Simplified And Aggressive Is A Smart Adjustment For The Notre Dame Defense

After two games it seemed the Notre Dame defense was on track to be just as dominant as it had been the previous two seasons. Things. came crashing down to earth against Florida State, but the Irish are prepared to adjust.

Notre Dame ranked second in the nation in scoring defense and ninth in yards allowed per play after beating Duke and South Florida. The 6.5 points per game allowed was impressive, but Duke ranks 63rd in scoring offense and South Florida ranks 74th ... out of 76 teams.

Notre Dame was tested by a Florida State defense that has more firepower than both the Blue Devils and the Bulls, and against the Irish that firepower turned into improved production. Even still, Florida State ranks just 60th nationally in scoring offense. Notre Dame allowed the Seminoles to score 26 points and gain 405 yards.

The problems were multiple for Notre Dame in that matchup. Some of it can be attributed to not having all of its personnel in the game or during the week of practice, but that can't be used to justify all the issues. Notre Dame didn't tackle well, it looked undisciplined and it didn't play to the level we've seen in recent seasons.

Whether it was missing tackles, losing contain on the weakside (constantly), looking confused while defending read zones or turning players loose down the field in the pass game, this was a sloppy performance from the Irish defense. The good news was Florida State simply wasn't good enough to make them pay the way future opponents can, so this must get corrected quickly.

During his Thursday press conference, Brian Kelly said the defense was planning on simplifying things against Louisville, while also being more aggressive when it comes to attacking the line of scrimmage.

What I hear when Kelly makes that statement is that defensive coordinator Clark Lea is going back to his roots.

Notre Dame has been a bit more complex with its pressure packages and coverages this season. While it worked against Duke and South Florida, opponents that are currently a combined 2-7, it still needs to be sound to be effective.

Lea can and should remain aggressive with his pressure packages, which makes sense when you have weapons like Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah and Kyle Hamilton. But two keys to success in past seasons was that Lea's philosophy was part about building around his best players, which he is doing with Owusu-Koramoah and Hamilton, and part about making sure his players were able to execute at a high level.

Kelly noted the defense had issues with this against Florida State, and the schedule only gets tougher from here.

On offense, Notre Dame has focused on building its foundation, which has been the run game. Hopefully the offense will build on that and add some diversity and complexity. On defense, Lea's unit needs to "get back to basics," as Kelly stated, and make sure they've first established a foundation. Once that is set, Lea can then add some creative wrinkles.

One key area that must be addressed while making these adjustments is having a better plan to handle mobile quarterbacks and read zone concepts. Notre Dame has had issues with this in the past, and we saw it hurt the defense against Florida State. Contain issues were part of the issue, but the Irish were clearly not in a productive call in too many looks, and they didn't seem confident on how to handle the read concepts.

There was clearly too much uncertainty from the defensive tackles and inside linebackers when it came to recognizing and attacking the read zone concepts, and the secondary support wasn't there on the perimeter either.

Kelly noted that they plan to attack the line of scrimmage more aggressively, which is priority number one when attacking any kind of option, which is what the read zone is at its core. The danger, however, is if you are aggressive with your front against the read zone, but don't have a sound plan with the linebackers and safeties, any misses by the front could result in huge gains. That is why simplification must be balanced with aggressiveness.

While Kelly focused on the schematic adjustments that are needed, those will only take the defense so far. Notre Dame also needs some veterans to step up their game, namely end Daelin Hayes, defensive tackle Myron Tagovailao-Amosa (once he returns to the lineup) and linebacker Drew White to raise their level of play.

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