Evaluating the Irish: Stanford Cardinal
Following the loss to Michigan two weekends ago, Brian Kelly made it clear that the moral victories that come from heartbreaking losses are nothing to hold onto anymore. And while I agree with him, that the Irish should be playing with energy and enthusiasm on every down, following Saturday’s loss to Stanford, it seems that moral victories are the only thing keeping the team and its fan base afloat.
Dating back to the beginning of November of 2009, the Irish are an astonishing 1-8. In those 8 losses, Saturday’s loss to Stanford was, by far, the largest margin of victory for an Irish opponent, as the Stanford Cardinal beat the Irish by 23 points. Excluding the loss to Stanford, the average point discrepancy is only 3.4 points. So what’s more difficult for the team, losing a close, hard-fought game or losing by a larger margin?
Looking back on the game against Jim Harbaugh’s squad, there’s plenty of blame to be spread around as to why the Irish had such an anemic showing. But the mistakes by Notre Dame, on both offense and defense, are nothing new for the Irish. They are mistakes that will continue to plague the Irish unless Brian Kelly and his coaching staff can foster some sort of growth and maturity over the remainder of the season.
It’s time for an offensive reality check.
The biggest eye-opener for the people tuning in and attending the game on Saturday was that the Irish offense is a very rough unit. For those that forgot or chose to overlook the details, Saturday was a good reminder that the offensive line is breaking in three new starters. The Stanford defense, who oftentimes only chose put three or four defensive lineman on field, was consistently generating pressure on the still-green Dayne Crist by causing fumbles, registering sacks, and driving Crist to the turf. And while coming into the game the Stanford defense was among the nation’s best in pass defense, it was painfully obvious that Dayne Crist is still maturing.
Following Saturday’s game, Stanford’s defense ranks 16th in the nation in opponent yards per game and nowhere was that defensive dominance more apparent on Saturday than against Notre Dame’s rushing attack. Stanford held Notre Dame to 44 yards on 23 rushing attempts for an average of 1.9 yards per carry. A stark contrast to the Irish average coming into Saturday’s game: 4.2 yards per carry. Comparing those statistics, it’s no wonder that Notre Dame’s offense struggled to produce meaningful drives.
For those who thought that Brian Kelly’s explosive offense from Cincinnati would translate into similar production at Notre Dame, Saturday was a rude awakening. This offense has enough weapons to be explosive. Kyle Rudolph, Michael Floyd, and Theo Riddick are all capable receivers and Armando Allen is a more than capable running back, but that doesn’t overshadow the fact that Dayne Crist was making his fourth start on Saturday and the Irish are breaking in three new starting offensive linemen.
Throughout the rest of the season, the primary indicator of growth and development on the offensive side of the ball will be consistency. Dayne Crist has the skills and physical attributes to be a great quarterback, but his command of the game has been inconsistent through the first four games of the season. If the offense can begin to eliminate mental mistakes, not only turnovers, but incorrect defensive coverage recognition and poor blocking, then they can begin to be the explosive unit that Kelly’s offense is known for.
You can’t help those who don’t help themselves.
The past three games have been really difficult on Notre Dame’s defense. Against Michigan, Michigan State, and Stanford, it has been painfully obvious that toward the end of games, the Irish defense has unfortunately received the majority of the playing time. In no case was that more apparent than when the defense tried to stop Stanford’s high-ranking offense.
Coming into the game on Saturday, Stanford’s Andrew Luck was a Heisman front-runner. He had completed 10 touchdown passes with no interceptions in the three games leading up to the showdown at Notre Dame Stadium. The bright spot on the afternoon was that the Irish defense was capable of disturbing Luck’s rhythm and forced two interceptions. However, toward the end of the 3rd quarter, Stanford finally decided to adopt a run-oriented offense. This isn’t anything new. Stanford just took a cue from Michigan State who did the same thing and wore down the Irish defense late in the game, which proved to be the straw which broke the back of the unit.
The unfortunate conclusion drawn from the way the defense played against Stanford is that, like the Irish offense, the defense played with little consistency, with one notable exception—Manti Te’o. Te’o had the game of his career thus far, tallying 21 tackles. However, the rest of the Notre Dame defense could do little match Te’o's production. Throughout the entire game, Notre Dame’s defense forced the Cardinal offense to punt only once. The more frustrating factor about that statistic is that the Notre Dame defense had consistently forced Stanford’s offense into 3rd-and-long situations all day, which Stanford regularly converted.
Additionally, Notre Dame’s defense had a horrible day keeping the Stanford offense from scoring, once they got into the red zone. Stanford was a perfect seven of seven in the red zone on Saturday, scoring two touchdowns and five field goals. While it’s somewhat good news that the Irish only gave up two touchdowns in the red zone, that statistic is grossly overshadowed by the fact that the defense shouldn’t have let the Stanford offense into the red zone that many times.
It’s time for a heart to heart conversation.
It seems like, for the past several seasons, there’s been a turning point in which Irish fans need to recalibrate their expectations for the team. This season, it feels like that point is now. Many people, including ESPN personality Mark May, expected this team to do very well this season. However, it’s painfully obvious that the team isn’t living up to those expectations like we had hoped. The most excruciating aspect of the situation in which Notre Dame finds itself is that it’s not too far away from actually living up to those expectations. This team is a few plays away from being 3-1 and only a few mental errors away from being 4-0.
The dominant characteristic plaguing this current Irish squad is the same force that pushed last year’s team to a sub-standard 6-6 final record—consistency. If the Irish are no longer “hanging their hats” on tough, energetic performances, the next step to achieving success is consistency. Unfortunately for Irish fans, consistency is something that takes time. It’s not easily implemented in a week of practice. However, consistency on offense, defense, and special teams will be a better indicator of the maturity of this team than wins and losses. But all is not lost. It’s not time to start looking ahead to next season.
At his press conference following the Stanford game, Brian Kelly relayed the same sentiment.
“There’s going to be a lot of 1-3 football teams across the country. Some are going to finish 1-11, some of going to be 8 or 9-3. It’s what you decide to do from here on out.”
Next week against Boston College will be as good an indicator as any which direction the football team wishes to take this season. But, one thing is certain, for the Irish to achieve the goals that they have set for themselves, consistency will be paramount to getting them there. If nothing else, Saturday’s loss to Stanford proved just that.
Um er, only a few mental errors from being 4-0? 3-1 I can understand but we are a lot more than a few mental errors from 4-0.
How do you figure?
I know, “woulda, coulda, shoulda” is a bad way to look at football games, because you never know what could happen. But, Notre Dame was within 14 points of Stanford until Dayne Crist threw an interception – mental error.
You can go through the entire Stanford game and pick out times when the defense missed assignments, or when the offense had a drive-killing penalty. Dayne Crist threw an interception and also didn’t get rid of the football in a pressure situation which led to a fumble.
All of these are mental errors. Eliminate two or three of them and it could have been a whole other ball game for the Irish. I don’t think that statement is too far fetched.
Actually we were down by 21 when Crist threw the interception.
From the Stanford viewpoint they could have beat us by over 40 if not for a few of their mental errors.
Stanford is a better team than we are and if we played again they would beat us handily again. I hope we start to improve from this point on but Saturday proved to me that we are a long way from where we want to go, mainly because we got beat at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball.
Michigan State most certainly did not wear out our defense, who held them to minimal (or negative) yardage on each of their last three possessions.
Actually, Michigan State’s 11th drive of the game (their second drive of the 4th quarter) went for 56 yards and a touchdown.
However, the lsat two drives ended in 2 yards gained and -2 yards gained.
nd’s defense has not been consistwent all year including teo. even against stanford with 21 tackles, he lost contact with a receiver resulting in a stanford completion which if remember correctly resulted in stanford points.
the nd players have not played well for years. when are they going to stand up? granted the coaching has not been the best for the last decade and a half, it is the players that fail to perform well.
Crist’s lack of experience notwithstanding, how can you justify Notre Dame’s inability to sustain any kind of offensive rythm on three new line starters and a qb who’s only started 4 games? I can’t accept inexperience as an excuse when the offensive line outnumbers the rushing defenders by two. Five should be able to protect against three, and if nobody’s open, run the ball. I can’t imagine an excuse for why Stanford was able to disrupt the offense when rushing only three vs. five offensive linemen for Notre Dame. Furthermore, that line seemed to demonstrate relatively stable protection in the previous three games against more rushers, so why would it suddenly be inexperienced? Second, if the QB is too inexperienced to recognize that the defense is daring them to run the ball by dropping all but three into pass defense, shouldn’t the coach take responsibility for adapting and call for the offense to run the ball? Not ready to accept that ND’s offensive line is so awful that they can’t average more than 1.9 yards per carry vs only three defenders in the box; they’re has to be enough holes to allow for some runs. If they’re daring you to pass by keeping only three guys in the box, who’s the genius responsible for calling passing plays…even if they’re behind?!! It’s starting to sound like alot of excusesl whatever happened to the five minute plan vs the five year plan?