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Need long passes, explosive plays to beat ND

S

Sean Miller Fan

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Oct 30, 2001
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Thanks to badby who pointed out we are 83rd in the nation in yards per play and 88th in scoring offense.

ND has the best D we will have played this season. Our OL has struggled in the run game all year and we dont have a home run hitter in the backfield. I just cant see us sustaining 14, 15 play drives for 3-4 yards per play against their D.

I think we need to score 30+ and are going to have to throw the ball down field to Boyd. Chaney has turned him into a possession receiver. They have a Safety suspended for the 1st Half. I hope we throw some long balls. I know they have a low chance of success but I'll take my chances with HR swings to Boyd rather than dinking and dunking and running power.
 
I am in the camp that says we need to control the clock with the ground game. Score when we get inside their 20 yd line and force 2+ turnovers.
 
we need more jet sweeps with Boyd,, those are the key to winning. the 10 that we run every game is not enough, MORE JET SWEEPS..
 
I think it comes down to the lines. If our lines can hold our own on both sides of the ball then I think we'll be in the game.

What I REALLY like about this staff is the defensive adjustments made at the half. Only 1 second half TD in the last 3 games I believe (Ga Tech).

On the other side we do need to run the ball, control the clock and hit the tight ends over the middle.

Hopefully Nardog will have something cooked up for the rookie quarterback.
 
I am an ND fan, but will say that ND's safety play is horrendous. If I were Pitt's OC, I would run crossing patterns all day.

ND's safeties are clueless, especially Max Redfield. Elijah Shumate is probably ND's best safety and he is suspended for the first half.

Mathias Farley is slow and can be exploited. At linebacker, Joe Schmidt is slow and has trouble tackling anyone.

ND's defensive line is very stout. Sheldon Day and Isacc Rochell are beasts. Day will be a first round pick.

At LB, Jaylon Smith is a beast and a first round pick next spring. As said above, Joe Schmidt is the weak link there.

ND's offense is tough to stop, unless they turn the ball over (which they do inside the opponent five yard line more than anyone I can remember).

The 24 points and 467 yards against Temple were the second lowest totals this year. (ND only scored 22 points and had 432 yards at Clemson).

Prior to Temple, ND was averaging 38.3 points and 498.9 yards per game. If ND does not implode in the red zone again, Pitt will have to score a lot to win.

The best way to do that is to throw downfield and run crossing routes to confuse ND's secondary.
 
Adding Whitehead on just 4 to 8 Plays would help the Offense too. Connor coming back could help too! Boyd's needs some help and can't do it alone?
 
Sean Miller Fan said:
Thanks to badby who pointed out we are 83rd in the nation in yards per play and 88th in scoring offense.

ND has the best D we will have played this season. Our OL has struggled in the run game all year and we dont have a home run hitter in the backfield. I just cant see us sustaining 14, 15 play drives for 3-4 yards per play against their D.

I think we need to score 30+ and are going to have to throw the ball down field to Boyd. Chaney has turned him into a possession receiver. They have a Safety suspended for the 1st Half. I hope we throw some long balls. I know they have a low chance of success but I'll take my chances with HR swings to Boyd rather than dinking and dunking and running power.
Click to expand...
If I had to point to what disappoints me the most about Chaney;s offense, it's his use of Boyd.There's the one athletic mismatch we have on offense without Conner, and we don't let him do what he does best. He's averaging under 10 ypc and 100 ypg for the first time in his career. His numbers are WAY down. We don't take downfield shots to any of our guys.

On those relatively rare occasions when Boyd is one on one on the outside without safety help, that should be an automatic hot read.
 
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thebadby2 said:
If I had to point to what disappoints me the most about Chaney;s offense, it's his use of Boyd.There's the one athletic mismatch we have on offense without Conner, and we don't let him do what he does best. He's averaging under 10 ypc and 100 ypg for the first time in his career. His numbers are WAY down. We don't take downfield shots to any of our guys.

On those relatively rare occasions when Boyd is one on one on the outside without safety help, that should be an automatic hot read.
Click to expand...
Ditto!;)
 
thebadby2 said:
If I had to point to what disappoints me the most about Chaney;s offense, it's his use of Boyd.There's the one athletic mismatch we have on offense without Conner, and we don't let him do what he does best. He's averaging under 10 ypc and 100 ypg for the first time in his career. His numbers are WAY down. We don't take downfield shots to any of our guys.

On those relatively rare occasions when Boyd is one on one on the outside without safety help, that should be an automatic hot read.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, Chaney has turned Boyd into a possession receiver. He can't make big plays if you don't give him a chance.
 
We haven't had a big play since the YSU game. Don't expect any Saturday. If we win it will be because we will have been able to maintain long drives with effective running and short passing, scored a few points off of those drives and have kept the game close into the 4th quarter. Ball control will be the recipe of the day.
 
Notre Dame fan here, interested in talking the game over here with Pitt fans

Just some info on our defense...

ND's defense is EXTREMELY hot and cold

The Good:
  • ND has held all but 2 of it's opponents below their scoring average (and 1 of those was a blowout against UMass that didn't matter)
  • ND is one the top defenses all of CFB in "Successful Plays" (according to Football outsiders), meaning out defense beats the opposing offense more often (on a per play basis) than almost any other defense in CFB
  • ND is one of the best defenses in CFB on "passing downs" (according to Football Outsiders)
The Bad:
  • ND is EXTREMELY succeptable to the "big play" and the "trick play", both of which have hurt us in almost every game we've played...regardless of opponent
  • ND misses a large number of tackles, primarily due to very "physically limited play" at our MLB
  • ND is going to be especially weak at safety (probably our worst position anyways) as our best safety is suspended for the 1st half and his backup tore his ACL against GT
Overall, I'd say that it's hard to "march down the field" against our defense as we can do enough against the run to get you into passing situations and are very good in those situations once we get you there

However, it's very likely that you'll be able to avoid this issue by creating "chunk plays" against us, especially if your QB is at all capable and/or your OC at all creative

The offenses that haven't tried to go for these chunk plays against us and instead opted for the "march it down the field ONLY" strategy, have managed ~11ppg outside of garbage time (Texas=3, Georgia Tech=7, Navy=24)

You'll notice that Temple's coaches saw this tendency and attacked it.......they had 7 plays of 20+ yards
(well over half their total yardage on just 7 plays)
 
In summary, I agree with your OP

You're offense will need big plays to beat ND.....and they should be very acheivable

I'd expect at least a couple big run plays, probably more than a couple big pass plays (likely to Boyd) and if your coaches are smart, at least 1-2 trick plays at well

The key to beating ND's defense is getting the chunk plays and attacking the Safeties and MLB
(and trying to avoid the actual DL and most especially Jaylon Smith)

ND's defense is solid, if they ever put a whole game together they could be "great" but the reality is that they've shown they're so "hot and cold" they're just "good, but nothing great"
 
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