Key Takeaways From The Win Over Boston College: Offense
Notre Dame improved to 8-0 with a 45-31 road victory at Boston College. It was a battle early, but the Irish began to pull away in the second quarter and put the game away in the third. There was plenty to learn about the Irish from the win, beginning with the offense.
Red Zone Becomes A Strength
Success in the red zone has been hard to come by for Notre Dame this season, but that wasn’t the case against Boston College. Notre Dame scored on seven of eight times in the red zone, and the only red zone “failure” was by choice, when Notre Dame took a knee at the end of the game instead of punching it into the end zone and running up the score.
From a practical standpoint the Irish were perfect in the red zone, and six of the seven red zone scores went for touchdowns, which is the most important aspect of this level of success.
It didn’t start well, as Notre Dame was forced to settle for a field goal on its opening drive, despite getting a red zone first down, which gave the offense three more cracks at it. The next six red zone trips resulted in touchdowns.
One key was starting drives deeper into the red zone, which happened on three possessions. Big plays resulted in Notre Dame starting a red zone trip at the BC 7-yard line, the 2-yard line and the 1-yard line.
Quarterback Ian Book used his legs to create two more touchdowns. The first was in the second quarter, when Book scrambled around and found Ben Skowronek for a score. The second was Book again scrambling out of the pocket, but this time he tucked it and ran it in for a touchdown.
A fade route to Ben Skowronek and a well-designed smash concept out of a trips look resulted in the two other touchdowns.
Ian Book Builds On Clemson Success
We’ve seen flashes of Book being a dominant quarterback, but they were usually isolated moments. Stringing together consistent performances has been an issue, especially against quality Power 5 defenses. Book was excellent in the win over Clemson, but he needed to prove he could build on that success against BC, and he answered that question in impressive fashion.
Book was even better against Boston College, continuing the decisiveness he displayed against Clemson and showing better accuracy and playmaking ability with his legs.
There is no debating that we’ve seen the best version of Book in the last two games. If the Ian Book we saw against Boston College and Clemson is the Ian Book we see the rest of the season the Irish offense is going to be very, very hard to stop.
The reason is not only is Book making more plays with his arm from the pocket, his ability to avoid sacks and then be a threat to run or throw out of the pocket makes him quite difficult to game plan against. Teams will be left with the choice to either sit back, drop seven or eight and try to limit big plays and force Book to go through his progressions, or try and pressure Book with numbers in hopes of not giving him any room to work.
Neither is an overly attractive option. Clemson tried to heat Book up, and he made them pay. Boston College tried to mix it up, and when they dropped into zone coverage the Irish quarterback picked them apart. When they played man and tried to bring pressure, Book gashed the defense with his legs and made big plays out of the pocket.
Spreading The Ball Around
One of my biggest issues of Book throughout his career has been his penchant for locking onto a receiver, whether it be the number one read or a specific player (like a Chase Claypool, for example). He would pre-determine reads and lock onto those players.
A key to his success in the last two games, and we saw it to an even greater degree against Boston College, has been a willingness to go through his progressions, to take what the defense gave him, and to throw where the read tells him after the snap, not before the snap.
This has resulted in Book being more decisive and throwing with better timing. That is a big reason we’ve seen receivers be in more catch-and-run situations in the last two games than we saw for much of the first six games.
It has created a more efficient offense, and it’s a big reason Notre Dame found itself in only eight third-down situations against BC. It allowed multiple playmakers to step up when needed, and it makes the offense far more balanced and difficult to prepare for.
Notre Dame churned out 29 first downs against Boston College, a number the offense has achieved since a 2018 victory over Stanford, which was only Book’s third career start. Yet Notre Dame faced only third downs. In the last seven seasons, Notre Dame has had fewer than eight third-down situations just once. In the three previous games, Notre Dame faced 18, 15 and 19 third-down situations.
What this shows is exceptional success on first and second down, and Book’s efficiency throwing the ball and his ability to use his legs to pick up yards played a major role in that early down success.
Run Game Can Win Ugly
Notre Dame didn’t rip off a long of big runs, it wasn’t the sharpest of performances by the Irish backs and the line didn’t play a dominant game.
Yet Notre Dame rushed for 278 yards and averaged 5.9 yards per carry. Even if you take out yards from scrambles on pass plays the Irish were still well over 200 yards in the win.
When you are on top of your game and you churn out big time yards it’s not surprising, not when you have the talent Notre Dame possesses. When you can be on the sloppy side, face a defense geared towards stopping the run and not be on top of your game and still do what Notre Dame did on the ground against BC it’s the sign of a ground attack that is elite.
Fumbles Are Becoming A Problem
Notre Dame lost three fumbles against Boston College, which comes a week after losing a key fumble against Clemson. Notre Dame has now lost seven fumbles on the season, which ties for the most by the offense since the post-2016 makeover, and that happened in 13 games.
Running back Kyren Williams has now lost three fumbles this season, and two in the last three games. He’s been quite good this season, but this is something that must get cleaned up. You cannot fumble the ball away three times against offenses like North Carolina and Wake Forest, or in a rematch against Clemson, and expect to win the game.
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