Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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28 NOV. 30, 2019 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED H ere are several observa- tions from Notre Dame's 40-7 victory over Boston College. DEFENSE: DOMINANT AGAINST THE RUN Once again, the Fighting Irish defense showed up and played in a dominating fash- ion. Defensive coordinator Clark Lea has done an amaz- ing job getting this unit ready each and every week this year, with the notable exception of the Michigan game. For the second game in a row, Notre Dame played a team ranked in the top five in the country in rushing and essentially shut them down. Boston College junior run- ning back AJ Dillon was the nation's third-leading rusher coming into the game with 1,451 yards in 10 games, and Notre Dame held him to 56 yards on 14 carries. As a team, Boston College only gained 128 yards, which was 154 yards below its average entering the contest. Notre Dame forced Boston College to throw way more than it wanted to by consistently taking away the run. The Fighting Irish secondary re- ceived more work than it anticipated in this contest and was up to the task for most of the night, giving up only 63 yards on nine completions. If you take away the 39-yard pass in the second quarter, that leaves eight completions for 24 yards (3.0 yards per catch). That one miscue was on the long, almost-touchdown pass to Kobay White. White ran a double move that sophomore cornerback TaRiq Bracy bit on and allowed White to get be- hind him. Eagles quarterback Dennis Grosel put the ball where only White could catch it, and White made a nice catch to get the ball down to the 1-yard line. The other issue on that play was senior safety Alohi Gilman. He was playing as the lone safety in the mid- dle of the field, and he also bit on the double move and was coming down- hill to help Bracy on what they both thought was going to be an out cut. Once a safety brings his momentum down and out, there is no way to recover on a receiver who is running full speed, and that was the case with this play. It set up Boston College's lone score of the day. OFFENSE: INCONSISTENT EXECUTION, STILL PRODUCTIVE After the final-possession heroics against Virginia Tech, the impressive run game against Duke and the air raid explosion versus Navy, expec- tations were high coming into this game against the Eagles, whose de- fense leaves a lot to be desired. How- ever, the first half was an absolute struggle. Senior quarterback Ian Book fell back into his old ways of scram- bling too soon, not going through his reads, and just not being accurate with the ball. At one point, he was so flustered that he bailed out of the pocket on a third down with three- man pressure even though the pocket was clean. Book missed junior tight end Cole Kmet on at least two different occa- sions where he would have scored touchdowns. There were several times where he decided to scram- ble and ended up finding receivers down the field and looked good do- ing it. The problem I had was if he stayed in the pocket, he had open receivers within the natural progression of the play. To his credit, Book did stand tall in the pocket at times, went through his reads and fired off strikes for first downs in win- dows that were tiny at best. He made some clutch third-down throws that showed what he is capable of, but he lacked the consistency for most of the day. That is the overall madden- ing part of Book's game. At times he looks like a Heisman Trophy candidate distribut- ing the ball to all his different weapons and doing it with ap- parent ease, and then with the same drive he looks flustered and nervous, and his play fol- lows suit. Fortunately for Notre Dame, the Irish played a porous Boston College defense that allowed him to play less than optimum level. SPECIAL TEAMS: PERFECT DAY FOR THE FIELD GOAL UNIT Junior placekicker Jonathan Do- erer certainly earned his scholar- ship in this game. While the offense was struggling to put the ball in the end zone, Doerer was able to keep the pressure on Boston College by knocking home all four field goal at- tempts, with a long of 47 yards. Last week, Notre Dame scored on its first seven drives of the game. Six of those drives against Navy resulted in touchdowns which put the game away early. In this game, the Irish tal- lied on five of their first seven drives, but this time four of the scores were field goals. This kept Boston College within striking distance, but far enough away as to not get Notre Dame in serious trouble. Doerer outscored Boston College 10-7 by himself in the first half, helping Notre Dame to a 16-7 halftime advantage. ✦ A Closer Look At Notre Dame's Beatdown Of BC THOUGHTS FROM THE PRESS BOX VINCE DEDARIO Vince DeDario has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since August 2019. He can be reached at vdedario@blueandgold.com Senior quarterback Ian Book threw for 239 yards and three scores, and also paced the Fighting Irish rushing attack for fourth straight game with 66 yards on 12 carries. PHOTO BY ANDRIS VISOCKIS