Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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8 OCT. 15, 2018 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED UNDER THE DOME Offensive Line Needs to Raise The Bar(s) By Lou Somogyi When you look at Notre Dame's final six opponents in the second half of the regular season, a common issue among most of them is their offensive lines and the inability to score with great frequency. Entering the Oct. 6 weekend, four of the final six Irish foes were hovering in the bottom 15 to 25 percentile nation- ally in scoring offense: USC (98th), Pitt (105th), Northwestern (106th) and Florida State (109th). Anyone who follows Notre Dame recognized that the veteran Irish defense would be the team strength in 2018, and it should only be accentuated in the sec- ond half of the season while continuing to progress. Conversely, the offensive line was in some flux coming into 2018, which showed in the first three games while averaging a modest 23.3 points per game before junior quarterback Ian Book and senior running back Dexter Williams injected energy and production. Unfortunately, the season-ending injury to the dominant standout of the line, captain Alex Bars, leaves a void in leadership, attitude and proven big-game performance. This is not a case of just shrugging it off with a "next man in" chant. A line that was blossoming with his huge influence has to recalibrate and possibly redefine itself. The Notre Dame defense should continue to travel well while playing four of the final six games on the road, but for the offense to reach its potential and help the Irish advance to the College Football Playoff, the line must elevate the bar and reach a Bars level. Defensive Line Will Set The Tone By Bryan Driskell If Notre Dame is going to make a legit run to the College Football Playoff, it is the defensive line that must carry the team. To finish off the 2018 cam- paign the Irish will play four contests away from Notre Dame Stadium. From 2013 to the fifth game of the 2018 sea- son, Notre Dame had gone just 16-14 in regular season games played away from home. In fact, take away the 2012 season — one in which Notre Dame went 6-0 in road games — the Irish are 23-18 in games played away from its home sta- dium during head coach Brian Kelly's tenure. If Notre Dame wants to handle its business on the road, it will need its defense to be on top of its game. For that to happen, it will need domi- nant play from the front four. It is no surprise that Notre Dame's best season under Kelly — 2012 — was the same year he had without question the best defensive line of his tenure. All four starting front players and its top backup were all NFL draftees. When the offense stalled that season the defense was able to pick up the slack, something it could not do last season when the Irish lost their final two road games of the season, giving up an average of 36.0 points per game in those matchups. The line has been dominant early in 2018, and it will need to continue to do so down the stretch if Notre Dame is going to continue winning. Point ✦ Counterpoint: WHICH LINE NEEDS TO BE MORE IMPACTFUL IN THE SECOND HALF OF SEASON? OL COACH JEFF QUINN DL COACH MIKE ELSTON Jack Nolan has been involved with Notre Dame athletics for almost four decades, serving in sev- eral roles including his newest as the field analyst for the radio broadcast of Irish football games. Nolan is also one of the longest tenured college basketball an- nouncers in the country. He has called Irish games since 1982. BGI: How do you feel you have transitioned into your new role with the football ra- dio broadcast team? Nolan: "I think I've transi- tioned quite well, but I would leave that to the people I work with and people who have come up to me and my col- leagues and bosses. They've all said it's been a good transition and an outstanding transition for the new team. "It's actually a relatively easy gig for me because it just builds off the work I do through the course of the week anyway." BGI: What have you enjoyed about the new gig so far and what have been the challenges that you've had to work through? Nolan: "I'm having a blast. I'm getting even closer to the players and coaches. It is different watching games from the sideline. The last time I did this on a regular basis was when I was working in local TV, and we covered the Bears every week- end during their Super Bowl season in the mid-80s. "One of the biggest chal- lenges as the sideline reporter is you're on every 10 or 15 minutes. I have comments on every play that I express to my- self or the engineer producer. I don't get to talk as much as I used to, so that's certainly been an adjustment." BGI: How will your current role work along with your du- ties for the men's basketball team? Nolan: "There will be a little bit of overlap, and my bosses and I have hashed this out. When there is conflict, I will stay with football. Darin Pritch- ett of WSBT will fill in for me in basketball. He's a very good play-by-play guy. "The only other game I've missed in basketball as the play-by-play guy is during my sister's wedding a few years ago. … Darin will do a terrific job." BGI: How has media changed during your al- most 40 years in the business? Nolan: "The biggest change of all is now anyone can be a 'journalist.' All you need is a computer, a website, a Twitter account or a camera phone. In- formation can literally come from anywhere, and anyone can get information and create headlines. "The employed media who are actually paid to deliver information and cover stories has exploded. When I first started, you had radio, TV news operations, newspapers and weekly or monthly magazines. That was it, and there weren't that many of them. "With the Internet, you have so many websites. Every team has dozens and dozens of people covering them." BGI: Do you see any other changes coming in the near future that are just starting to take shape? Nolan: "It's the delivery system for people to watch games. I don't know how quickly this will happen because a lot of it will be based off rights fees and how much revenue the platforms car- rying live broadcasts can generate. But I think we will get to a point where you basically dial up whatever you want to watch and you pay for that. "There's more and more paid per view even in the NFL with the DirecTV Sunday Ticket. Almost any major sporting event is televised, and there are so many ways to get it. The most popular way to watch sports is on a big screen, and I think the big change will be what's feeding it." — Corey Bodden Five Questions With … NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL RADIO BROADCAST FIELD ANALYST JACK NOLAN Nolan is in his first season as the field analyst for Notre Dame foot- ball's radio broadcast. PHOTO COURTESY FIGHTING IRISH DIGITAL MEDIA PHOTOS BY ANGELA DRISKELL