Notre Dame Football: Post-Week 4 State of the Team Address

After banging my head against the wall all season watching Notre Dame implode and otherwise stink up my perfectly good 60” television screen on its way to a 2-2 start, I began to notice that the dents on the wall were not helping anything, and my headaches were becoming more frequent.

It didn’t help that my yelling was scaring the neighbor’s dog to the point the spoiled little crap factory slapped a Personal Protection Order on me so now I can’t grill next to the garage for fear of violating that damn 300-foot restriction.

But I digress.

In the brief intervals when my skull wasn’t crashing against the drywall, I also noticed that the talent-rich Irish team that I had placed so much trust in to support my brazen bar talk was playing like they had never seen a football, despite a more experienced squad and an influx of quality freshmen talent.

I began soul searching to determine—am I cursed? Or was this some government conspiracy? Or even something more obvious, like alien mind control?

After the first barrel of Excedrin kicked in, in retrospect, I realized that this is a team lucky to be a .500 ballclub. They went through unbelievable lengths to lose to a grossly inferior South Florida club and then simply imploded in the fourth quarter against an absolutely disorganized and helpless Michigan squad. The main miracle is that they kept on imploding but managed to outlast a good Spartans team and squeak by a bad Pitt crew on the road.

In true democratic form, the Irish lost and barely won while making lots of mistakes in every way imaginable.

The slew of turnovers, bad penalties, drops, poor special teams play and key mental lapses are things that typically evidence poor preparation and a lack of discipline, and traditionally that translates into poor coaching.

So, is Brian Kelly responsible for this mess? Somebody is, and I think I know who.

So Where Are We At?

Right now, Brian Kelly is 10-7 overall at Notre Dame, 2-2 in 2011, and every game this season has been a parade of Irish errors.

The two losses were heavily attributable to turnovers, and in fact, this year’s team leads the nation in turnovers with 15, and is last in turnover margin at minus-2.5.

Luckily, sterling special teams performance has resulted in some solid rankings. The Irish are solidly tied for a miserable 115th in the country in punt returns at 0.75 yards per return, and is coincidentally equally awful at 115th in the nation in punting average at 36.5 yards per punt.

The field goal unit is 2-of-4, missing two chip shots inside the 40.

In other news of a general lack of discipline, the Irish are getting flagged to the tune of 7.5 penalties and 71.5 yards a game, good for 107th in the country.

As for the other aspects of the team, Notre Dame’s scoring defense comes in at a very respectable 20.8 points per game and 39th in the country. The offense checks in at 85th in the country with 24.3 points per game.

A Cornucopia of Miscues

So how did Kelly and his coaching staff birth this comedy of errors and lackluster offense for the 2011 Irish? You got me, but history tells us this undisciplined sloppiness is part aberration and part to be expected.

Punting

Ben Turk has been mostly awful all year at 115th in the country with a punting average of 36.5 yards per punt. Coupled with our horrible punt return game, theoretically, it would appear that opposing teams could simply out-punt us to eventually score, but I’m told that the advent of the touchback has removed that possibility, which has been a big relief.

I have been informed by insiders in the know that the short punts are actually a clever ploy, as special teams coaches have been going hoarse each game screaming “Move up!” at their returners. After losing his voice, the opposing special teams coach is rendered helpless by Turk’s tactics.

A stroke of coaching brilliance if you ask me.

Last year under the same coaches, Turk finished in the middle of the pack at 64th in the country in net punting. Not great, not bad, actually only a couple yards better than this year. Expect the punting to improve by year end, but not by much.

Kelly’s Cincinnati and Central Michigan teams fielded consistently decent though not outstanding punters, so there is no reason not to think that this is more on Turk than on the coaches. For next year, there’s every reason to believe Brindza’s big leg will be ready, if it doesn’t happen later this year.

Punt Returns

The Irish are tied for 115th in the country in punt returns at 0.75 yards per return, which is pretty damn amazing when you think that if you catch it, hold the ball out and fall down flat on your face you get credit for two yards on the return, maybe three if you put a really tall guy back there.  With the barrage of muffs, no one is even complaining as long as the punt return doesn’t end up with the coverage team holding the ball and high fiving.

I’m completely serious about that one.

In 2010 ND was also not very good in punt returns at 5.35 yards per return, but last year John Goodman often signaled for the fair catch before heading to the stadium, and ball protection was clearly Kelly’s No. 1 priority.

Kelly’s punt return teams at Cincinnati under special teams coach Mike Elston were generally very good, although Marty Gilyard had a lot to do with that. Expect this issue to eventually get ironed out, although with the constant muffs don’t look for an aggressive return game anytime soon.

Penalties

The Irish are brain-farting to the tune of 7.75 penalties for 71.50 yards per game, good for 107th in the country. That’s enough laundry to keep a Chinese family in business for exactly three years. While that is a lot of screwing up, luckily, many of these penalties have been at key times to extend opposing team’s drives or stop a Notre Dame drive deep in the opposition’s territory, so they were not committed in vain.

Case in point, on punt coverage against Pitt on fourth and twenty from the Pitt 10 yard line, ND rushed a punt and with Herculean effort just managed to land on the punter’s foot well after the punt was away. This led to the requisite Oscar winning performance diving to the ground and a 19 play 80-yard scoring drive that resulted in Pitt’s only touchdown. I only mention it because that is a really special screw up that you do not see every day.

At that very moment I crushed a beer can with beer still in it, and we all know how precious beer is.

Last year’s Irish under Kelly were penalized 4.5 times per game for an average of 40.7 yards. However, his Cincinnati teams averaged 6.8 penalties per game for his three years, and his Central Michigan teams were even worse with over 7.3 penalties per game, so don’t expect the penalty problem to go away.

Turnovers

After four games, this year’s team tops the nation in turnovers with 15 oopsies, and is also dead last in turnover margin at minus-2.5. With the rash of drops and interceptions, Kelly’s team has been told it can no longer wear the new “Buttered Gloves” by Nike and all QBs were required to test for color blindness to see if jersey color was an issue.

Wow. Fifteen turnovers in just four games. That, my friends, is what is referred to in the business as a crapload of turnovers.

But is that number endemic to Brian Kelly’s teams?

With two new quarterbacks, Kelly’s 2010 Irish had a total of 24 turnovers all last year. Kelly’s Central Michigan squads averaged a reasonable 16 turnovers a year, while his Cincinnati teams averaged 28 in 2008 and 2009, but only had 10 total in Cincinnati’s 13-1 2009 season.

Although many attribute the drop off in turnovers for the 2009 Bearcat team to Kelly’s wife’s “Just Say No to Turnovers” campaign, it was actually even simpler than that—Tony Pike threw three interceptions in 20 attempts in limited action as a sophomore. Pike became Kelly’s starting quarterback in 2008, tossing 19 TDs and 11 interceptions as he learned Kelly’s offense. As a senior in 2009, Pike threw 29 TD’s against only six picks for a team that averaged 38.2 points per game.

It is clear that it is at least possible for a QB with limited mobility to learn and thrive in Kelly’s offense without giving away a bag of balls every game.

The Pike experience probably explains why Kelly is still willing to ride Tommy Rees’ suspect decision making, but it is extremely questionable when and whether Tommy is going to begin making good decisions and start protecting the ball.

Although ND only had 24 turnovers in 2010, in just a little over five games Rees piled up eight interceptions and two fumbles all by himself.  These numbers were actually pretty acceptable for a true freshman in unfamiliar and often hostile situations.

More alarming; however, in 2011 Rees has added six more interceptions in just four games, on top of three fumbles, accounting for a whopping nine of ND’s 15 turnovers for the year. While a couple were clearly not his fault, most of these turnovers have been on bad decisions and due to poor ball protection. The fumble against Michigan at the goal line simply defies explanation.

It doesn’t help that Rees has an understandable tendency to pick one guy and gun it at him even if the entire defense and the opposing band is in the way. I would do that too if I had Michael Floyd and Tyler Eifert on my side.

Be that as it may, Kelly has determined Rees is his most productive QB and is riding with him and him alone. So far Rees has actually regressed in the turnover department, so we may be looking at simply living with the problem until Hendrix or Golson are ready for a more substantial role.

When that will be is anybody’s guess, but don’t be surprised if Rees is still behind center in 2013 as Kelly continues investing all the game and practice time to make Tommy better.

Offense

As for the other aspects of the team, Notre Dame’s offense is doing just about what they did last year, which is not good news.

The supposedly dynamic spread offense is again struggling to score and checks in at 85th in the country with 24.3 points per game, slightly down from last year’s 26.3 PPG that ended up 67th overall.

In actuality, this year’s offense is actually a lot better, but with the exception of Michigan, it has been playing fairly decent defenses every week.

This is a team that has established a powerful running game, a dominating offensive line, and boasts  a slew of very talented receivers, yet has a pedestrian offense. In addition to the aforementioned turnover issue, the offense is often slow to react to defensive adjustments and seems sluggish for long periods. At QB, Tommy Rees clearly struggles with pressure, and his lack of mobility has resulted in no zone reads or scrambles to extend the play, make yards, and keep defenses honest.

Most of the offense is to let Cierre Wood and Jonas Gray run off tackle or counters alternating with Rees planting in the pocket and trying to hit seams and underneath routes in soft coverage. If the coverage is pressing Rees seems to just try to force it through tight windows to make a play, which explains some of the turnover mania.

The problem has been much deeper than just turnovers and limited quarterback play. Untimely drops were a standard part of the USF and Michigan games, and penalties have stopped ND drives or kick started opponents drives in every game. The punting game has created field position nightmares: long fields for the offense and short fields for opposing offenses all game, every game.

While all of these issues are theoretically correctable, the turnover problem is not an overnight fix as Rees continues to develop. The run offense will always be limited, as Rees will never be able to add a running option to the offense, and the penalties and punting issues seem to be here to stay.

Defense

The defense looks stout and at times dominating at 20.8 points per game and 39th in the country. Still, ND managed two losses to teams that were very very average despite what the pollsters are smoking these days.

While overall the defense has been excellent, they managed to stage an historical collapse in the fourth quarter of the Michigan game, prompting my 90 year old mother to utter a word I did not even know she knew, which cannot be repeated here.

There are some concerns on the defensive side of the ball. Prince Shembo continues to struggle in pass coverage and overall the linebackers have had trouble covering the under route consistently. ND’s best corner for the past couple years, Gary Gray, has suddenly lost the ability to make plays when the ball is in the air and has looked periodically lost.

On the bright side, the D-line has dominated and several of the freshman like Lynch, Tuitt and Niklas are getting reps and showing some monster talent. Robert Blanton has become a beast in the secondary. Te’o is Te’o.

If Diaco figures out how to harness and unleash this talent this could be the most disruptive defense in Notre Dame history. For now, it is strong but still learning—as is Diaco. The line will be the strength of this team for a long time and the D will be a national force if the secondary can develop what it has and add some real speed next year.

Coaching

With the exception of Kelly’s defense (other than the fourth quarter of UM), the Irish have looked ragged in every phase of the game for 2011.

Kelly’s team has been penalized heavily, that one is on Kelly for not teaching and instilling discipline, and given Kelly’s history,  it is not likely to change.

The punting game was okay last year and has taken a step back this year, with the same punter, so it’s hard to blame the staff for that one, although hopefully they are working Brindza as a successor or as a plan B if Turk continues to struggle.

Although Ruffer has missed a couple bunnies, it’s hard to fault the coaching staff for doing what they’re doing after the year the kicking game had last year. This area is really less of a concern as the field goal unit should be fine when Ruffer gets a few more shots to settle down.

The punt return game is just simply a coaching disgrace. Mike Elston has fielded good punt return teams and knows what it takes to succeed, and ND has plenty of athletes to stock a decent return unit. The idea that with all of the skill and speed on this team that Kelly could not find one person in two years of coaching to handle punts is mind boggling. Watching Goodman fair catch with twenty yards of empty landscaping in front of him or catch and run backward is just not acceptable.

Although turnovers are often an act of the football Gods, Notre Dame’s have been mostly man-made, typically the man carrying the ball. Most of the fumbles and muffs have come without big hits, and as mentioned before, Rees' turnover at the goal line is just inexplicable. In the passing game, although Rees is clearly trying his best to run Kelly’s offense, the scaled back playbook has not stopped the turnover flood and after hooking Crist and not playing Golson or Hendrix for a single down, Kelly does not have a viable plan B if it gets worse.

Although everyone but the waterboy has dropped the rock, this one is on Kelly for mismanaging the QB situation and putting Rees in a position he is clearly not fully prepared for.

The offensive struggles are an amalgamation of the prior issues and Kelly’s limited game plan with Rees as his QB. I can’t blame Tommy for that, so Kelly needs to step up the coaching and the game planning if he wants Rees and his offense to succeed.

One thing to consider here is that Kelly has made his FBS reputation off of putting up big numbers in the MAC and the Big East. In his marquee non-conference games at Cincy the scores were losses to Virginia Tech (20-7), Oklahoma (52-26) and Florida (51-24…246 total yards in offense). So far, at ND his offense has struggled against the more athletic defenses like USC and Stanford.

It prompts some debate whether the spread works against bigger, faster, more athletic defenses.

Summary

While some of the players need to step up their game, most of what is wrong with ND through four games falls directly on the coaches. The majority of the problems are easily fixed, and this is a coaching staff that is supposed to be able to coach kids up. Over the next few games expect to see a dramatic improvement in many, but not all, of these areas.

With all that is going wrong right now there is one old adage that will help ND get through all these issues...

“You win with defense.”