Classified Info: Who Will Call Plays For Notre Dame?
With the Camping World Bowl versus Iowa State (7-5) less than a week away, No. 14-ranked Notre Dame (10-2) completed its sixth practice on Saturday afternoon for the outing.
Final exams week ended on Friday, so the last two days emphasized more physicality, and Sunday’s session is expected to be the peak with contact work before tapering off next week.
On Monday the team will have a walk-through on campus before departing to Orlando, Fla., later that afternoon, a Notre Dame traveling party that will include about 400, according to head coach Brian Kelly. They will practice and celebrate Christmas together as a team Tuesday through Thursday prior to another walk-through on Friday.
“Their mental focus has been really good, it hasn’t been sloppy,” said Kelly of balancing final exams the past week with some preparation.
The primary talking point for Notre Dame has been who would handle the play-calling duties in place of Chip Long, who coordinated the offense and called the plays the past three seasons before he and the current staff parted ways earlier this month.
“We’re going to keep it as a national secret, letting you guys try to guess and talk about it,” replied Kelly to the natural inquiries about the direction of the offense. “Is that what you need for the newspapers, internet chats and stuff like that?”
Perhaps the most-used word was “collaboration” among quarterbacks coach Tom Rees, running backs coach Lance Taylor and offensive line coach Jeff Quinn.
“Those three guys, that collaboration through balance in the run and pass game,” Kelly said. “Lot more conversations, lot more meetings, lot more of everybody clearly seeing though the same lens as to what we want to accomplish, not only in the passing game but in the running game.
“I’m leading it and then giving them a clear direction of where we want to go — and then let it go. I thought they’ve really done exactly what I was looking for over the last couple of days.”
What Kelly is seeking is not necessarily for public knowledge at this point, but it won’t involve, as he notes, “reinventing the wheel” after averaging 37.1 points per game during the regular season.
A stronger consistency with a conventional ground attack would be a start. While Notre Dame did finish November with a five-game winning streak, the ground game had to rely heavily on quarterback Ian Book’s ad-lib scrambling, or jet sweeps from wideout Braden Lenzy, for some creativity via the ground arsenal.
In his last five games, top rusher, running back Tony Jones Jr., produced 165 yards on 53 carries, or 3.1 yards per attempt.
In the game that Jones was sidelined with an injury, the 21-20 win versus Virginia Tech on Nov. 2, Jafar Armstrong — injured earlier in the year — carried 19 times for only 37 yards.
“We ran the ball at times effectively, and at other times we weren’t effective,” Kelly said. “We want to be moving forward much more effective, so that requires complete collaboration and everybody on the same page, and that’s what I’m looking to accomplish.
“… It’s not for the untrained eye. I think you’re not going to see a whole lot of difference. But for those that really study our offense, I think you’ll see some improvements that will help us from the start of the game to the end of the game. That’s what we’re looking for.”
BRADEN LENZY & KYLE HAMILTON
Sophomore speedster Lenzy at wideout and freshman safety Hamilton have become more prominent figures in the last month.
Lenzy finished the regular season at Stanford with a couple of receptions for 48 yards and four carries for 48 more while becoming more active in the offense.
An extremely slight frame, highly inconsistent hands and some concussion issues sidelined him much of his first year and a half, but his stock is ascending.
“Like most players, what you’re looking for is how do they handle the adversity that was in front of them, whether it be an injury or a setback,” said Kelly of Lenzy. “ Did they come back stronger? I think he came back stronger. Sometimes you wonder will they regain the level of confidence that they were building. I think he’s gained even more confidence.
“Now, you could argue that you make a couple of plays, confidence grows in you. But I think he came back with a sense of ‘I’m a good player and I’m going to prove it,’ more so than ‘I’m going to feel my way around here.’ That says a lot about his internal motivation to want to do well.”
Although Lenzy’s speed always has been prominent, his technical skills were way behind.
“He was very raw,” Kelly explained. “He played a lot of defense [in high schoo]. The offense was one where it was going to have to come over time. I think where he’s really improved is catching the football. We thought that in his first year that could be a struggle for him.
“He’s done a really good job of becoming okay in that, and I think he’s got a chance to be a really solid ball catcher.”
Unlike Lenzy, Hamilton made an instant splash from day one and has earned Freshman All-American honors from both Pro Football Focus — who graded him out as one of the best coverage players in any class — and The Athletic.
Even more impressive has been his persona. The football office has not permitted Hamilton to be interviewed yet, and Kelly admitted he has wanted to tone down the hype.
“I was a little cautious early on, because you heap a lot of that on a young man early on and you wonder if it’s too much for him,” he said. “I thought he handled it really well socially — meaning around his teammates, around campus.
“We knew how he was going to handle himself on the football field. But it’s in the locker room, among his peers. He’s never been a guy this year that has walked taller than his teammates, and that says a lot about him. There’s a humbleness to him as a great player that is a great distinction that he carries.”
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