Key Takeaways Of The Notre Dame Offense From The Loss To USC
Notre Dame (8-4) couldn't do enough on offense to keep up with USC in the 38-27 loss last night. There were certainly some positives from the game, but also too many negatives to overcome on both sides of the ball.
I already broke down the brilliance of Michael Mayer in the players of the game article, and here are the rest of the takeaways from the Notre Dame offense.
Slow Start, Turnovers Prove Costly - Notre Dame was a slow starting team all season, and that came back to bite them in a big way in the loss to USC. The Irish offense scored just 74 first quarter points all season, and 54 of those points came in three games against UNLV, Navy and Boston College, three teams that finished with a losing record.
Notre Dame went three and out on its first series and turned it over on downs on series number two. The decision to go with a tight end sneak to Mitchell Evans on the fourth-and-1 call was one of the more puzzling decisions of the game. It has worked with decent success in the past, but Notre Dame had used it so much that USC was clearly going to have it scouted, and the Irish were a full yard away from the sticks.
Whether the call was good or not, the fact is the Irish offense stumbled out of the blocks and didn't put a scoring drive together until its third series, but by that point the Trojans had jumped out to a 10-0 lead. If Notre Dame simply gets a field goal out of one of those two drives the possessions at the end of the game would have looked a lot different.
This offseason the Irish staff will need to do a lot of self scouting to identify what happened preparation wise, scheme wise, play-calling wise and execution wise that resulted in the offense sputtering so much early, and then fix it.
Inconsistent Run Game - Notre Dame's run game has been wildly inconsistent all season, and that was on display against the Trojans. When the run game has been on it has been very, very good. When it doesn't get going it has a hard time putting up yards.
In the last nine games the Irish ground attack went for at least 223 yards six times. During that stretch, however, the ground attack was twice held below 100 yards and had just 150 against a poor Stanford ground attack.
Part of that is USC loading up the box last night and daring Notre Dame to throw. The Irish offense responded with a 23-26 night and a season-high 318 passing yards, but they needed more from the ground game than 90 yards, and with 42 of those yards coming on two carries.
The inability to find answers against USC and Navy was troubling, and part of it was due to the lack of being able to get much going on the ground if teams were able to take the Duo concept away. There will be a need to look at making the ground game a bit more diverse schematically next season, which will make it harder to scheme to stop the ground attack.
Wide Receivers Finish Strong - The Notre Dame wide receivers caught a lot of flak this season, and at times it was certainly justified. The unit got off to a very slow start, but the unit also played extremely well over the last half of the season.
The issue, however, is that the results didn't always reflect how well the unit played, or how often it got open.
Against USC last night the opportunities were not incredibly high, but more than usual, and the Irish receivers rewarded their quarterback with strong play.
Sophomore Deion Colzie had a career night, hauling in three passes for 75 yards while scoring his first career touchdown. It was an impressive catch that put his ball skills and size on display.
Colzie continued his strong play on third down, and his third catch was a leaping grab that shows how important getting size on the field can be for an offense like Notre Dame's.
Classmate Jayden Thomas was his usual solid self, hauling in two passes for 23 yards while displaying quality route running and blocking skills.
Veteran Braden Lenzy made a great diving catch for 25 yards, and Lorenzo Styles had a quality night hauling in four passes for 34 yards.
Highs and Lows From Drew Pyne - In some ways last night's game was the best performance of junior Drew Pyne's career, and at other times his play proved incredibly costly to the Irish.
What Pyne showed last night is that when he's willing to trust the scheme, trust his teammates, and more importantly trust himself he can make big time throws. For much of the game Pyne stayed back in the pocket, showed poise and was willing to let loose on some tough throws. He put the ball into some tough windows and allowed his pass catchers to make plays, and they did.
Pyne finished the game 23-26 for 318 yards and three touchdowns. It was a career high for Pyne in completion percentage (88.5) and yards. His 88.5-percent completion rate is the second best single-game mark in Notre Dame history, behind only Steve Beuerlein's 90.9 against Colorado back in 1984.
The issue Pyne made three crucial mistakes on two plays, and while he isn't the reason Notre Dame lost, those plays did prove costly. Pyne had an unforced error on his third quarter fumble with the Irish driving. Simply put he has to do a better job handling the football there.
With Notre Dame down 31-21 in the fourth quarter, but with plenty of time to still get back into the game, Pyne went away from what had worked for him, and it hurt him. All game Pyne trusted the scheme, his teammates and himself. On a 2nd-and-10 play at the 20-yard line, Pyne had Deion Colzie up the sideline for a Cover 2 hole shot. Colzie was clearly open, Pyne looked right at him, but he was unwilling to make the throw. It's a throw I know he can make and it wasn't as tough of a throw as others he had made in the game, but in that crucial moment he just wouldn't pull the trigger.
Instead, Pyne took off out of the pocket and tried to throw across his body - a big no-no - and the ball was intercepted, ending any chance of a Notre Dame comeback.
Hopefully Pyne comes out of this game realizing he can make a lot more plays than he previously thought and showed, but also that he needs to trust that ability all of the time, not just some of the time.
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