Notre Dame-Navy: Covering All Options
At the end of this October, Notre Dame had one of the nation’s better run defenses, allowing only 116 yards per game.
The first two weeks of November have been different, surrendering 239 yards rushing to Wake Forest and 237 in last week’s 41-8 meltdown at Miami. From the proverbial frying pan, Notre Dame now finishes the regular season against the No. 1 rushing offense this week against Navy (369.8 yards per game), followed by facing the nation’s No. 1 rusher in Stanford’s Bryce Love (1,622 yards) Nov. 25.
Since 2002, Navy’s triple-option attack — quadruple option with the big play off the play-action pass — has never finished lower than No. 6 in rushing yards per game, and the 6-3 Midshipmen are on pace this year to set a school record in that category.
At Wake Forest from 2014-16, current first-year Irish defensive coordinator Mike Elko faced Army West Point's triple option all three seasons, winning 24-21 in 2014, 17-14 in 2015, but losing 21-13 last year. In that 2016 defeat, Elko’s troops "limited" the Black Knights to 240 yards rushing — about 100 under their average — but were burned by Ahmad Bradshaw's play-action passing that saw him complete 6-of-8 tosses for 145 yards, highlighted by a 43-yard touchdown.
And therein is the rub. Among the four options of the QB keeping, the fullback dive, pitching the ball or even beating you deep off play-action, something usually has to give.
“There’s no system that is going to cover everything,” said Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly last year of Navy’s attack, which defeated the Irish 28-27 while limiting their offense to six possessions.
On Nov. 2, Temple did implement a "secret sauce" that held Navy to 136 yards rushing by forcing quarterback Zach Abey (25 carries, 60 yards) to keep the ball — yet the Midshipmen almost rallied late in the 34-26 loss by completing 13 passes for 226 yards.
Everybody can use the Temple template now, right? Not quite. A week later with slot/quarterback Malcom Perry inserted at QB, Navy was 0-of-1 passing — but rushed for 559 yards (282 by Perry) in the 43-40 win versus the Mustangs.
“They have so many different formations, so many different looks,” Kelly said. “…They made a change [at quarterback], and that made a huge difference to their running game.
“Clearly, they are always looking to make some adjustments, and you have to be prepared for every look for the last 10 years. They did some things against us two years ago that we hadn't seen in six, seven years. So you have to be able to adjust and sometimes adjust on the fly.”
Nevertheless, this Navy attack is slightly more quarterback-centric than ever. Abey is averaging 29 carries for 150.2 yards per game, and then last week Perry’s 282 yards rushing came on 32 carries. Together they have combined for 20 of Navy’s 31 rushing touchdowns.
However, Perry might be ruled out of the Notre Dame contest because of a sprained ankle suffered in last week's game against SMU.
• For the fullback dive there is Chris High (111 carries, 478 yards, 4.3 per carry), Anthony Gargiulo (35 carries, 225 yards, 6.4 per carry) and Joshua Walker (12 carries, 91 yards, 7.6 per carry).
Among that trio, that averages out to about 18 carries for 88 yards per contest.
• Navy’s top four slot backs —Darryl Bonner, Josh Brown, Tre Walker and John Brown III— average 7.5 yards per attempt while rushing for a combined 413 yards on an aggregate seven carries per game either off option pitches, jet sweeps or toss sweeps.
• Crowd the line of scrimmage to stop it all, and Navy can beat you over the top. It is No. 1 in the country in yards per completion at 25.37 — and is followed by three other triple-option teams in Georgia Tech (21.24), Air Force (20.22) and Army West Point (18.12). This is a natural byproduct of the triple option.
The good news is Abey, as proficient as he is keeping the ball, has been one of the less efficient passers for the Midshipmen in recent years. He has completed only 41.7 percent of his tosses, and six of his 60 attempts have been intercepted. A potential passing option might be Garrett Lewis, who replaced an injured Abey in the second half of the Temple loss and completed 6 of 9 passes for 110 yards with two touchdowns to give the Owls a late scare.
Generally, when a defense tries to outnumber the dive or the quarterback in a defensive structure, Navy has “options” in its voluminous library. For the defense it’s more about fighting through blocks, including cut blocks, and beating each individual man in one-on-one situations to put the Midshipmen behind schedule with the first-down chains.
The Navy offense does plenty of moving around, including unbalanced lines, even though its base appears the same. The Irish defenders have to deal with the still legal cut blocks that can play mind games with them, which is where beating them off the ball is crucial.
Also, after forcing 17 turnovers in the first eight games to rank among the nation’s leaders, Notre Dame has had only two the past three, and none at Miami. Both turnovers were interceptions by sophomore cornerback Julian Love, with one returned for a touchdown and the other to the opponent’s five-yard line.
This Navy team has been a little sloppier than ones of recent vintage while fumbling 14 times, nine of which were lost.
“We've got to get the football, take it away, and revert back to some of the things that we were doing defensively,” Kelly summarized. “If we can get some turnovers and get some points relative to touchdowns instead of field goals, then we'll put ourselves in a much better position against a very good opponent.”
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