I would like to preface this with “a win is a win is a win”, and now that is out of the way let’s try to break down SC and look forward to UM after bye week.
We were able to do a lot of good things throughout the SC game on both sides of the ball, just not consistently enough to look like the team we are capable of being. A lot of the disappointment comes from a subjective point of view, some of you are going to have issues with Book, others have issues with Long, some have issues with the defense so on and so forth, I think we can all agree there are things to clean up.
Offensively: (I will not be citing any play times so just keep that in mind)
Overall, I think we found something with the offensive line and run scheme that we have been struggling to find up to this point in the year, at least consistently. Tony Jones Jr. has now emerged as the #1 back for us rushing for over 100 yards in his third straight game. Jones carried 25 times for 176, a 7 yard average, his long being 43. Jones also had an insane amount of YAC, but I could not find that stat.
As a team we carried a total of 48 times for 308 yards, a 6.4 yard average. Say what you will about Chip Long, and I agree there were questionable play calls, but these run schemes are coming together. Seeing the 12 personnel out there and watching Kmet get secondary level blocking in the run game was great and shows great signs of things to come. We also saw a lot of power running right up the tackles that was effective, we have not seen that much this year so I took that as a huge plus. Book was able to get up the field with his legs rushing for 49 yards and a TD, it was interesting to see zone read scheme introduced back into this offense, especially that last drive for us.
Ian was not at his best missing several targets, including a pass to Claypool on the outside (this play in particular, Claypool was open on the outside but a low throw had Claypool reaching for the ball. Was a chance to move the sticks. Once again I will not cite the paly time, if you do not recall this play you probably just do not watch the game like I do.) Books was 17 for 32 for 165 yards 1TD and 0 INT. It was a strange game for Book, he came out firing then seemed to lose his touch and aggression. His favorite target was again Cole Kmet who reeled in 6 catches for 61 yards and the lone TD of the game. Claypool caught 3 passes for 47 yards, 26 of those yards coming off of the first play. Book hit Claypool on the side on a great touch pass that let Claypool go up and get it against a mismatch that we did not exploit enough.
The focal point of our offense was the running game and we were effective when we ran inside or outside. Now, here are some confusing points to the offense. We would often run on first down for gains of 5-7 yards then promptly throw a screen pass or something behind the line to gain. Long is a down and distance play caller meaning that he sets up his next play with the paly he is calling now, so it is strange to me to see the inconsistent play calling when it comes to 2nd and 3 and we end up punting. I do not like to sit back and just blast offensive play calling, I felt like the actual plays that we called were well designed but the circumstances and situations that they were called I disagreed with. I am more of a no-nonsense kind of guy, if we are running the ball well and it is 2nd and 3 run it again. I also felt like we did not reap any benefits off of the PA like we should have. We ran 48 times and SC was up on that line, we should have looked to use PA to move the ball in chunks as opposed to it being the deep shot for the offense. Keep that 12 package out there and go from the shotgun, throw a little pre snap motion in there, just get more creative with it and make it a more viable option for us to move the ball. I could tell that a lot of our PA is predicated from or off of RPO’s as opposed to classic PA, we just did not have as much success as I thought we could have had off of the PA. I feel like the Book was looking for the deep dagger off of PA instead of 10-20 yard gains, which can come back to play design. Also, we dropped some passes that really hurt moving the ball and play calling. Like I said earlier Long is a down and distance play caller so when you drop passes like we did it throws off the rhythm of the offensive play sequence.
I liked a lot of what I saw from the offense, especially seeing Braden Lenzy in several different packages lined up in Z and Y spots. To me he could be a Will Fuller kind of deep threat. I just really wish that we would play up to our potential for 4 quarters and we are yet to do that. Q2 was our best of this game and if you noticed we had our longest drive in the quarter. We played with tempo and controlled chaos which confused SC and opened up some big holes in their defense. There is again, a lot to work on and still a lot to build off of. 12 personnel is a package we had success with which is reassuring and adds another key element to the offense.
Use the bye week to get healthy and gear up for UM
Defensively:
Really there is not much for me to say here we did not tackle well, played sporadically and our packages were all over the place. One series we would play something resembling a 4-2-5 then we would roll out into a 3-2-6 or 3-3-5, it just seemed so all over the place like we were not confident in our ability to defend the outside.
Slovis threw for 255 yards on 24 of 35 passes with 2 TD, pretty much as expected. His top target was St. Brown who caught 8 balls for 112 yards and 1 TD. Tyler Vaughns reeled in 4 catches for 47 yards and a TD while Pittman Jr. was held to 4 cathces 29 yards and 0 TDs. The deep ball TD to St. Brown was against a 2 deep coverage on PA when the defense was playing a variation of the 3-2-6 man. Our 4 standing on the 30 yard line bit on PA for a second and lost his man leaving St. Brown open over the top. The throw was spot on, any hesitation would have led to an incomplete pass or INT. The success came in the face of no pressure as we only rushed 3 giving Slovis plenty of time to throw. Did we get to him with the 3 man rush, yes we did, but he picked us apart more when he had time against the 3 man rush.
Markese Stepp was never in for a passing play ( maybe 1 or 2) running the ball 10 times for 82 yards and a TD. He had too many YAC to count. We tackled the poorest I have seen all year on a RB. No way that kid is better than Swift of UGA. Then again it is easier to run against the 3-2-6 or 3-3-5 when the box is spread and empty, so good job of SC to scare us into playing that way.
Point blank we were scared of a shoot-out, scared of their WRs and did not let our Defense really play its game. Looking back at the tape we had our best success when we were rushing 4 and had at least 7 in the box. Safeties still gave help over the top to CBs who played decent and we just gave them too many chances with the way we played.
Moving on:
We have a great bye week slot right before UM. Take the win and move forward. Lots to build on and lots to look forward too playing UM.
Go Irish!
We were able to do a lot of good things throughout the SC game on both sides of the ball, just not consistently enough to look like the team we are capable of being. A lot of the disappointment comes from a subjective point of view, some of you are going to have issues with Book, others have issues with Long, some have issues with the defense so on and so forth, I think we can all agree there are things to clean up.
Offensively: (I will not be citing any play times so just keep that in mind)
Overall, I think we found something with the offensive line and run scheme that we have been struggling to find up to this point in the year, at least consistently. Tony Jones Jr. has now emerged as the #1 back for us rushing for over 100 yards in his third straight game. Jones carried 25 times for 176, a 7 yard average, his long being 43. Jones also had an insane amount of YAC, but I could not find that stat.
As a team we carried a total of 48 times for 308 yards, a 6.4 yard average. Say what you will about Chip Long, and I agree there were questionable play calls, but these run schemes are coming together. Seeing the 12 personnel out there and watching Kmet get secondary level blocking in the run game was great and shows great signs of things to come. We also saw a lot of power running right up the tackles that was effective, we have not seen that much this year so I took that as a huge plus. Book was able to get up the field with his legs rushing for 49 yards and a TD, it was interesting to see zone read scheme introduced back into this offense, especially that last drive for us.
Ian was not at his best missing several targets, including a pass to Claypool on the outside (this play in particular, Claypool was open on the outside but a low throw had Claypool reaching for the ball. Was a chance to move the sticks. Once again I will not cite the paly time, if you do not recall this play you probably just do not watch the game like I do.) Books was 17 for 32 for 165 yards 1TD and 0 INT. It was a strange game for Book, he came out firing then seemed to lose his touch and aggression. His favorite target was again Cole Kmet who reeled in 6 catches for 61 yards and the lone TD of the game. Claypool caught 3 passes for 47 yards, 26 of those yards coming off of the first play. Book hit Claypool on the side on a great touch pass that let Claypool go up and get it against a mismatch that we did not exploit enough.
The focal point of our offense was the running game and we were effective when we ran inside or outside. Now, here are some confusing points to the offense. We would often run on first down for gains of 5-7 yards then promptly throw a screen pass or something behind the line to gain. Long is a down and distance play caller meaning that he sets up his next play with the paly he is calling now, so it is strange to me to see the inconsistent play calling when it comes to 2nd and 3 and we end up punting. I do not like to sit back and just blast offensive play calling, I felt like the actual plays that we called were well designed but the circumstances and situations that they were called I disagreed with. I am more of a no-nonsense kind of guy, if we are running the ball well and it is 2nd and 3 run it again. I also felt like we did not reap any benefits off of the PA like we should have. We ran 48 times and SC was up on that line, we should have looked to use PA to move the ball in chunks as opposed to it being the deep shot for the offense. Keep that 12 package out there and go from the shotgun, throw a little pre snap motion in there, just get more creative with it and make it a more viable option for us to move the ball. I could tell that a lot of our PA is predicated from or off of RPO’s as opposed to classic PA, we just did not have as much success as I thought we could have had off of the PA. I feel like the Book was looking for the deep dagger off of PA instead of 10-20 yard gains, which can come back to play design. Also, we dropped some passes that really hurt moving the ball and play calling. Like I said earlier Long is a down and distance play caller so when you drop passes like we did it throws off the rhythm of the offensive play sequence.
I liked a lot of what I saw from the offense, especially seeing Braden Lenzy in several different packages lined up in Z and Y spots. To me he could be a Will Fuller kind of deep threat. I just really wish that we would play up to our potential for 4 quarters and we are yet to do that. Q2 was our best of this game and if you noticed we had our longest drive in the quarter. We played with tempo and controlled chaos which confused SC and opened up some big holes in their defense. There is again, a lot to work on and still a lot to build off of. 12 personnel is a package we had success with which is reassuring and adds another key element to the offense.
Use the bye week to get healthy and gear up for UM
Defensively:
Really there is not much for me to say here we did not tackle well, played sporadically and our packages were all over the place. One series we would play something resembling a 4-2-5 then we would roll out into a 3-2-6 or 3-3-5, it just seemed so all over the place like we were not confident in our ability to defend the outside.
Slovis threw for 255 yards on 24 of 35 passes with 2 TD, pretty much as expected. His top target was St. Brown who caught 8 balls for 112 yards and 1 TD. Tyler Vaughns reeled in 4 catches for 47 yards and a TD while Pittman Jr. was held to 4 cathces 29 yards and 0 TDs. The deep ball TD to St. Brown was against a 2 deep coverage on PA when the defense was playing a variation of the 3-2-6 man. Our 4 standing on the 30 yard line bit on PA for a second and lost his man leaving St. Brown open over the top. The throw was spot on, any hesitation would have led to an incomplete pass or INT. The success came in the face of no pressure as we only rushed 3 giving Slovis plenty of time to throw. Did we get to him with the 3 man rush, yes we did, but he picked us apart more when he had time against the 3 man rush.
Markese Stepp was never in for a passing play ( maybe 1 or 2) running the ball 10 times for 82 yards and a TD. He had too many YAC to count. We tackled the poorest I have seen all year on a RB. No way that kid is better than Swift of UGA. Then again it is easier to run against the 3-2-6 or 3-3-5 when the box is spread and empty, so good job of SC to scare us into playing that way.
Point blank we were scared of a shoot-out, scared of their WRs and did not let our Defense really play its game. Looking back at the tape we had our best success when we were rushing 4 and had at least 7 in the box. Safeties still gave help over the top to CBs who played decent and we just gave them too many chances with the way we played.
Moving on:
We have a great bye week slot right before UM. Take the win and move forward. Lots to build on and lots to look forward too playing UM.
Go Irish!
