2019 Notre Dame Football Preview

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Blue & Gold Illustrated: 2019 Notre Dame Football Preview

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BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED 2019 FOOTBALL PREVIEW ✦ 31 BY BRYAN DRISKELL B y his third season at Alabama (2009), head coach Nick Saban had completely changed the face of college football. For the next de- cade the Crimson Tide became the program everyone else had to catch, winning five of 10 possible national titles. The rest of the SEC spent that decade trying to replicate what Alabama did — but they don't have Saban and none of those programs have been able to recruit to Ala- bama's level. Georgia is attempting to be Tuscaloosa East, but it remains to be seen if that will work. The Crimson Tide has had premier talent, landing the nation's best recruiting class in all but one season from 2011-17. It finished No. 7 and No. 2 the past two years. On the field, Bama has been foremost about dominant defense and running the football. From 2009-18, Alabama allowed only 13.6 points per game on defense and averaged 214.9 rushing yards per game on offense. What do most of the teams in the SEC try to do? They likewise want to play great defense and run the football, of course. Emulating Alabama didn't work, but Clemson and Ohio State emerged as pow- erhouses using a different formula the last five years. Those two programs taught the rest of the SEC — and the college football world — that beating Alabama and winning championships isn't about trying to replicate the Crimson Tide. It's the exact opposite. Alabama has gone 78-8 (.906 win percent- age) against SEC opponents during the last decade, but in the playoff era the Crimson Tide is 10-3 (.769 win percentage) against the other Power Five leagues, including a 5-3 record in the postseason during that stretch. Clemson has defeated Alabama in two of the last three title games, and it averaged 39.5 points and 496.5 yards per game in those wins. Clemson has played strong defense in recent seasons as well, but it has won champi- onships thanks to an elite offense that in big- stage settings could score in the 30s and 40s. Ohio State did the same in 2014, tallying 42 points and racking up 537 yards — no- tably 281 rushing — in its 42-35 semifinal victory over the Crimson Tide. That is the formula Notre Dame is trying to emulate. Head coach Brian Kelly knows his team must continue to play defense at a high level, but he also recognizes they haven't been good enough on offense. The stand-by cliché "defense wins cham- pionships" has some limitations in the mod- ern game. Defense is still vitally important, but the new expression should be, "defense will get you to the show, but offense is what gets the ring." Scoring System Since the advent of the College Football Playoff in 2014, all five national champions have averaged at least 35.1 points per game, and three posted a scoring clip of 39.2 or better. During Kelly's nine years in South Bend, the Fighting Irish have never scored more than 34.2 points per game in a season. They reached that mark twice, and it's no surprise that Notre Dame went 20-6 in those two years. Its next best regular-season scoring output was in 2018, when it averaged 33.8 points per game and went 12-0. If Notre Dame wants to stop being on the outside looking in, it must get a lot better at putting the ball into the end zone. The Irish averaged merely 27.1 points per game in Kelly's first four seasons. During the last five years, they upped that figure to 32.8. In the last nine regular season games in 2018, Notre Dame averaged 37.2, so it is getting closer. However, scoring against the best teams on the schedule has been the prime problem. Over the last two seasons, Notre Dame has played a combined nine games against top-40 scoring defenses and averaged just 24.4 points in those matchups. It averaged 19.6 offensive points against top-25 scoring defenses. During Clemson's two championship runs, The accuracy of quarterback Ian Book last year gave the offense a level of efficiency it lacked in 2017. PHOTO BY ANGELA DRISKELL FIREPOWER NEEDED Competing for a championship requires a more explosive offense

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