What The Numbers Say About The Notre Dame Fighting Irish Football Offensive Line's Bumpy 2019 Season

Asked March 5 after Notre Dame’s first spring practice about the Irish’s 2019 running game and the offensive line’s role in it, he became a tad irked.

“I don’t know that we were that bad last year,” Kelly told reporters. “We scored a lot of points. There seems to be this narrative out there that we weren't very good at running the football. We were a pretty good offense last year. We keep parsing last year.”

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Last season, though, was ripe for parsing. The enduring narrative around Notre Dame’s offensive line, run game and its effectiveness is a lack thereof. It stems from rushing attack duds in losses to Georgia and Michigan, a late-season lull coupled with injures in the backfield and up front, and quarterback Ian Book leading the team in rushing yards over the final seven games.

Finally, over the final six regular-season contests, Notre Dame's running backs averaged only 75.5 yards per game and 3.38 yards per carry.

Something just didn’t feel quite right, making “pretty good” feel like an assertion that echoes into empty air despite the 11-win season that produced the highest-scoring offense in Kelly’s 10 seasons at Notre Dame.

That’s all hard to erase.

But there’s still room to offer what feels like a hot take: What if the offensive line situation wasn’t, and isn’t, as bad as it looks and didn’t nosedive from 2018? A dive into Football Outsiders’ numbers supports such a claim and backs Kelly’s unflinching defense and Pro Football Focus’ optimistic view of the Irish’s front line.

Take a look at these six Football Outsiders rushing stats that examine rushing offenses and offensive lines. First, a dictionary:

• Line yards per carry: “The line gets 100 percent credit for rushing yardage between zero and three yards and 50 percent credit for yards four to eight. Anything over eight yards is quantified as a highlight opportunity and credit goes to the runner. Lost yardage still counts for 125 percent.”

• Standard down line yards per carry: “The raw, unadjusted per-carry line yardage for a team on standard downs (first down, second-and-seven or fewer, third-and-four or fewer, and fourth-and-four or fewer.”

• Passing down line yards per carry: “Unadjusted averages for rushing on passing downs.”

• Opportunity rate: “The percentage of carries (when four yards are available) that gain at least four yards.”

• Power success rate: “Percentage of runs on third or fourth down, two yards or less to go, that achieved a first down or touchdown.”

• Stuff rate: “Percentage of carries by running backs that are stopped at or before the line of scrimmage.”

(Garbage time stats are not included in any of these).

Here are Notre Dame’s numbers and Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) rank in each for 2018 and 2019:

2018

Line YPC: 2.3 (No. 106 in the FBS)

Standard down line YPC: 2.41 (88)

Passing down line YPC: (120)

Opportunity rate: 42.3% (112)

Power success rate: 78.3 (23)

Stuff rate: 24.1 (121)

2019

Line YPC: 2.56 (No. 62 in FBS)

Standard down line YPC: 2.43 (78)

Passing down line YPC: 2.98 (42)

Opportunity rate: 46% (81)

Power success rate: 62.2% (106)

Stuff rate: 19.2% (70)

On the whole, that is … improvement.

Elsewhere, Notre Dame’s yards per carry increased from 4.43 to 4.95, a jump of more than 30 spots nationally.

The pass-blocking numbers illustrate the same theme. Notre Dame ranked 11th in the FBS in sacks allowed (16) and earned Pro Football Focus’ second-highest pass blocking efficiency grade. PFF attributed 11 of Book’s 14 sacks to Book and not his blockers. Notre Dame improved in all three of Football Outsiders’ pass-blocking metrics.

These year-over-year numbers are largely comparing the same cast of characters. Four of Notre Dame’s six primarily linemen in 2019 started for most of 2018. All six are, of course, returning for 2020: Liam Eichenberg, Tommy Kraemer, Jarrett Patterson, Aaron Banks, Robert Hainsey and Josh Lugg.

In all that, though, is the obvious matter of Notre Dame not asserting dominance as often as it should. The power success rate regression sticks out like a dent on a sports car.

When Notre Dame wanted to run the ball and the defense knew it wanted to run, the Irish struggled. They converted 46.2 percent of third downs with three or fewer yards to go. They ran the ball about 50 fewer times than 2018, excluding sacks. Those align more with the frustration from the line’s overall performance.

While Kelly can find numerical support that the offensive line performed around the same level as it did when Notre Dame went to the College Football Playoff, the clamoring about it taking further steps is reasonable if everyone’s goal is to approach the 2017 peak when the Irish won the Joe Moore Award, giving to college football’s best line.

With a unit that has 114 combined starts, that’s no outlandish expectation. Nor is a push through into elite status an unfair standard for a program trying to punch into college football’s perennial title contender airspace from its consistent 10-win operation.

What does another level for Notre Dame’s rushing operation look like?

Mustering something better than 93 combined rushing yards against the two best Power Five run defenses on the schedule would be a good start.

Even when those two no-shows are baked into the context of a season where Notre Dame handled everyone it was supposed to handle, saw on-the-whole statistical improvement along the offensive line and ran the ball effectively more often than not, it’s hard to see that “pretty good” effort as entirely off-limits to questions about finding a higher gear.