Notre Dame kicks off its 2024 season in just nine days in one of the more challenging environments in all of college football – Kyle Field, home of the Texas A&M Aggies. While the Aggies are coming off a disappointing 2023 season that saw their head coach get fired and their administration eat a $76m buyout to do so, they still have one of the best collections of defensive talent in the country, and it will be anything but easy for the Irish to escape the Texas heat with a victory. However, looking back at how the Irish game planned for Michigan in 2018 would be a wise move for the Irish coaching staff.
Six years ago, Notre Dame was coming off a resurgent year during the “Brian Kelly 2.0” era. The Irish won 10 games in 2017 after their abysmal 2016 season that could have cost Kelly his job. To kick off the 2018 season, however, the Irish hosted a Michigan squad that brought one of the best defenses in the country to Notre Dame Stadium in week one. Offensively, the Irish were looking to evolve a passing game that struggled in 2017 but feated on a running game powered by dual-threat quarterback Brandon Wimbush. The Michigan defense didn’t look like one to test much through the air.
Notre Dame leveraged Wimbush’s legs nearly as much as his arm as they built an early lead and then relied on its stout defense to hold on for the victory. The Irish jumped out to a 21-3 first-half lead before ultimately winning 24-17 in a game that got a little too close for comfort.
Three weeks later, Notre Dame benched Wimbush in favor of Ian Book and cruised to an undefeated regular season and their first berth in the College Football Playoffs.
No Notre Dame coach has ever admitted it, but in retrospect, it seems pretty likely that the staff knew that Book was the better passer and likely elevated the team’s ceiling more, given Wimbush’s limitations as a passer long before the Wake Forest contest. It’s also highly likely that they knew their best chance of beating Michigan to start the season and kick off that undefeated regular season was to leverage Wimbush’s legs against that Michigan defense and then figure out the rest later.
No one from the 2018 coaching staff remains on staff for Notre Dame in 2024, but this year’s staff would be very wise to look to that game plan as a blueprint to beat Texas A&M in College Station next weekend.
The offense that Notre Dame runs for the rest of the 2024 season does not need to be the same offense we see against the Aggies. Now, that’s not to suggest the staff does anything crazy like Charlie Weis did in 2007 when he attempted to install a spread-option offense in a summer after spending all of spring and the previous two seasons in a pro-style attack, but it is to suggest that the game planning and playcalling we see against Texas A&M not only could be very different than what we see the remaining 11 games, but it should be.
Texas A&M has perhaps the best defensive line Notre Dame will face all year, although Florida State will likely have something to say about that. The Irish will also be starting two new tackles (including a potential true freshman at LT) and a new guard while having a new quarterback in transfer, Riley Leonard, who are all learning a new offense under new offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock. Add up all those moving parts on offense and compare it to a Texas A&M defense that will be very good, even though it is also learning a new system under Mike Elko. It’s easy to see how offensively this game will likely be a struggle for the Irish.
Notre Dame needs to be a better passing team this year to not only reach its ultimate goals but to help reverse the negative trend at wide receiver recruiting. This game isn’t the game to do that, though. This is a game where Notre Dame should leverage Leonard’s legs more than they probably will all season long to do whatever it takes to come out victorious. Mike Denbrock will likely want to rely less on 11-personnel than Notre Dame has in the past this season, but against A&M? We should see more multiple tight-end sets than we will all season long. Two back sets? Sure, let’s empty the playbook on those.
This is the kind of game that a smart staff should look at and say, “There are things we want to accomplish this year on offense that we’re not even going to attempt tonight.” If Notre Dame comes out and tries to air it out, things could end poorly behind an offensive line that will take time to gel. That’s where Leonard’s legs can be a factor.
Assuming freshman Anthonie Knapp is the starting left tackle, he will take his first collegiate snaps in Kyle Field in front of 100,000 in a defeating environment while facing an elite pass rush. That is not an ideal situation. When Notre Dame faced Michigan in 2018, Liam Eichenberg was a new starting left tackle for the Irish, but he was in his third year, and it was a home game. On the right side, Aamil Wagner will also make his first career start. On the inside, Sam Pendelton also looks like he’ll make his first start. Notre Dame likely won’t be able to come out and run it right at A&M, either. But again, that is where Leonard’s legs could be a factor.
Notre Dame can’t run Leonard too much the entire season after his injury luck over the last year, but for one game, nothing needs to look pretty for the Irish other than the final score. After A&M, Notre Dame gets Northern Illinois at home, Purdue on the road, and then Miami of Ohio at home before hosting Louisville to close out September. That’s three games in which they’ll have a significant talent advantage to work on the offense they want to run by the season’s end.
Mike Denbrock is a master at adapting his offense to his personnel, so I do not doubt that he and his offensive staff have something very specific lined up for Texas A&M that will ease the pressure on a young line. When Denbrock came back to Notre Dame Stadium in 2021 as part of the Cincinnati staff, he called a game that kept Notre Dame’s all-time leader in sacks, Isaiah Foskey, at bay all day while then Irish QB Jack Coan was under siege all game long before getting replaced by Drew Pyne.
We’ll just have to wait and see what exactly Denbrock dials up. What I do feel pretty confident in, however, is that the offense we see at the end of the year will look a heck of a lot different than the one we see against the Aggies to open the season, and it won’t be just because of player development. Like in 2018 against Michigan, I think we’ll see a very specific game plan for just this game.
Just win. NotreDame needs this game badly for many reasons. Also going forward NotreDame needs to schedule an easy home game for game 1. Look at Ohio State. They open with 3 super powerhouses, Akron, Western Michigan and Marshall all at home. They are a 51 point favorite against Akron. They start a new quarterback, 2 new offensive lineman and will get them up to speed while winning 60 to 0. What a joke.