Behind Enemy Lines: Notre Dame
All Syracuse caught up with Irish Breakdown's Bryan Driskell to get an inside look at Notre Dame ahead of Saturday's matchup in the JMA Wireless Dome.
Q: ND has been a very hot and cold team, with wins over BYU and UNC, and losses to Marshall and Stanford. Why hasn't this Fighting Irish squad been able to establish any consistency this year?
Driskell: It primarily comes down to a struggling offense and a defense that has struggled to put teams away. Notre Dame held a 15-12 lead in the fourth quarter against Marshall and blew a chance to make it a 10-point game. It then gave up a 3rd-and-9 conversation with Marshall backed up inside it’s own 10-yard line, but allowed the Herd to convert. That led to a 90+ yard drive that put them back up, and then a pick six by Notre Dame put the game away.
Same thing against Stanford. Notre Dame’s offense finally got a big play against a bad Stanford defense when Drew Pyne hit Tobias Merriweather for a 41-yard touchdown. That 14-13 lead was Notre Dame’s first lead of the game …. against a bad Stanford team. The defense responded by allowing the Cardinal to go right back down the field and take the lead back. The offense for ND responded with a long drive that ended with a fumble.
That’s been the story all year. Notre Dame had a fourth quarter lead in two of its three losses. It led Ohio State with less than a minute to go in the third quarter, and led Ohio State for more minutes in the game (33+) than Ohio State led Notre Dame. But they just don’t finish.
This has been true in wins as well. Notre Dame held a 38-14 lead over North Carolina but allowed them to get some cheap late touchdowns and failed to put them away. Notre Dame led BYU 25-6 at one point before allowing the Cougars to make it 25-20. BYU actually had one possession in that game with a chance to take the lead in the fourth quarter. Notre Dame was beating UNLV 30-7 at halftime but coasted in the second half.
Notre Dame just doesn’t execute well enough on either side of the ball. Big misses on offense, giving up big plays on defense. Turnovers on offense, not being able to turn anyone over on defense. They are constantly just a step or a play away, and that has been maddening. They just haven’t had veterans step up and show the leadership necessary to get them over the hump …. yet, and they have had playmakers step up in money situations to put the games away.
Q: Obviously the QB positions has been a highly discussed topic in South Bend, with Tyler Buchner going down earlier and Drew Pyne coming off two games where he was right at or less than 50 percent completion. How confident are you in Pyne going forward the rest of the season?
Driskell: It depends on which version of Pyne we see, and whether or not offensive coordinator Tommy Rees can finally get out of his own way and put Pyne, and the rest of the offense in position to thrive.
Pyne has gotten plenty of time to throw, but he has been too locked in on Mayer and rushes his reads. If he can calm down, properly go through his progressions and throw to the open guy and not lock in on Mayer you will see Notre Dame start to put up a lot more points. I don’t know when or if that will happen, but that’s the key.
Will he get back to being the 70+ percent passer he was against UNC and BYU? If he does I have total confidence in him. If he doesn’t the Irish will continue to struggle to score.
Q: With the season not being the flying success that many Irish fans would have hoped for, what are the feelings in and around the program about Marcus Freeman's ability and future in leading ND?
Driskell: There are clearly questions, but most Notre Dame fans - or should I say most Irish Breakdown subscribers and listeners - have a realistic view of his future. They (we) can admit the areas where he has not had this team ready to play, to point out the coaching hires and mistakes he’s made, but also still believe he brings plenty to the table. His alum outreach and recruiting has been elite, and he was a great defensive coordinator. Most are willing to chalk up those mistakes to a lack of head coaching experience he’ll work through, and believe once that experience comes you’ll start to see the close losses turn into close wins, and then those close wins start to turn into blowouts.
Q: Isaiah Foskey is the premier dude on this ND defense, totaling 6 sacks so far and three last week vs. UNLV. What kind of impact does he have on this defense as the best player and a leader, and, as a projected 1st rounder, what's an NFL comparison for his game?
Driskell: Foskey’s play has been endemic of the entire time. When he’s been on he has been really, really good. We saw it against UNLV, we saw it against North Carolina, we saw it in the second half against California. He wasn’t a factor against Ohio State and Marshall, he wasn’t a factor against Stanford. We just don’t know what version we’ll get.
When he’s on, Foskey shuts down half of the field. Offenses have to focus their protection on him when he’s on his game, which then opens up opportunities for the interior defensive linemen, it opens up run through opportunities by the backers, and of course it gives the strong side ends one-on-one pass rush opportunities. Foskey has also been more dominant at time against the run, and when he’s on he does a great job setting the edge, and it makes it very hard to run to his side of the field as well.
Q: The Irish have 3 backs with over 70 rushing attempts this year, between Austin Estime, Logan Diggs, and Chris Tyree. How does Tommy Rees make sure all those guys get touched and stay hot (and fresh) in this game?
Driskell: Well, outside of the North Carolina and the last three quarters against California, Rees hasn’t done a good job getting all three involved. We saw very little of Tyree and Estime against UNLV. He abandoned the use of the backs in the pass game after the UNC game (they had back-to-back games with over 80 receiving yards), and the 21 personnel that was so effective during that stretch has gone by the wayside for the most part.
Then Rees has decided to turn Chris Tyree - who is one of the fastest players in college football - into a downhill, A Gap runner in recent weeks.
Other times he uses them so much that none of them get into any kind of rhythm. The season totals are impressive, but within each game it’s been an issue to properly use them all.
Q: Can tight end Michael Mayer beat SU singlehandedly?
Driskell That’s what I love about football, no one player can singlehandedly win a game. Mayer can’t throw it to himself or block guys trying to tackle him while he has the ball. Can he have a huge impact? Absolutely. He’ll either make a ton of catches (like he did against BYU) or the focus on trying to slow him down will open up opportunities for other players to win one-on-ones.
Mayer should be able to use his size to make plays against Syracuse, but Syracuse is very well coached and will have a plan for him. The Syracuse linebackers can really run and are good in coverage, so I think they match up relatively well, or at least as well as you can against Mayer. The key will be whether or not the other Notre Dame players can capitalize on that attention and make plays.
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