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Champs Sports Bowl: Notre Dame at a crossroads in must-win contest against Florida State: game preview
Leprechaun Express: Notre Dame Football Intel Update Dec. 29, 2011
Notre Dame Fighting Irish (8-4) vs. #25 Florida State Seminoles (8-4)Champs Sports Bowl, Florida Citrus Bowl Stadium, Orlando, Florida
Thursday, Dec. 29, 2011, 5:30 PM ET/4:30 CT/ 3:30 MT/ 2:30 PT
ESPN, espn3.com, Notre Dame Football radio network
This year, against a common opponent, Notre Dame won a tough game on the road against a Wake Forest team that, in turn, had beaten Florida State. Notre Dame and Florida State appear fairly evenly matched. Both have lost key tandem running backs while also fielding strong defenses. Both have strong punters, but Notre Dame has a terrible punt return game despite a strong kick return game. Florida State has a big, mobile quarterback who nevertheless gives up sacks. Notre Dame's offense is deep and opportunitistic. But the Irish have been uneven with preparation, intensity and focus throughout the season. Look for the game to tip on whether Notre Dame is peaking and ready to play, and whether the Irish play mistake-free football, especially in the areas of turnovers and penalties.
If Brian Kelly and Notre Dame win, they finish 9-4, one win better than in his inaugural campaign and three wins better than two years ago, when Notre Dame played better against Southern Cal and Stanford but did not bring home enough close wins. If Florida State wins, then Notre Dame duplicates its record of a year ago, struggling to stay above .500 and then finishing 8-5.
After the game, Notre Dame will get a much-needed rest after a brutal schedule. Neveretheless, Notre Dame's key losses were accounted for, not by being out-gunned, but by making mistakes, commiting turnovers and not getting up for a couple of big games they had the ability to nail down. The tough schedule would have worked to their advantage had they played more consistently.
Finals are over, and the team should be well-rested albeit with a few losses to injury. They has a chance to get away and compete in a sub-tropical climate, and Kelly has a chance to show what he can do with a month to prepare for the curent, latest most important game in his career.
A tale of two coaches
Notre Dame's Brian Kelly and Florida State's Jimbo Fisher have taken different routes to being a head coach. For Kelly, it was staying in smaller venues and picking up enormous experience at the top, with two decades of head coaching experience. Kelly now is in his eighth year of Div. I-A/FBS head coaching experience, with three in the MAC, three at Cincinnati, and two at Notre Dame.
In contrast, Fisher took the different route of being associated with elite, high profile programs for many years, but as an assistant coach. Fisher has very little head coaching experience, none other than his two years as head coach at Florida State. At the same time, he was head coach-in-waiting at Florida State under Bobby Bowden. And Fisher's last experience playing Notre Dame was as an offensive coordinator at LSU, when they beat Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl during the Charlie Weis era.
Offensive Coordinator Molnar and quarterback Crist have jumped ship
An odd turn of events is that Notre Dame offensive coordinator Charley Molnar has jumped ship before the bowl game. It is not unusual that Molnar should be hired as head coach of the University of Massachusetts, who are trying to make the jump from Div. I-AA/FCS to Div. I-A/FBS. But he is leaving Notre Dame high and dry without its offensive coordinator, heading into a crucial bowl game against a ranked opponent.
Kelly handles play-calling, and has played presumably lead in crafting the BK spread offense.
But apparently no offensive coordinator will be in place until early January, in time for the final weeks of recruiting.
Molnar also was coaching the quarterbacks however, and both of Notre Dame's two remaining active signal-callers with game experience are still quite young and in development.
Meanwhile, veteran quarterback Dayne Crist has concluded his Notre Dame studies and already has gone to Kansas to pursue graduate studies while playing football under former Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis.
Notre Dame Offense Against Statistically Proud Florida State Defense
If Notre Dame shows up, and does not sleep-walk like they did against Southern Cal, or look nervous and make mistakes like they did against Stanford, they have a chance to move the ball and score on Florida State. But they probably need some trademark well-timed, well-crafted, fire-out-of-the-gates Brian Kelly fast drives.
Make no mistake about it, if Notre Dame is sluggish, starts getting turnover-happy, or collecting ticky-tack penalties in bundles, look for it to be a long day for the Irish.
Florida State has gaudy but possibly inflated stats on defense, but nonetheless are a solid opponent trying to forge ahead with their program.
Florida State is #2 nationally in rushing defense, #4 in scoring defense, #5 in tackles for loss, #6 in total defense, #9 in sacks and #18 in overall pass defense.
However, they are not ranked as high in pass efficiency defense, and when one peels away the layers of the onion, the stats for this 8-4 team do not necessarily translate into actually shutting down an opponent.
For example, even in games where they gave up fewer than 100 yards rushing, they still allowed one ore more opposing running backs to have a nice average per carry. In a late-season loss, they did not give up enormous rushing yards, but still allowed one running back to average more than 3 yards per carry, and another to average more than 6 yards per carry. That kind of yards per carry could sustain drives or punctuate drives with some gashing runs here and there.
The pass efficiency issue, and yards-per-carry issue, call to mind the Brian Kelly drives that launched some Irish wins the past two years, where Kelly was able to cobble together some quick, efficient drives with efficient passing punctuated by some gashing 5 or 10 yard runs, even if other drives were close to the vest or kept bottled up.
Notre Dame apparently intends to play both remaining quarterbacks, after Dayne Crist departed for Kansas. Tommy Rees is a competent passer with past problems with turnovers, but has not been allowed to demonstrate a deep threat. And Rees has apparently a nagging knee issue that has allowed opponents to drop almost their entire defense back into coverage rather than concern themselves over his scrambling.
Where Rees excels is with well-timed passes with good touch, and a poised leadership presence.
Andrew Hendrix is billed as more mobile, although Hendrix actually was rated about the same or slower in the 40 as Crist, out of high school. He is not a blazing speedster, merely a good decent runner like Crist.
NFL-caliber wider receiver Michael Floyd never really gets uncorked because of Rees not being a deep threat as yet, but has shown himself as a kind of utility receiver, in the current of things, to be somebody who will be strong in the NFL. In the NFL he can be that utility receiver and also get uncorked deep.
What could heavily damage Florida State is the combination of Floyd with All-American tight end Tyler Eifert, who is probably fast enough, with good enough hands and good enough with route-running to play wide receiver. As a bona fide big, tall tight end, he is a monster across the middle, or wherever his route takes him.
But Notre Dame also has depth at wide receiver, including every-down-fast-motor play-maker Robby Toma, former offensive player of the year in Hawai'i when linebacker Manti Te'o was defensive player of the year there. T.J. Jones and John Goodman round out a receiver corps that is crisp, fast, sure-handed and well-schooled even with Theo Riddick being moved back to his high school position at running back.
Daniel Smith, quietly sitting in the two-deep behind Floyd, poses an intriguing figure because he apparently is as big as Floyd.
One interesting feature of the Florida State defensive secondary is that they have a 6-2 corner and a 5-8 corner, as well as a 6-2 safety and a 5-8 safety. It will be interesting to see what match-ups occur, especially with Notre Dame bringing such a wide range of receivers, from the smaller playmaker Toma to the taller Floyd and Eifert.
But, on balance within the whole package, the real question for Notre Dame is the running game, which propeled what success they had this year as a complement to largely short- and mid-range passing.
At first, last year, Kelly seemed to not want to play a lot of running backs. Later he played more, out of necessity, and discovered that a hard-running fullback was what he needed to beat Southern Cal, when he technically did not even have a fullback in his base formation.
This year, Kelly clearly fell in love with the idea of a running back tandem, and is not abandoning the tandem after the loss of key personnel Jonas Gray to injury.
George C. Atkinson, III, might have seemed a wise choice to play more, give Atkinson's gameday savvy as a big-time kick-returner to go with his status as a bona fide running back. Riddick, while showing a lot of promise, did not seem to have as much flash this year as hoped. But the fact Kelly has put in Riddick and is sticking with the more experienced Riddick shows that the veteran head coach is seeing something he thinks will help carry the running game well in conjunction with Cierre Wood.
Wood, for his part, has excelled in his progress, with speed and gashing runs combined with a surprising uptick in his strength and power, and willingness to grind it up the middle as well. His strengths, however, include what appears to be a growing instinct for holes and cuts, and timing how to scrap for the extra yards, as well as trying to break it. All of the above should be key against a Seminole defense that is tough but apparently provides opportunities.
With the offensive line tabbed as bearing a heavy burden against a strong Florida State front, at least one Notre Dame lineman has pointed out that Florida State does not seem to run a lot of complex changes on defense, but relies on the superlative athleticism, size and strength of their personnel.
The Seminoles appear to have a base 4-3 defense of some kind, with a 300-pound starting nose guard and defensive tackle, with somewhat smaller defensive ends and middling-sized linebackers.
Look for Notre Dame to be up to the task of going man-to-man and toe-to-toe in the trenches on offense, whatever rotation Kelly works out. The real issue will be intensity of effort combined with momentum, turnovers and penalties.
Notre Dame is still near the bottom nationally in turnovers, and never really righted the ship in that regard. But the Irish also had some success when they did reduce or eliminate turnovers in particular games. So they know there is a way, if only they can tap into it.
Notre Dame Defense Will Have Opportunities to Shut Down Florida State
While they might have some depth, Florida State lost half of its running back tandem when he could not make grades.
The Seminoles have a big quarterback who is an efficient passer, and a good runner. But for some reason he gets sacked often. Florida State is one of the top teams in the country for sacking the opponent, but one of the worst teams for giving up sacks.
So obviously there is some reason that a mobile quarterback, who can pick up yardage running, nevertheless get sacked multiple times, and even cut his rushing total in half because of the sacks.
Hopefully Kelly and defensive coordinator Bob Diaco have figured out how to explain that fact, and capitalize on it. But the loss of a key running back and potential for sacks should hopefully fuel some defensive intensity by the Irish, keyed by All-American linebacker Manti Te'o, to try to turn in a dominant performance.
And T'eo's decision to stay for his senior year will mean that the bowl is not just a fun last effort, but rather an opportunity to show he means business when it comes to learning and getting the most out of every single rep, be it in practice or live game action.
Ethan Johnson's return to defensive end, combined with the emergence of now-seasoned newcomers on the line, could terrorize Florida State a bit, while also bulking up Notre Dame's front even further. With Johnson back, Notre Dame will have an athletic, mobile 300-pound defensive end to go with the 330-pound nose tackle and additional defensive end not far shy of 300.
Field Position and Punting Fiasco
Notre Dame somehow has gone totally AWOL on special teams with its punt returns, and will be facing the #1 punting team in college football.
Yet the Irish have a strong kick-off return game that has gone to the house more than once.
Look for Florida State to stay in the game solely because of field position issues due to horrible net losses of yards on exchanges of possession.
At the same time, Ben Turk has come back into form, with a low overall average that is misleading, because he has been back into a much longer average in more recent games. But Notre Dame's apparent decision to give up on punt returns could create a day-long source of aggravation when and if Florida State uncorks its big punting.
This will mean Notre Dame could need extra first downs to keep longer drives alive. And it could mean Florida State can move downfield through net gains on exchanges of punts.
Hopefully Kelly will suprise us in the bowl with a punt return game, but only then will we know.
Notre Dame kicker David Ruffer is a solid, NFL-caliber kicker, but had some ups and downs this year. This year is really the first time in his entire athletic career where he has had to bounce back from misses. His ability to do so effectively, and be solid-as-usual in the bowl, can help add to his credentialling, one would expect.
Looking to Tap into History
Notre Dame has the much longer football history, but in the portion of the modern era where the two schools contended for national titles, they did manage to collide in a few major moments, including a #1 vs. #2 matchup won by the Irish at Notre Dame and a Sugar Bowl won by Florida State.
The first time they met, in the late 1970's, Florida State was trying to gain relevance scheduling tough opponents, but managed to catch Notre Dame in the one down year during the Devine era, when they Irish finished 7-4 and did not go to a bowl, before playing in a national championship-impacting Sugar Bowl the following year. Later, they met in the #1 vs. #2 game in 1993, followed by a more ho-hum affair at the Citrus Bowl Stadium in Orlando but during the regular season. A third game between the two during the Holtz era would be a hard-fought Sugar Bowl in which Florida State prevailed over a Notre Dame team playing a back-up quarterback.
During the Ty Willingham era, Notre Dame shocked Florida State with a win in Tallahassee before Willingham's era started to implode, including an embarrassing blow-out loss to Florida State at home the following year.
To be honest, however, tapping into history can only go so far, if one does not learn from history, be inspired by history and set out to actually make history.
Notre Dame, thus far, has not been doing that this year. The well-schooled but something plodding and apathetic, mistake-prone efforts against top programs in Southern Cal and Stanford are out of step with traditional Notre Dame spirit.
Ironically, a few of the games Notre Dame was pooh-poohed for supposedly winning ugly, such as Pitt or Wake Forest, were actually fairly professional-looking efforts. Even if Notre Dame plays against Florida State like it did against Pitt and Wake Forest, that would be some solid football that gets the job done, which would, in fact, be a lot more consistent with Notre Dame's tradition of excellence than they would be given credit for. And it would definitely be more in tune with true Notre Dame Football than the sleep-walk against Southern Cal or the nervous "funk" against a Stanford team that Notre Dame has absolutely no business lagging behind in the development of their program.
Keywords: Notre Dame Football, Notre Dame Fighting Irish Football, College Football, Stanford, BCS, Bowl Games
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