Key Takeaways From the Notre Dame Offense

Notre Dame had a brutal loss to Stanford last night, dropping a 16-14 contest to a team that came into the matchup having lost 11 straight games to FBS opponents. Eight of those 11 losses were by double figures, yet Notre Dame's offense struggled to do anything against the Cardinal in what was a stunning defeat.

There were a lot of takeaways from the game, especially on offense.

SLOW STARTS ARE A PROBLEM

Notre Dame has now scored just six points in the first quarter this season, an average of just one point per game. It has been just three points in the last five games, which is abysmal.

If we're being honest and objective, there must be a note about drives that started in the first quarter but finished in the second quarter that resulted in scoring drives. That happened three times this season, but even if you add in those scoring drives (touchdowns vs. Ohio State, North Carolina, BYU) it only gives the Irish 33 points on drives that start in the first quarter.

That's a clear sign of a team that struggles mightily to get any kind of early game rhythm. There are two potential issues that are causing this, issues that can be exclusive but also issues that both be an existing problem.

One reality is that whatever the staff is doing during the week of preparation isn't working. I'm not at practice so I can't pinpoint to you what the issue is, I can only offer guesses, and this isn't the format for that. What I do know, however, is that you play how you practice, and there is something missing on offense. Notre Dame comes out of the gate slow schematically, from an effort standpoint (too much thinking) and they struggle to get any kind of rhythm.

Two is the game plans are subpar. Outside of the North Carolina game and some of the pass game concepts against BYU, I have been incredibly disappointed in the game plans that offensive coordinator Tommy Rees puts together. I know that Rees is a very smart football mind when it comes to X's and O's, but the reality is being smart with scheme isn't the same as putting together a good game plan.

Putting a game plan together, and then calling that game plan, requires continuity, it's like a symphony. A lot of moving parts working together, using one instrument to set up another for a dramatic crescendo that has wonderful results. Far too often the Irish game plans look disjointed, with little rhyme or reason as to why the different looks and calls are supposed to work together. There's very little, let's run this to have some success, but also to set up something else based on how they defend it. The run and pass games are especially disjointed, which makes it much easier for decent defensive coordinators to get a plan on how to attack this offense.

We can point to plenty of player mistakes, and it would be easy for me to rip Drew Pyne or Michael Mayer or any other player for what we saw last night, or to trash Tyler Buchner for his struggles in two games as a starter. But here's the reality, right now the players on offense aren't being put in enough positions to be successful, and until that changes we will continue to see these struggles continue. It starts at the top, and in this case it starts at the top of the offensive staff. They need to do some serious soul searching, do some serious self scouting and put everything they are doing on the table.

Changes need to happen .... now.

PUZZLING RUN GAME DESIGN

Part of this issue is the poorly designed run game. For the second week in a row, Notre Dame implemented a very slow developing, downhill run game that played right into whatever strengths the opposition had on defense.

Stanford game into this matchup giving up 207 rushing yards per game. They aren't a very powerful defense and they are relatively slow on all levels. Notre Dame did almost nothing to exploit either aspect of the Stanford defense. Notre Dame continued to use bunch alignments, they ran far too many slow developing runs, they did very little off-tackle or perimeter runs and there was little formational or motion use that did much to impact the eye discipline of the Stanford defense.

Stanford knew what was coming, they attacked it and they shut it down. Notre Dame rushed for just 150 yards against Stanford, which is the fewest yards the Cardinal have allowed this season. Colgate - a 1-5 FCS team - rushed for more yards against Stanford than did Notre Dame.

That's embarrassing, and it was the same issue we saw in the prior week against BYU. Notre Dame was able to rip off two long runs in the fourth quarter of that game to help put things away, so it masked the overall poor run game performance. In this instance I could easily hammer the line, or complain about running back usage, but the reality is like we discussed in the previous point, when you don't put your players in position to be successful the odds are strong they aren't often going to be successful.

Notre Dame's run game is poorly designed right now, and it needs to find answers in a hurry.

POOR SITUATIONAL FOOTBALL

Situational football was one of the more direct issues for Notre Dame in this matchup against Stanford. Notre Dame wasn't good at protecting the football, it wasn't good on third down, it wasn't good in the red zone and the Irish didn't do anything to protect its own defense.

Notre Dame was abysmal on third down in the first three games, but the hope was the strong third down performances against North Carolina and BYU were a sign of things to come. Unfortunately, against Stanford we saw the poor third down offense from the first three games.

Notre Dame converted just 3-12 third downs in the game, which tied for the second worst output of the season. Unlike last season's game against Stanford, a game in which the Irish also failed to do much on third down, this year's version failed to rack up the big plays that worked last season.

The Irish were quite good in the red zone the first four games of the season, but against BYU and now Stanford it has become a problem. Notre Dame has also struggled with clutch fourth down conversions, and that was also an issue last night, and those two issues went together.

Notre Dame called a poorly designed 4th-and-2 jet sweep to Jayden Thomas on a red zone trip. The formation allowed Stanford to get the edges secured, which made it hard to have success on that call no matter who got the ball. There was nothing redeeming about that call, and it wouldn't have mattered if the call was made to any other player. The fact it was called for Jayden Thomas made it even worse, and it's an example of the staff not putting a player in position to be successful.

MERRIWEATHER COULD ALWAYS DO THIS

One bright spot in the game was the play of freshman wide receiver Tobias Merriweather.

HE’S A FRESHMAN

2022 All-American Tobias Merriweather (@TM5IVE) hauls in the touchdown. #GoIrish ☘️#AllAmericanBowl 🇺🇸

pic.twitter.com/99YOqpt3ME
— All-American Bowl (@AABonNBC) October 16, 2022

The fact Notre Dame failed to get Merriweather more playing time and more touches earlier in the season is a failure, there can be nothing else said about it in my view. He was always capable of this, and I'm to believe that Merriweather just learned how to run this effective of a slot post route in this past week?

That's absurd.

Merriweather was always capable of this, and he should have started getting some playing time immediately this season and then eventually build him to a more prominent role. The fact they waited until game six to start pushing the issue with him is a failure and a missed opportunity.

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