When a Notre Dame victory over Georgia Tech looked secure last Saturday, one of the game’s broadcasters, ESPN College Football analyst Mike Golic Sr., began looking ahead to the following weekend. He speculated if his quarterback Ian Book had what it takes to lead his alma mater to victory against the top-ranked Clemson Tigers.
“You're going to look at the quarterback in those big games and that's the next step,” Golic pondered, “because that's where Notre Dame has struggled at times against the better teams getting that play.”
In the coming days, ESPN’s lead college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit also further questioned Notre Dame’s ability to compete with the upper echelon of the sport and stated that if the Fighting Irish get blown out, they’ll have little to no hope of reaching the playoffs again.
Of course, we all know Notre Dame has a propensity to lose one game a year in an embarrassing fashion.
Last season, that loss came while battling freezing rain at Michigan Stadium, 45-14. The year before, Clemson smothered the Notre Dame offense in the Cotton Bowl, winning 30-3.
In 2017, a ruckus Miami crowd gave the Hurricanes the momentum they needed to blow the Fighting Irish off the field and claim a decisive 41-8 victory. Notre Dame has played 20 ACC opponents in the regular season since 2017, with that loss to Miami representing the lone defeat.
Still, some view this as an indictment on head coach Brian Kelly and his ability to prepare his team for those big moments, but most of his opponents don’t see it that way. At his Tuesday press conference, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney expressed that his team just made a few big plays against Notre Dame in 2018 but it was a more competitive contest than most give the Irish credit for.
Looking back on the 2017 Notre Dame at Miami game, Mark Richt, Miami’s then-head coach and a current college football analyst with the ACC Network, provided a similar assessment.
“I don't think it's a matter of not being ready,” Richt said. “That Miami team we had actually had a lot of outstanding defensive players that could really run from the defensive line, linebacker all the way to the perimeter. We had a quarterback who had a hot hand that day. He was a hot-cold kid. He just had a day where he was hot.
“We just caught fire. Sometimes when you grab momentum, especially at home, you can put a team in a spot where they're shaking their head.”
The 2017 Notre Dame team that lost to Miami actually has a lot of similarities to this current edition of the Fighting Irish, especially on offense. Both were led by dominant and physical offensive lines and featured potent ground attacks. The 2017 team averaged 231 rushing yards per game but thus far, the 2020 team is exceeding that mark with 269 YPG.
Of course, Notre Dame will attempt to establish the run against Clemson on Saturday, and it will be just as important that they stick with it even if the Irish running backs don’t have much success early on or the Tigers get out to an early lead.
“There'll be a moment when the other team is having success, and he's got to mitigate it, hang in there and be ready for your time to make your surge. Sometimes in the biggest games, you can get down a little bit and the score on the board seems bigger than it really is.
“Even coaches sometimes change their mindset a little bit instead of staying the course. They have to believe in what they do, do it well and stay the course.”
Establishing the run should help Notre Dame stay out of third-and-long situations, which is what plagued them in their losses to Miami, Clemon, and Michigan. In those games, Notre Dame converted on just 14 out of 48 third downs (29.2 percent).
Thus far, Notre Dame is No. 9 the country on third down, converting on 54.1 percent of opportunities. But that’s come against mostly mediocre or poor defenses, with the exception of Pittsburgh. Yet, even the Panthers aren’t on the same level as the Clemson Tigers, which have the No. 10 defense according to ESPN’s SP+.
“There's a term in offensive line play where, whoever your assignment is, that's who you’ve got to put your hat on,” Richt said. “You got to cover them up, meaning you got to get right down in there, you got your hands on, and you got to run your feet on contact in the run game. And you got to get movement, and you got to create space for your back.
“If you can do that on a consistent basis, then you're not as apt to get beat on based on a pass rush when it's third and long all the time. Then they're bringing these exotic blitzes, and you're a little bit off-balance because you're a little bit confused. If you keep your third downs very manageable, then you’ve got a chance to keep drives going. And that's Notre Dame's best shot.”
Part of that entails Notre Dame’s players knowing that they’re just as good or better than the Clemson player they’re lining up across from.
This should be easier to do than initially expected now that the Tigers are missing four starters in quarterback Trevor Lawrence, linebackers James Skalski and Mike Jones Jr. and defensive tackle Tyler Davis. In the first half, Clemson will also be without defensive end Xavier Thomas, who is suspended after targeting the head of Boston College quarterback (and Notre Dame transfer) Phil Jurkovec with the crown of his helmet.
“Nobody wins a game thinking they're going to lose and you have to come into the game saying, ‘we're Notre Dame,’” said former Notre Dame offensive lineman Trevor Ruhland. “I'm sure there's a lot of guys at Clemson that would have loved to come play for Notre Dame but didn't get the opportunity.
“It's one of the best programs in the country and you have to go in there with confidence. You can't be cocky at all, but you go in there knowing you're better than the guy across you and you got to play like it.”
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