Grades: Notre Dame Offense vs. North Carolina
Notre Dame earned a convincing 31-17 victory over North Carolina this weekend. The Fighting Irish offense did what it needed to do to play its role in the victory. Let’s put a bow on the victory over the Tar Heels by handing out grades, beginning with the offense.
OFFENSE — B
Notre Dame’s offensive performance was wildly up-and-down against the Tar Heels, but the unit did what it needed to do when it mattered most. With North Carolina starting hot, the Irish offense absolutely needed to match the Tar Heel scores with scores of its own. After starting with a three-and-out that put UNC in great field position, the Notre Dame offense countered with back-to-back scores to tie the game.
Not once did North Carolina score without the Irish offense matching that score on the very next possession. The Irish scored at the beginning and end of the second half to put the game away.
Overall it was a productive game, but also a game that was more about clutch play and having better players than high-level execution of a great game plan. North Carolina aggressively attacked the Notre Dame line with its linebackers, and Notre Dame never did anything schematically to counter it.
The result was an inefficient offense that relied on big plays to score enough points to win. Forty-five percent (213 yards) of Notre Dame’s total offense came on six plays. On Notre Dame’s other 61 plays (not counting taking a knee), the Irish offense averaged just 4.4 yards per play against a defense that came into the game giving up an average of 30.8 points per game and 5.7 yards per play.
The offense converted just 36.4% of its third-down opportunities, which was its second worse performance of the season.
Despite the criticism, the clutch cannot be discounted. If the offense doesn’t answer UNC early this game would have looked a lot different, and might have turned out quite different. When the UNC offense scored the Irish offense showed poise, didn’t press and did what it needed to do to get into the end zone.
QUARTERBACK — B
There are basically three factors that go into a quarterback grade. I have a technical grade, which entails things like footwork in the pocket, carrying out fakes, proper angles on bootlegs, etc. I have an execution grade, which involves how a quarterback goes through his reads and his decision making. The third grade is his playmaking ability, clutch plays and going above and beyond the play call.
Quarterback Ian Book did not grade out very well in the first two areas, which drags down the overall grade, which I’m sure many will be upset about. He played rushed in the pocket early in the game as he adapted to UNC’s pressure packages up the middle. His progressions weren’t as good as we’ve seen in recent games and his overall technique and execution was up-and-down. He ran himself into pass rush trouble on too many snaps, including taking a sack on the first drive that helped UNC get excellent field position on its first drive.
Where Book graded out extremely well was from a playmaking standpoint. In fact, he earned an A grade in that department. He was sloppy at times, but Book was clutch from beginning to end. When a play needed to be made he made it.
Whether it was a 16-yard scramble to set up the first score, hitting Javon McKinley for a big play (43 yards) and following it up with a big play (33 yards) of his own to set up another score … which also came after he scrambled around for a while before hitting Kyren Williams for a touchdown, Book made several big or clutch plays in important situations.
RUNNING BACK — B+
Sophomore running back Kyren Williams has had better statistical performances, and over half of his yards came on the final drive of the game (67 of 124). What I liked, however, was how effectively he and freshman Chris Tyree maximized the available yards. North Carolina geared its offense towards slowing down the run game, but the Irish backs made the most of whatever room there was.
When you consider how aggressively North Carolina attacked with its run stunts it’s incredibly impressive that Williams and Tyree were never tackled for a negative gain. Williams ran with authority, he was decisive and he was a factor in the pass game as a pass catcher.
Tyree ripped off a 16-yard gain on his first carry, which helped set up Notre Dame’s first score.
The pass blocking was inconsistent, which dragged the grade down. I gave the backs an A- for their work in the run game, but the pass blocking dragged down the overall grade.
WIDE RECEIVER — B-
There were some strong performances and moments for the Irish wideouts, but also some struggles to get open. A pair of false start penalties also dragged the grade down. Overall it was a solid performance, but it certainly wasn’t the best game we’ve seen from this unit … with one exception.
Fifth-year senior Javon McKinley has established himself as the go-to weapon in the pass game, and he was at his best against the Tar Heels. McKinley blocked extremely well and his ability to win two contested balls down the field sparked the offense. McKinley also worked the middle of the field and was a chain-mover on perimeter throws.
McKinley has really improved his route running as the season has wore on, and we saw that against UNC. He had an impressive vertical release on an out cut that got the Irish out of its own end zone, and his vertical stem on the deep throws allowed him to get enough separation to make plays on the ball.
Grad transfer Ben Skowronek had an impressive run on a jet sweep that went for a score, but he had issues getting open throughout the game. His inability to get separation was one of the reasons the pass offense struggled at times. Slot receiver Avery Davis also found little room to work in the game, but there were snaps where he should have been targeted. His big mistake in the game was running a third-down route short of the first-down marker.
The B grade is a result of the outstanding performance by McKinley and the strong blocking from the unit. Being able to impact the game even when the targets are coming is important for a wide receiver unit, and that’s something this unit has done all season, and we saw it continue against UNC.
Junior Joe Wilkins Jr. beat freshman five-star corner Tony Grimes on a deep ball but it was under-thrown. Wilkins was still able to draw a pass interference on the play, and he beat Grimes on a comeback
TIGHT END — B
The tight ends had a solid game as a unit, with some strong moments in the run and pass game, but there were a few too many mistakes to get ranked higher.
Junior Tommy Tremble had yet another strong blocking performance. He was strong on the edge and very good in space. The knock on Tremble’s game is how little he is targeted, and he didn’t help his cause by dropping the first ball that came his way. It was a screen pass that might have gone or quality yards if he made the catch. He also had a chance to make a big play down the field, but he didn’t position his body to brace for impact and the ball was broken up.
Freshman Michael Mayer was solid in the pass game, working open enough to haul in four catches, including bringing in a flip from Book to convert a late third-down. Mayer had another third-down play where he caught the ball well short of the sticks, but Mayer used his athleticism and size to pick up yards after the catch, which moved the chains. It converted a 3rd-and-10 on Notre Dame’s second half touchdown drive that gave the Irish their first lead of the game.
His nod-and-go route on drive two was impressive, and it got the Irish in UNC territory for the first time, but he also had a drop that played into the overall grade coming down a bit.
Mayer had a solid performance in the run game, but he had issues at times getting to the edge on perimeter runs. Senior Brock Wright was the most inconsistent blocker for the Irish. Junior George Takacs certainly made the most of his two snaps.
Tremble, Mayer and Wright all had excellent blocks on Skowronek’s jet sweep touchdown.
OFFENSIVE LINE — B-
Notre Dame’s offensive line played like a unit that was playing without two starters for the first time. There were some quality moments, and the unit started to push North Carolina around late, but there were also plenty of rough spots mixed in as well, which was to be expected. There also appeared to be more miscommunications in the run game than we’re used to seeing, which was also expected with two new starters in the lineup.
The line wasn’t helped much by the coaching staff, who didn’t make the necessary adjustments that would have attacked the aggressiveness we saw from the North Carolina linebackers.
Left tackle Liam Eichenberg was the highest graded blocker for the Irish. He was outstanding in pass protection and got solid movement in the run game. Eichenberg was also assignment sound, and the issues he had on the backside were more scheme related (Hainsey had them too) than execution related.
Left guard Aaron Banks got off to a rough start, but midway through the second series he started to heat up. Banks was physical in the run game and for the most part he was stout in pass protection. At times Banks got a bit too high and it resulted in him losing blocks late, but overall he graded out relatively well.
Right tackle Robert Hainsey took a lot of heat in this game, as North Carolina attacked the right side of the Irish line with many of their pressures. Hainsey handled the pressures well, and his only mistake in the game was losing an edge rusher late on a snap. He had a great reaction on the first touchdown run by recognizing the crashing linebacker and getting his hands on him, which allowed Williams to make the defender miss on his way to the end zone.
Center Zeke Correll had two big mistakes in the game when he snapped the ball off his butt, but Book recovered the muffed snaps and kept them from becoming turnovers. Correll also didn’t anchor on a couple of early pass rusher and the result was him getting knocked back.
Outside of that I was impressed with how he played when you consider the context of it being his first career start. Correll battled in the game, and he bounced back from misses with effective blocks on the next snap. He showed quick reaction ability to the A Gap linebacker stunts, and after initially not getting good width on reach blocks he effectively stepped and picked up defenders.
Correll got better and better as the game went on, and he was effective getting to the second level in the zone concepts.
Right guard Joshua Lugg battled with leverage for much of the game. Far too often he allowed defenders to get under his pads, which resulted in him getting knocked back. We saw this in run snaps and pass snaps, and the pass snap issues helped keep Book from getting comfortable stepping into the pocket.
When Lugg kept his pads low he got good movement in the run game, and I thought he was better in the second half.
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