Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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of designed zone read plays and successful scrambles. The week off gave Notre Dame and Golson a chance to en- hance the playbook. "We took a hard look at where we were offen- sively and knew we had to open up the offense formationally as well as use the read-zone game," head coach Brian Kelly said. The zone read, where felt it was good that we implemented that in our offense this week. They never really had a chance to prepare for that because we haven't shown it before." When Golson is able to run the ball, it gives the Irish another weapon in the backfield and also RED ZONE EFFICIENCY (INSIDE 20-YARD LINE) the quarterback can ei- ther hand the ball to his running back or hang on to it, helps the rest of the run game develop. It forces defensive ends to stay home and pro- tect the outside running lanes rather than crash- ing down to try to dis- rupt a running play. "It adds another di- mension for our offense, or for our run game at least," Golson said. "I Notre Dame 3rd-Down Conversions 4th-Down Conversions Avg. Field Position Time of Possession 3rd-Down Conversions 4th-Down Conversions Avg. Field Position Time of Possession Miami Notre Dame 7 Miami 2 Poss. TD FG Score 4 2 0 1 No 1 1 makes life easier for his backs. Sophomore George Atkinson III said the threat of Golson run- ning helped pave the way for his 123 yards on the ground this week. "It takes a load off of us and the line, espe- cially against a fast team like Miami," Atkinson ND-18 1st Qtr. 2nd Qtr. 3rd Qtr. 4th Qtr. 5:34 1-3 0-0 ND-17 5:27 9:33 2-5 0-0 UM-33 UM-32 UM-21 UM-24 0-3 0-0 2-4 0-0 1-2 0-1 ND-22 3:36 11:24 0-1 0-0 ND-7 6:15 8:45 1-2 1-1 explained. "It slows them down quite a bit so you can see what's going on." Golson also used his legs frequently in the first half to run away from trouble. He picked up 24 yards on two plays during Notre Dame's second possession while avoiding Miami's pass rush. The first run went for 15 yards and dug the Irish out of a hole. He followed that with a nine-yard scramble to get his team into a third-and-manageable situation. Golson played the most complete game of his career Saturday despite not starting be- cause of a violation of team rules. Kelly has talked about slowly de- veloping the quarter- back since the start of the regular season, and NOTRE DAME VS. MIAMI QUARTER-BY-QUARTER COMPARISON 1st Qtr. 2nd Qtr. 3rd Qtr. 4th Qtr. 9:26 2-3 0-0 ND-17 1st Half 2nd Half Final 11:01 1-6 0-0 UM-33 UM-22 UM-28 3-6 0-1 20:52 4-12 0-1 ND-18 ND-18 9:51 20:09 1-3 1-1 39:08 5-11 1-1 1st Half 2nd Half Final 18:59 4-8 0-0