Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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Under the Dome Charting The Irish Lots Of Laundry Through the first half of the regular season, Notre Dame was one of the county's most penalized teams. The Irish averaged 6.83 penalties per game, sending them 57.6 yards in the wrong direction. Only 33 teams committed more penalties for more yards through six games this season. The Irish are currently on pace to tie the 2011 team as the most penalized group during head coach Brian Kelly's tenure in South Bend. The flags were evenly distributed. Nineteen were thrown on the defense, 21 on the offense and one on special teams. False starts remain the team's most frequent infraction, making up more than half the calls against the offense. On defense, 16 of the 19 penalties resulted in a first down for the opponents — nine of those were pass interference calls. The good news for Notre Dame is that penalty flags have led to more success than failure in college football this season. As of Oct. 15, the 10 least penalized teams in the country had a record of 26-35 (.426). The 10 most penalized teams were 39-16 (.709). Of the 33 that committed more penalties than Notre Dame, eight of them were ranked in the Associated Press top 25. Notre Dame Penalties Delay of Game: 3 (7.3%) False Start: 11 (26.8%) Other: 6 (14.6%) Pass Interference: 9 (21.9%) Personal Fouls: 9 (21.9%) Offsides: 3 (7.3%) Football Is Not Always A Snap Junior center Nick Martin, who had played tackle and guard his first two seasons before aligning at center for the first time, had several snap infractions against Oklahoma and Arizona State. During the bye week, that was an area the Notre Dame coaching staff worked on cleaning up. With Arizona State's defense in constant blitz mode and movement, a number of checks had to be made, so the coaches were looking to ease some of the pressure off Martin. "A lot of teams have gone to alternate ways of snapping the ball," Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly said. "For example, guards now are look-