Photo Credit: David Maialetti/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP

It was far from pretty. The Irish needed a late touchdown yet again from DeShone Kizer and Will Fuller to avoid a loss that would have felt like a nightmare. On a night know for tricks and treats, it felt for much of the evening like the Irish were playing a trick on themselves. The result is fine: Notre Dame proved victorious over the Temple Owls 24-20. If this game were measured as a type of candy, it was far from being a Reese’s Cup. In fact, it’s insulting to mention Reese’s with that performance. It was better than candy corn. I’ll give the Irish that as well. Let’s settle somewhere around the Three Musketeers range of candy – it’s chocolate (a win) but lacks the substance and filling to fully satisfy the Irish faithful.

There was some stuff that happened on the sidelines between Brian Kelly and Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach David Grimes that will draw some attention from pundits, and we’ll likely circle around to it later this week, but given that it had zero impact on the game that occurred on the field, I shall waste no more words on it here.

The refs….oh boy. They were worse than Halloween 3: Season of the Witch, and that’s saying something. If you have no idea what I mean by the reference, consider yourself lucky. Elijah Shumate was ejected on a second half targeting call that would have required either or both players to possess the ability to fly to avoid the contact. The evidence against the targeting rule in its current form continues to grow, gif by gif, vine by vine, of completely absurd plays that result in a player being ejected. That may be a topic later this week too.

For now, let’s go a little deeper on some things from the game that stuck out to me:

DeShone Kizer: Kizer fell just one yard shy of 300 passing yards. He set career highs in passing attempts, rushing attempts, rushing yards, and rushing touchdowns. With the inability to get CJ Prosise going, the entire offense fell on Kizer’s shoulders. Kizer alone accounted for nearly 95% of Notre Dame’s offensive yards. His 143 rushing yards fell a mere 3 yards short of the ND quarterback single-game record (Bill Etter, 146 yards, 1969 v. Navy. Stat courtesy of Michael Bertsch). This was already Kizer’s third game leading a fourth quarter comeback for a victory. Despite all of these successes, this also felt like Kizer’s worst game in several respects. For the first time in Kizer’s career, he had a multi-interception game. The interceptions were magnified by the fact that both came in the opponent’s red zone. The second quarter interception in particular came on a terrible decision to try to force a pass when a simple throw away would have led to a chip shot field goal attempt. Kizer acknowledged as much after the game that that decision was on him and a “rookie” mistake.

The learning curve with Kizer is understandable. Thrust into the starter position, he’s handled adversity extremely well. In interviews, his maturity and intelligence shine. He’s big. He’s got a big arm. And as Temple learned last night, he’s got some wheels. That said, Kizer’s decision-making needs to become more consistent. He now has 6 interceptions in 6 starts. He’s thrown at least one interception in 5 of 6 starts. It’s just a half season, and marks just the first 6 starts of Kizer’s career, but consider this facial comparison on interception rate:

Kizer’s performance has certainly been better than 2014 Golson or 2013 Rees. I don’t want anyone to confuse my concern with reality. He’s also got less game experience. 2014 Golson and 2013 Rees were both seniors whereas Kizer is just a sophomore. So, while there’s plenty of room for optimism, ball security and decision-making need to get better for the Irish to progress throughout the rest of the season. Winning games while losing the turnover battle has been an exception in the Kelly era and one the team will not want to make a habit of testing.

Temple’s Defense:  It would be unfair not to give credit to Temple’s defense. Prior to the game I was critical on whether they were in fact good or whether they’d just played bad teams. Using Football Outsider’s S&P rankings (#SportsMath!) as the guide, prior to the game last night the best offense the Owls had faced was Cincinnati who ranked 46th nationally prior to yesterday’s game. They’d also faced 3 of the 9 worst offenses in the FBS ranks. Notre Dame went into the game ranked 6th, and I fully expected Notre Dame to expose the Owls.

Matt Rhule’s group had different ideas. It was obvious their goal was to take away CJ Prosise. Temple consistently loaded the box and aggressively pursued anything that remotely looked like a run to Prosise. This over-pursuit helped open up the 79 yard Kizer touchdown run, but all and all, the Owls won the day as it related to Prosise. The Irish offensive line never got rolling, and while I’m sure it happened some, it seemed like you never saw the linemen making it to the second level of the Temple defense. Prosise finished with just 25 yards on 14 carries. His 14 carries were the only carries by an ND running back all game.

I hope Irish fans could appreciate Temple’s effort. The game should have felt like a vintage Bob Diaco performance. Temple for the most part was willing to concede smaller chunks of yardage to avoid big plays down field. Their secondary was extremely physical (and yes, overly physical on more than one occasion…some that were called for penalties, others that could/should have been penalties). Will Fuller’s long reception of the night was the 17 yard touchdown pass. He finished with just 46 receiving yards on 5 catches. Deep in their own territory, Temple continued to scratch, claw, and force the Irish to work for every inch. They were rewarded with the two red zone turnovers.

Temple’s defense has surrendered more yards to their opponent than their offense has gained numerous times this year, and yet they now rank 7th nationally in points per game allowed (15.8). Their red zone scoring percentage surrendered is 9th nationally at 70%. Think about that: 3 out of every 10 times an opponent has made it to Temple’s red zone, they’ve come away with 0 points. They rank 9th nationally in yards per point as well giving up 1 point for every 20.8 yards their opponents get. For comparison – Notre Dame ranks 31st nationally giving up a point for every 16 yards they surrender.

Plain and simple – Temple’s defense put in the work to compensate for allowing nearly double the yards of the Irish defense. Sure, opportunity and luck played a role in that. But Irish fans love to harken back to the good ‘ole days of 2012, and well, I can think of few defenses that were more opportunistic than that one.

Red Zone Offense: Speaking of those two red zone turnovers…Notre Dame now ranks 73rd nationally scoring points on 82.14% of red zone possessions. This comes on the heels of the 2014 season when the Irish finished 79th nationally in red zone scoring percentage. Last year’s was particularly difficult because Notre Dame saw the 14th most red zone attempts per game. This year, they’re closer to the middle of the pack getting to the opponent’s red zone about 3.5 times per game.

In the Brian Kelly era, the best the Irish have finished in red zone scoring percentage was 2010 when they finished 51st nationally. The ability to finish drives in the red zone has been a nearly endless source of frustration for both the team (I’m sure) as well as fans. If we consider the percentage of red zone attempts ending in a touchdown, it gets worse.

Notre Dame now sits 85th nationally converting just 57.58% of red zone attempts into touchdowns.

This has been a historically terrible area for Kelly’s Irish teams:

Red Zone Attempts Ending in Touchdowns

Four of six seasons (including this year to date), Kelly’s offense has been ranked 80th or worse at converting red zone attempts to touchdowns. I’m sure many will have theories about “man ball” and fullbacks and whatever else, but whatever the reason, the result has been missed opportunities. Last night’s was just the most recent. Two fewer red zone turnovers and two more red zone touchdowns and that is not a close game.

The Irish get a Pitt team coming off a disappointing loss next and then face two pretty terrible teams in Wake Forest and Boston College. This is a good time to get the team’s head on straight to hopefully set up a game of massive importance with Stanford to end the regular season. It could go without saying, but let’s say it anyways, the offense, for as good as it’s been, needs to clean up these deficiencies if the Irish hope to up end Stanford at the end of the season. For now, let’s get ready for a Narduzzi of an upcoming game.

The post Irish Survive Their Owl of Discontent appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

And they’re running into a buzz saw.

For those of you who lived through, and still remember, that frightful night in January when Alabama overwhelmed the Irish, you will recall the biggest difference between the teams was depth. Down the line and across the board, Alabama was deeper. While Notre Dame may have had a better player at a given position, Alabama was simply deeper than Notre Dame. Deeper in talent. Alabama had more stars.

https://youtu.be/joWpYsKere8

To compare Temple to Notre Dame, I took the projected two-deep rosters for both teams and went through the process of tallying up the Rivals rankings for each player. While there are some differences between the two schemes, I think the similarities make the comparison fair across the position groups. In gross terms, each team has three receivers positions, five offensive linemen, a tight end, a quarterback, a running back, four defensive linemen, three linebackers, two cornerbacks, two safeties, a punter, and a placekicker.

Receivers: of the six receivers on Notre Dame’s two-deep, five (Fuller, St. Brown, Carlisle, Hunter, Jr., Robinson) were four star recruits. One (Brown) was three. Of the six Temple receivers, only one (Adonis Jennings) was a four star recruit. He is a transfer from Pitt. One (Romond Deloatch) was three stars and three (Robby Anderson, Samuel Benjamin, Brodrick Yancy) were two star recruits. To his credit, starter John Christopher was unranked. Notre Dame: 23, Temple: 13

Running Back: for the Irish, both Prosise and Adams were three star recruits. For Temple, the starter, Jahad Thomas was a two star recruit and backup Ryquell Armstead was a three star. Notre Dame: 6, Temple: 5

Quarterback: Notre Dame’s quarterbacks, Kizer and Wimbush were both four star recruits. Temple’s starter, P.J. Walker, was two stars. His backup, Frank Nutile, was three. Notre Dame: 8, Temple: 5

O-Line: the Irish have one five star (Nelson), six (Stanley, Bivin, Bars, Mustipher, Elmer, McGlinchey) four star, and two (Martin, McGovern) three star recruits. Temple have one (James McHale) three star on the line. For what it’s worth, he’s the backup left tackle. The rest, nine players (Dion Dawkins, Shahbaz Ahmed, Jovahn Fair, Kyle Friend, Brendan McGowan, Brian Carter, Semaj Reed, Eric Lofton, Leon Johnson) were two star recruits. Notre Dame: 35, Temple: 21

Tight End: Notre Dame’s starter (Luatua) is three stars and backup (Weishar) is four. Temple’s are a four (Colin Thompson) and a two (Kip Patton). Notre Dame: 7, Temple: 6

D-Line: Notre Dame has four (Day, Hayes, Tillery, Rochell) four stars and three (Okwara, Trumbetti, Cage) three stars. Temple has one (Freddie Booth-Lloyd) three star, six (Nate Smith, Sharif Finch, Matt Ioannidis, Averee Robinson, Hershey Walton, Jacob Martin) two star, and one (Haason Reddick) no star. Notre Dame: 25, Temple: 15

LB: Notre Dame has one (Smith) five star, three (Onwualu, Morgtan, Coney) four star, one (Martini) three star, and one (Schmidt) no stars. Temple has two (Chapelle Russell, Jarred Alwan) three star, three (Tyler Matakevich, Avery Williams, Stephaun Marshall) two star and one (Nick Sharga) no star. Notre Dame: 21, Temple: 6

CB: the Irish have two (Russell, Luke) four star, one (Butler) three star and one (Coleman) two star recruits. Temple have one (Jean Chandler) three star and three (Artel Foster, Tavon Young, Nate Hairston) two star recruits. Notre Dame: 13, Temple: 9

S: Notre Dame has one (Redfield) five star, one (Shumate) four star, and two (Baratti, Farley) three star recruits. Temple have two (Adeboye Aromire, Alex Wells) three star, one (Nate L. Smith) two star, and one (Will Hayes) no star recruits. Notre Dame: 15, Temple: 8

P: Notre Dame has one (Newsome) three star and one (Riney) no star at punter. Temple has two (Alex Starzyk, Tyler Mayes) no star punters. Notre Dame: 3, Temple: 0

PK: the Irish have one (Yoon) three star and one (Cheveson) no star placekicker. Temple have two (Austin Jones, Tyler Mayes) no star placekickers. Notre Dame 3: Temple: 0

If you’re counting, that’s 159 stars to the Irish versus 88 to the Owls. That’s an enormous gap between the two programs. Is it a perfect comparison? Not at all. For starters, no weight is given to experience: a five star pure freshman rates higher than a fifth-year, no star phenom. It doesn’t measure performance versus potential: Ishaaq Williams, anyone? And Jerry Tillery’s stars came as an offensive lineman. So it’s flawed. But, as a measure of talent across the board, it’s fair and objective. It helps explain the Vegas line as of the date of my research (Sunday): ND -10.5. Interestingly, ‘bama was a 9.5 favorite over Notre Dame in 2013.

Looking at wins, as another comparison, Temple’s 7-0 is more an argument that they’re better than some really bad teams than anything else. In wins over Penn State (5-2), Cincinnati (4-3), UMass (1-6), Charlotte (2-5), Tulane (2-5), UCF (0-8) and East Carolina (4-4), Temple has only impressed against Penn State. They squeaked by UMass 25-23 while the Irish beat them 62-27. Terry, no doubt, will argue in the comments that Temple’s defense must be better than ours.

So, despite the hype, I’m not too worried about Saturday night. Temple doesn’t have the talent to go four quarters against the Irish.

The post Counting the Stars: Is Temple to Notre Dame what Notre Dame was to Alabama? appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.