If there is one lesson to be learned each spring during and after the annual Blue-Gold Game, it’s not to read too much into, or take too much away from, individual performances.
Saturday’s game provided plenty of opportunity to again fall into that premature evaluation trap after starting quarterbacks Drew Pyne and Jack Coan both failed to lead their offenses to a touchdown while early-enrollee freshman Tyler Buchner managed two TD drives in leading the Blue to a 17-3 win over the Gold.
There’s no doubt that Buchner played well, finishing 6-of-9 passing for 140 yards while adding a seven-yard touchdown run.
But before we anoint Buchner as the opening-day starter ahead of Pyne and Coan, let’s not forget 2007 when Junior Jabbie, a converted defensive back, earned spring game Offensive MVP honors after rushing 13 times for 87 yards. He never carried the ball again.
That said, there were some evaluations that could be taken from Saturday’s game, especially given the lack of context we had this spring season with no live access to any of the practices.
Here are a few.
Is Jack Coan The Opening-Day Starter?
Given that Coan played essentially the entire game for the Gold team and Pyne worked about a 75/25 split with Buchner for the Blue team, it appears that Coan — especially after spending most of the afternoon working behind many of presumed offensive line starters — will enter the offseason and training camp with the job as his to lose.
That said, Coan was steady at times but still less than stellar on Saturday, going 18-of-32 passing for 197 yards with one interception, thrown to senior Irish linebacker Shayne Simon.
Coan stretched the opposing defense like his coaches promised, and he hit some nifty downfield throws, but he also struggled to convert third downs and managed only one field-goal scoring drive.
Pyne wasn’t much better, going only 11-of-23 for 146 yards with an interception and also only one field-goal drive.
Buchner threw for only six fewer yards than Pyne on 14 fewer passing attempts.
Third-Down, Red-Zone Offenses Stall
After the Irish finished 102nd in the nation in red-zone offense last season, Irish head coach Brian Kelly said repeatedly this spring that improvement in that area was a top priority during March and April.
One scrimmage game does not a proper sample size make, but there was no obvious improvement in the red-zone offense — the Irish offenses scored only two touchdowns on five trips inside the 20 — and the third-down conversions were even more miserable.
The Blue and the Gold offenses combined for only five of 21 on third downs for a 24-percent conversion rate, which would have ranked second to last in the country last season.
With quarterback Ian Book in 2020, Notre Dame finished eighth in the country on third-down conversions with a 49-percent success rate.
Perhaps most troubling is that Coan and Pyne moved the football freely on first and second downs, across midfield, and down to the 20-yard line — five different receivers had receptions of at least 25 yards — but consistently stalled out on third down and on the most important part of the field.
Mistakes Are Expected, But Still Not Ideal
Breaking in a new quarterback playing behind a developing and disjointed offensive line provides room for forgiving executional mistakes. But the severity of some of these miscues Saturday, and the impact they could have during an actual game can’t be ignored.
The interceptions by both Coan and Pyne — especially the crossing pattern step-in and pick by freshman safety Justin Walters of Pyne — were both balls that shouldn’t have been thrown.
Pyne also had a miscue on a handoff exchange that could’ve easily become a lost fumble but instead was ruled an incomplete pass.
One other mistake of note, Coan missed a wide-open Avery Davis with a pass in the end zone that forced his Gold team to settle for a field goal.
Mistakes are going to happen in any game, especially through the spring season. But these miscues are the ones that will absolutely and negatively flip momentum and the scoreboard in the regular season.
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