Notre Dame & The 2020 Wally Pipp Effect
If there has ever been a season in college football for team depth to be better prepared and not just be lip service, this Year of COVID-19 is it.
Last week four Notre Dame players tested positive for the coronavirus, and six others with contact tracing were placed under quarantine.
Consequently, numerous new faces were called upon during the 52-0 rout of South Florida. None was more prominent than sophomore Jack Kiser, who on paper appeared to be the No. 4 Buck linebacker entering the fall camp to succeed the graduated Asmar Bilal.
Junior Jack Lamb might have been deemed the front-runner after playing regularly in sub-packages last year before hip surgery sidelined him in early November. Setbacks in his recovery were described as “career-threatening” in football, per head coach Brian Kelly, which put the California native behind.
And then last week it was announced that the "co-starters" at the position in the Sept. 12 Duke opener, junior Shayne Simon (32 snaps) and sophomore Marist Liufau (27 snaps), would be unavailable versus USF.
Kiser then stepped in to record a team-high eight tackles, two for loss plus a quarterback hurry, and received the game ball from Kelly. The former high school safety and quarterback from Indiana was aware earlier in the week that the opportunity might be there, but it wasn’t official until the morning of the game.
What can get overshadowed amid the pandemic is how talent identification and painstaking preparation are two of the bedrocks of third-year defensive coordinator Clark Lea’s culture
“That's one thing Coach Lea does a really good job during the week, is making sure every guy in the room knows the game plan, no matter if you're going to [play] scout team or not,” Kiser said. “So when I got the news, I was like, ‘All right, let's go. It's time to play.’
“... When Shayne Simon and Marist go down, that sucks and you don't want that to happen to anybody. But they're texting me like, 'Hey, this is your time. Let's go!' That means a lot.”
In such situations, the name Wally Pipp is regularly invoked. A 14-year Major League Baseball player (1913-26) who led the American League in home runs in 1916 (12) and 1917 (nine), Pipp also started during the New York Yankees’ first World Series title year in 1923.
Amidst a slump and reportedly battling a headache, Pipp was replaced by 21-year-old Lou Gehrig on June 2, 1925. Gehrig would get three hits in that game and the “Iron Horse” would start a then Major League record 2,130 straight games while becoming the game’s greatest first baseman.
Years later, Pipp was quoted as saying, “I took the two most expensive aspirins in history.”
While making such comparisons to an all-time legend with the current events is ludicrous, Kelly did note the 2020 Fighting Irish roster is replete with Kiser-like figures.
“We have a lot of good players that, when given the opportunity, will Wally Pipp you,” he said. “…We've got some guys that have been very impressive and really locked in. Happy for Jack — and there will be other guys [who will] get their opportunity and they'll shine.”
Even another backup for Kiser, sophomore Osita Ekwonu, was a higher-rated prospect overall (four-star, top-250 by Rivals). One doesn’t become a top-10 program and playoff-caliber contender without such an infrastructure, although some areas will always be more fragile than others.
Plus, no recruit worth his salt arrives with a goal of “I’d like to be a backup during my career,” which is part of being the right “fit.” If a player has pre-meditated plans about redshirting his freshman year, or any other time, then serious questions are raised about his fortitude and overall passion for the game.
“We hold a standard and develop a standard that requires all of those players to be alert, be ready,” Kelly said. “There's no coasting. You don't take the year off and kind of say, 'Well, I'm not going to play.' We keep everybody alert.”
Aiding that urgency is that in 2019 the NCAA ruled a student-athlete can play in any four games in the course of a year without losing eligibility, and this year an automatic extra year of eligibility was added.
“Those two things are really working for you this year as well, where these guys are really engaged and know that they can be called upon at any time,” Kelly said.
Just like Simon, Liufau and dozens of others still could be as well in 2020. Healthy competition promotes healthy contention, amid numerous other health scares.
NOTRE DAME’S ‘PIPPS’
Every school in the country likely has its own Pipp story. For Notre Dame, maybe Joe Montana is the top such representative.
As a 1977 senior, Montana entered the year third string. He had completed only 42.4 percent of his 66 career passes, and a whopping eight had been intercepted.
The reeling Irish started 1-1, and then trailed 24-14 in the fourth quarter at Purdue in game three. Starting quarterback Rusty Lisch was an exceptional athlete — he would play six years in the NFL — but was yanked during the Purdue game for backup Gary Forystek in the second quarter.
Shortly thereafter, Forystek suffered a career-ending injury, and Lisch was reinserted. Finally, at the start of the fourth quarter, head coach Dan Devine desperately turned to Montana, who responded by completing 9 of 14 passes for 154 yards while rallying the Irish to the 31-24 win and eventual national title that season.
One shot … and you must seize it. What if Forystek hadn’t been injured? What if Lisch had led the rally? Perhaps we never hear of Super Joe. The thin lines in athletics, or life in general, are remarkable. Who would have envisioned before the kickoff that afternoon that Montana would become one of the all-time legends of the game?
Under Kelly, there have been some Pipp-like examples.
• Maybe the most recognized was that after a scintillating start in the 2015 opener, quarterback Malik Zaire suffered a season-ending injury in game two — and sophomore DeShone Kizer produced a fabulous campaign that left Zaire as a reserve in 2016 and saw Kizer get drafted in the second round as a junior.
Zaire had done the same to Everett Golson at the end of 2014, and both would eventually become graduate transfers at Florida schools.
• Also in 2015, junior running back Tarean Folston, on pace to be an all-time rushing leader, incurred a season-ending injury on his third carry. In his place, converted wideout C.J. Prosise became a 1,000-yard rusher and third-round pick, while Josh Adams set an Irish freshman rushing record (835). Folston became mainly a quality reserve thereafter.
• On defense, in 2011 senior mainstay Ethan Johnson was hobbled by an ankle injury — and in his place Aaron Lynch became a Freshman All-American, including team highs with 14 quarterback pressures and 5.5 sacks. Lynch, however, would transfer to USF after his rookie campaign.
• On special teams, 2009 freshman kicker Nick Tausch converted a school-record 14 straight field goals. Tausch then was injured later in the year — and replacement David Ruffer over the next year and a half with Kelly shattered that mark with 23 straight field goals made.
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