Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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20 MAY 2019 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED BY LOU SOMOGYI T here was an extremely simple analysis from head coach Brian Kelly about the 2019 Notre Dame of- fense based on the Blue-Gold Game April 13. "The offense was efficient when our first group was in there," Kelly summarized. "And then when our second group was in there we weren't quite as efficient." Starting senior quarterback Ian Book ran six series in the first half and four of them resulted in touch- downs. His lone drive in the second half saw the offense drive 67 yards before getting stopped on fourth down at the defense's 8-yard line. Going mainly against the top defense, Book completed 16 of 21 passes for 220 yards, one touchdown and was touch-sacked three times, although he still finished with a net of five rushing yards. His QB rating in the college system was 179.0. Sophomore Phil Jurkovec saw the bulk of action versus the No. 2 defense, even with the ones on a couple of occasions, but had a much rougher time — most notably get- ting sacked 12 times, which resulted in minus-71 net rushing yards. As a passer he connected on 15 of 26 throws for 135 yards with no touch- downs and no interceptions, and finished with a more modest 101.4 rating. The mechanics/footwork es- pecially were awry and will need much honing prior to the season. "He's still cooking, he's still grow- ing," Kelly said of Jurkovec. "There are a lot of things he learned today about recognition of when the ball needs to come out of his hand and a clock in his head, so to speak. Get- ting in a game like this really helps him in that awareness. I think he will learn a lot from today's experi- ence about awareness. "Sometimes when you're a quar- terback you get too locked into pro- gressions. He's got to get the ball out of his hands and take some one-on-one matchups when he gets them as well. That will come. It's just a matter of time." In the postgame interviews, Jurk- ovec was extremely hard on himself and clearly agitated with his perfor- mance, and Kelly believes that his competitiveness might be getting the better of him on occasion. "Quarterback is a position where everybody wants to see them as- cend to this position immediately," Kelly said. "He's like that as well. He wants to see it happen, but it's gotta take some time for him and he's got to understand that too. He's pushing himself a little too hard, he's a little too hard on himself. You can see that, I'm out there with him. He's got too much going on right now. "He's just got to get the ball out of his hand and make it simpler. The game's a little too hard for him right now. … He never played like that in high school. He made it simple, and he's making this game way too hard. It will come. He'll wake up one day and it will be a lot simpler for him. … We'll get him to the point where it's simple." As for Book, he demonstrated why he is the starter after helping lead the Fighting Irish to the four-team Col- lege Football Playoff last year. "I thought he had complete control of our offense … was very assertive," Kelly said. "I think what I liked most was some of things he struggled last year with was getting lost in the pocket — meaning taking himself out of throws. The touchdown throw he made to [Michael Young] was in- dicative of the progress he's made this spring, where he slid, bought time in the pocket … those are the kind of throws that separate good players from great players. I've had some great quarterbacks in the red zone — that's what you're required to do, and I thought he did. "I really like the pieces that are coming together offensively. We can throw, we can run it, the quarter- back is really good, we've got explo- sive playmakers, the offensive line is going to be a really good unit. All the pieces are there. We've got more work to do." DEFENSIVE END DOMINANCE The veteran-laden defensive end position is considered the team strength the way the left side of the offensive line was in 2017 or the in- Ian Book's Experience Paying Off At Quarterback Book completed 16 of 21 throws for 220 yards with one score while leading the offense to touch- downs on four of his six first-half possessions against the No. 1 defense. PHOTO BY BILL PANZICA