Irish Maven Mailbag

The first Irish Maven mailbag had a number of challenging questions. Let’s dive right in, beginning with the questions about the quarterback situation.

pass me the green — How does a coach get meaningful game time reps to his backup QB's without having to have a 3 TD lead going onto the 4th quarter? I've heard Lou (Holtz) say that some QB's (in general) just aren't practice QB's but play better in games and vice versa. How would you approach it and have you ever rolled the dice in this situation?

This is a challenging question. I put a great deal of value on how a player practices, and it’s difficult to make the decision to put a player who isn’t thriving in practice into a game, especially when there is as much pressure to win as we see at Notre Dame.

But games should also matter, and right now the starting quarterback at Notre Dame isn’t playing well enough on Saturdays. At some point, you have to make the decision that something must happen to shake things up.

But part of this is about knowing your players, and the reality is sophomore Phil Jurkovec has a game that isn’t conducive to practice dominance. Once you put a red jersey on him, which happens in practice, you are taking away a big part of what he does. Practice is incredibly structured and formatted. Every detail is laid out, but Jurkovec’s game is more about freelancing, making plays outside of the box and using his legs as much as he uses his arm. All of that is going to limit just how good he’ll be in practice.

So what do you do? You cannot throw a young, unproven quarterback who isn’t dominating in practice into the starting lineup. But you can’t keep doing what you’re doing. The wise thing to do would be to work Jurkovec into the lineup; maybe give him the third and fourth series, and then maybe the sixth or seventh series to see how he performs. Design calls that fit his skills, don’t simply ask him to run the Ian Book offense.

If he performs well then you keep working him into the lineup, and you pull him aside during the week and show him exactly what is expected of him, how to go about his business like a starter and challenge him to step up and meet a specific standard. Coach. Him. Up.

Just going about business as usual should not be an option.

ZonaIrish — Why has Kelly had so much problems developing quarterbacks?

That’s a great question, and I do not have an answer. The situations are different with each quarterback situation. Injuries have been an issue (Malik Zaire, Dayne Crist), immaturity has been an issue (DeShone Kizer), suspension has been an issue (Everett Golson) and others simply lacked big-time talent (Tommy Rees, Ian Book). Playing quarterback at Notre Dame is also a high-pressure situation, and being “the guy” is a lot different than being “the replacement.”

The results are obvious, but something is clearly missing.

ssman74 — With Ian Book’s struggles to find open receivers downfield, do you consider the issue to be pre snap coverage determination? Post snap progression issue? Or just an unwillingness to throw the ball downfield? Or a combination?

It's different at different times. Sometimes he just makes the wrong pre-snap read. At other times he is unwilling to throw the ball with any kind of anticipation. Other times he's just not willing to throw the ball to a guy unless he's wide open. His unwillingness to throw into any kind of decent coverage is part of the issue as well.

Kings1977 — Why doesn’t Book run more, it worked well last year?

That’s a great question. I couldn’t possibly know the answer to that question without being in meetings and at practice. What I do know is when he used his legs against USC it allowed the offense to have some strong moments even though he wasn’t doing much in the pass game.

t13bru — If you’re BK what are some changes you’d make this week?

I'd give Jurkovec legit first-team reps. Not the 40% reps with the second team, I'd give him actual first-team reps. I'd also consider taking the red jerseys off the quarterbacks on Tuesday and Wednesday, at least for a week. Ramp up the competition.
I would do a million tackling drills and pursuit drills on defense. I would demand non-stop hustle and focus, and if I didn't get it I would not be happy and guys would lose reps.
I would have the QB and OL be watching game film of Va Tech together every single day, with the OC and maybe even the head coach.
I would push the tempo of the practices.
I give a major, major challenge to the offensive line coach and the offensive line. I'd tell them the play better be really good this week or changes will be made. I would make sure the OL coach knows he needs to do a much better job preparing his unit to handle what the opponent is going to throw at them in the pass game and run game.
I would figure out ways to get Braden Lenzy and Lawrence Keys III more reps and more touches.
I would certainly work on getting the second-team LB's some action. Not that the starters are playing poorly, but there is definitely a need for the young guys (Shayne Simon, Jack Lamb, Bo Bauer) to get some action.

Pjtdomer — Putting aside the understandable public statements by Kelly, does the coaching staff understand that what they are doing is not working especially on offense? Do Long and Rees and Quinn see things need to change or do they view this as just one bad game? What are people saying privately?

I honestly do not know the answer to that question without being in the meetings. From the sources I spoke with this week, it sounds like no major changes were made outside of pushing the tempo a bit and trying to get more physicality. To me, that tells me the staff feels they are close and they just need to “coach a little better” in order to get the players to “play a little better.”

ryno1134 — Bryan, what is your assessment of Jeff Quinn at this point? It seems like the line just isn't developing according to the talent it has and considering the OL is the lifeblood at ND, it is a pretty big deal.

From my few interactions with Jeff Quinn, I’m quite fond of him as a person. He’s engaging, honest, open and a really good story teller. I really like him, and his recruiting has been quite good thus far.

The performance of the Irish line has been sub-standard for Notre Dame. It could be excused in 2018 because of the youth and the injury to Alex Bars. But the underachieving play in 2019 is not excusable. The numbers are what they are, against Top 40 run defenses the last two seasons the Irish are averaging less than 100 yards per game and less than 3.0 yards per carry.

That isn’t even close to good enough. Under former line coach Harry Hiestand the Irish were over 150 yards per game on the ground and 4.4 yards per rush against top 40 run defenses.

When I break down film the unit seems to struggle handling line games and pressures that most good units should be able to pick up.

chamgel — Did Michigan put anything on tape to exploit holes Clark Lea’s defense that should be a concern moving forward?

I think USC put it on film first and Michigan took it to another level. Notre Dame is having issues with contain, it’s backside pursuit has been subpar and the tackling has been a major problem. The Irish got out-leveraged far too often against Michigan, and that is something future offenses will likely look to exploit.

Tveen23 — What is your feeling about playing for 10 wins this season vs going forward do what needs to be done to get ready for 11/7/2020?

Winning now always needs to be primary objective. Notre Dame still has a lot to play for this season. But playing more young players and focusing more on development doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice winning now. That’s what college football is supposed to be all about.

maloy49 — Coach, I know it’s hard to see as a fan, but through your contacts do you have any insight as to the player leadership on this team?

There are two types of leadership. One is the off-the-field leadership, and from that standpoint I’ve heard nothing but positive things. From what I’m told, the seven captains on the team now are all high-character young men.

The second part of leadership is leading by example on the field, and that is where Notre Dame is struggling in a big way. See my earlier article about that.

Englehart21 — Most of the Notre Dame beat writers that I follow had Notre Dame winning the game at Michigan or being a close game at least. I personally thought Notre Dame would go into the Big House and come out with a victory. Has the recent success (26-4 in our last 30 before last week) clouded our judgement and make us forget how poorly Notre Dame has played on the road against ranked teams? Michigan isn’t 31 points better than us. What is the main cause for our shortcomings against good teams on the road?

I wrote before the game that Michigan was a huge game for Notre Dame and presented a huge opportunity for the reasons you mentioned. The fact Notre Dame not only lost, but got embarrassed, showed that Notre Dame is not as close to the top programs as we thought, and hoped.

dbhenders — It is so easy for a coach to "lose" a team for any number of reasons ... Too strict discipline which causes the team to pretty much decide this isn't what they want and mentally check out ... Too loose and the attitude becomes "we do what we want". In either case when the discipline to address adversity is needed, neither attitude is going to produce success. As a classroom teacher, I was warned early on that you can always loosen up standard but you can't really successfully tighten them once the baseline is established. Am sure you faced this task in your years on the sidelines ... How does a coach assess the needs and address them without risking losing the team?

I don’t think it’s about being too strict or too loose. It’s about being yourself, being a great teacher, holding yourself accountable and holding your players accountable. If you set a standard, you hold yourself to that standard, hold your players to that standard, show your players you care for them and lead your players will follow you, no matter how strict - or how loose - you might be.

mjrjr26 — Why don´t we run up the middle more? The runs to the outside haven´t been working against elite defenses for the past 3 years in Chip Long´s offense but he insists on running them. In these big games, given the chance I feel like the oline could at least get 3-4 yards a pop running between the tackles.

Notre Dame’s most frequently used play in each of Chip Long’s three seasons is the Inside Zone. That is the most up the middle run a team can have.

LaFontaine12 — I think you were spot on in your podcast on Monday when you talked about issues with the program, some over the last few years and some spanning the whole Kelly era. Is it really reasonable to expect these issues to be fixed by next year, much less this season? And is it reasonable to fix these issues without making changes on the coaching staff?

If Brian Kelly is the coach I think he is, and the coach he can be, they should not only get fixed by next season, they should be fixed by the end of the season. If he’s locked into his program and has his hand on the pulse of his squad, he should know what buttons need to be pushed.

Matt0315 — How do you view Drew Pyne as a recruit? His ranking varies a ton from Rivals having him at number 100 and 247 at 700. Also how high is his upside as a prospect?

I don’t think he’s a Top 100 player and he darn sure isn’t close to being the No. 700 player in the country. To me he’s a Top 250 player. Pyne doesn’t have elite physical tools, but he has a strong release, he’s accurate, he’s aggressive attacking downfield and he’s a mobile quarterback in the pocket.

He’ll never blow anyone away with great physical tools, but I like his leadership, playmaking ability and in the right system he should be able to be a great ball distributor, leader and producer.

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