Notre Dame: Is It About Time?
During No. 4-ranked Notre Dame’s 5-0 start, the Fighting Irish have become perceived as a legitimate and potential party crasher among the Football Bowl Subdivision’s “Big Three” comprised of Clemson, Alabama and Ohio State.
Since the start of the College Football Playoff in 2014, that triumvirate has captured every national title other than last year when LSU defeated Clemson in the title game.
That trio also has been used as an example during the 11-year Brian Kelly era of why skeptics will remain about Notre Dame joining that fraternity.
• In the lone meeting with Alabama during that time, the Crimson Tide crushed Notre Dame 42-14 in the 2013 BCS National Championship Game.
• In the one meeting with Ohio State, the 2016 Fiesta Bowl, Kelly’s most talented starting lineup at Notre Dame was in a hole from the outset in a 44-28 defeat.
• Finally, in the 2018 College Football Playoff, Clemson rolled to a 30-3 win over the Irish in the semifinal.
The residue from those defeats keeps the national perception leery — but in the last two months some believers have come forward.
“They’re as good a football team as I have seen walk on the field in the last six years,” commented sixth-year Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi after his Panthers suffered a 45-3 defeat to Notre Dame on Saturday. “They’re talented from front to back on both sides of the ball.”
Generally such comments don’t have much stock after a six-touchdown defeat … but let’s not forget that in December 2018 it was Narduzzi who projected Clemson to be an easy victor over the Irish in the CFP while saying “there’s no comparison” between the two programs.
Earlier this season following a 52-0 defeat at Notre Dame, South Florida first-year head coach Jeff Scott — an assistant and coordinator at Clemson from 2008-19 — also was not reticent about using the two programs in the same sentence.
“I felt like I was playing Clemson out there the majority of the game — just in gold helmets,” Scott said. “Sometimes you just have to tip your hat when you play such a great opponent.”
Even Kelly himself was willing to break the coaching code of not looking too far ahead to the Nov. 7 showdown at home with Clemson, even though Georgia Tech — a 73-7 loser to the Tigers earlier this month — must be dispatched first on Halloween afternoon.
“A lot of times you kind of get caught up in the grind of just trying to win football games,” Kelly said. “We kind of said, ‘Look, we’re past this. We’re not interested in just winning football games; we’re interested in being a championship football team.'
“Just playing to win games is not good enough anymore. … We are looking ahead a little bit. We needed to get this football team to understand that they are really good.”
The caveat is Notre Dame’s five opponents this year so far have combined for a 9-22 record. Let’s face it, that’s not going to win the masses over at this point, nor should it.
One statistical area where Notre Dame and Clemson excel like few others is “the money down” — or third-down conversions on both offense and defense.
Along with 5-0 Marshall, the Fighting Irish and Tigers join the Thundering Herd as the only three teams in the FBS who have played at least four games this year and rank in the top 15 in both categories.
With at least four games played, 6-0 Clemson is seventh in third-down conversions at 51.6 percent (49 of 95) while Notre Dame is eighth at 51.4 percent (36 of 70). The Irish were 9 of 13 through three quarters at Pitt before the starting unit came out.
On defense it’s even better among teams with at least four games. Notre Dame is No. 2 with a phenomenal .212 percentage (14 of 66), behind only 4-0 Oklahoma State’s 19.3 percent (11 of 57). Clemson is third — although the disparity is pretty huge at 26.4 percent (24 of 91).
By staying on the field on offense while moving the chains so often, and at the same time getting off the field on defense relatively quickly because of its third-down play, it is hardly a surprise that Notre Dame’s 34:11 time of possession per game is behind only Oklahoma’s 34:27 nationally — again among teams with at least four games played.
Time has become money. Or in this case, time of possession has resulted from tremendous success on the money downs.
It’s quite an about-face from when Kelly arrived at Notre Dame in 2010. His 2009 Cincinnati team that finished 12-0 was dead last (120th) in time of possession at 25:46 — which goes to show that stats don’t always tell the full story.
Whether this data is a signal that “time” will be on Notre Dame’s side Nov. 7 is to be determined. But for now at least, there is a little more contention that maybe the Fighting Irish can indeed be a contender.
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