Notre Dame @ Pittsburgh ’15: Keys to Victory

In looking back in our archives this week I came across an old column outlining the keys to victory for Notre Dame that I had forgotten I used to pen on a weekly basis and decided it was a good time to bring it back.

Prepare for a Street Fight

Notre Dame is ranked 5th in the country and opened up as just a 7.5 point favorite over unranked Pitt.  Know why? Pitt always plays Notre Dame tough.  Since Charlie Weis led the Irish into Pittsburgh to start his Notre Dame career and blew the doors off of Dave Wannstedt’s Panthers, Pitt has played Notre Dame six times and the two have split them evenly with all six contests being decided by one possession.  In short, the Irish and Panthers tend to play tough, hard fought battles.

Now, this is of course a different year and Notre Dame has a lot of firepower on offense, but Pitt has the same kind of team they’ve had that has given Notre Dame problems – a blue collar, defensive oriented team that will try to grind this game out for four quarters.  Coming off a game against Temple that was similar should help Notre Dame, but if the Irish don’t come in and expect a street fight from Pitt things could get a little hairy on Saturday.  Notre Dame has more talent across the board and should win comfortably but that has been in the case in most of those three losses since 2005 as well.

Score in the Red Zone

If Notre Dame was more efficient in the redzone a week ago, the Irish would not have needed any 4th quarter heroics to beat Temple.  Two redzone interceptions in the first half kept Notre Dame from pulling away from the Owls before halftime.  Unfortunately for the Irish, redzone efficiency wasn’t a new problem last week.

For the season, Notre Dame is scoring on just 78.8% of its redzone trips.  Good enough for 99th nationally.  For a team with playoff aspirations, that is going to cut it.  This weekend the Irish face a team that has allowed scores on 100% of its opponents redzone opportunities.  The problem?  Pitt has allowed the opposition to reach the redzone just 17 times this season.

Pitt hasn’t seen an offense quite like Notre Dame’s all season, but Deshone Kizer and the Irish offense will still have to maximize their opportunities every time they reach the redzone this weekend.  Kizer and the Irish can’t afford those costly turnovers or settle for field goals when they get down there.  To put Notre Dame’s redzone woes into perspective, even if the Irish were to score on their next 15 redzone trips, they would still be just outside the top 50 in the country in redzone efficiency.

Keep Running Deshone Kizer

One of the ways that Notre Dame can improve its redzone efficiency is to keep Deshone Kizer running.  Before the bye week I mentioned that Kizer was “leaving some meat on the bone” in the running game on the forum.  Kizer was and still is learning how to set up blockers and maximize his rushing yardage but we saw a glimpse of improvement last week.

Against Temple Kizer showed patience we hadn’t seen so far this year on a few option reads and that was before his 79 yard touchdown scamper.  Early on Kizer was setting up his blocks and turning five yard gains into 10 yard gains.  If he continues to improve in this department, the Irish redzone offense is going to get better because teams will have something else to account for.

Find Alize Jones

Notre Dame can also improve in the redzone if they find a reliable redzone target.  Corey Robinson has simply not proven to be that target this year.  After a big sophomore year, Robinson has taken a big step backwards even though this year he is reportedly healthier than he was a year ago.  Robinson came up with a huge touchdown catch against USC, but that was his only touchdown of the season and after eight games, he has just 98 yards receiving on the season.

Enter freshman tight end Alize Jones – potentially.  Jones is starting to emerge over the last few weeks with four catches for 87 yards against USC and Temple.  He still only has 10 catches on the season, but if he can continue to improve each week he could be that big target in the redzone Notre Dame needs like they had in 2012 with Tyler Eifert.  Against Pitt Notre Dame needs to look #9’s way.

Tackle, Tackle, Tackle

Tackling has been a problem at times this year for Notre Dame and against Pitt that could spell trouble.  Pitt will look to ground and pound the ball to keep the Notre Dame offense off the field.  If the Irish defense misses tackles and lets the Panthers extend drives, Saturday will be just as close as all of the other Notre Dame – Pitt games over the last decade have been.

Notre Dame will be without Elijah Shumate for the first half following the ridiculous targeting penalty he was flagged for in the 4th quarter against Temple meaning Matthias Farley will be filling in.  Farley is pretty sound fundamentally so the Irish should be OK in the secondary for the first half as long as Farley and Max Redfield both stay healthy.  Middle linebacker Joe Schmidt, however, is going to have to play better this week than he has in recent weeks when he’s missed a number of tackles.  Last week Schmidt tallied just two tackles as the MIKE in a defense designed to have the MIKE make plays.  That has to change this weekend.

And for the love of God, don’t fall for the trick play

It is no secret that Notre Dame has fallen for a number of trick plays this year and until the Irish stop a couple of them, opposing offenses – especially on teams that are underdogs – are going to continue to use them.  Temple was successful in the lone attempt albeit not for a touchdown but they did pull one off on the Irish.

Pat Narduzzi would be negligent as a head coach if his team didn’t attempt at least one trick play on the Irish this weekend as well.   Look for at least one this weekend – one that the Notre Dame defense is hopefully prepared for and doesn’t fall for.