Keys To Victory For The Notre Dame Offense vs. Iowa State

The 15th-ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish (10-2) squad will look to finish off the 2019 season with a bang when they take on the 7-5 Iowa State Cyclones in the Camping World Bowl tomorrow afternoon.

A victory would give Notre Dame at least 11 wins for just the third time in the last 26 seasons.

To do so it will have to beat an Iowa State team that went 0-4 against Top 25 opponents this season, albeit by just 11 combined points.

Here are the keys to the Irish victory, beginning with the Irish offense:

1. Attack Early — Notre Dame will have quarterbacks coach Tommy Rees calling plays for the first time in his career, and getting off to a fast start can have the same mental benefit for a first-time play caller as it does for a quarterback. It gives you confidence and it gives those around you confidence. If Rees dials up successful plays early it will not only give him more confidence, it will give the players confidence in him, and then it starts to snowball in a positive direction.

With that in mind, starting fast is also about taking some aggressive shots early. This doesn’t mean just throwing bombs, it means coming out and being aggressive with the play designs and play calls. It is about getting yhr best players the ball early, it means going after Iowa State’s weaknesses right away, it means keeping the Cyclone defense off balance and it means putting early points on the board.

2. Create Isolations With Claypool, Kmet And Lenzy — Part of that early success is about designing plays to get the best players the football. Iowa State does not have individual players on defense that can match up with Chase Claypool, Cole Kmet, Braden Lenzy or even Lawrence Keys III or Tommy Tremble. Part of being a successful play caller is having specific ways early in the game to isolate the best weapons. At times the past three years there was not enough of that from the offense, so seeing Rees and the rest of the staff figure that out in this game would be a positive moving forward.

Using formations to isolate Claypool and Kmet is essential to success, and dialing specific ways to get Lenzy and Keys touches in the pass game, screen game and even the run game are what I’m looking for here. If the game plan is designed this way and the calls are made, it’s then up to the line to give quarterback Ian Book time to throw and then Book making quick reads and getting the ball where it needs to go.

Notre Dame has the talent to not only win this game, but to roll Iowa State. If this becomes a talent vs. talent game that’s exactly what will happen.

3. Be Balanced — Notre Dame needs to come out with a design to run the ball because it can and because it wants to, not just because it needs to, as head coach Brian Kelly likes to say. Balance will be key in this game. Iowa State faces pass happy offenses all the time, and the structure of its defense is built to handle those kinds of looks. Notre Dame has the skill talent to still do damage in the pass game, but life would be made easier if the Irish are also willing and able to establish the ground game early on against an Iowa State line that doesn’t match up talent wise against the Irish front.

The more balanced Notre Dame is early in the game the more difficult it will be for the Iowa State defense to slow the Irish down. It forces the linebackers and safeties to play a more downhill game, which then opens up the big play opportunities down the field.

4. Finish — Baylor held a 20-0 lead over Iowa State when the fourth quarter started of their matchup, but with 3:45 left in the game the Cyclones scored a touchdown to take a 21-20 lead. Oklahoma jumped out to a 28-7 lead over Iowa State and took a 42-21 lead into the fourth quarter, but Iowa State scored a touchdown with :24 seconds left in the game, and if their two-point conversion attempt that followed would have been successful the Cyclones would have won the game.

Iowa State ultimately lost both games, but what those contests showed is that Iowa State is a team that will never quit. If Notre Dame plays its game and jumps out to a big lead they need to keep their foot on the gas and not give the Cyclones the window to climb back into the game.

Bowl Prep: Iowa State Cyclones
Bowl Prep: Breaking Down The Iowa State Offense
Bowl Prep: Breaking Down The Iowa State Defense
Stacking Up: Notre Dame Offense vs. Iowa State Defense
Stacking Up: Notre Dame Defense vs. Iowa State Offense
Key Matchups: Notre Dame Defense vs. Iowa State Offense
Key Matchups: Notre Dame Offense vs. Iowa State Defense
Notre Dame vs. Iowa State: Recruiting Comparison

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