Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1421675
www.BLUEANDGOLD.com OCT. 30, 2021 29 K yren Williams strutted up to the podium in the Notre Dame Sta- dium media room with a football in his arm. It was one last carry on an evening where the junior running back dazzled 77,000-plus fans and dumbfounded USC's defense with his latest offering of stiff-arms, jukes and pile moving. Notre Dame handed him the ball 25 times and asked him to be the lead dog. Williams, al- ways willing to pull the sled, produced 138 yards and two touchdowns in a 31-16 win. Afterward, Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly awarded Williams one of two game balls. This stroll to the interview room won't count as carry No. 26, but it sure looked as satisfying as any of the others. "Shout-out offensive line," Williams said, flashing a smile as he placed the ball on the podium. This is what it looks and sounds like to have a forceful rushing attack again. It's understandable if you'd forgotten after the season's first five games and won- dered when one might return. Notre Dame's run plays aren't the ex- ercise in futility they were in September, when many of Williams' highlights were four-yard gains that should've been two- yard losses. Defenders rudely greeted him before the line of scrimmage on more than half his carries. Notre Dame's early block- ing woes all but stuffed one of its best players into a closet. A month of impounded energy is finally loose. In beating USC, Notre Dame outrushed its opponent for the second straight game. The Irish also now have cleared 170 rushing yards in consecutive outings. Take out kneel-downs and sacks, and they rushed 38 times for 178 yards. Williams set season highs in both car- ries and yards. He also caught six passes, which gave him a career-high 31 touches. He was featured even more than normal with No. 2 running back Chris Tyree in- active because of a turf toe injury. Senior C'Bo Flemister and freshman Logan Diggs replaced him and combined for just six carries. No reason to take the ball from a man possessed. "Kyren Williams ran with an attitude," Kelly said. "You kind of sensed during the week that he was going to put this on his back." Just like he did in 2020, when Notre Dame set out to hammer defenses on the ground. That identity wasn't realis- tic this year, but for the Irish's offense to find some feeling of sustainability, the run game had to at least be a viable op- tion. It could not remain a liability that makes half the playbook useless and turns a potential early round draft pick into a minor-impact player. Its fingerprints were all over this wire- to-wire disposal of USC. Notre Dame had three drives where it ran double-digit plays, another drive with nine plays and one more with eight. That kind of drive sustaining doesn't consistently happen without a balanced offense. "I thought tonight was probably that first step where we felt from the start of the game to the end, the offense began to come together in the manner that we wanted it to," Kelly said. There might be no better example than Notre Dame's final touchdown drive. The Irish got the ball back with 8:51 to play, suddenly in a one-score game after two USC touchdowns. They could bury the Trojans with a long, methodical scoring drive. The thing is, they have rarely con- cocted those all year. They turned to Wil- liams to try and spark one. Good things happen when Williams gets carries. Better things happen when he gets space. Notre Dame provided him both, espe- cially on this late drive. He rumbled nine yards on the first play. After a pass inter- ference call put Notre Dame at USC's 43- yard line, the Irish leaned all the way in, giving him four straight carries. With the help of a USC unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, Notre Dame had first-and-goal from the 3-yard line as a result. Freshman quarterback Tyler Buchner plunged into the end zone the next play. All told, it was an eight-play, 75-yard drive with a distinct 2020 feel. To produce even one of those, Notre Dame needed to find something that worked on the offensive line. The 32-29 win over Virginia Tech Oct. 9 provided cautious optimism with fresh- man Joe Alt starting at left tackle, junior Andrew Kristofic grabbing hold of the left guard job and steadier play from sixth- year senior Cain Madden and graduate student Josh Lugg on the right side. The victory versus USC built on it. Alt held his own, and so did Madden and Lugg. Kristofic's physicality makes senior center Jarrett Patterson better, as a 38- yard Williams run illustrated. Kristofic and Patterson started with a combo block on a defensive tackle. Patterson sensed early on Kristofic could hold it and left to block a linebacker, clearing even more space. "This was our best performance of five guys playing together on the offensive line," Kelly said. "You could really start to see it come along," Williams added. "Guys are making blocks, pushing the line of scrimmage." And making him even more confident. Asked when he could tell a productive rushing day was brewing, he answered without hesitation. "From the first run," Williams said. "Even before the game, I knew what I had to do. I just knew this whole week of prac- tice we're going to start clicking." ✦ ENGEL'S ANGLE PATRICK ENGEL Patrick Engel has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since March 2020. He can be reached at pengel@blueandgold.com Williams eclipsed the 100-yard mark on the ground for the first time this year and had a career-high 31 touches in Notre Dame's 31-16 win over USC. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER Kyren Williams, Irish Run Game In Attack Mode