When Brian Kelly assumed the mantle of coaching the Fighting Irish, there was an expectation that he would bring the crazy insane, up-tempo offense that put his Bearcats in that year’s Sugar Bowl against Florida. “Up-tempo” can mean a couple of things. Think “number of plays per game,” or “time between plays,” or “caravan of fat people charging into an all-you-can-eat casino buffet.” For the purposes of this piece, I’m going to look at the number of plays per game the Irish have managed under Brian Kelly to see if we’re going “up-tempo,” or down-the-tubes.
Brian Kelly left Cincinnati for Notre Dame at the end of the 2009 regular season, famously letting his former charges fend for themselves against and get boat-raced by Tim Tebow’s Florida Gators, 51-24. In the twelve games before the 2010 Sugar Bowl, Kelly’s Bearcats ran 765 plays, for a per game average of 63.75. The season high plays-per-game came against Southeast Missouri State, a game in which Kelly’s offense ran seventy-seven plays. For what it’s worth, without Kelly, the Bearcats ran 68 plays against Florida.
With five regular season’s under his belt, we have enough data to show that, frankly, circumstances be damned, Kelly has turned his offense up a notch since his Cincinnati days. See for yourself:
[table “” not found /]Looking at the numbers, 2013 stands out as a drop in productivity, and one easily-explained by Golson’s absence. With him back in 2014, Kelly called a torrid 870 plays through twelve games, an average of 72.5 plays per game. This season’s high number came against Florida State, when the Irish managed 87 plays. The season’s nadir came against Louisville, when the Irish only called 53 plays. Sixty-four seems to be Notre Dame’s wheel-house this season, as they hit that number in three games: Rice, Navy, and Southern California. The Irish managed eighty or more plays three times, too: Syracuse (80), North Carolina (81), Florida State (87), and Northwestern (80). Games in the seventies happened three times: Purdue (78), Stanford (75), Arizona State (79).
There’s no correlation, that I can find, between number-of-plays and wins or losses. I figured our number would be down against Navy, given their unique offensive brand of ball-control and ankle-breaking, but the shuffling of the offensive line happened as the number of plays increased significantly from Michigan (65) to Purdue (78).
Since we learned who our Music City Bowl Opponent will be, I thought it might be interesting to compare Notre Dame’s tempo to that of LSU’s foes. This is how it looks:
[table “” not found /]
LSU’s defense, about which a lot of ink is going to spilled between today and 2:00 p.m. New Orleans time on December 30, keeps opposing offenses below their average number of plays. While the Irish could get lucky and score quickly, the Tiger defense is too good, and the Irish offense has been frankly too inconsistent, for that to be a realistic hope for victory. Considering the shape of the offense, the questions at quarterback, and the issues on defense, this should be the game where Coach Kelly runs the damn ball early and often, to keep the tempo high and LSU off the field and out of the end zone.
Hating Hurricanes Since 1990.
Bayou Irish is a Jersey boy and Double Domer who fell under New Orleans' spell in 1995. He's been through Katrina and fourteen years in the Coast Guard, so we cut him some slack, mostly in the form of HLS-subsidized sazeracs. But, when he's not face down on the bar and communing with the ghosts of Faulkner and Capote at the Carousel Bar in the Hotel Monteleone, he's our man in SEC-land, doing his best to convince everyone around him that Graduation Success Rate is a better indicator of success than the number of MNC's won in the last five years.
- Finding Flaws in a Diamond: Clemson’s Rushing Offense - December 17, 2018
- Why Nobody Will Cotton to Notre Dame - December 3, 2018
- Irish Finish Regular Season Perfect 12-0 - November 26, 2018
I’m rather shocked by the tempo numbers. I thought this offense ran at a slower clip than the Cincinnati counter-part but apparently that isn’t the case.
I wonder if Kelly makes an effort to slow it way down against LSU, especially to cover for a defense that is under-performing. It’s almost like he has the opposite mindset: score immediately and often to try and cover for the defense. I’m not sure that’s overly wise.
As you can imagine, I’ve had the same or similar conversations with a lot of people to-GET THE HECK OUT OF MY OFFICE I’M “WORKING”! See? See what I am dealing with. I think the number of plays is LEAVE ME ALONE! I WILL TALK TO YOU ABOUT THE GAME IN A MINUTE!
In all seriousness, if the O-line doesn’t get right in a lot of ways come kickoff, we are in for a really, really long afternoon. The D-line is going to be challenged — I’ve seen at least one comment on Twitter that LSU could win without throwing a pass. But if we can’t run the ball at all, we are doomed. We have to be able to get 3.5 yards when we need it.
And on paper (that should be the motto of this season) we should be able to do it.
I would like to see a study of the relationship between running a fast paced spread offense and the frequency of injury. I do not recall any year in Notre Dame history that the team suffered so many key injuries. Of course, the new field and the suspension of five players may also have led to more injuries.
Bulk of the injuries are on D. Not sure fast paced offense caused that.
I think if we sell out defending the run LSU will throw it over our heads more than once.