wreck
The place kicking and punting games were probably the most alarming of any of the things listed here. Nick Tausch kicked a straight up knuckleball on his first field goal attempt of the season. Kyle Brindza got the next chance and while his kick had plenty of height and distance, he pushed his kick wide left. Place kicking was pretty solid last year, but on Saturday it was a nightmare. Notre Dame can’t leave 6 points on the field like that again the next few weekends.
In his first stint as the punter, Brindza was not much better than he was at place kicking. Brindza could not come close to pinning Temple inside the 20 instead booming a couple of punts through the end-zone.
The competition at both positions figures to continue this week in practice because right now Notre Dame does not have a clear #1 kicker or punter.
4. The play of the inside linebackers in the first half
We knew it was going to be tough to replace Manti Te’o in the middle of the defense this year and that was abundantly clear on Saturday – specifically in the first half. The trio of Dan Fox, Carlo Calabrese, and Jarrett Grace are manning the two inside positions and while they all had impressive tackle totals, those stats were not indicative of how they played.
The inside linebackers looked slow to react and padded their tackle totals with a bunch of tackles well beyond the line of scrimmage – similarly to how a few defenders had nice stat lines in the BCS Championship game. Notre Dame is going to have to get better play from the inside linebackers or athletic offenses are going to eat up yards on this defense.
5. The complete lack of contain from the defense
This last one is a direct result of #’s 1 and 4. Connor Reilly made the first start of his career and the Notre Dame defense did not make him pay the price for facing a tough defense on the road. Reilly continually avoided pressure and found wide open spaces to the tune of 65 yards on 12 carries. On several occasions Reilly extended drives with his legs when he was pressured.
Notre Dame is going to be facing a mobile quarterback again this weekend in Devin Gardner. Gardner ran for 52 yards on 7 carries in Michigan’s season opening win over Central Michigan this weekend. If Notre Dame doesn’t spy Garnder or play better contain defense, Gardner will more than replicate what Reilly was able to do on Saturday.
Hello UHND Faithful (especially SFR, Shazam and CDog)- Back for another season of our beloved IRISH! I think this game could be another classic. Brindza and Tausch better get their pretty little heads screwed on straight because every inch will count on Saturday.
waiting for george atkinson 200 yard day!
yes its true i am grateful to brian kelly, spolied by ara. devine, holtz,
god be with him
Point #3 is my biggest concern. Why can’t ND ever seem to have a consistent Fg and punting units?
Does anyone know why the hell Brindza isn’t our starting place-kicker this year? Did he not have a phenominal year last year!? I can remember Brindza hitting some HUGE field goals for us last year all throughout the season. This may have been one of Kelly’s dumbest moves since he has been here. So what that he is our kickoff, place-kicker, and punter!!! He is the best at all three so start him at all three. I really hope this hasn’t shot his confidence seeing Tausch get the nod over him, with Tausch having one of the ugliest attempts I’ve seen in a long time for a field goal.
Just doesn’t make any sense to me…stupid..
CJ,
My best guess (and it’s only a guess)is that Brindza started last year off by having almost all his kick offs go as touchbacks.
Then,as the season wore on, they got shorter and shorter.
It appeared as though he got a bit leg weary by mid-season.
Perhaps this is Kelly’s way of keeping Brindza fresher, longer, while providing some experence for Tuasch for the future or incase of injury?
Look at this way, if the situation ever arises that we need an on-sides, or squib kick, NT will be perfect for the job!
I think we will be sky high for Michigan. Time for some chicken.
We deliberately played it very close to our vests v. Temple.
I think Kelly is playing mind games with Hoke.
Should be a great game on Saturday!
Go Irish!
Woodrow
Did Aaron Lynch even play Sat. for USF? Savanah St.? Are you kidding me?! I’m sure this kid has to be wondering why he followed his little head to Tampa. Missed out on a National Championship run, now this. Good choice, kid!
Vanderdousche had 6 tackles two of them for losses. That loss is going to hurt.
Agreed, jeff!
SFB
He would never admit to making a boneheaded move to leave. I’m thinking he probably at times would like rethink it or JUST MAYBE he really doesn’t have same passion for the game anymore. It’s his loss.
another completely underwhelming kelly performance, uninspired by this coach, last season was manti and golson, both are gone, no over powering offense, a special team without a coach or a focus, compare what you saw here to oregon’s 66-3 victory, a national championship will never come with this guy
Yeah, BJ, I agree. Maybe we should have Coastal Carolina, Nichols State or Southern Carolina Tech State University College to ND. Maybe that would have looked better for your “underwhelming and uninspired performance”
bj,
since you know absolutely nothing about modern day college football, who cares?
Bj, you’re the guy always droning on and on about history so does BK becoming the 5th fastest in history to 200 wins not impress you?
RB,
Excellent question… but you know, getting bj to acknowledge a Brian Kelly accomplishment is like watching a coon dog tryin to pass a peach seed!
Ain’t gonna be pretty!
While I agree with all of your points to an extent. I was there Saturday and it seemed to me that ND wasn’t pressing the issue after they realized the could do a lot of things. I know by watching that they just kept repeating the scripted plays over and over and by the defensive coaches hand signals they were telling the LBs and DBs to play off or softer. I think we’ll see a more lively and capable defense and a dynamic offense this week. Our d-line only used stunts twice so it was very vanilla. It will be another typical ND vs. Mich battle but we will look like a different team. Anyways, GO IRISH!
Manti was the heart and sole last year. 2013 will need a new leader. The D needs some identity, a little nasty. That being said Tuitt is huge, and Nix is a favorite. I like his hustle.
I don’t know why Dan Fox and Carlo Calabrese start. They are sooo slow! Start Romeo Okwara in at ILB and see if Jarret Grace can fill the other spot at ILB or move Ben Counsell inside.
Also, why don’t we try to block punts? Does Brian Kelly know that you can try to block the punt and return the ball?
Last but not least, we need more push up front by our offensive line. We were not able to run up the middle. Enough of this handing the ball to the running back while he is 5-7 yards behind the line. Personally, I think Lombard is a better tackle than he is a guard.
6. The speed of our safeties. They were constantly a step behind.
7. The 3-4 defense. It is too hard to play. Two linemen are always getting double teamed.
re:6/ Being a step behind is not always attributed to speed as it is playing “safe” or overly hesitant, (against an unknown offense strategy), which often looks alot like being slower. Apparently the game plan was to keep everything in front of you, which worked, with the help of numerous dropped passes by them.
re:7/ I, too, saw the double-teaming, especially on Nix. But wouldn’t that create lanes for our LBs and Safeties to stunt through to pressure the QB, which I hope to see a lot of this Saturday! We let a first-time starter dictate the tempo without much pressure, even though they were mostly dinky, short tosses . I did see more pressure in the second half, but please, enough of the corner blitz without anyone rotating to cover the wideout.
What was that all about?
Temple was one-dimensional but still productive gaining yards. Michigan can run AND pass, with a mobile QB as well. Let’s force three more INTs out of their QBs like CMU did last week, and the best way to do that is to pressure the QB. You can bet Mattison will try to pressure TR with blitzes.
Will the 2013 Irish be the road warriors they’ve been recently?
Tune in Saturday.
I’m a Michigan Fan and i share the same concerns as you guys, but about Michigan. Gardner ran way too much and if he does the this week, he will probably get killed. The lack of push with the O-line is also concerning, especially with Notre Dames size on their D-line. The only thing I’m sure of, is it will be a great game and a toss up and i can’t wait.
*that
You read my mind! You are spot on in your comments. My biggest two concerns are the first two. #1 was disturbing to see the lack of focus and intensity after all this offseason talk about this kind of thing NOT happening again – and it did the very first game against a far inferior opponent. The turn it on when our backs are against the wall mentality is going to bite them big time at some point, unless this is corrected for every single game. No excuses. The lack of pass rush from the front four was really shocking to me. We only got a pass rush when Diaco brought OLB’s and a safety, and even then we didn’t always get to the QB.
The O-Line should have just been manhandling these guys, and THAT was disturbing as well. Most of the running stats are distorted because the averages were largely inflated by a few big chunk plays. Most of the time, I saw a standstill at the line of scrimmage. We should have just been blowing these guys off the ball, 4-6 yards being the norm, less than that being the rare exception Instead, it was the other way around.
The trenches are where we won last year, and it’s going to be even more important this year without the LB play of Teo, and on offense, the running game must be very, very good on a consistent basis to take the pressure off of Rees (who other than some sailed passes, mostly in the 2nd quarter, played , really well, with ZERO turnovers being the most important stat, as it will be each and every game). Also, I was not impressed with GA III at all. Amir and Cam looked really good, and are both ahead of him IMO. Bryant and Folston both have the chance to be excellent backs, especially Bryant. It goes without saying that he is an incredible physical specimen for a true freshman – unreal.
Spot on, Frank.
They say a good team improves most between week one and week two.
We’ll need to if we are going to win at Ann Arbor.
It’s still early and this team is very young, especially at RB&WR.
Their effort and performance were impressive. What troubled me is the lack of dominance
from the veteran units such as our lines and inside LBs.
Expect DC Mattison to stunt and blitz Tommy regularly. I don’t feel confident about this week,
especially if they have Big 10 refs officiating. This game vs. Michigan is important, but not the end-all.
Go Irish, but be patient, fans. The season is a marathon, not a sprint, and this team will get better and better.
Manti was a beast and he wont be replaced effectively by those three LBs you mentioned in section 4.
Hard to argue against your stated points. Pretty accurate observations of things needing to be addressed.