Rush to Judgement
Quick, tell me the run to pass play-calling ratio of Notre Dame’s offense since Weis took over. No peeking down below. Just blurt out the first numbers that come to mind in the comments for this post.
We all know that Weis runs a “pass happy offense,” right? The guy clearly wants to pass to set up the run. He runs all sorts of exotic passing schemes. His play-book would give Google difficulty in indexing (nerd humor). So what do you think? How much does he run versus pass?
40% run, 60% pass?
35% run, 75% pass?
20% run, 80% pass?
45% run, 45% pass, 10% undecided?
Sorry, it’s an election year, ya know.
Answers after the jump…
Check this out: We took a look at every game played by Notre Dame since Weis took the job as head coach, and broke down the rushing totals. You can click here to view the spreadsheet in another window.
It’s well documented that Weis would like to have a 50/50 ratio between run and pass plays. According to NCAA stats, he’s accomplished just that… on average. Exactly that. 50-50 run-pass. Over the course of compiling a 19-13 record, Weis, who we all know gives up the run in favor of the pass way too soon, has divided his rushing and passing plays right down the middle.
Granted, as the NCAA records them, all sacks and QB scrambles count as “rushing plays.” But over the course of 2330 play calls by Weis, we can probably negate a relatively few sacks (even in a year like 2007).
What’s really interesting is how Weis behaves on a game-by-game basis. In wins, Weis clearly prefers rushing over passing. In losses, Weis, who if nothing else is always looking to win and believes that passing is the quickest route to coming from behind, prefers passing. However, in either scenario, he doesn’t seem to “abandon” one type of play for the other. He rushes 53% of the time in wins and 46% of the time in losses.
In blowouts, in either direction, things get quite surprising. Let’s define a blowout as any game that ended with a score difference of 20 or more points. In 2005 ND had 6 blowout wins and 0 blowout losses. In 2006, 5 blowout wins, 3 blowout losses. And thus far in 2007, 0 blowout wins, 4 blowout losses. That makes 11 blowout wins and 7 blowout losses over Weis’ tenure. Weis rushes the ball at a 53% clip in blowout wins and 47% blowout losses. When you think about that, it’s surprising. If you’re ahead by a comfortable margin, you’d think ND would rush the ball quite a bit to shorten the rest of the game, thus leading to a larger margin between rushing and passing. And if ND is way behind (by either 3 TDs or 2 TDs and 2 FGs), you’d think Weis would pass the ball a lot to A) get quick scores and B) stop the clock when things aren’t working in order to buy more time to mount a comeback. But Weis seems to stick to an even run/pass ratio with almost insane discipline. Of course, it may be the case that Weis looks to beat better teams (teams with more talent and/or ability, thus more likely to blow ND out) by rushing the ball, thus shortening the game. But at a 1.46 yds/carry average in blowout losses, it’s pretty surprising that he still manages a 47% rate of rushing. Personally, I’d be at about a 20% rushing rate if my team averaged 1.46 yards/carry.
“Shortening the game” is a classic tactic of “lesser” teams trying to beat “better” teams. The idea being that the longer a “better” team gets to play on the field, the more likely that “better” team will manage to do enough “good” things to overcome some uppity, “lesser” team that’s looking for the upset. It’s why perennially good teams hate new rules that will shorten the game-play time. It’s also why “lesser” teams try to live off of creating turnovers and running the ball. Catch a few good breaks, make the clock churn, and before you know it, some no-name beats a top-10 by 3 points.
In a way, rushing the football is the “double-edged sword” of the sport. You’re either rushing a lot early in the game because you want to give yourself a chance to win, or you’re rushing a lot late because you’ve built a nice lead and you want to give the opposition less time to make a comeback. And the team’s performance over these past few seasons reflects that. ND rushed for over 55% of the time in 7 games in 2005 (arguably Weis’ best squad). Pitt was a blowout, so Weis wanted to end the game. Michigan, it could be argued, was a more talented team, so Weis looked to shorten the game in a low-scoring affair in which ND caught some breaks. Washington was nearly a blow-out (19 point differential), so Weis looked to bring the game to a close once the advantage was sizable. Purdue was a blowout of such massive proportions that even the announcers couldn’t contain their feelings on the matter, and as such, Weis looked to rush quite a bit, probably to bring the game to a close. Southern Cal was “the team of the century,” at the time, and Weis tried to limit SC’s possessions by rushing a lot and running out the clock. Navy was a one-sided affair, and ND got a comfortable lead and then tried to eliminate time for Navy to create a comeback. And then Stanford managed to be a bizzare situation in which the fastest, most efficient way to score and mount a comeback involved Darius Walker touching the ball as much as humanly possible. We’ll call that one the exception that proves the rule(s).
Even this season, where we have 4 freaking blowout losses to examine just 3/4ths of the way through the year, Weis and ND have managed to stick to the run 54% of the time. With the worst rushing offense in the country! It’s almost mind-boggling. It’s almost enough to get a guy to start yelling about how ND needs to pass the ball more!
Anyway, what these numbers show is that what I (and probably many others) think we see on the field doesn’t really correlate with reality. Will Weis start passing more aggressively when he’s behind? Yes. But it seems pretty clear that Weis, particularly in games against opponents he deems are better than the Irish, tries very hard to establish the run. Even with little prior success and a weak offensive line, the “commitment to the running game” is there.
Subtlety, thy name ain’t Weis
A quick note on something else I’ve sort of already “felt” about Weis and ND but now I’ve got numbers that show it: Weis either wins or loses big. It’s befitting of a coach like Weis, who tends not to work in the grey-areas of life often, that 54% of Notre Dame football games during Weis’ tenure have been decided by 20 points or more while only 30% of ND games have been decided by a TD or less. And it goes along well with the thinking that Weis plans to be committed to the run, but once down big he goes all-or-nothing (2007 is a study in this.). It would be interesting to take a closer look at blowout losses where the first half could be considered “competitive.”
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One Comment
Very interesting numbers. My problem with the run game under Coach Weis hasn’t been the number of runs as much as the nature of the runs. Too much finesse. How many of those runs in 2005 and 2006 were draw plays? I want to see a power running game where our O-line imposes its will on the opponent and forces them into submission. I want to see defenders blown off the ball on a dive play over the tackle. I want to be able to give the ball to a fullback on 3rd-and-1 and KNOW that we’ll get the first down. We were promised “nasty” and we haven’t seen it yet.
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