If we can take away one thing for sure from the Blue Gold game this past Saturday, it’s that the Irish ran the damn ball. A lot. While this could certainly have been pandering to the Members Only–crowd who comprised the approximately four thousand lucky/incredibly wealthy/generous spectators (it certainly was not), it most likely reflected a recognition by Head Coach Brian Kelly and his staff that what worked against LSU in the Music City Bowl would keep on working with a darn good O-line, a stable of improving backs, and two fleet-footed and mobile quarterbacks.
Against the Fighting Tigers, Notre Dame ran the ball fifty-one times, a quasi-magical number it has never surpassed during an actual game during the Brian Brian Kelly years. The Irish had only reached it twice before under Kelly, both times in the 2012 campaign (Miami and Pitt). Against itself, or the Gold team, in the 2015 Spring Game, Notre Dame, or the Blue team, compiled 243 yards.
Sports Illustrated ran with this idea yesterday, to suggest that the Blue Gold game and the Music City Bowl were manifestations of a new “identity,” that of a running team. To the article’s author, last season’s “rushing game was a mash of inconsistency,” producing equal numbers of 200-yard games as ones in which the Irish failed to hit the hundred yard mark. This “highlighted just how much (or how little) Kelly and company wanted to rely on a ground attack.” When you look at the numbers, though, “Kelly and company” ran the ball (a lot) more in 2014 than they did in 2013 and only sixteen times fewer than they did in 2012, when they called 506 rushing plays.
I think it more accurate to posit that Brian Kelly tries to call a lot of run plays and that when the O-line clicks, as it did against LSU and the Gold team last Saturday, the running game is productive and good things usually happen. Remember that last season foundered in the roiling Scylla and Charybdis of turnovers and an unsettled offensive line. Still, Kelly and company called five games in which they ran forty or more times. In 2013, they did so only twice. In 2012, the ran 40 or more rushing plays seven times. In 2011 that number was just two. In 2010, Kelly and company’s first season, the only hit the 40-mark once, against Miami in the bowl game.
I think it also perhaps more accurate, though that’s perhaps the wrong word to use here, to look at the number of sub-30 rushing attempt games as a better indicator of a staff’s commitment to running the ball and of a team’s likely success. For, let’s face it, any number of factors can increase or decrease the number of rush, or pass, attempts. With that said, in 2010, Kelly and company failed to reach the 30-mark four times (Utah, MSU, Stanford, Tulsa), winning just one of them (Utah). In 2011, Kelly and company were sub-30 three times (USAF, USC, USF), again winning just one of them (USAF). In 2012, the Irish were sub-30 just once, against, you guessed it, Alabama, in which they ran but 19 times. If I’m being honest, I don’t recall us running that many total plays, but whatever. In 2013, Kelly and company were under thirty attempts four times (Michigan, Oklahoma, Pittsburgh, Stanford), all losses. Finally, in 2014, Kelly and company were under thirty attempts just twice (Louisville and USC).
Of course, a mobile QB is going to account for some increase in the number of rushing attempts, and when you’re platooning signal-callers, a Golson and Zaire team will out-attempt a Golson and Rees team any day of the week.
So, while I do think the LSU game was a harbinger of things to come for Notre Dame, I think it is unfair to say that the days of fifty-plus runs per game are here to stay. I think a lot of that number came from our desperate need to keep our battered defense off the field. Some of that need should be gone this season, but having both numbers eight and five under center and a solid O-line opening things up for some very good backs will still see Kelly and company remain committed to the run game. Here’s hoping we break some big ones off.
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
