Notre Dame Defensive Success Still Begins With Stopping The Run

By most accounts, Notre Dame’s 2016 defensive backfield that is entering only its third game this season is head coach Brian Kelly’s least experienced, most vulnerable and potentially worst, on paper, in his seven seasons at Notre Dame.

Or is it?

Entering the 2012 campaign, Notre Dame no longer had its captain/first-round safety Harrison Smith, graduated both of its cornerback starters (Robert Blanton and Gary Gray) and lost its top replacement at corner, Lo Wood, to an Achilles injury. For good measure, by the third game, it lost another top safety, Jamoris Slaughter, to a season-ending injury.

Voila! The 2012 Irish still finished the 12-0 regular season and had the best scoring defense in the nation, not to mention the best at Notre Dame in 32 years. Its defensive backfield included a freshman starter at one corner (KeiVarae Russell, converted from offense), a freshman at nickel (Elijah Shumate), a sophomore safety who redshirted as a freshman receiver (Matthias Farley) and a former receiver recruit making his first start at corner (Bennett Jackson). The lone veteran with appreciable action was senior safety Zeke Motta.

Fast forward four years to 2016, and Notre Dame’s defensive backfield appears to be in dire straits again because of graduation (Russell and Farley), injuries (Shaun Crawford, Nick Watkins and Devin Butler) and disciplinary action (Max Redfield and Butler).

“Every year, you’re going to lose key players and you have to be able to prepare for that going into camp and know that somebody is going to be called upon to step up,” Kelly said this Tuesday.

Notre Dame is now starting freshman Devin Studstill at one safety, and also has freshman Julian Love at nickel, sort of like Russell and Shumate in 2012.

Two of the top backups at safety and corner are also freshmen in Jalen Elliot and Donte Vaughn, respectively. The other starting safety, junior Drue Tranquill, had his first two seasons ended because of ACL tears, and he was yanked by halftime of this year’s opening game loss at Texas. So was the other starting corner, sophomore Nick Coleman — but he no longer has nickel Crawford as a bail-out option. It has to be about continued player development.

“Nick Coleman had a poor first game,” Kelly said. “He would be the first one to admit it, but what we did is went right back to work during the week … and put him in a good position to have a good game against Nevada. And I think that’s coaching and I think that’s teaching, and we did that in 2012 and we’re going to have to do that in ’16 and ’17 and ’18 …

“Because you’re going to have key injuries and you have to prepare for those scenarios instead of saying, you stunk today, you’re on the bench. No, we’re going to need you, Nick, and we’re going to need you to bounce back and here is how you’re going to do it. Nick now finds himself in the starting position playing against Michigan State in a key game.”

The 2012 secondary was able to find success because of at least three reasons. First, it stayed healthy (other than Slaughter), and second it had a dominant front seven led by Heisman Trophy runner-up Manti Te’o at linebacker. The trio of Stephon Tuitt, Prince Shembo and Kapron Lewis-Moore also combined for 25.5 sacks, which the defense collectively this year will be hard pressed to match. This year’s edition is not the 2012 front that will rank in the top five, but if it can be top-25 to top-30 caliber with its combination of experience and future NFL star power. It doesn’t necessarily have to be like 2012 because the 2016 offense can be better and the back end of the defense is capable of being its equal.

Senior cornerback Cole Luke is the Motta of this secondary, except with much more experience as a 28-game starter. Given that Studstill was an early entrant (unlike Russell and Shumate in 2012) and Tranquill has had previous starting experience (unlike Farley in 2012), the 2016 defensive backfield is more experienced overall than the 2012 one was at the start of the season.

Finally, there is the third reason: The 2012 defense was able to protect the secondary through overall scheme under former coordinator Bob Diaco. Now it is up to third-year coordinator Brian VanGorder to apply a similar winning formula.

“We still were heavily dedicated to the front seven, and we will have to be the same way,” Kelly said of comparing 2012 to 2016. “We’re going to have to stop the run. Now, we were much more of a cover two team [in 2012], so those corners were not locked up in as much man [coverage] — and there will be times we will have to be in less man coverage [in 2016] because of that and that’s just the reality of it. You can’t play as much variety of nickel when you have a true freshman at nickel.”

Against Nevada last week, it was a more basic, elementary defense, and it worked against a significantly inferior opponent that was a four-touchdown underdog. How it will function and produce against a College Football Playoff team from last year such as Michigan State that has been averaging 11 wins per season since 2010 could go a long way toward determining whether lightning in a bottle can be caught again by the 2016 defensive backfield — and the overall unit.

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