One thing that stood out to me during the ND/Navy game this past Saturday was that the defense looked monumentally better against the option than they did against Air Force. So I took a dive into some numbers to check out just how much improvement the team made.
Note: For those that have Flickr images blocked, I have made a Google Doc as well for all charts.
Obviously, we preformed monumentally better against Navy across the board. Going a bit deeper into the stats, we see more improvement, as the Irish restricted Navy from breaking the big play:
Against Air Force, ND gave up a handful of plays of 16 yards or more, including five of which that were over 21 yard gains. However, against Navy, the Irish gave up zero plays beyond 16 yards with 15 yards being the biggest gain of the day for Navy. The Irish also forced five Navy plays for no gain, a feat only accomplished twice against Air Force. Also in the improvement category was the amount of plays that the Irish forced a loss of yardage, albeit slight.
The majority of the plays against Navy stayed within the 1-5 yard range, a noticeable improvement over Air Force in which the majority of plays given up were between 6-10 yards. This trend demonstrates the Irish's capability to keep much better contain against the Middies, leading to a dramatic reduction in overall yards gained in comparison to Air Force.
As I mentioned in my breakdown of Air Force, there is much more to beating an option team than the yards you allow. So let's take a look at the winning drives for the defense and offense (Note: I did not include end of half/end of game drives) as well as a few other defensive stats.
For the most part, all the numbers are comparable. While the offense had the same success in both games, the defense won one more drive against Navy and lost two less as well. While that may not seem like much, losing two less drives alone equates to 14 points removed from Navy's score and the extra win an additional 3-7 points removed. 17-21 points is quite a big deal, especially if the offense had sputtered, which thankfully it didn't.
The Irish did give up 2 more 3rd down conversions to Navy than it did against Air Force. While that might seem somewhat concerning, ND had dramatic improvement on 4th downs. Against Navy, the Irish stuffed both fourth down attempts, quite a large improvement from allowing Air Force to convert all of their 4th down attempts.
To me, the difference between the two games are simply staggering. Personally, I don't care if Navy was forced to used their backup QB. You simply do not see this kind of improvement and chalk it up to a substitution of a QB who, quite frankly, did not make any major mistakes that cost his team. The Irish did a much better job of staying on their assignments and not over-pursuing which happened constantly during Air Force and it showed.
Hopefully, this means that we can put to rest any fears of ND and Diaco simply not being able to defend the option.
By Vairish84 October 31, 2011 - 9:11 am
I agree. AFter the first drive where they got 4 or 5 of their third down conversions, the D did a really great job. Both of the Navy TDs were against short field, and one against the back-ups. They were probably the most improved as they looked terrible against Air Force, but no noticeable drop off against Navy.
I agree with you on Diaco, he is now 3-1 against option teams, and it seems he has gotten a groove. Air Force passes better than either of the other two and that may account for the poorer performance against Air Force.
As for good against the option, lets hope so, because it seems we will be playing Ga. Tech in the Champs Sports Bowl.
I watched the Clemson-Ga. Tech game and watched the lack of defense against the option. It appeared Clemson was using Diaco’s defense against Navy. Base 3-4. The one play Ga. Tech ran consistently that I don’t think Navy, Army or AF ran was the midline option, where the QB turns up between the G and T for a quick five yards. Keeps the ILB from getting to the edge.
It will be interesting to see if we can defend an option team manned by good athletes.
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By SDI October 31, 2011 - 10:13 am
Agree VA, the 2nd and 3rd stringers did much better. It seems the overall scheme was tweaked again to go from a solid performance against AF, to a dominant game against Navy.
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By Erik '04 October 31, 2011 - 11:08 am
If I interpreted the comments correctly, the Navy coaches and/or players said that we implemented a scheme on defense that they hadn’t really seen before, and had no answers for. Apparently they tried to change up what they were doing in order to adjust to our scheme, but nothing worked. So kudos to Diaco and our coaches for coming up with a really solid gameplan, as well as to our players for exerting their will and finally taking advantage of their superior size and speed against overmatched Navy.
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By Brawling Hibernian October 31, 2011 - 12:33 pm
This is consistent with the level of improvement Notre Dame showed last season the second time they faced the triple option against Army. Here are the four games in comparison:
Navy (2010):
Rushing yds allowed: 367
Total yds allowed: 438
Points allowed: 35
Air Force (2011):
Rushing yds allowed: 363
Total yds allowed: 565
Points allowed: 33
Army (2010):
Rushing yds allowed: 135
Total yds allowed: 174
Points allowed: 3
Navy (2011):
Rushing yds allowed: 196
Total yds alloweD: 229
Points allowed: 14
What stands out for me is that, against both Navy (2010) and Air Force this season, the Irish allowed almost identical rushing yards and points. By the second time they faced they triple option in both seasons, the reduction in both, as well as total yards, was astounding. Granted, some of this is due to facing less talented teams the second go-around, but the level of improvement shows something beyond simply level of competition, I think.
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By starkruzr October 31, 2011 - 1:20 pm
Numbers! PFEH! Numbers are nothing next to the 50 years I’ve been watching college football!
(no srsly Tex, awesome job)
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By GB October 31, 2011 - 6:15 pm
Nice article. I liked watching ND’s dominant D this game. I know that points are all that really matters but yardage given up does impact both sides of the ball.ND stopped AF in crucial times. However, yardage greatly affects field position. Great teams are usually very stingy on yardage D. It is like the canary in the coal mine. I’m glad that Diaco finally figured out the option.
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