Offensive Imbalance Not Cause For Concern For Notre Dame

Notre Dame’s offensive imbalance is not a cause for concern to head coach Brian Kelly.

The points speak for themselves. As does the yardage. And with a future first-round NFL draft pick at quarterback, there’s bigger things to worry about during Notre Dame’s 2-3 start to the season.

“We're averaging 500 yards a game and 40 points a game,” Kelly said. “I don't know how to answer the question other than it's a give and take for our offense based upon how teams are playing us.

“If I was to stand here in front of you at the start of the season and say, ‘Hey, we’re going into the fifth game and averaging 40 points a game,’ I probably would take it and 500 yards in offense.”

Through five weeks, Notre Dame ranked 30th nationally in scoring offense (39.8 points per game), 15th in passing (327.8 yards per game) and 74th in rushing (167.6). In total offense, the Irish ranked 23rd at 495.4 yards per game.

But it’s how the Irish are racking up those yards — even at a record clip — that has some concerned about the sustainability of those numbers.

During his previous six seasons in South Bend, Kelly’s teams have accumulated about 60.1 percent of their yards through the air. The only season under Kelly in which the Irish threw the ball more was 2010 — his first with the team — when Notre Dame had 66.6 percent of its yardage come via the pass.

At 327.8 yards per game passing, which ranked 15th nationally through five games, the Irish are on track to throw for 4,261 yards this season, which would easily eclipse the previous season high under Kelly of 3,711 set in 2014.

The all-time Notre Dame single-season passing yardage record is 3,963, set in 2005 with All-American Brady Quinn at quarterback.

“I've always wanted to throw it equally as well as running, and if you let us throw the football all over the field we're going to throw it and we won't run it as much,” Kelly said.

The opportunity was there against Syracuse to throw for even more yardage. Junior quarterback DeShone Kizer nearly found freshman receiver Kevin Stepherson and sophomore receiver Equanimeous St. Brown for what would have been two other 50-plus-yard touchdowns.

That performance led to Kizer being critical of himself afterwards, stating that there were many more opportunities left out on the field, even after torching the Syracuse defense for a career-high 471 yards and four touchdowns.

"This is the sloppiest 50 points I've ever been a part of," said Kizer, who tallied the third-highest single-game total in school history. "The sloppiest 400-plus pass game I've even been a part of, but we're having fun and a good time but there's still so much room for improvement."

The Irish have also seen teams put more defenders near the line of scrimmage to stop the run, forcing Kizer and his young receivers to win battles on the outside. Instead of letting sophomore running back Josh Adams and the massive Notre Dame offensive line to control the game, teams have shifted the pressure away from what many thought would be the Irish’s strength.

“Teams have wanted to pressure our run game and a lot of that has been look at all these young receivers they have, let's challenge them and teams have and we've been up to the challenge,” Kelly said. “If they want to keep doing that we have to keep proving that we can throw the football, and I think you'll see that running game come back into more balance.”

Notre Dame’s success through the air is also a product of its poor defense and the need to score quickly to keep up with opponents. That was particularly the case in the Week 3 loss to Michigan State, when the Irish attempted just 25 rushes after falling behind 36-7 in the second half.

Kizer threw for a then-career-high 344 yards against the Spartans. He claims the game plans, as well as the mindset, on offense aren’t that different from 2015.

“But we've just been put in a couple of situations where we're required to throw the ball down the field and we're making big plays,” Kizer said. “It's all about just executing. We have the opportunity to score every time we step on the field, and we know it. And so far we've done a good job of being pretty successful when we do step on the field.

“Whether it be the safety or linebacker, there's more of an emphasis on keeping guys close to box. And anytime teams are going to do that, we're not afraid to go out and throw the ball behind them. This is kind of a season where we're just taking what the defense is giving us.”

Senior left tackle Mike McGlinchey, part of an offensive line that replaced three starters from last year’s team, said the consistency from play-to-play is what needs to improve in the running game.

“We have to find other avenues to score points, and we've done a pretty good job with that,” McGlinchey said. “But teams know that we're going to try to run the ball, and they tend to put a lot of people in the box, and it's a matter of when those looks come that we really like, it's about executing our job to the best of our ability.”

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