Simpler Is Better For Notre Dame

For Notre Dame’s offense, less could equal more over the final five games.

Needing at least three wins to have a shot at qualifying for a bowl game — four would almost definitely secure the team’s chances of extending its season — the Irish have used the bye week to reflect and identity the problem areas offensively.

Notre Dame enters Saturday’s game against Miami with the 60th-ranked scoring offense in the country, averaging 30.3 points per game. In terms of total offense, the Irish are 66th at 413.9 yards per game.

“There's an understanding now that we have to figure out what we are doing well and put emphasis on that,” junior quarterback DeShone Kizer said.

Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly explained that philosophy during his press conference Tuesday.

“When you do the things that you practice every single day, it becomes second nature,” Kelly said. “I think from an offensive standpoint, we can just be who we are. Let's practice what we're good at, and let's be better at execution in this kind of game.”

Now the emphasis has to be on the specific looks that the Irish have had success with, rather than complicating matters and doing too much.

That can be difficult at times, Kizer said, because of the numerous weapons Notre Dame has offensively.

“With the smart kids that we have on this team and the great coaches who are coming from a bunch of different styles of offenses from the past, everyone has come in and put together these great looks and these great ideas about specific defenses, specific style,” Kizer said. “And that's great, to check those all out.”

Senior receiver Torii Hunter Jr. said he thinks the quick passing game is the key to Notre Dame’s offensive success over the final five games.

“Just completing some short passes, getting confidence,” Hunter Jr. said. “…We’re missing those short yardage plays where you can throw hitches, different things like that. So we get back to that and I think it will generate some confidence and hopefully we can get those yards we're missing in the run game back as well.

“We may have been trying to do a little too much instead of trying to perfect what we're good at.”

The bye week for the Irish — the team held two extra practices, a change from previous open weeks — was helpful in finding what they do best.

The first half against Stanford was a good example of Notre Dame’s offensive potential, Kizer said. The Irish were successful on first down plays, ran the ball effectively and mixed in deep passes.

“Once we do figure out where our strengths are, and which we have during this bye week, we'll be able to go back to those plays where we know we're going to have constant success,” Kizer said. “Maybe shy away from taking too many shot plays in the first half or whatever it is. It's more along the lines of making sure we can find what we do well, and continue to do it.”

It all boils down to executing what the Irish are good at, senior left tackle Mike McGlinchey said.

“We did a good job, especially coming off of the bye week, having a little bit of extra time to kind of simplify things and get back to some fundamental work that we hadn't been able to do because we were in the middle of season trying to game plan and all that stuff,” McGlinchey said.

“We just understand that we are who we are, and we have certain strengths and certain weaknesses and we should probably play to our strengths a little bit more. And the coaching staff is doing a phenomenal job at game planning our games this year, and keeping us in a path that we all understand what we're doing, and we just have to execute and do it.”