Notre Dame vs. USC: Game Grades, Analysis for the Irish and Trojans
You can boil down USC's win over Notre Dame to one thing: the contrasting play of the starting quarterbacks. USC's Cody Kessler threw more touchdown passes against Notre Dame than anyone in history while Notre Dame's Everett Golson continued his inefficient, turnover-prone performances of the second half to the season as Trojans rolled the Irish, 49-14.
| Pass Offense | C- | C |
| Run Offense | D | C- |
| Pass Defense | F | F |
| Run Defense | B- | C |
| Special Teams | D+ | D+ |
| Coaching | C | C+ |
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
Notre Dame Pass Offense
Just when you think things couldn't get much worse for Everett Golson, he comes into the Coliseum and starts the game with more inconsistency and turnovers.
By midway through the second quarter, Brian Kelly had finally had enough and yanked Golson in favor of freshman Malik Zaire. Golson finished his day 7-of-18 for 75 yards and an interception and a fumble (as he was hit while throwing). Goslon was also sacked twice and fell on a bad snap, resulting in minus-14 rushing yards.
Zaire, on the other hand, come into the game with Notre Dame already all but defeated, and put together a few solid drives for the Irish. After Golson's six lackluster drives, Zaire put up twice as many yards as Golson in his first two drives.
Zaire finished 9-of-20 for 170 yards.
But there was a pretty confusing aspect to Saturday's passing performance, too. Zaire received almost no help from his receivers in this game, as the Irish developed a case of the dropsies. Granted, fastball passes just off target from a freshman quarterback make things slightly less than easy on a receiving corps, but when your team is struggling, you have to step up and make a play.
Saturday, even with balls hitting their hands, the Notre Dame receivers didn't do that.
Notre Dame Run Offense
The first half was just a mess. Notre Dame couldn't find any rhythm offensively, and the ground game never really got any penetration on the Trojans' front seven.
After halftime, things improved—slightly. Greg Bryant showed off some of his elusive skills late in the game and finished with 79 yards on seven carries. The next-closest Irish rusher? Malik Zaire with just 18 yards.
Certainly a below average performance, and Notre Dame's grade reflects that. The only reason it's not lower than it is is due to the fact that the Irish's only points Saturday came via the ground game.
Notre Dame Pass Defense
There's only one way to put this: yuck. We're perfectly wiling to acknowledge that Notre Dame's defense is woefully depleted, thanks to injury, as 15 of Saturday's 22 defensive players on Notre Dame's two-deep depth chart were either freshmen or sophomores. But we're still talking about scholarship players at the University of Notre Dame.
Giving up 372 passing yards and six touchdowns is absolutely inexcusable, no matter who you are or who you're playing. When you're Notre Dame playing in a rivalry game, it looks even worse.
We could go down the list and nitpick every little error made by the Irish secondary, but we don't have that kind of time. Suffice it to say that we're handing out a rare—but deserved—failing mark for the Notre Dame pass defense's performance in Saturday's game.
Notre Dame Run Defense
Yes, the run defense wasn't as bad as the pass defense was in this matchup, but that's not really saying a whole lot. The Trojans were still able to run all over the Irish, and USC had two players with more than 80 yards on the ground.
The only reason the numbers weren't worse is because the Trojans were having such success through the air in the first three quarters of the game that there wasn't really a need to run the football.
We'll get to showering praise on the Trojans offense in just a bit, but for now, we're handing the Irish run defense a pretty gracious "C" for the day (mainly because the Irish didn't allow any single rusher to eclipse 100 yards on the ground, and the Trojans only managed a single rushing touchdowns on the day—not that they needed any more).
The one bright spot for the Irish here was limiting any big plays on the ground. In fact, USC's long run of the day was just 16 yards. That's not bad for a defense that faced 53 rush attempts.
Notre Dame Special Teams
The adventures in kicking continue.
Kyle Brindza missed his only field-goal attempt of the day, smacking the left upright in a field-goal try that pretty much sums up his season.
Maybe Kelly should take a page from Steve Sarkisian's book: Don't even bother kicking, just go for it on fourth down.
Notre Dame Coaching
Sure, we could lay into Kelly and his staff for finishing 1-5 after starting 6-0. Yes, we could start second-guessing his decisions to try a field goal versus going for it on fourth down when down by a few touchdowns. But we can see many of the difficulties Kelly is facing with his roster that has been absolutely decimated by injuries this season.
Additionally, we're also pleased to see that Kelly finally decided enough was enough with Golson, and benched him. As Notre Dame prepared for its bowl game, it'll be interesting to see how the quarterback situation is dealt with, but for now, we're just happy to see him making a change—any change—to try and spark something.
| Pass Offense | A+ | A+ |
| Run Offense | B | A- |
| Pass Defense | A- | B+ |
| Run Defense | A | A- |
| Special Teams | Incomplete | B+ |
| Coaching | A | A |
USC Pass Offense
If you didn't watch Saturday's game and just checked out a box score, you'd think Kessler had a pretty good day—and he did. But what struck us about his performance was how effortless it looked.
Yes, the Notre Dame defense has been severely hobbled, but a shaky defensive secondary doesn't help Kessler throw picture-perfect passes to receivers who run beautiful routes. And that's exactly what happened today.
Every now and again, quarterbacks and their receivers just have one of those days where the game plays out in slow motion, the quarterback makes every read and the receivers' gloves seem extra sticky. Saturday was one such day where almost nothing could go wrong for the Trojans.
USC Run Offense
Based on how impressive the USC passing game was, you might think the run game didn't get its licks in. Despite being able to pass the ball almost at will, the Trojans still kept the Notre Dame defense honest with 205 rushing yards on a whopping 53 attempts.
Both Javorius Allen and Justin Davis carried the ball 19 times, and both ran through the Notre Dame defense like, well, pick your cliche: a hot knife through butter, like sand through an hour glass, like water through a sieve...
USC Pass Defense
It's hard to know to whom we pin Notre Dame's passing woes: Everett Golson or the USC pass rush and secondary.
While Notre Dame certainly isn't a program with a wealth of standout quarterbacking talent these days, we do know that when Golson faces a porous pass defense, he can put up some pretty big numbers. We also can now say that USC is not one of those porous pass defenses.
The Trojans have come a long way from the depths of scholarship limits and bowl bans. While not quite the dominant West Coast power it was just a decade ago, USC has all the makings of a program that can soon regain some past glory.
The offense has certainly improved, even over last week's sputtering against UCLA. Now, if Sarkisian can lock into place a suffocating defense, the Trojans may once again be the team to beat in the Pac-12.
USC only gave up two plays of longer than 25 yards against Notre Dame, but more importantly, the defense gave the USC offense plenty of opportunities to open up a big lead early in the game.
And the offense obliged.
USC Run Defense
Notre Dame has some talented backs capable of making plays on the ground. USC knew that coming in, and the Trojans defensed the run perfectly Saturday.
With the Trojans offense putting the Irish behind the eightball early, Notre Dame was never able to establish a ground attack, thanks to disruptive defensive plays in the offensive backfield and that lopsided scoreboard that necessitated a lot of passing.
When Notre Dame did have success on the ground, it was already far too late to make a difference in the outcome. USC limited the Irish to just 31 first-half rushing yards, and Notre Dame had just one rushing play of longer than 15 yards all afternoon.
Where was this rush defense against Boston College?
USC Special Teams
When a special teams unit isn't called upon to do much (zero field-goal attempts, two punts, no kick or punt returns), it's hard to really shower anyone with praise—but we'll try.
How about that extra-point team? A perfect seven-of-seven on the day!
OK, so that sounds a little silly. Still, a lot of coaches will tell you that one of the best special teams units you can have is a unit you don't notice. That means it's not screwing up.
USC Coaching
All of the talk about Sarkisian not being able to break through that seven-win plateau should now evaporate pretty quickly. Not only is USC 8-4, but the Trojans also got their eighth win this season in pretty impressive fashion.
USC should also be in line for a pretty big bowl game this season against a "Power Five" opponent and don't be surprised if Sark's Trojans use this season as a launching pad into something even better in 2015.
As for Saturday, everything went according to play for Sark and company. Heck, things probably went better than any of the USC coaching staff had planned. The coaching staff had clearly identified Notre Dame's weaknesses, and the Trojans were well-prepared to exploit those weaknesses.
USC fans, Steve Sarkisian may just be the head coach for which you've been waiting.
Unless otherwise noted, quotes or references to quotes were obtained firsthand by the writer.
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