Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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4 OCT. 29, 2018 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED A popular football for- mula commonly used to forecast championships probably still holds some merit. Yet, postseason evi- dence suggests this simplistic theory is growing more and more outdated. Indeed, "defense wins championships." But based on the four-year history of the College Football Playoff, a high-powered offense isn't necessarily a bad Plan B. Brian Kelly wasn't naive to this evolving dynamic when the Notre Dame head coach called on junior Ian Book last month to jolt his stagnant of- fense, even after the Irish started 3-0 and were ranked No. 8 in the country behind se- nior starter Brandon Wimbush. The results of Kelly's QB swap have been dramatic and have finally put the Notre Dame offense on par with pro- grams that routinely appear in the four-team playoff field. With Book, the Irish have almost doubled their scoring output, mov- ing from 23.3 points per game during the first three contests with Wimbush as the starter, to a 46.3-point mark in Book's first three starts before Pitt. Using these two three-game seg- ments as season-long benchmarks, Book's 46.3-point average would put the Irish 11th nationally in scoring, while the 23.3-point output from Wimbush would slot them 108th. For comparison, the four teams with multiple appearances during the four years of the NCAA playoff system — Alabama (four), Clemson (three), Ohio State (two) and Okla- homa (two) — combined to score 48.8 points per game this season through the first six weeks. Also consider, in the four years since the College Football Playoff was adopted in 2014-15, the eventual title team averaged 37 points in the championship game and 41 points in its semifinal game. This pattern of increasing offensive firepower, and a growing number of top athletes fueling it, has been evolving for some time. After the introduction of a higher scoring and more explosive brand of football about 15 years ago, Kelly rec- ognized and built his teams around an exodus of top prep athletes from defense to offense. "When offense changed from much more of a pro-style to much more of a spread, you had a deeper talent pool," Kelly said of a change in his recruiting strategies on offense. "Guys started to show up on the of- fensive side of the ball that were lon- ger and taller." Kelly was talking specifically about an Irish receiving corps that features six players on the depth chart of at least 6-4 and 225 pounds. Under Kel- ly's direction, four and even five of these big bodies might be used at the same time. "It lets the quarterback not have to be perfect on every throw," said senior Irish wide receiver Miles Boykin, who at 6-5 and 228 pounds has become Book's favorite target. "And when you look at our tight ends and receivers, we're not just big, we can all move." Perhaps because of his NFL lin- eage, Charlie Weis was the first Notre Dame head coach to successfully deploy a full crew of tall, lanky receivers. During his rookie season here in 2005, Weis rode the talents of 6-5 wide receivers Jeff Samardzija and Maurice Stovall, alongside 6-4 tight end Anthony Fasano, and strong- armed quarterback Brady Quinn, to the Fiesta Bowl and a top-10 spot in the final As- sociated Press rankings. That team averaged 36.7 points per game, the third- highest scoring mark in the last 50 years at Notre Dame and the program's fourth best all time. Thirteen years later, Book appears to be the first legiti- mate quarterback candidate since Quinn to get Notre Dame over its elusive single- season scoring record of 37.6 points per game, a mark set in 1968 that surprisingly still stands with changing rules and styles that favor scoring more than ever. Notre Dame was poised to break the single-season scoring record last season when it averaged 41.3 points per game during an 8-1 start. But it fizzled, averaging only 18.3 points during a 2-2 November, and finished the season at 34.2 points a game, which still tied for the top scoring offense during Kelly's first eight seasons here and also matched the eighth-best mark all time at Notre Dame. While we're conditioned to be- lieve that defense is the cornerstone to winning championships — and Notre Dame has a very good one — the Irish won't get theirs without the same prolific offense the best teams in the nation bring to the College Football Playoff every year … be- cause that other old-school secret to success, "three yards and a cloud of dust," is also long past its prime. ✦ Putting To Rest An Outdated Test UPON FURTHER REVIEW TODD D. BURLAGE Todd D. Burlage has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since July 2005. He can be reached at tburlage@blueandgold.com The Fighting Irish averaged 46.3 points per game in junior quarterback Ian Book's first three starts this season, a number that makes them competi- tive with other College Football Playoff contenders. PHOTO BY BILL PANZICA