:: Notre Dame Football: Irish Game Day ::
Another Look: Notre Dame Embarrassed by Stanford 37-14, Drops to 1-3 on the Year
Leprechaun Express: Notre Dame Football Intel Update Sept. 25, 2010
Then-#16 Stanford, which has since moved into the top-10 in the AP poll, routed Notre Dame 37-14 at Notre Dame. One-third of the way into Brian Kelly's first season, the Irish have fallen to 1-3, their worst start since 2007.
The two teams were somewhat close statistically, with Notre Dame emphasizing the pass more, and Stanford gaining more on the ground. The real difference was Stanford sustaining drives, converting almost all their third downs earlier in the game, and getting at least a field goal out of seven drives.
The Notre Dame defense gave up 30 points to a Stanford team averaging 52 points per game previously. Half of Stanford's 30 offensive points were on five field goals by former Notre Dame kicker-turned-Stanford transfer Nate Whitaker. So the Stanford offense scored on seven drives, with five field goals and two touchdowns. The other Stanford touchdown, late in the game, as a pick-six return of a Dayne Crist interception.
It was a game Notre Dame led only once, 3-0 for part of the first quarter. Near the end of the first half, Notre Dame was trailing by multiple scores, with the deficit widening the rest of the way
Stanford may or may not be an early-season juggernaut, moving into the top-10 in the AP.
Stanford is undefeated, winning by an average score of 52-14 prior to their game with Notre Dame. Stanford blew out UCLA 35-0, with the Bruins going on blow out Texas at Texas. Just prior to playing Notre Dame, Stanford hung 68 points on Wake Forest.
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Kelly Looking Forward: "We're going to build this program to where it needs to be"
At his post-game press conference, Notre Dame Head Coach Brian Kelly tried to look forward, and wants to build on what he saw as a Notre Dame team working hard:
Not making any excuses for our kids, but we played three, four really good football teams, physical teams, and our kids have battled each and every week.
We came up short this week.
But they're not going anywhere.
They're going to be back next week and they're going to strap it back up and they're going to fight and play as hard as they can.
We're going to build this program to where it needs to be.
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Notre Dame Defense Ebbing and Flowing; Third Downs Crucial
Comparable Offensive Yardage
Despite the score, Stanford only out-gained Notre Dame by around 50 yards, 404-351. And Notre Dame held the vaunted Stanford power running attack to less than 4 yards per carry, 166 yards on 44 carries, 3.8 per carry.
The big issue was Stanford's ability to sustain drives and convert third downs.
In addition to somewhat erratic play by Notre Dame's otherwise prolific passing game, it was a kind of "death by a thousand cuts" from Stanford's sustained drives that helped produced the final score. Stanford kept drives going long enough to at least obtain field goals. The Cardinal scored on 7 drives, with 5 field goals and 2 touchdowns. The additional Stanford touchdown was scored by the Stanford defense.
Through the air, Stanford was 19 of 32 for 238 yards, with only 1 touchdown to a highly uncharacteristic 2 interceptions.
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Stanford Turnovers; Walls, Slaughter
In fact, while Stanford had just two turnovers in its first three games, Notre Dame forced three Stanford turnovers, with a fumble added to the two interceptions.
Senior cornerback Darrin Walls had his second interception of the year, and junior safety Jamoris Slaughter had the other, making his presence known coming back from injury to bolster a previously thin Irish secondary. Sophomore saftey Zeke Motta had the fumble.
Notre Dame actually provided some notably stronger pass coverage at times.
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Manti Te'o Nation's Leading Tackler
Sophomore Manti Te'o is now the #1 tackler in college football, after a 21-tackle performance against Stanford.
Kelly would observe at his post-game press conference that T'eo is playing with an increased intensity:
He played with a will today. He had a look on his face, a toughness to him that he hasn't displayed since he's been a player here at Notre Dame. Today is one of those watershed moments for a defensive player that we can model.
Te'o established himself as a freshman as the kind of player who makes big strides from week to week, and makes the most of opportunities to move forward with his development. He appears to be doing that this year as well.
In addition to limiting Stanford to less than 4 yards per carry, Notre Dame also broke its unhappy streak of two straight games giving up big touchdown runs while appearing to not be in proper position for those plays. After giving up long touchdown runs against both Michigan and Michigan State, helping to tip the balance in both contests, Notre Dame did not do so against Stanford.
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Stanford Sustained Drives, Third-Down Conversions
As mentioned above, the big issue for Notre Dame's defense was Stanford's ability to sustain drives.
Notre Dame was actually #18th in the country for third-down defense prior to the Stanford game, allowed just a 28% conversion rate on third down previously.
Stanford, however, converted six of its first seven third down attempts, and 7 of 9 in the first-half, more third-down conversions in one half than any of Notre Dame's other opponents had in an entire game.
On the day, Stanford was 11 of 15 on third down, with the 11 representing more third-down conversions than any Notre Dame opponent since Michigan in 2003.
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Notre Dame's Defense Developing but Winded Against Tough, Front-Loaded Schedule?
So, overall, Notre Dame's defense did not stop Stanford, but limited them somewhat, in terms of overall yardage and yards per carry. And the Irish defense secured some turnovers, including two interceptions of a quarterback who seldom throws any. Moreover, the defense did not give up a big running play for a touchdown as was done previously.
The problem is, as Notre Dame works its way through a murderer's row national schedule of back-to-back in-season bowl games, there is a question of whether the situation is being handled sufficiently well for Notre Dame to sustain a high level of play and also build and make strides from week to week.
And against Stanford, the set of variables in place seems to match what the eyes of onlookers might have gathered. The situation might have been what one might have expected of a great team getting a little sluggish.
They were solid overall, and kept the averages down, such as yards per carry; they did not give up a lot of touchdowns; they even clamped down and did not give up the long runs; they had flashes of intense effort producing a big result; but, they also allowed a lot of third-down conversions.
When a key play was on the line, they did not crank up the extra "umph" needed to kill the drive, while the opponent did, in fact, crank up just enough "umph" to keep that drive going.
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Who Is Running Notre Dame's Defense?
The issue of managing the pace and flow of the season sounds like a job for a veteran head coach, albeit one adapting to the unusual landscape of Notre Dame.
Another question that comes up, however, is the question of who is running Notre Dame's defense.
Brian Kelly started out as a defensive coach.
Although Kelly has spent decades as a head coach, and commented early on that he keeps a strong bird's-eye view of the whole program, is involved with every aspect, and will add greater attention and personal emphasis where needed.
Defensive Coordinator Bob Diaco, listed second on the coaches' roster, is in only his second year ever as a defensive coordinator, or rather as a lone defensive coordinator. Five years ago he was a co-coordinator with Kelly at Central Michigan. But Diaco's first season as a lone defensive coordinator was last year at Cincinnati, when the Bearcats had defensive numbers similar to Notre Dame's, and gave up a lot of points, but nevertheless did what they needed for Cincinnati to pull out the wins.
When Notre Dame has the ball, Kelly can be seen on the sidelines with a sheet of plays, studying them with rapid intensity, as if he might taking part in the offensive play-calling.
Diaco is up in the press box, where he has a better overview of the field and the formations.
So who is running the defense, developing it, and calling defensive plays on game day?
With Kelly, it sounds like the coaching staff functions as a true team, and that he is a complete head coach with his comprehensive involvement.
Against Stanford, Kelly praised the defense for its hard work.
To be sure, they only gave up 30 points, less than Stanford's other opponents, but still too many for what was needed in the game at hand.
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Notre Dame Offense Erratic
Passing Game Best of Times, Worst of Times
Notre Dame has a top-10 passing offense, and Dayne Crist is forging ahead in his rookie season at a blistering pace.
The Irish put up 300-plus yards against a Stanfor defense that, as Crist noted in the post-game press conference, was routinely dropping eight into pass coverage.
But Crist was erratic at times, handing Stanford one of their touchdowns off a badly thrown interception run back for a score.
Crist went 25 of 44 for 304 yards, with 1 touchown, and the interception that was run back for a Stanford touchdown. He also gave up 3 sacks.
But despite the yardage output, the statistics do not show that, on at least a few occasions, Crist's passes were notably off, impacting drives.
While the back-ups were noticeably raw and inconsistent against Michigan, Kelly, perhaps, has picked up on a tendency of a long line of predecessors being reluctant to bench a starting Notre Dame quarterback, even if just for a series or two, when he is inconsistent.
Ironically, one of the other times Stanford beat Notre Dame, during the Lou Holtz tenure, Holtz was similarly reluctant to bench Rick Mirer, even when star players Mirer and Jerome Bettis had a turnover-fest against the Cardinal.
The big story, however, was junior tight-end Kyle Rudolph being shut out for the day, with just 1 catch for 1 yard.
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Notre Dame Receivers Deep, But Tight End Shut Down
Junior wide-out Michael Floyd had 8 catches for 110 yards, including a long of 37 yards.
Sophomore speedster wide receiver Theo Riddick had a big day with 7 catches for 71 yards and a 3-yard touchdown.
Wide receiver John Goodman got into the mix a lot more, snagging his first catches of the year, with 5 receptions for 59 yards.
Senior heavy-halfback, former fullback Robert Hughes had 2 catches for 43 yards, including a 37-yarder that featured a fast, hard-running down-field ramble after the catch.
Hughes is back on the depth chart for next week, as the #2 running back.
Halfback Armando Allen and wide-out T.J. Jones also had catches, along with the 1 catch by Rudolph.
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Running Game Lurches Backwards
Against a Stanford defense already rated high for run defense, Notre Dame had only 47 net yards of rushing on the day.
This included Crist losing 17 yards on 3 sacks and another run for negative yardage.
What is unclear is why Notre Dame was able to run for so little when Stanford was able to drop eight into pass coverage routinely.
Notre Dame only had 19 carries by running backs, featuring only senior Armando Allen and junior Jonas Gray. They averaged only around 3 yards per carry. Allen had 15 carries for 52 yards, at 3.3 per carry, while Gray had 4 rushes for 12 yards, at 3 yards per carry.
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Worst Notre Dame Start Since 2007
Notre Dame starting at 1-3 is their worst start since 2007.
2007 was Charlie Weis's third year, the losing season where Notre Dame faced the balloon payment for its gutted roster, when the chickens came home to roost from the big downturn of the Davie-Willingham stretch.
Facing the toughest scheduling sequence in college football, whether it is the quality of competition or attrition from non-stop high levels of play, Notre Dame appears to be backsliding notably from its performance of previous weeks.
While still showing their talent with periodic snappy plays, in the midst of a murderer's row of a schedule, played in today's high-speed, high-strength college football to boot, Notre Dame at times is appearing sluggish, off, and out of position at times on defense.
Immediately after the game's conclusion, snagged by NBC's sideline reporter and asked about expectations, Kelly appeared to remark that he didn't care about expectations, only about getting his team ready to get better from week to week.
Three of Notre Dame's first four opponents are now ranked in the top-25.
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Notre Dame Special Teams
Senior David Ruffer, a former academic transfer from William and Mary who never played high school football, hit two field goals on the day, from 22 and 40 yards. Ruffer, who started out playing for his dormitory in Notre Dame's full-pads intramural program, is a perfect 9 for 9 on the season.
Ironically, Stanford scored half of its offensive points on five field goals by a former Notre Dame kicker who transfered. Stanford also started a tight end who originally started out at Notre Dame.
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Must-Win Game Against Boston College
Boston College comes next, and is most likely a must-win for Notre Dame if they want to be bowl eligible.
At 1-3, Notre Dame needs 6 more wins to be bowl eligible, 5 more wins to be provisionally bowl-eligible at 6-6. There are 8 games left, meaning Notre Dame needs to go at least 5-3 in the remaining games to go to a bowl, or 6-2 to nail down minimal assurance of a bid.
Remaining games are against Boston College, Pitt, Western Michigan, Navy, Tulsa, Utah, Army and Southern Cal.
Even if Notre Dame is able to take care of business against Western Michigan, Tulsa and Army, they still would need to pick up two to three additional wins from BC, Pitt, Navy, Utah and/or Southern Cal.
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Resource Links/News Links
:: Notre Dame Falls To No. 16 Stanford, 37-14 - UND.com
:: Notre Dame vs. Stanford game notes [PDF]
:: Notre Dame Football Game Week: Stanford - UND.com
:: Irish Return Home With Matchup Against #16/17 Stanford - UND.com
:: Notre Dame 2010 statistical summary - NCAA database
:: Notre Dame Football official site - UND.com
:: Notre Dame Football 2010 Media Guide (Table of Contents, PDF sections)
:: Notre Dame Football 2010 Media Guide (Table of Contents, Flash)
:: Stanford Football official site
:: Stanford 2010 statistical summary - NCAA Database
Keywords: Notre Dame Football, Stanford, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Notre Dame
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