1) I am unsure how often in the history of college football an undefeated team ranked in the top ten has replaced their starting quarterback for reasons unrelated to health, but I can’t imagine it’s a regular occurrence. Brian Kelly gambled going into Saturday, benching Brandon Wimbush and his 12-3 record as a starter and bringing in Ian Book, who had done well in the fourth quarter of the Citrus Bowl but hadn’t received any significant playing time this season. After the game Kelly said he saw the same thing we had through three games: 3-0, yes, good, great, but that the potentially elite defense was not going to be able to hold up all season if the offense couldn’t get more efficient and hold up its end of the bargain. (The Irish offense was 66th in the S&P+ prior to Saturday and ranked
a rancid 117th nationally in percent of drives that were three-and-outs.) Kelly looked at his defense, his two senior specialists and the bevy of four-star talents on offense and opted to see what a quarterback who was a more accurate passer but less explosive overall player could do. There was no guarantee it would work, on the road on a hot day against a team that was capable of putting up points.
2) But it did work, and the results of the switch though one game are extremely impressive. 56 points, over seven yards per play and ten different players with receptions, all engineered by Book (73.5% completion rate, 368 total yards and five total touchdowns). The Irish averaged six yards per carry and allowed one sack, the second straight good game for the offensive line after getting embarrassed by Ball State. The Irish were 7-for-7 in the red zone with all seven scores being touchdowns. We got to see Michael Young atone for his early fumble by turning on the jets on a screen, Alize Mack have another good game, Avery Davis back off the shelf and Kevin Austin start to get loose*. We saw Book run the zone read masterfully at the goal line. We saw Jafar Armstrong continue to improve as a tailback, dropping his shoulder and making some nice reads. Oh, and there was the early fourth and short deep in Wake territory when it was 7-6 and Kelly made the right choice in going for it, the college football gods rewarding the Irish with Brock Wright’s first career touchdown. We also saw Book — who had bad picks against the Tar Heels, Hurricanes and Bayou Bengals last season — not turn the ball over. It was an offense with swagger and a sense of urgency in their actions and on Saturday night they’re adding Dexter Williams to the stew.
* Austin only had two catches but one of them was a dandy along the left sideline. He also drew a pass interference on a deep route up the middle, had a third down grab wiped out by penalty and had another target where Phil Jurkovec was calling for pass interference. A reminder that Kevin Austin is 6’3” and was the 82nd ranked player in his class by the 247 Composite so once he gets comfortable it should be pretty fun.
Now, the Demon Deacons don’t have what you would refer to as “a good defense” — 76th in the S&P+ coming into this game, 91st coming out of it after they were immolated — but this is exactly what you should do against a squad of this caliber. In fact, the offense was so good against Wake that on Sunday afternoon they fired their defensive coordinator. These next two weeks are going to be tougher tests, but there isn’t an elite defense left on the schedule. (In the regular season, at least...) Kelly said after the game that he wasn’t ruling out playing either quarterback the rest of the way, although it would be quite surprising if Book did not get the start on Saturday after that masterful performance.
3) As well as Book played Saturday, I don’t think the offense could have had the success they did against Michigan without Wimbush. Kelly said this after the game and stepped on a paragraph I had mentally drafted in the second half but with the inexperience at the skill positions and the pass rushing abilities of Michigan it would have been really tough to put up points against them without Wimbush’s ability to improvise and move the chains with his legs. Michigan still has plenty of good offenses left on their schedule but after four games the list of quarterbacks to put up 21-point, turnover-free halves against them still has but a single name on it. That opening night win was so, so, so huge and wouldn’t have been remotely possible without Wimbush playing like he did.
That’s why it’s going to be really important for the coaching staff to keep Wimbush engaged because between the general danger of football and how these narratives generally go the Irish are going to need him before the season ends. Wimbush is a good dude and by every single report has a great relationship with Book but this is still going to be tough for him. (I agree with the announce crew from Saturday that not giving him garbage time snaps was the right decision, plus it allowed us to enjoy the brief Jurkovec cameo.) The hire of Tommy Rees as quarterback coach has been criticized in some parts but the one thing he knows extremely well is what it feels like to be on both sides of this dynamic, so hopefully that helps keep things going as smoothly as possible considering the circumstances. (Also, Book played pretty well for a guy on a team who I’m told by some has terrible quarterback coaching.)
4) The defense was excellent again, containing big plays from Wake Forest — Notre Dame’s longest run allowed this season now sits all the way up at 23 after the Deacons found a couple holes, but the longest pass allowed Saturday was a meager 18 yards — and battering poor Sam Hartman within an inch of his life. I usually turn my sympathy settings down to zero during Irish games but I was starting to feel bad for Hartman and found relief when they pulled him from the game. Notre Dame had ten tackles for loss including three sacks and another five quarterback hurries, which is kind of a misleading stat because you can only get one on each play and on a lot of snaps Hartman had death converging from all around. I don’t know if Drue Tranquill is rolling up the stats he’ll need to get into All-American races but he’s been transcendent all season, excelling at linebacker just as he did as the Irish rover last year. A lot of great performances (3.5 tackles for loss for Julian Okwara!) but shoutout to Ade Ogundeji, who had six total tackles including half a sack. There was some concern about depth at strongside end after Jay Hayes’ transfer and Ogundeji has been a more than capable backup for Khalid Kareem all season. And hey Troy Pride had another pick.
We talked about how these last few games Notre Dame was just a conversion here or stop there from having a comfortable fourth quarter versus what we experienced and Saturday was a great example of dropping the hammer. It was 28-13 at the half and Wake Forest got the ball to start the third quarter. If they roll down and score, it’s a one possession game and there’s pressure on the Irish (both team and fans). Instead after a 12-yard completion it went rush for no gain, rush for a loss and Okwara tracking Hartman down for a sack after Jerry Tillery flushed him out. The offense scored three minutes and 18 seconds of game time later and the contest was essentially over. Of Wake Forest’s three touchdown drives, one was in absolute garbage time, one was in quasi-garbage time and one required two third down penalties of questionable validity. Great performance on the road in boiling conditions.
5) After school special lesson: If you’re talking to or reading commentary from someone who is citing Total Defense as a stat in the Year of Our Lord 2018 please remove yourself from the conversation and call the local authorities. Wake Forest racked up nearly 400 yards of offense, 27 first downs and won time of possession because they ran 92 plays. Notre Dame allowed 4.3 yards per Wake Forest snap, which would have ranked third at the end of the 2017 season, behind only Alabama and Clemson. And in regards to time of possession, Wake Forest won that because the Irish had touchdown drives that took 10, 42, 67, 133 and 145 seconds. Do you want Notre Dame to score more slowly?! So, please pay attention to S&P+, FEI or yards per play and please just say no to total yardage and in a lot of cases time of possession and scoring defense.
6) After leaning on them heavily through the first three games, Tyler Newsome and Justin Yoon got to mostly relax on Saturday. Chris Finke had a nice little punt return, Jonathan Doerer had another good game on kickoffs and most importantly the Irish coverage units didn’t get burned by Greg Dortch, a guy who had already taken a few kicks to the house this season. Solid work from Brian Polian's special teams crew, who at no point sent the field goal unit onto the field without the kicker.
7) Winning Is Hard/Schadenfreude Round-Up: Where to even start? Let’s go to Norman, where the No. 5 Sooners with their deadly offense and Heisman candidate at quarterback needed overtime to defeat Army. If not for a pair of tackles for loss on the Black Knights’ final drive of regulation it’s very possible Oklahoma would have been on the losing end as four-touchdown favorites. If it’s late October and the Irish are in a tight one with Navy, a friendly reminder that playing the triple option is absolute torture. (Speaking of Navy, they lost in overtime to SMU. Pony up, Kenny N!)
No. 13 Virginia Tech lost at Old Dominion because they allowed the Monarch’s back-up quarterback to throw for 495 yards, giving up 632 yards of offense to Norfolk’s finest. (Quarterback Blake LaRussa’s previous career high? 161.) Prior to beating the Hokies Old Dominion’s season consisted of getting blown out by Liberty and losing close ones to Florida International and Charlotte. This is a friendly reminder that just because a team is playing poorly doesn’t mean it can’t put it together for a good game and shock somebody, not that this is a lesson Notre Dame fans might need to hold close for the back half of the schedule. A 2-0 start for Justin Fuente is now teetering with an injured quarterback, a defensive end booted from the team, a trip to frisky Duke and then a visit from a Notre Dame team that might just be pretty okay.
No. 14 Mississippi State lost, too, mustering just 7 points in Lexington as Big Blue advanced to 4-0. The problem with being Mississippi State and losing to Kentucky is you still have divisional games remaining against Alabama, Auburn and LSU so now you need to probably pull an upset just to get to 9-3. Good luck to Joe Moorhead in keeping the ship together because things can start to spiral. (Speaking of LSU, they were briefly in peril against Louisiana Tech on Saturday night when leading by just three in the fourth quarter, but they took care of business and put the game away.)
Oh hey and No. 15 Oklahoma State lost, too. Coming off a big win over Boise the Cowboys scored all of 17 points at home against Texas Tech, who had given up 47 to Ole Miss and 49 to Houston. No. 17 TCU lost in Austin. No. 18 Wisconsin needed a last-minute drive to survive in Iowa City, leaving the previously undefeated Hawkeyes heartbroken. No. 10 Penn State was losing to Illinois in the third quarter, which is very gross, no offense to the fine Illini fans who read this. No. 7 Stanford needed a series of miracles to survive against Oregon as the Ducks fumbled away a 24-7 fourth quarter lead in excruciating fashion. If Notre Dame had lost to Stanford the way Oregon did you wouldn’t be reading this because I would have walked into the ocean and let the salty depths deliver me from this nightmare realm.
Some other stuff: Boston College got to 3-0 and ranked for the first time in years but collapsed when the tiniest flicker of a spotlight hit them, losing 30-13 against Purdue, who was the best 0-3 team in the nation. Similar situation for Minnesota minus the getting ranked part, as they took a 3-0 record into College Park and got blown out by a Maryland team that got blown out by Temple last week. Southern Cal almost lost to Washington State/3-0 Washington State blew a lead to Southern Cal, depending on how you want to look at that. Ohio blew a 24-7 lead at Cincinnati. Pitt lost to 0-2 North Carolina and Pat Narduzzi’s seat is getting warm. Louisville got blown out by Virginia, 27-3, and Bobby Petrino’s seat is getting warm. (PLEASE KEEP BRIAN VANGORDER UNTIL WEEK ONE NEXT YEAR. PLEASE.) Nebraska got blown off the map by Michigan, is 0-3 for the first time since 1945 and if they don’t beat Purdue on Saturday in Lincoln they’re potentially looking at 0-8 (at Wisconsin, at Northwestern, Minnesota, at Ohio State before playing Illinois). This doesn’t mean Scott Frost can’t fix things there in the long run but it does serve as a reminder that coaches do not have magic wands.
One additional bigger picture thing before we move on: Rocky Top was No. 9 in the 2016 preseason AP poll and had all the hype in the world as Butch Jones distinguished himself as a master of the offseason. They started that year a sketchy 5-0 and finished 9-4, No. 22 in the country. That was the high point for the Jones Era, with 2017 an utter disaster as they went 0-for-the-SEC, firing Jones and bringing in Jeremy Pruitt. Maybe Pruitt will work and maybe he won’t but they’re going to start this year 2-6, as they dropped a home game to Florida Saturday in embarrassing fashion and now play Georgia, Auburn, Alabama and South Carolina in consecutive weeks. It is really, really easy to feel like you’re in a good place in this sport and then have the entire thing just fall apart underneath you, even if you’ve got the history, resources, boat tailgating, cool dog and incredible fight song of Tennessee. Winning is hard, building a program is hard and maintaining a program is hard.
8) Since the debacle of 2016 ended, the Irish are 14-3 overall. They are 5-3 against Top 25 teams*, 5-2 away from home, have a 35-point win over the Pac-12 champions, a New Year’s Day bowl win over a Top 25 SEC team and had their three losses come against division champions of Power 5 conferences, two on the road and one at home by a point. The old saying is “If you have two quarterbacks you don’t have any” but Notre Dame has two good quarterbacks who’ve won 82 percent of their collaborations thus far. It’s been a really impressive run of football after the nadir of 4-8.
* Counting Georgia, Sparty, USC, NC State, Miami, Stanford and LSU from last season as they finished in the Top 25 and Michigan from this season as they are currently in the Top 25. It would be a real shame if this accounting resulted in a massive jinx to the rest of the Wolverines season. Real shame.**
** And if you are wondering, “With the rest of the slate looking not so hot, should we maybe start rooting for Michigan for strength of schedule purposes?” No. Never. Please don’t even begin that journey.
It would be a shame to waste this 4-0 start by not taking care of business over the next two weekends. A split isn’t ideal but would still leave them in a very good place while a sweep of the Cardinal and Hokies puts Notre Dame in a position to maybe do something special. We know what’s coming Saturday night: There will be some impossibly stupid turnover, junk penalties, people saying “You know, Paulson Adebo was originally committed to Notre Dame,” jump balls to tall dudes and announcers talking about how cool it was David Shaw ran it up the middle on fourth and short and yeah Stanford didn’t convert but it’s about instilling a culture of toughness, you know?
This Cardinal team used up at least seven of their lives in Eugene on Saturday so the Irish should hopefully have to deliver at most two death blows to advance to 5-0, but it’s going to be a mix of trench warfare and a trip to the dentist because Shaw has Kelly’s number until proven otherwise. The win over Michigan is going to keep me warm all winter long but getting to 5-0 would make things positively toasty. My official recommendation is the Irish keep going as it would be quite silly to stop winning now.
