The best thing Notre Dame could do on its Halloween road trip to Georgia Tech was make it easy to forget.
Go to Atlanta. Put up a win with little doubt of the outcome. Stay healthy. Get it over with. Avoid regression and the creation of any new themes that would bring concern. To borrow and alter a Bill Belichick line, just cruise to a win and say, “We’re on to Clemson.”
Cross all of those off the to-do list. Up now is the test it’s actually looking forward to taking.
“We don’t have to beat around the bush anymore,” defensive end Daelin Hayes said. “It’s Clemson week, baby.”
There wasn’t much the Irish could do against the now 2-5 Yellow Jackets that would increase the confidence level heading into the first visit by a top-ranked team to Notre Dame Stadium since 2005. Delivering a wire-to-wire win was the expectation, and a 31-13 suffocation of Georgia Tech fits the description.
Indeed, it was hardly memorable and felt transactional. That’s OK. No Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah destructions of a hapless ball carrier or Isaiah Foskey harassments of opponent’s punters. Safety Kyle Hamilton was superhuman in his return to his hometown, but you’ve come to expect that already. The offense was effective but not sexy. All told, this game won’t be brought up when discussing the 2020 season months and years from now.
There’s a theme emerging. Notre Dame starts with a long, methodical drive and scores, forces a stop and slowly marches down the field again. It’s hard to fall behind in that case, because the opponent simply doesn’t have the ball very often in the first quarter. Notre Dame ran 22 plays in the opening 15 minutes to Georgia Tech’s six. The plan was dented by running back Kyren Williams’ fumble, though.
In the last three games, Notre Dame has out-snapped its opponents 69 to 23 in the first quarter. In that span, the Irish have 155 rush yards on 36 carries, excluding sacks.
2. Measuring The Defense
If you want numbers to measure the Notre Dame defense’s success, counting stats may not be the best way to do it. The Irish’s main defenders just aren’t on the field all that often. Notre Dame’s last three opponents have not exceeded 30 first-half plays or 60 total plays.
Instead, emphasize percentages more than counting stats, like havoc rate (percentage of plays with a sack, tackle for loss, forced fumble, fumble recovery, interception or pass breakup) over 20 percent for the sixth straight game. A havoc rate in the 20s for an entire season is usually good enough to rank top-10 nationally.
3. Two-Back Sets
Notre Dame ran four plays with two running backs in the game, by unofficial count. The Irish used a two-back set seven times in the first five games. Maybe it’s just a wrinkle specific to facing Georgia Tech’s defense, but it was an effective way to get freshman running back Chris Tyree on the field more often. With wide receiver Braden Lenzy out, Tyree is Notre Dame’s main pure speed threat.
Speaking of Lenzy, Tyree’s 21-yard run on a jet sweep in the second quarter is essentially the same play Notre Dame has run for Lenzy to get his speed in space. That space is created in part with misdirection. Two pullers and a fake to Williams went one way before Book handed off to Tyree going the other direction.
• Bring on No. 1 Clemson. Nothing more needs to be said, but a lot will be the next six days.
• Covering college football in an open-air press box is just different. Everything about it. A cool breeze aside, it's a cool way to spend a fall day. Anywhere. But the media being the media, we'd find something to complain about. It's just enjoyable. Chilly at times, but enjoyable.
• Saturday's crowd of 11,000 was the largest crowd to see the Irish play in person this season. Bobby Dodd Stadium holds 55,000, so it was right at 20 percent capacity.
• The Irish led 17-7 at intermission, but it felt a whole lot more lopsided, like, 27-0. Notre Dame just kind of controlled everything — the clock, their emotions, the first two quarters.
• Once expected to be the first-string running back this season, Jafar Armstrong took some warmups snaps at wide receiver. From a possible main guy to anything he can do to get on the field. The way Kyren Williams and Chris Tyree run, Armstrong's running back days are effectively over.
• Third-down security blankets for Book? Michael Mayer and Javon McKinley. Book it.
• Total yards in the first half — Notre Dame 240, Georgia Tech 66. That shouldn't happen. Not on the road. But it does.
• Consider tight end Tommy Tremble as a sixth offensive lineman. He's bought all in on blocking, another aspect that will make him intriguing at the next level.
Five tackles, two sacks, two forced fumbles and a third strip-sack nullified upon review made for quite the disruptive showing from fifth-year defensive end Daelin Hayes. Coming into the weekend, Hayes had logged just six tackles and one sack this season, deceptive numbers given his role, as often as not, is to set up linebackers for plays and to remain assignment-disciplined. Hayes knows that, even if he hears outside noise from those who don’t.
“I feel like a lot of people have been making a big deal about my production as far as being a pass-rusher,” the captain said. “A lot of times, I’ve been winning. There have been wins, there have been times I’ve been close to the quarterback. I get good rushes, but sometimes it doesn’t play out. Those plays don’t come to me.
“That’s just part of being one of 11. As long as we’re winning and playing great defense and guys are making plays, that’s all you can ask for. Today just happened to be a day where those plays came to me.”
Hayes is, of course, correct about the defensive performance in the bigger picture. Notre Dame has given up 16 total points in the last three weeks. Georgia Tech averaged four yards per play. Through 50 minutes, the Yellow Jackets had gained 158 total yards.
But Hayes’ individual showing still warranted notice, not only earning him the game ball but also raising the ceiling for the Irish defense moving forward, a difficult task given how stellar and consistent its best has been for a few years now.
“Elevating the play of Daelin Hayes might be singularly as important as anything that happened today,” Kelly said. “He was at a different level of play. If he can continue to play at that level, with a Kyle Hamilton and the other pieces to this defense, then we’re going to get where we want to be.”
To be clear, where Notre Dame wants to be will not be a figure of speech much longer. The Irish have a chance to be where they want to be. As Hayes said …
