Sometimes this column is tough to write. In fact, it’s usually good for us when it’s tough to write. When it’s easy to find five things I didn’t like in a game, it usually means things didn’t go well for our Irish. Saturday was not one of those games. Notre Dame beat up on Iowa State in the Camping World Bowl and beat a team that had lost all of its games this year by a combined 21 points, by 24 points alone. The Irish capped off the season the best they could in the situation they were in. So let’s try and find some things that I didn’t like in a game that was otherwise really damn likable.
Red-zone offense
In Tommy Rees’s first game calling plays, he did some good things with the Notre Dame offense. He stuck with the running game, and he manufactured a rushing game that was pretty lifeless the last month and a half of the season. He also did something really simple that was super effective – he fed the ball to his best playmaker, Chase Claypool.
For all the good, though, the redzone offense left a little to be desired. Notre Dame made four trips into the redzone and did score all four times, so that was positive, but they only scored touchdowns on two of those trips and had to settle for chip shot field goals from Jonathan Doerer on the other two occasions.
Against Iowa State, it didn’t matter much, but again a better opponent, settling for field goals could mean the difference between winning and losing. It’s also not like the Cyclones have a stout defense. They don’t. Overall the offense was pretty good in the bowl game, but since it was a stretch to find five things I didn’t like in this game, this one came to mind first.
Punting
Brian Polian worked wonders with Jonathan Doerer this year. No one, and I mean no one, expected Doerer to be 17 of 20 and perfect on extra points this year; but he was. His next off-season project will be getting more out of a freshman Jay Bramblett. The true frosh looked like he tired out a bit down the stretch this season, and his performance in the Camping World Bowl wasn’t on the same level as what we saw earlier this year.
Bramblett punted four times on Saturday for an average of just 37.8 yards with no kicks inside the 20 and one touchback. Not terrible, but not great either. A couple of those punts were more line drives that could have turned into big returns had it not been for some excellent coverage. Bramblet has a bright future for Notre Dame but will need a big off-season to really tap into his potential in 2020.
Lack of third-down efficiency on offense
Like the red-zone offense, Notre Dame’s third-down efficiency left a lot to be desired. Notre Dame converted on just 3 of 13 third-down opportunities on Saturday against Iowa State. That’s pretty poor production. Notre Dame mitigated some of their third-down futility by converted on two of two fourth-down attempts, but it’s tough to win big games when you convert on just 3 of 13 third-downs.
Part of this probably falls back on Tommy Rees calling plays for the first time and facing Iowa State’s 3-5-3 defense that is relatively unique in terms of the looks the Irish were seeing on offense. If Rees is ultimately named the offensive coordinator to replace Chip Long, he is going to need to get much better production out of this offense on third downs.
Lack of carries for C’bo Flemister
If Jonathan Doerer was the surprise impact player of the season, Jafar Armstrong was on the opposite end of the spectrum. It looked like the offense was going to be funneled through Armstrong for the first few minutes of the season until he got hurt. After missing a month, he was back on the field, but we never saw the running back we all expected to see in 2020 even after his return. That was evident again on Saturday when Armstrong ran for just eight yards on eight carries.
C’bo Flemister, on the other hand, has run hard every opportunity he got in 2019 and has shown promise. The problem was he didn’t get that many opportunities, and that was the case again on Saturday. Flemister averaged 5,0 yards per carry but got just six carries – most of them coming in the fourth quarter in garbage time.
Flemister has three years of eligibility remaining entering 2020, so there is still plenty of time for Flemister to make his mark, but I would have liked to see him get some more play in the bowl game.
No more Notre Dame football games for nine months
This is the easiest one, but the worst part of the bowl game was the simple fact that it was the last Notre Dame football game that we get to watch until Labor Day – no, I’m not counting the Blue-Gold Game in that. We can all be disappointed that Notre Dame didn’t make the playoffs and played in a lower-tier bowl even though they had ten regular-season wins, but at the end of the day, this team won 11 games and ended the season on a six-game winning streak.
If you are lucky enough to follow an NFL team that made the playoffs – sorry Cowboy fans – you at least have another week (and maybe more) of meaningful football that you have a rooting interest in to watch. If you don’t, there are nine long months without any Notre Dame football. Oh, by the way, Fly Eagles, Fly!
The 2019 Fighting Irish didn’t get where we hoped they would, but Saturday was the last time we got to see the likes of Khalid Kareem, Jalen Elliott, Alohi Gilman, and Chase Claypool play for the Fighting Irish. Good luck to them all as they pursue their NFL dreams. They left it all on the field for Notre Dame and leave with a rock solid legacy in place.
On a totally unrelated point, this was a pretty pleasurable bowl season.
Not only did ND win big, that’s the big one, of course, but also our bitterest rivals all lost, humiliatingly so: USC, Michigan, Miami, BC. Plus, Stanford didn’t even play a bowl game.
Don’t underestimate the power of good, ol’ Schadenfreude!
Heading into this game I thought this was a lose/lose game for us. If we lost that would’ve been terrible. If we won l, so what, Iowa State isn’t very good. The good thing is that ND had a good consistent game. We outplayed all of their competition of the season. I also thought Rees did a good job. He had about 2 weeks to put his game plan together. A somewhat boring game which is much better than what could have happened.
For whatever its shortcomings, this was Notre Dame’s most complete game of the season on both sides of the ball. Discounting trivial competition, you might say it was the only complete game of the year. No turnovers, picked up two turnovers, and Iowa State was kept out of the end zone.
What an amazing job the Eagles’ coaches and players have done to finish with four wins with a team held together with duct tape and superglue. Pretty soon, they’ll be pulling players off Broad St., but you never know. They could beat Seattle in Philly and get some players back after that.
I too hope BK goes outside for the next OC. Rees may someday be a good assistant and maybe HC someday. But he’s not there yet. If we really want to win NCs we need an OC with some experience. Taking a chance on Rees next year would probably tell you talk of a NC is just that, talk.
And the offense left some points on the field. It ended up not mattering but it was frustrating to watch. There were a few needless penalties as well, one that killed a pretty good drive if I recall. Maybe it’s a sign of the times for ND football but even though we won this pretty handily I can’t help but not feel totally satisfied. I don’t expect a perfect game. Sometimes you’re going to have to punt the ball away. But I guess it’s because there was probably at least 2 more TD’s that ND could have scored in the game and didn’t.
And a big thing I didn’t like was the opponent. As Frank noted in overreactions the Big 12 is not a good conference. They kept hyping Iowa State only losing by a combined 21 points but in the Big 12 is that really a testament to how good Iowa State is? Maybe ND didn’t deserve a NY Day 6 bowl after their bust against Michigan, but I think we should have drawn better than a 7-5 team. I really wanted to see Book tested against a good defense to see if he really turned a corner after Michigan or is it just a mirage? Is it just because we faced some less than stellar teams? Sadly we won’t really know now until next year. Will we be playoff hunting. Or will we be 10-2 (or worse) looking at what could have been because Book really wasn’t all that improved and wondering what could have been if Jurkovec were QB (who I wouldn’t be surprised if he decided to transfer just so he could get some playing time somewhere). I really hope we are playoff hunting and Book is the QB we hope he is. He did have a couple nice deep throws which was nice to see. I guess we’ll see how things plan out.
I hope Kelly goes outside and brings in a great offensive coordinator.Let Reese continue working with Book and Phil.Notredame needs some new fresh ideas for the offense.Look at what a difference a new coordinator made at Penn State and TCU in 2017 and what Joe Brady did for LSU this year.That is what needs to happen for Notredame next year.