5 Telling Stats From Notre Dame-Duke

Here are some telling stats for Notre Dame following its 38-35 loss to Duke.

According to the guys over at CFB Film Room, Notre Dame finished with nine missed tackles against the Blue Devils. That breaks down as follows: Drue Tranquill (three), Cole Luke (two), Nyles Morgan (one), Te’von Coney (one), Devin Studstill (one) and Julian Love (one). While different sites and experts have different ways of tracking missed tackles (something that can be a bit subjective), it was by no means a good tackling game for the Irish.

It’s been a problem area all year for Notre Dame, which was credited by Pro Football Focus with a staggering 24 missed tackles against Texas. CFB Film Room gave the Irish 11 missed tackles against Michigan State.

Duke’s fourth-quarter 64-yard touchdown pass from Daniel Jones to Anthony Nash was the fifth play by a Notre Dame opponent that went for 60-plus yards this season. That gives the Irish the dubious distinction as the only member of the 128-team Football Bowl Subdivision to allow more than four such plays through the season’s first month.

Limiting explosive plays is a key for any defense. Last season, the Irish allowed five 60-plus-yard plays all season, and it was still a concern for defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder, who was fired Sunday.

“Last year the big-play count, not only was it not where we need it to be, but it was big-play touchdowns,” VanGorder said at media day in August. “We had issues with gadgets and things. We’ve got to see that. Once we break from our offense, and our offense has got a couple hints of that, but we’ve got to make that a part of our practice daily — respecting gadget plays and such. I look for us to improve in that area for sure. We have to.”

It’s becoming very clear that the Notre Dame sophomore receiver is junior quarterback DeShone Kizer’s favorite target. Kizer looked for St. Brown 12 times against Duke, including on Notre Dame’s final offensive play — an incomplete pass on fourth-and-three. St. Brown finished with six catches for 116 yards and a touchdown, his first-career 100-yard receiving game. He’s now caught four touchdowns through four games, which ranks him tied for fourth in the country.

On third down this season, St. Brown has six catches for 91 yards, an average of 15.2 yards per catch. Five of those receptions have gone for first downs.

Overall this season, he's been targeted a team-high 36 times, an average of nine times per game. Compare that to Kizer's targets for 2015 star receiver Will Fuller, who averaged 7.3 targets per game.

Notre Dame has defended 238 plays against Power Five teams (Texas, Michigan State and Duke), the fifth-most in the country. On those plays, it’s allowing 6.37 yards on average, which ranks 69th in the country. Against Duke, Notre Dame allowed 6.7 yards on the 74 plays defended.

According to Bill Connelly at SB Nation, Notre Dame’s passing defense has allowed a 48.9 percent success rate, which ranks 121st in the country. The national average is 40.7 percent. The terms of success in college football: 50 percent of necessary yardage on first down, 70 percent on second down, and 100 percent on third and fourth down.

It'll be a major focus for new defensive coordinator Greg Hudson.

"We've got to improve on defense, without a doubt, and I'm confident that we will," Hudson said in a statement.

----

• Talk about it inside Rockne’s Roundtable

• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes

• Learn more about our print and digital publication, Blue & Gold Illustrated.

• Follow us on Twitter: @BGINews, @BGI_LouSomogyi, @BGI_CoachD, @BGI_MattJones, @BGI_DMcKinney and @BGI_CoreyBodden.

• Like us on Facebook.