Notre Dame builds its ground attack around its Inside Zone schemes. It served as the offense’s base run, and was something the offense was going to carry over into each game.

It is a play with multiple variations which includes the base run, a read concept in which the quarterback can either hand the ball off or keep it himself and it will call the play with receivers running route concepts, giving the quarterback the option to hand the ball off or pull it and throw the ball out to his pass catchers.

For a statistical breakdown of the play, read here.

BASE OVERVIEW

The Inside Zone is a vertically based run play. It is called a zone play because of the blocking rules provided to the offensive linemen, who are working to block a pre-determined call side zone. All five linemen will step vertically to the playside, and there will usually be double teams – or combo blocks – at the point of attack that are determined by the alignment of the defensive line.

Running hard downhill is the primary objective of the Irish Inside Zone. Notre Dame wants to pound teams with this concept, running it often in short yardage and goal line situations. The running back will either aggressively attack the A Gap or cut backside.

The above picture shows the gaps in the offensive line that are used to describe where the play might hit. Notre Dame ran an Inside Zone to the left on this play, and the A1 Gap is to the call side and the A1 Gap or B2 Gap are the two backside lanes where the play could also hit.

When running the base Inside Zone concept, the Irish offense must get an extra blocker to the backside of the call. Notre Dame almost exclusively uses the tight end – or second tight end – to handle this block, which prevents the defense from crashing the backside of the play.

A look at the base rules of Notre Dame's Inside Zone:

One of the primary keys to success with the Inside Zone is getting movement along the defensive line. The more vertical push the line gets, the more effective the play will be. A vertical push by the offensive line gives the back more time to make his read. If there is a stalemate at the line, or if the defensive line gets movement, it throws off the timing of the run.

The combo blocks by the line - when ran correctly - will get movement along the line and then come off at the right time to engage the linebacker.

The trick for linemen is making sure the first line is secured. Coming off too soon in order to take on a linebacker often results in a shorter gain or a negative. Staying on the block too long is not ideal, but often limits the opportunity for bigger negatives.

Here is a video that shows the importance of winning on the first level.

Notre Dame has several variations of its Inside Zone.

The primary variation is the Read Zone concept. On the Read Zone, the Irish offensive line will block just like Inside Zone and the back will run his Inside Zone track. The difference is the quarterback will read the backside edge defender to determine whether or not he will hand the ball off to the back or pull the ball and get outside away from the Inside Zone call.

A breakdown of the Read Zone:

Notre Dame had another wrinkle it used against Boston College, a Q Zone Read concept.

The Irish offense also utilized RPO's with the Inside Zone. An RPO is a Run Pass Option. The line will block for the zone, but the quarterback will make a read to determine whether he will hand the ball off to the back on the zone, or pull it and throw to a route combination behind the backers.

This video breaks down the Q Zone Read and breaks down the RPO's that Notre Dame likes to use. It also shows the difference between an RPO and a play-action pass.