Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/176703
The Future … And Present A quarter-century ago, when football became more pass happy, especially with burgeoning new powers such as Miami, Florida State and Florida, the days of the running quarterback — such as Notre Dame's Tony Rice dur‑ ing the 1988 national title run — were deemed to be on the verge of extinction. Top recruits aspiring to play in the NFL gravitated more toward the pro-style attack. But along came the Charlie Wards, Tee Martins, Vince Youngs, Tim Tebows and Cam Newtons … and the gradual evolution of the dual-threat quarterback provided the best of all worlds. Entering the weekend of Sept. 21, seven teams in the Associated Press poll's top 10 had dual-threat or legiti‑ mate running threats at quarterback. The job assignments become broader and more challenging when facing dualthreats. Last season when Notre Dame faced OU's Jones and USC's Max Wittek, both strictly pocket passers, it knew what it could expect and was able to play in more of a single dimension mode. The running threats at quarterback provide a different dilemma. "It can be very different, especially if he's faster than you," Shembo said. "Devin Gardner — he was fast. When they go against a team that they know pass rushes real well and gets up the field, they're going to see those gaps and you kind of have to make sure you have an eye on where the quarterback is, compared to a pocket passer. You know they're going to be on the same spot there, but a running quarterback can go all around." "It changes some of your [defensive] calls considerably," Kelly said. "With his ability to run the football, you have to protect your defensive linemen, too. You can't let them just be by themselves. So it definitely adds a dimension to the offense." Of course, Notre Dame knew that Al‑ abama's A.J. McCarron likely wouldn't be a rushing threat either, but that didn't help in the 42-14 loss to the Crimson Tide in the BCS National Champion‑ ship Game. "There's always going to be room for a pure pocket passer in any league," Collinsworth said. "The mobile quar‑ terback adds another element that you have to defend. It's tough to play when you lock down your guys and the next thing you know the quarterback scram‑ bles for a 15-yard gain. It's a growing trend. "It depends on the level of mobility you're preparing for, and we treat it dif‑ ferently, depending on how fast the guy is and how big a threat we think he is. The guys that we can contain with our four-down pass rushers or three-down pass rushers, you prefer to do that be‑ cause that way you don't have to waste a cover guy." Defensive Options Among the strategies employed to combat the dual-threat quarterbacks has been lining up junior outside linebacker Ishaq Williams, Shembo's backup, in the middle of the field to give the Irish a little more speed and track-down skills in that area. "We mess around with that a little bit," Kelly said. "That's one of our schemes, one of our packages, that [Wil‑