Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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THE FIFTH QUARTER LOU SOMOGYI last year to Chuck Martin, now the boss at Miami (Ohio). "I don't want to be not involved," Kelly said on Jan. 14 during an inter- view with Bill King on his "On Campus" radio show for Sirius Radio. "It's been for me, I don't want to say frustrating, but we haven't had the ideal situation for the quarterback [position]. And then we lose Everett [Golson], and now he's back. I just feel like we've got the right quarterback in place and I want to be back involved in the offense. "I think we're at that point now where the offense is in a position where we've got the skill players that we can be much more aggressive." Notre Dame has never averaged 30 points per game in a season during Kel- ly's four years, and that's well below average in today's college football. Even in 2012 with Golson it ranked 78th with 25.77 points per game, and last year it was 74th at 27.2. Particularly disappointing has been the red-zone offense (inside the oppo- nent's 20). It was tied for 71st in 2012 and was 77th this past year — leading to kicker Kyle Brindza having to boot 31 field goals the past two years in red-zone territory. Just reach the end zone half of those times and there is your bare mini- mum 30-point average. National champ Florida State was also No. 1 in red-zone offense last year by scoring 71 times in 73 attempts — 58 of them touchdowns. FSU scored touch- downs 79.5 percent of the time com- pared to Notre Dame's 53.3 percent. Kelly believes he will no longer be able to make a living winning games 13-6, 17-14, 20-17, 22-13, 21-6, 20-3, 20-13, like he did in 2012. "If you look at the BCS games [this January], I think the average number of points that were put up were about 38 points per game," Kelly said. (Note: it was 35.4 points per team in the five games, with a 39-point average by the winners.) "You've got to score points in college football today. We won a lot of games when we went 12-0 [by scores of] 17-14. You can't do that. I think we've got to score more points." This is especially true because the re- vamping Irish defense will face a pleth- ora of lethal offenses in 2014, nine of which possess veteran quarterbacks, led by Florida State Heisman winner Jameis Winston. The way the Irish defense had to carry the freight in 2012, the offense might be required to do the same in 2014. Kelly does believe the running back and receiver depth in 2014 will be the best he's ever had. "We were a one-trick pony there with a Michael Floyd for a couple of years," Kelly told King. "And then Tyler Eifert, TJ [Jones] was a very good player for us. But the balance we have offensively across the board, at the running back po- sition. … I think the skill position for us is the best balance since I've been here. "Hence, that's why I want to call plays because now I'm going to be smart again, right?" He has a point — and might need a lot more of them in 2014. ✦ Senior Editor Lou Somogyi has been at Blue & Gold Illustrated since July 1985. He can be reached at lsomogyi@blueandgold.com