Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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www.BLUEANDGOLD.com MARCH 2018 85 BY LOU SOMOGYI BEYOND THE STATUS QUO In head coach Brian Kelly's eight seasons at Notre Dame, the Fighting Irish are 69-34 — an average of 8.6 wins and 4.3 losses per year. Toss out the two outliers — 12-1 in 2012 and 4-8 in 2016 — and it av- erages out to 9-4. Hence, the rela- tively large sample size prompts the conclusion that Notre Dame has a "9-4 coach," or one that has been not quite bad enough to get fired but also hasn't displayed enough consistency to become a 10-12 win program every year like a Clemson, Oklahoma, Ohio State … or even a Wisconsin or Stan- ford, who have not recruited at Notre Dame's level. (The Alabama dynasty is in its own category after winning five of the last nine national titles.) Getting to 10 wins has become the minimum benchmark of a successful campaign at Notre Dame, although even once moribund Northwestern has had the same number of 10-win seasons the last six years (three) as the Fighting Irish. However, Notre Dame has not posted back-to-back 10-win cam- paigns since the three in a row from 1991-93 under Lou Holtz, and has not won a major/Big Six bowl in 25 years. If the Irish are to reach top-10 pro- gram status over the long term, they must demonstrate that they can put together double-digit-win seasons consistently, or at least consecutively. The last three times Notre Dame finished 10-3 like this past year (2002, 2006 and 2015), it followed with re- cords of 5-7 (2003), 3-9 (2007) and 4-8 (2016). There should be no such precipi- tous plummet in 2018. This year pro- vides another opportunity to finally start evolving into a consistent mini- mum 10-win "program" under Kelly while on the back stretch of what has been a Notre Dame 11-year term limit for past luminary figures such as Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian and Lou Holtz. QUARTERBACK QUESTIONS … AGAIN While Notre Dame has been unable to find consistent stability with back- to-back 10-win (minimum) seasons, it has carried over to quarterback. In each of the last seven seasons from 2011-17, the Irish had a different signal-caller start the opener, which is a school record: Dayne Crist (2011), Everett Golson (2012), Tommy Rees (2013), Golson (2014, after academic ineligibility the previous season), Malik Zaire (2015), DeShone Kizer (2016) and Brandon Wimbush (2017). Each had a dramatic opening surge in his career … and then gradually faltered. After opening with an 8-1 record last season, Wimbush's college career as a three-year starter from 2017-19 appeared to be a lock. However, dur- ing November defeats at Miami (41- 8) and Stanford (38-20), where the Irish were either behind or in a tight situation, Wimbush's confidence, reads, timing and decision making reached their nadir. By the second quarter against LSU in the Citrus Bowl he was benched, and sophomore Ian Book's two fourth-quarter touchdown passes in the 21-17 triumph raised questions anew about who is going to be the long-range answer at quarterback. On one hand, Wimbush in his first season as a starter accounted for 30 touchdowns, including a quarter- back-school-record 14 rushing while drastically improving red-zone pro- duction, and he demonstrated dy- namic athletic skills on numerous occasions. On the flip side, among 110 Foot- ball Bowl Subdivision quarterbacks who qualified with enough pass at- tempts, Wimbush placed 86th with a 121.4 rating — well below the 150.1 and 145.6 marks of predecessor Kizer in 2015 and 2016, respectively. His 49.5 percent completion is vir- tually unheard of in today's game, and only the starting quarterbacks at Charlotte, Kent State and UTEP joined him among those 110 at less than 50 percent. It was the first time since 2003, when Brady Quinn com- pleted 47.3 percent as a freshman, that an Irish QB completed less than half of his passes during the season. In 2017, the quarterbacks could lean on the nation's premier left side of the line with guard Quenton Nel- son and tackle Mike McGlinchey, plus veteran, proven back Josh Ad- ams. This year, the onus will be on the QB to carry more of the freight. Will the anticipated quarterback competition this spring between Wimbush and Book carry over into August, as it did with Kizer/Zaire in 2016 that bore ill results? Is there a point of no return with Wimbush like there was with Crist in 2011 or Car- lyle Holiday in 2003, both of whom started pressing as their confidence eroded? Was Book a flash-in-the pan, or can he still beat out the more highly touted Wimbush or even in- coming freshman Phil Jurkovec? The spring won't necessarily tell the tale, nor will August. The results can only show themselves in game action when everything is for keeps. DEFENSIVE STANCE The 2018 Notre Dame defense re- turns at least 10 of the 11 starters that demonstrated appreciable improve- ment in 2017 in fundamentals and also by elevating from No. 62 in scor- ing defense the year prior to No. 31. The only Notre Dame defense to have more starters back since going to two platoon football in 1964 was the 1977 national champions, which had all 11 return, led by All-Amer- icans such as Ross Browner at end, Bob Golic at linebacker and Luther Bradley at cornerback. The potential quality depth in 2018 is equally uplifting: • Not only does the entire starting lineup up front return with Daelin Hayes and Jay Hayes (no relation) on the edge and Jerry Tillery and Jonathan Bonner along the interior, but so does the second unit that in- cluded 2017 sophomore ends Julian 2018: TOP THEMES Storylines for spring ball and next season Brandon Wimbush showed flashes of brilliance during his junior campaign, accounting for 30 touchdowns, but his struggles as a passer down the stretch raised questions about his long- term viability as Notre Dame's starter. PHOTO BY ANGELA DRISKELL