nd needs to get balanced attack

[nd1]

good article about the irish needing more of a running game.



Irish want to take off running
Tony Krausz | The Journal Gazette
SOUTH BEND – Notre Dame’s offensive balancing act will be difficult this week.

After producing 44 rushing yards against No. 9 Stanford last week, the Irish need to do a better job of complementing their 315.5 passing yards per game, coach Brian Kelly said.

But when Notre Dame (1-3) travels to play Boston College (2-1) at 8 p.m. Saturday, it will be met by the nation’s sixth-best rushing defense.

The Eagles are giving up 71.3 rushing yards per game.

Still, the Irish believe they can get their running game, which is averaging 110.8 yards, in gear this weekend.

“I think the first thing is to go out there and play sound football, play fundamental football on our part,” said running back Armando Allen, who averages 75.5 yards per game.

Notre Dame will likely enter Saturday’s game without one of its four running backs.

Junior Jonas Gray suffered a groin injury in the 37-14 loss to Stanford. He didn’t practice Tuesday and wore a brace on left leg when he left the practice field.

That leaves the Irish with Cierre Wood, who has run for 71 yards on 16 carries, and Robert Hughes, who has only three yards on two carries, behind Allen.

Hughes, a 5-foot-11, 245-pound senior, moved ahead of Wood, a 6-foot, 210-pound sophomore, to the No. 2 running back spot.

“This is not let’s push Cierre to the side,” Kelly said. “This guy’s got four games, and everybody wants to throw the poor kid under the bus. I think he’s going to be a really, really good player. He just needs time.

“One of the things that Robert can do and utilize against BC is he’s a big, strong, physical kid, and he may be able to help us a little bit in pass protection.”

Notre Dame quarterback Dayne Crist could also play a bigger role in the running game.

The Irish have been cautious about calling on Crist to run after he missed nearly all of the first half in a 28-24 loss to Michigan on Sept. 11 after hitting his head on the ground after a long run.

“You know, there has to be an element in the spread that the quarterback can keep the football at some time, and we’re moving in that direction,” Kelly said. “He’s got to have an element of that within our offensive structure.”

tkrausz@jg.net

 

[irish1958]

Unless Kelly does something with the offensive line, "it ain't gonna happen."

 

[GEORGIA DOMER]

crist is going to have to keep them honest! if he can gain 50-75 on the ground with less than 1 int i think we win

 

[IrishLax]

We don't need a balanced attack. Look at the Colts and Patriots... arguably the two most successful teams of the past decade in the NFL and they employ a strong passing attack with sprinkle of the run.

What we need to do is throw the ball better on the short routes/screens/swing passes. Those are supposed to be the 100% completion throw and Crist misses them more than the medium to deep throws and that is what stalls our offense.

 

[nd1]

We don't need a balanced attack. Look at the Colts and Patriots... arguably the two most successful teams of the past decade in the NFL and they employ a strong passing attack with sprinkle of the run.

What we need to do is throw the ball better on the short routes/screens/swing passes. Those are supposed to be the 100% completion throw and Crist misses them more than the medium to deep throws and that is what stalls our offense.

i agree with this. I'm not saying be totally balanced but you do have to show you can run the ball well enough for the defence has to respect it.

 

[ndcoltsfan2010]

As a long time Colts fan.., we have lots of success without much of a running game. But then again, we have Peyton Manning.., and he does things that very few QBs can do as well as he does. Notre Dame does need to establish a decent running game. We have to be able to move the ball on the ground better. We need a balanced attack that will help the passing game. Would love to put Peyton in a Notre Dame uniform and start him as quarterback and see what happens, but let's face it, we really need to get the running game moving a little better. lol. GO IRISH!

 

[phork]

New story, old news. Its been this way for the last 6 years. No running game, can't stop the run == a lot of losing.

 

[WaveDomer]

Well, the Colts and Pats might not grind it out on the ground, but they can run the ball effectively when they need to. Dillon had over 1600 yards rushing when the Pats won it in 2004. And James rushed for well over 1000 yards when the Colts were gunning it up during that period. Those teams may not be known for running the ball, but they are respected for it and that's why they can throw it. Just think about why Marino doesn't have a ring. No running game.

Running the ball and defense is what wins championships. Even great throwing teams had great running backs.

Last week Ingram almost willed Alabama to victory on his own.

 

[Riddickulous]

We won't have anything resembling a strong running game until 2011, at the earliest.

 

[Jerry]

Boston College gave up 100 yds on the ground to VT. If ND can't get anything going on the ground against the Eagles the same way they did against Stanford then they probably will only win 4 game this year. The should be able to score points on this Defense and win this game.

 

[dre1919]

During the Stanford game, we just needed AN offense period...balanced or not. It's kind of sad when Stanford "is more physical and tough" than we are. No offense, but Stanford should only be beating us in Science / Knowledge bowls.

 

[phork]

During the Stanford game, we just needed AN offense period...balanced or not. It's kind of sad when Stanford "is more physical and tough" than we are. No offense, but Stanford should only be beating us in Science / Knowledge bowls.

With that I guess we can throw out the old BS about recruiting can't we? ND can't recruit studs because of academics etc etc.

 

[Irish Man3]

Boston College gave up 100 yds on the ground to VT. If ND can't get anything going on the ground against the Eagles the same way they did against Stanford then they probably will only win 4 game this year. The should be able to score points on this Defense and win this game.

Yea well we dont have near the running game that the Hokies have either. I dont understand why your basing our win total for the season on our ability to run the ball against a good rushing defense. The Eagles have stout linebackers. The bigger stat to look for in this game will be yards per rush. If we can average 4 yards a rush to keep them honest, we'll be fine.

 

[PatsandBostonfan1975]

Guys are defense sucks thats we we are not winning. You can win just throwing the ball and you can win just running the ball but without defense you will lose. ALOT !!!!!!!

 

[IrishinSyria]

Guys are defense sucks thats we we are not winning. You can win just throwing the ball and you can win just running the ball but without defense you will lose. ALOT !!!!!!!

Did you watch the Stanford game? Our defense kept us in the game... our offense hasn't scored over 30 points (in regulation) once this season. That is a serious problem when you're running a high tempo offense. Against Stanford, they scored 6 points in the first 3 and a half quarters. And half of those were a gift from the Cardinal.

While both units could stand to get better, our offense is the problem until they figure out a way to get points on the board without Rudolph going for 95.

 

[PatsandBostonfan1975]

Did you watch the Stanford game? Our defense kept us in the game... our offense hasn't scored over 30 points (in regulation) once this season. That is a serious problem when you're running a high tempo offense. Against Stanford, they scored 6 points in the first 3 and a half quarters. And half of those were a gift from the Cardinal.

While both units could stand to get better, our offense is the problem until they figure out a way to get points on the board without Rudolph going for 95.

Ya watched that game watched the three before that one too. Umass put on a better display than our defense. Stanford probaly has one on best defenses we will see they recruited to win on both sides of ball havent up till this year.I respect your opinion but if you saw the Michigan game with crist in seeing double our offense is lightyears away from our defense. Although there is no way im watching that game agian i do remeber how bad offense looked agianst stanford so we our in agreement there. With new system and new head coach the fact we struggled agianst a team like stanford is not that strange. If we wanna play in a bowl after Christmas soon or ever I would start worring about defense other than the balance of a few more runs.

 

[nd1]

Ya watched that game watched the three before that one too. Umass put on a better display than our defense. Stanford probaly has one on best defenses we will see they recruited to win on both sides of ball havent up till this year.I respect your opinion but if you saw the Michigan game with crist in seeing double our offense is lightyears away from our defense. Although there is no way im watching that game agian i do remeber how bad offense looked agianst stanford so we our in agreement there. With new system and new head coach the fact we struggled agianst a team like stanford is not that strange. If we wanna play in a bowl after Christmas soon or ever I would start worring about defense other than the balance of a few more runs.

i think kelly knows this by looking at this years recruiting class. lets be honest wiess recruited mostly offence and not that good on d. so kelly has to focus on the d in recruiting alittle more than on offence. at the same time the d was on the field for most of the game against stanford and was alittle tired and worn down and you could see that in the fourth quarter.both of you are right but if the offence stays on the field alittle longer it would help the d out alot.

 

[Old Man Mike]

I'm going to risk being charged with being [slightly] off topic, but this thread refers to two reasons for being "well-balanced". One is to score more, and one is to possess more. The second is referred to usually with the idea that our Defense hasn't looked good. I believe that the defense HAS looked pretty good, given our "style" and that we can win "balanced" & "possessive" or not, if the offense will just score like Kelly would like them to. My "perspective" comes from [shudder] basketball history. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Many of the somewhat older guys on the board may remember Loyola-of Marymount. That team offended every purist's sense of "style" by playing futuristic high-speed offense, getting badly burned once in a while on defense, and winning games 105-95. Everyone snickered as to how bad their defense was, but when the stats people analyzed it, they found that its defensive "efficiency" was better than the great majority of teams, and several of its players were actually good defenders. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------OK, it's not a perfect analogy, but the point here is that I believe that our defense is a LOT better than people give it credit for, and if Kelly gets the offense straightened out, they'll do their part of the job just fine [assuming they're, like Loyola, in shape and unhurt]. WHATEVER Kelly can do to make the high-octane offense hit on all cylinders will work. These defensive guys aren't bad---they'll hold up fine against 95% of the teams. What we need to do is analyze their play-by-play to see it, not the final scores [since that is skewed for analogous reasons that Loyola's were skewed].----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The bottomline of this whole lucubration [you don't get to use that word much] is that Kelly can have success with this team whether he has "better" Time-of-Possession or not. Our whole reasoning should be directed towards scoring more, and let the D-boys handle their end, and be less critical if they give up more scores than we'd like [as long as the count is less than the bad guys'].

 

[IrishinSyria]

the point here is that I believe that our defense is a LOT better than people give it credit for, and if Kelly gets the offense straightened out, they'll do their part of the job just fine [assuming they're, like Loyola, in shape and unhurt]. WHATEVER Kelly can do to make the high-octane offense hit on all cylinders will work.

This is the point I was trying to make. The D has been doing just fine...given Kelly's coaching philosophy. But our offense has yet to score like it's supposed to. The only reason we need any balance at all on O is to keep the defenses from dropping 8 and bull-rushing the d-line every single snap.

When Kelly is on his game, his teams resemble the Phoenix Suns in Basketball or the Blackhawks in hockey: high octane offense, defense just needs a few key stops. We are clearly not there yet.