Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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28 NOV. 5, 2018 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED "Drew went in there and did a nice job for us," head coach Brian Kelly said. "You lose arguably one of your best defensive players in the first se- ries against Navy — it harkens back for me when we lost Joe Schmidt. "Things can go awry quickly. They did not from that position." Tranquill's status for the game at Northwestern Nov. 3 was not known immediately following the contest against Navy. However, Kelly was cautiously optimistic. "It's Drue Tranquill. He may be jog- ging when we get back to the hotel," the head coach said of his fifth-year senior who has been playing with a broken hand. "He's just a unique in- dividual. I wouldn't count him out." Meanwhile, the 6-0, 228-pound sophomore White showed he can't be counted out either after being in a walk- ing boot and on crutches all spring, and limited in work this August. Out of nowhere in the past month the Boca Raton native has ascended, first on special teams and then with the second unit on defense. "Really proud of our players that persevere within the program when at times it looks like their place has not been defined," Kelly said of White. "It's almost not delayed gratification — they can't see the end in sight for them. "But yet he continued to work through injury, dedicated to get big- ger, faster and stronger. He found his opening in special teams. He found his niche this week with the triple option." STRONG START, INCONSISTENT FINISH ON DEFENSE In the first half, Notre Dame held Navy to 70 rushing yards — a low in the opening half by the Midshipmen during the Brian Kelly era — and zero points. It was a different story the fi- nal 30 minutes. The Irish allowed 222 yards on the ground and 22 points. Navy scored three touchdowns on its first four drives of the second half. Kelly was asked about any carry- over on how former defensive co- ordinator Mike Elko defended the triple option to Clark Lea and the staff's plan of attack. "No, it was a collaborative ap- proach in terms of what we wanted to do," Kelly noted. "[Defensive line coach] Mike Elston, myself and Clark agreed we wanted to play it much like we did against Army a few years back, a much more aggressive ap- proach. I think we need to take a look at the film in the second half. We got into some zone coverage and got out of our man coverage in the second half because we were up." Kelly and company will likely wait until the offseason to dive more into the second-half performance, but he was quite pleased with the opening 30 minutes and the early strategy. "We played it very, very well," Kelly said. "We liked our plan. We thought it was comprehensive in what we wanted to do. They came out in the second half and did exactly what we thought they would do. We had a guy unblocked twice that did not make a play. They made some adjustments that we needed to adjust to." ✦ NAVY VS. NOTRE DAME QUARTER-BY-QUARTER COMPARISON Navy 1st Qtr. 2nd Qtr. 3rd Qtr. 4th Qtr. 1st Half 2nd Half Total Time of Possession 9:14 5:13 6:46 6:54 14:27 13:40 28:07 Third-Down Conversions 1-4 0-3 1-2 0-3 1-7 1-5 2-12 Fourth-Down Conversions 0-1 0-0 0-0 2-2 0-1 2-2 2-3 Average Field Position NAVY-38 NAVY-34 NAVY-25 NAVY-35 NAVY-36 NAVY-30 NAVY-33 Notre Dame 1st Qtr. 2nd Qtr. 3rd Qtr. 4th Qtr. 1st Half 2nd Half Final Time of Possession 5:46 9:47 8:14 8:06 15:33 16:20 31:53 Third-Down Conversions 0-0 2-6 3-4 2-5 2-6 5-9 7-15 Fourth-Down Conversions 0-0 3-3 0-0 0-0 3-3 0-0 3-3 Average Field Position ND-20 ND-25 ND-25 ND-26 ND-21 ND-25 ND-23 PLAY CHART (NO. OF PLAYS) Yards NAVY ND Nega ve 4 5 0-5 37 38 6-9 7 10 10-19 6 15 20-29 3 6 30-39 2 2 40-49 0 0 50 or more 1 0 RED ZONE EFFICIENCY (INSIDE 20-YARD LINE) No Poss. TD FG Score Navy 2 2 0 0 Notre Dame 6 5 1 0 BIG PLAYS (25 YARDS OR MORE) Navy • 1-10 NAVY25 Perry rush for 58 yards to the ND17 • 1-10 NAVY37 Lewis pass complete to Cooper for 34 yards to the ND29 • 2-4 ND33 Mar n rush for 33 yards and a touchdown Notre Dame • 1-10 ND40 Williams rush for 33 yards to NAVY27 • 1-10 50 Book pass to Aus n for 38 yards to NAVY12 • 1-10 ND17 Book pass to Armstrong for 25 yards to NAVY42 • 1-10 NAVY36 Book pass to Finke for 26 yards to NAVY10 • 3-10 ND48 Book pass to Armstrong for 27 yards to NAVY25 Sophomore linebacker Drew White recorded six tackles in relief of fifth-year senior Drue Tranquill, who went down with an injury in the first half. PHOTO BY BILL PANZICA