Blue and Gold Illustrated

Nov. 12, 2018

Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football

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www.BLUEANDGOLD.com NOV. 12, 2018 19 Chris Finke and a quick out for inside receiver Chase Claypool. If Book hands the ball off, the re- ceivers will run their pass routes. If Book pulls and throws the ball, the linemen and the running backs will continue running the inside zone play. Prior to the snap, Book identifies the "read key," which is the high- lighted player for Navy in Diagram 1. If that defender stays outside and is influenced by the pass routes, Book will hand the ball off to Williams. If the read key steps inside and looks to the run game, Book will pull the ball and throw it outside to either Finke or Claypool. You can see in Diagram 2 that the defender stepped inside and had his eyes on the running back. Book wisely pulled the ball and threw it outside to Claypool on his quick-out cut. Long tags an RPO with every run play in the playbook. The specific routes will vary based on what he and the staff on offense deem most effective against the defense they are playing. The routes are often designed to specifically attack the defensive looks that are giving the offense the most problems. For example, against Pitts- burgh the Irish hit a few quick throws to the outside with its RPO plays. Pittsburgh adjusted and started playing its cornerbacks up tight to- wards the line, which limited the ef- fectiveness of the RPO throws. Pittsburgh also attacked Notre Dame with its outside and inside linebackers, so the normal outside RPO throws and the inside runs weren't as effective, and Notre Dame fell behind 14-6. Long adjusted, and in the second half he used route combinations that had not been seen all season. They were meant to specifically attack the areas that Pittsburgh was vacating with its calls to stop the Irish offense. On Notre Dame's first scoring drive of the third quarter, Long tagged the outside receiver to run a delayed un- der route and used the inside receiver to run a deep corner route. This took away the cornerback and safety with the inside route, and the delayed under route resulted in Clay- pool finding openings in the area the linebackers vacated when they went after the run look. On the first play of the drive, this call resulted in Book hitting Claypool for a 21-yard gain to the right. The drive ended with a 16-yard hook up between Book and Claypool on the exact same call, this time to the left. Notre Dame's 80 rushing yards on 38 attempts against Pitt was disap- pointing — but Book threw 12 RPO passes in the win over the Panthers, and all 12 were completed for 99 yards. The Irish actually had 179 yards on plays when it called a run. While 99 of those yards came on passes, any coach in a modern offense views that success as an extension of the run be- cause it attacks a defense that wants to overload to stop the ground game. Against Navy, the Notre Dame of- fense gained 220 rushing yards on 37 designed run plays. It added 36 yards on quarterback scrambles and lost two yards when taking a knee at the end of the game. Book threw 10 RPO passes, com- pleting nine for 106 yards, meaning the Irish actually gained 326 yards on plays in which the offensive coor- dinator called a run. This is how the modern game must be evaluated. The days of call- ing a run play and either running it or making an audible at the line of scrimmage are a thing of the past, at least for now. To properly understand a team's effectiveness in running the football is to also recognize how well it did with its RPO throws. ✦ Diagram 1: The read key for a Notre Dame RPO throw. Diagram 2: The read key looks inside, so junior quarterback Ian Book threw the ball outside. DIAGRAMS BY BRYAN DRISKELL This is how the modern game must be evaluated. The days of calling a run play and either running it or making an audible at the line of scrimmage are a thing of the past, at least for now. To properly understand a team's effectiveness in running the football is to also recognize how well it did with its RPO throws. 1 2

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