Five Observations From Rewatching Notre Dame Vs. USC
In wanting to be as prepared as possible for my first season covering Notre Dame football this fall, I’m going back and watching notable games from the 2019 season with a finer comb than when I watched them live. In a few cases, I watched all the game while at home or out and about. In others, I caught parts of games. And with some games, I didn’t see a minute.
Whatever category a game falls into, I’m using the rewatch (or first viewing) to find some themes from it that I think will play a part in how Notre Dame’s 2020 season goes.
The fourth game up is Notre Dame’s 30-27 win over USC from Oct. 12. I saw only a few parts of it live. Here are five observations from a closer look.
Clark Lea At Work
Notre Dame defensive coordinator Clark Lea’s modus operandi is to try and take away an opponent’s biggest strength. In the 2019 season opener against Louisville, he wanted to slow the Cardinals’ option-heavy running attack. He loaded up the front seven, and after a rough quarter-plus, did the job.
Against USC, the objective was obvious from the first play: slow down USC quarterback Kedon Slovis and his dynamic group of receivers by keeping everything in front. Trojans had to try and beat his unit with their less effective running game and underneath throws. You can bet that will be Lea’s goal when they play again this year. Slovis and USC’s receivers will be dangerous once again.
Notre Dame used a three-safety look with Alohi Gilman, Jalen Elliott and Kyle Hamilton as its primary weapon. The Irish were not going to let USC beat them over the top. By my count, Notre Dame had six or fewer defenders in the box on 57 of USC’s 70 plays and played all three safeties on all but two snaps.
Here’s the alignment on the first play of the game.
All told, USC had 426 yards and 27 points, both well above Notre Dame’s average. Wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown had 112 yards and a touchdown, one of only three players to post 100 receiving yards on Notre Dame in 2019. But to only focus on those final numbers is to ignore some of Lea’s best work.
In a way, it felt a little bit like watching Notre Dame try and chip away against Georgia. USC didn’t play poorly, but beating Notre Dame with the strategy the Irish defense forced was a difficult task.
Slovis, who topped 400 yards in four games, threw for 255 on 7.3 yards per attempt — well below his season average of 9.0. He didn’t average 10 yards per completion until USC’s second touchdown drive, which came midway through the fourth quarter. Biletnikoff Award finalist Michael Pittman Jr., a second-round pick in April, had 29 yards. Tyler Vaughns, who had 912 yards in 2019, didn’t catch a pass until late in the third quarter.
Unsurprisingly, USC had six points until it scored a touchdown with 2:34 left in the third quarter.
That’s taking away a strength.
Area To Limit
Having three safeties offers plenty of possibilities. Most importantly, it provided help downfield and down the sidelines. Double teams are hard to defeat deep. They flustered Pittman all game.
The first play here is a third down in the red zone on USC’s opening drive. Pittman is alone on the left side. As soon as the ball is snapped, Kyle Hamilton instantly shades over that way from his safety spot, allowing Donte Vaughn to play underneath him without fear of getting beat over the top. Notre Dame sends five rushers at Slovis. A two-deep look with pressure and man coverage was a common third-down call.
The instant safety help toward the sideline combined with a blitz works because Notre Dame’s underneath defenders can hold up, particularly Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, who often operated as the nickel back and covered the slot receiver well. It also helps that Slovis isn’t really a scrambling threat who can exploit the second-level defenders who have their backs turned toward him.
The next two are similar coverages that force Slovis to throw short. Pittman is once again well covered. Julian Okwara drops to take away a short pass, while Troy Pride Jr. bails off him to play deeper. Slovis checks down to his running back (second play) and finds St. Brown for a modest three-yard gain (third). I was surprised to see USC not move Pittman into the slot and away from those double teams.
Vaughns, the other outside receiver, also saw bail coverage from the cornerback when there was a one-on-one and underneath when there was safety help.
Notre Dame had four sacks and kept enough pressure on Slovis. That holds true even when Lea used more three-man fronts than he had before. Slovis saw enough pressure to force some inaccurate throws and checkdowns.
Notre Dame unfurled 14 blitzes at Slovis, per Pro Football Focus (PFF), and he averaged 4.8 yards per attempt against them. They generated two sacks, including Owusu-Koramoah’s on an overload blitz (the last play in the video). The Irish also had two sacks without a blitz.
Area To Give Up
No defense can take away everything. When there’s a sellout to stop a vertical passing attack, there’s going to be a weakness stopping another area. For Notre Dame, that was USC’s run game. The five- and six-man boxes gave USC an advantage when running the ball.
The Trojans’ first play of the game was a run with lead blocker. They have six blockers against four box defenders after Okwara drops into shallow coverage. Markese Stepp gets six yards before anyone is in a spot to tackle him. Notre Dame also had some instances of over-pursuit and a lack of edge discipline when it had more defenders.
When needed, though, Gilman could come up from a deep safety spot and run down ball carries like he does in the fourth play above. A box that seems small grows with him. USC ran for 171 yards, but on a solid-but-not-deadly 4.9 yards per rush. Notre Dame will take that.
When Notre Dame played zone coverage with its linebackers and slot defenders, USC found holes in the middle of the defense like the fifth play in the video. Those will be there when safety help is to the outside.
USC’s touchdown drives in the second half contained some long runs and exploited some one-on-ones. The first, to St. Brown, came when Gilman paused on a play fake, which created a crease in the middle of the field (sixth play). Hamilton was once again helping toward the sideline. Even on USC’s last scoring drive, Notre Dame generated two pressures with three rushers.
Asmar Bilal And The 2020 Buck Quandary
One reason Notre Dame could bend but not break against the run was its linebacker play. Asmar Bilal had a team-best 11 tackles (2.0 for a loss) because he was asked to cover a lot of ground in those smaller fronts. He had the speed to do it and could hold up in the shallow zone coverages.
Replacing him at Buck linebacker is a worrisome and unsettled task. The Buck is generally the defense’s best playmaker, with enough speed to play sideline-to-sideline, requisite fluidity to hold up in coverage and discipline to play the run. Jack Lamb, Shayne Simon or perhaps someone else are in the mix. Each of those two is a former top-175 recruit.
Lamb’s role was clearly defined in 2019 as the middle linebacker in the dime package. He fit because of his speed and coverage ability, which are needed traits at Buck. PFF credited him with 40 coverage snaps, on which he was targeted five times. He allowed four catches for 16 yards.
Can he hold up against the run in base defenses, though? The question has to wait until fall camp after Notre Dame held only one spring practice. He’s expected to be healthy after needing season-ending surgery.
Braden Lenzy’s Usage
Lenzy was Notre Dame’s third-leading rusher in 2019, with 200 yards, despite carrying the ball only 13 times. It helps when one carry accounts for a quarter of the total.
Lenzy’s speed and open-field ability were not secret at any point last year, but he was a consistent run threat on jet sweeps and trickery because Notre Dame set up his touches well.
Notre Dame set up a big play for him by faking a handoff as he came in motion and followed junior tight end Cole Kmet, who was acting as a blocker. Instead, Notre Dame threw a screen to senior running back Tony Jones Jr., which USC sniffed out. But it was a set-up, of sorts.
The next time, Notre Dame sent two pulling guards and Kmet one direction, with Jones readying for a pitch the same way. But Lenzy sneaked behind the pullers, took the pitch before it got to Jones and sped off.
Ten USC defenders were looking the other way. The other two went with receivers. Lenzy juked the unblocked lineman, picked up a block and outran everyone else.
Lenzy’s workload as a receiver is expected to increase this year, but Notre Dame’s offense is better when he gets carries too. One wonders if Notre Dame might get even more creative (and explosive) with speedy freshman Chris Tyree or all-purpose back Kyren Williams in the backfield with him.
Prior Rewatch Observations
----
• Talk about it inside Rockne’s Roundtable
• Watch our videos and subscribe to our YouTube channel
• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Learn more about our print and digital publication, Blue & Gold Illustrated.
• Follow us on Twitter: @BGINews, @BGI_LouSomogyi, @Rivals_Singer, @PatrickEngel_, @ToddBurlage and @AndrewMentock.
• Like us on Facebook.