Notre Dame has taken a completely different look on offense the last two seasons, but in 2019 the offense will have to put it all together.
During the 2017 season the offense was an explosive yet often inefficient offense. For much of that season the offense was dynamic, high octane and explosive. The issue was that when it played against the best defenses on the schedule, its lack of efficiency proved costly. We saw that against Georgia, Miami (Fla.), Stanford and LSU.
During the 2018 season the offense wasn’t overly explosive, but it was incredibly efficient. Quarterback Ian Book set a new Notre Dame record by completing 68.2 percent of his passes, besting the mark set by Jimmy Clausen back in 2009. Like the 2017 offense, when it went against a top defense the offense faltered, scoring just three points in the College Football Playoffs.
Lou Somogyi and myself posed a question back in February during an episode of the Irish Huddle podcast …. What if Notre Dame could combine the explosiveness of 2017 with the efficiency of 2018. Well, it looks like we aren’t the only ones who think about that.
“We need to take the explosiveness of ’17 with the efficiency of ’18 and how we were on third downs,” offensive coordinator Chip Long said in a recent interview. “We have to be explosive. We had two plays over 50 yards last year and we went to the College Football Playoffs … The year before we averaged that in a series.”
