Notre Dame, Ian Book Take It On The Run
During his recruitment for the 2016 cycle, current Notre Dame senior Ian Book was categorized as a “pro-style quarterback.”
To Book, that was a false label because he always considered himself a dual-threat figure, even rushing for 779 yards and 12 scores as a high school senior at Oak Ridge High School in El Dorado Hills, Calif.
In a part-time role as a Notre Dame sophomore in 2017, Book rushed for 207 yards, including a crucial 21-yard scramble while coming off the bench to rally Notre Dame to a 21-17 Citrus Bowl victory versus LSU.
Last year as a junior, Book quietly produced 280 yards on the ground.
This year he’s raised it higher — although an argument could be made that not staying in the pocket has negatively affected the passing game.
Be that as it may, in each of the last two games he has paced the Fighting Irish in rushing, first with 50 in the comeback win versus Virginia Tech on Nov. 2 and then last week with 139 on only 12 carries at Duke.
During the 87-yard game winning drive versus the Hokies, Book had three runs of seven yards apiece, the last for the touchdown with 29 seconds remaining.
Last week in the 38-7 romp at Duke there were far designed runs for him than just improvisation or going ad-lib.
"We just felt like Duke plays a lot of man to man coverage and has a very stingy defensive line, and one of the things tactically to attack them is the run the quarterback,” said Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly. “So, that was part of the game plan. I thought it was executed very well and Ian is a very capable runner.
“Does that mean he's going to run each week? Probably not. When we feel like he can be an impact in a game running the football as part of a menu, we certainly can do that. It just worked well with the kind of defense that we were seeing, and he was able to certainly impact the game."
The output in Durham raised Book’s season rushing total to 390 yards, or 43.3 yards per game.
Over a 13-game season, and if he stays healthy, that would translate to 563 yards and make him only the fourth different Notre Dame quarterback to eclipse 500 yards in a season, joining Tony Rice (1988 and 1989), Carlyle Holiday (2001) and Brandon Wimbush (2017).
It would also make him the fifth Fighting Irish quarterback to surpass 1,000 yards rushing in his career. He is at 877 entering this weekend’s contest versus Navy.
So many have come close to the 1,000-yard mark in their career.
Paul Hornung (1955-56) could have easily made it had there been 12-game schedules back then, but still rushed for 892 yards at quarterback.
Holiday in 2001-02 (898), Jarious Jackson in 1997-99 (967) and DeShone Kizer (997) also came so close.
Here are the top 5 career rushers at quarterback for Notre Dame, including the bowl games from past eras just like now:
1.Tony Rice (1987-89) — 2,049
2. Brandon Wimbush (2015-18) — 1,156
3. Tom Clements (1972-74) — 1,148
4. Joe Theismann (1968-70) — 1,091
5. DeShone Kizer (2015-16) — 997
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