Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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8 OCT. 2, 2017 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED BY LOU SOMOGYI N ormally, a 303-yard total offense output by a quarterback while directing six touchdown drives in a 49-20 victory on the road over a team — Boston College — that prides itself on physicality and defense would be relatively immune to criticism or scrutiny about his play. Not necessarily for Notre Dame ju- nior signal-caller Brandon Wimbush. Redshirted last season and unoffi- cially taking only 27 snaps in mop-up duty as a 2015 freshman, the former four-star from Teaneck, N.J., has seen doubt circulate about his effective- ness despite rushing for 207 yards and four touchdowns, both school re- cords by a Fighting Irish quarterback, in that aforementioned win versus the Eagles. That's because he completed only 11 of 24 passes for 96 yards. In today's spread offense world, completing less than 50 percent of one's passes and at a clip of only 4.0 yards per comple- tion is rare. Moreover, Notre Dame's 94.60 pass efficiency rating after three games ranked 124th among 129 Foot- ball Bowl Subdivision teams. Downfield throws against BC often sailed, and putting some touch on shorter throws also needed to be re- fined. That naturally prompted angst among some Notre Dame faithful. "Should the Irish just go to a power/ option offense like in the days of Lou Holtz with Tony Rice at quarterback?" "You're not going to be a great offense/ team if you don't have balance." "How ready is sophomore Ian Book to take over — or could he at least rotate in as the 'passing' QB." Interestingly, accuracy appeared to be the least of Wimbush's issues while leading Jersey City (N.J.) St. Peter's Prep to a state title as a senior that made him such a coveted recruit. He flirted with nearly breaking the national season record for pass per- centage (minimum 275 attempts) by completing 72.3 percent of his tosses for 3,187 yards with 37 touchdowns and only four interceptions. "I have absolutely no questions about his ability to play at the highest level at Notre Dame and help us win a championship," head coach Brian Kelly said three days after the Boston College contest. "Accuracy I think is a product of being comfortable within an offense — an offense that has changed a little bit from what he was used to running. "It also has to do with really only having one receiver that has estab- lished himself in the program for a pe- riod of time. He's working with some new receivers. So I think just some patience and you'll see him throw the ball with a higher accuracy rate. "It has nothing to do with mechan- ics as much as he needs to settle. When he was settled, had his feet set, he threw a beautiful ball to Durham Smythe. … He just has to anticipate them a little bit better. That's build- ing a relationship with your receiv- ers, trusting it." Just like all the iconic predecessors at the position for Notre Dame have in the past. Sometimes the passage of time makes it easy to lose context about how growth is involved for all at this level. Let's just take the last five decades: UNDER THE DOME IT COMES TO PASS Like many of his esteemed predecessors, Brandon Wimbush has been undergoing a learning curve Wimbush set school records for a quarterback with 207 yards and four touchdowns on the ground ver- sus Boston College Sept. 16. PHOTO BY BILL PANZICA