Notre Dame Quarterback Play Well Behind Championship Standard
There isn't just one reason that Notre Dame has yet to win a national title under head coach Brian Kelly, who has the program on its best footing in well over two decades. Each year there have been different strengths and different areas where the program lags behind.
There has, however, been one constant throughout the last 11 seasons, and especially during the College Football Playoff era; that has been Notre Dame's subpar play at the quarterback position. This is true relative to its overall play, and especially true against the better teams on the schedule.
Let's take a look at how Notre Dame's starting quarterback has performed in the seven seasons since the beginning fo the College Football Playoff.
These numbers are only for the primary starter, and only includes games that each quarterback started and played more than one half. Now compare that to the starting quarterback for each national title winner of the CFP era.
Notre Dame only had two seasons at quarterback that showed overall numbers that compared to the lowest numbers for a title winner, and that was in the 2018 and 2015 seasons, when a backup quarterback became the starting quarterback, either by demotion (2018) or injury (2015). (There's a reason for that)
The only exception to the rule for Notre Dame was with Malik Zaire at quarterback. Zaire had a 179.12 rating as the starter, and he averaged 9.5 yards per attempt and 13.8 yards per completion as a starting quarterback. Zaire started just three games during his career before being injured.
If you dive a little deeper into the title teams that had similar passing numbers to Notre Dame's two best seasons you'll see those teams had unique aspects to their teams that are much harder to replicate. Alabama's 2017 defense gave up just 11.9 points per game, and just 14.5 points in two playoff games. If Notre Dame's defense could hold opponents to just 14.5 points in the playoff it could win a title as well, but that's not happening in the current CFB set up.
Alabama's 2015 defense gave up just 15.1 points per game, and that offense was fueled by a running back named Derrick Henry, who rushed for 2,219 yards and 28 touchdowns. If Notre Dame can hold opponents to 15.1 points per game and have a running back rush for 2,219 yards and 28 touchdowns it too can win a championship.
The point is there are always exceptions to the rule, but it doesn't take much research to realize how important strong quarterback play is to winning a championship.
An even bigger issue for Notre Dame, beyond its overall numbers, is how poor its quarterbacks have played in big games. No matter who the starter was, no matter who was calling the plays, Notre Dame's quarterbacks have come up short against the best opponents.
Just look at the numbers for Notre Dame's starting quarterbacks against Power 5 opponents who finished ranked in the Top 25.
Now compare that to the starting quarterbacks of the CFP era championships (numbers only include their starting numbers during the championship season).
Here's a look at how Ian Book performed in his two playoff games compared to the title winning quarterbacks.
As Brian Kelly looks to figure out what needs to happen for his program to finally become a legitimate title contender he must first address the quarterback struggles. It's not about the individual players, and Notre Dame has had plenty of quarterbacks with physical traits that could and should thrive. It's not the offensive coordinators either, because the numbers are almost identical no matter who is calling the plays and who is lining up behind the center.
There's something deeper here, and if Kelly is able to figure out the issues, make the necessary corrections the Irish will have a chance to start playing offense at a level that gives the program a legitimate chance to not only be competitive on the big stage, but to start winning some of those games.
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