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Thoughts From The Press Box: Breaking Down Notre Dame's Victory over Duke

Click here to check out Blue & Gold Illustrated Football Analyst Vince DeDario's thoughts from the press box concerning Notre Dame's 38-7 victory over Duke tonight in Durham.

Here's a sampling:

Notre Dame and Ian Book ran for big yards and a big victory over Duke Saturday night in Durham.
Notre Dame and Ian Book ran for big yards and a big victory over Duke Saturday night in Durham.
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This was a game that was very hard to get my head around. There were a lot of similarities between Virginia Tech and Duke offensively and the Duke defense graded out better than the overall record really showed. One thing is for certain though, Notre Dame dominated Duke on both sides of the ball for the vast majority of the night.

Offense

The offense started out slowly with their first of five three and outs on the night with some questionable decisions by the senior Ian Book. That all went by the wayside on the second drive of the night where Book led the offense on a ten play, 85 yard drive that was capped off with a touchdown pass to the much maligned Chris Finke. Ian Book had a very nice day and you have to give credit where it is due. He was very calm in the pocket and allowed his receivers to get open down the field. He took chances with Chase Claypool in one on one situations. He was clearly going through his progressions and coming down to the open man. He was especially effective in the zone read game. He was making very good reads and Duke was daring him to run with the way they were defending the zone read and he took advantage and rushed for a career high 139 yards on 12 carries. Do not get me wrong, he still made some bone headed plays like running out of bounds behind the line of scrimmage instead of throwing the ball away or waiting too long to throw the out cut on a third down that should have been an easy completion for a first down. Bottom line is that he showed an explosiveness in the run game and was throwing with a confidence we really haven’t seen since last year when he set the school record for completion percentage. This is the Ian Book that Brian Kelly and Chip Longneed in order to take this offense to the next level.

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