Notre Dame Football: 6 Things Irish Must Do to Salvage Season

Notre Dame’s 2011 football campaign has been a massive disappointment, but it can still be rescued.

The Irish followed a catastrophic opening week loss to South Florida with a gut-wrenching last-second defeat to Denard Robinson’s Michigan Wolverines.

Yet somehow, in the mangled rubble of an 0-2 start, there is cause for optimism.

Notre Dame’s remaining schedule is difficult, but not insurmountable. 10-2 is probably out of the question, but this team has enough talent to finish 8-4 or even 9-3.

But if the Irish are going to succeed in salvaging their scuttled season, they’ll have to make a few adjustments.

Stop the Turnovers

This stat should not be a surprise to anyone who’s watched Notre Dame play this season: Two games into their schedule, the Irish rank dead last in FBS in both turnovers and turnover margin.

Turnovers have been the greatest single factor in both of Notre Dame’s losses this season.

Against both South Florida and Michigan, Irish turnovers squashed momentum, squandered scoring opportunities and cut the legs out from under the defense. With just one or two fewer mistakes in each game, Notre Dame would almost certainly by 2-0, rather than 0-2.

There’s no magic elixir here, no revolutionary adjustment or personnel change that will immediately alleviate the slippery fingers and misguided decision-making that have plagued Notre Dame all season. It’s simply a matter of diligent execution.

The Irish are fully capable of preventing these turnovers, they just need to focus on protecting the football.

Find the Football

Irish cornerback Gary Gray was burned for touchdowns on three occasions against Michigan. In every case, Denard Robinson underthrew a deep ball, and his receiver adjusted to the throw, yet Gray was unable to track back and find the football.

It wasn’t just Gray that struggled to defend this approach. Safeties Harrison Smith and Zeke Motta were both smoked on a similar play, though it didn’t go for a score.

In every case, the Irish defensive backs were in excellent position, but simply did not make a play on the ball.

The only Irish defender who displayed any kind of ball skills against the Wolverines was Robert Blanton, who read Robinson underthrow in the end zone and reacted, leaping in front of the Michigan receiver to snatch an interception.

Notre Dame’s opponents for the rest of the season all saw that tape. They all saw that Michigan’s comeback on Saturday was fueled as much by mistakes by the Irish pass defense as it was by Denard Robinson. They all have athletic receivers capable of adjusting to the ball in the air.

Irish defensive coordinator Bob Diaco must train his defensive backs to find the football in the air. If that doesn’t happen, it’ll be raining long balls in South Bend on Saturday, and the Irish will drop to 0-3.

Convert in the Red Zone

The Irish rank 13th in FBS in total offense, but just 75th in scoring offense.

In both of its losses, Notre Dame has been the best team on the field. Against both South Florida and Michigan, Notre Dame controlled the game, but wasn’t able to turn its advantage in yardage into points. The Irish have outgained their opponents by an average of over 150 yards per game, yet their record sits at 0-2.

The root of the issue is Notre Dame’s red-zone efficiency.

Once Notre Dame moves inside its opponent’s 20-yard line, the Irish are just as likely to turn the ball over as they are to score a touchdown. In 11 red-zone opportunities, Notre Dame has delivered five touchdowns, three interceptions, two fumbles and a missed field goal. That 45 percent efficiency is good for 116th in FBS.

Four of those five turnovers have come from Notre Dame’s quarterbacks. Brian Kelly needs to imbue his passers with a stronger sense of situational awareness. The Irish have an excellent field goal kicker. When the ball is inside the 20-yard line, Tommy Rees must preserve the field goal opportunity at all costs.

Just a few more red-zone conversions could have resulted in a record inversion for Notre Dame.

Find a New Punter

Ben Turk is one of the worst punters in college football.

With Turk handling the punting duties, Notre Dame ranks second to last (119th) in FBS in net punting, averaging just 27.75 yards per punt. While Turk has been especially bad so far this season, this isn’t a new development. Notre Dame has been in the bottom half of the net punting ranks since Turk took over the job midway through 2009.

The punting game is under-appreciated part of football, and this season, it is absolutely killing the Irish. The defense has been backed in short fields too often, and while it's played fairly well on the whole, it hasn’t been able to keep opponents off the scoreboard.

Ben Turk has proven to be an inadequate punter at this level of football. Notre Dame must explore other options.

Specifically, freshman kicker Kyle Brindza.

Brindza has already shown off his outstanding leg on kickoffs this season, but he’s also capable of showing off that leg strength as a punter. Who knows if he’ll be immediately better than Turk, but he certainly won’t be worse.

Keep Throwing to Michael Floyd

Michael Floyd has been the best player on the Notre Dame offense this season. So far, Tommy Rees has done an outstanding job of feeding him the ball, but the Irish need to continue this trend.

In two games so far, Notre Dame’s all-time leading receiver has already racked up 25 receptions for 313 yards and two touchdowns. Against Michigan especially, Floyd was unstoppable.

There is no opponent remaining on Notre Dame’s schedule that possesses a defender with the capability to single-handedly contain Michael Floyd.

Ensuring that Rees continues to target Floyd not only gets touches for Notre Dame’s best offensive player, it also opens up the offense for other targets. A few successful tosses to Floyd will force the defense to adjust, freeing up single coverage for Theo Riddick, Tyler Eifert and TJ Jones, or opening running lanes for Cierre Wood and Jonas Gray.

The Irish offense has moved the ball extremely well so far this season. If that trend is going to continue, keeping Michael Floyd well-fed is a necessity.

Don't Panic

Notre Dame is still a very good football team. The Irish have been sunk by a myriad of uncharacteristic mistakes and a flood of poor luck.

The mistakes are innumerable. Turnovers head the list, but drops, penalties, missed tackles and mental errors have also permeated the Notre Dame narrative in 2011.

The luck is tougher to quantify.

It’s best represented by the first play of the fourth quarter in Saturday’s loss against Michigan. The Wolverines faced third-and-goal from the Irish one-yard line.

Denard Robinson handed the ball off to Stephen Hopkins, who plunged into the line. The Notre Dame defense stiffened, stuffing Hopkins in his tracks and jarring the ball loose. The ball squirted out of the pile, settling unprotected onto the Michigan Stadium turf.

Robinson, the only player who wasn’t trapped in the tangled mass of humanity along the goal line, calmly scooped the ball up and trotted in for a touchdown. Michigan still trailed in the game at that point, but that play was an early back-breaker for the Irish.

A fumble recovery is typically a 50/50 proposition. So far, there have been nine fumbles in Notre Dame’s games. The Irish have recovered just two of them.

This is not to say that Notre Dame has been the victim of some cruel mistress of chance. The Irish have shoveled plenty of dirt onto their own 0-2 grave.

This is a reminder to trust the process, not the results.

Notre Dame is a good football team, full of talented, smart, capable players. For the most part, Brian Kelly and his staff have put those players in position to win. For the most part, those players will take advantage of those opportunities.

It just hasn’t happened yet.

But it will.