Game Analysis: Notre Dame Dismisses NC State

A couple weeks ago, I was in Denver during State's week 4 game against Duke, and I chose a random bar to watch the game in. It just happened that this was a Purdue bar, and Purdue was playing Notre Dame that day at the same time. There was a point that afternoon where State was moving the ball at will while Purdue was throwing for 300 yards on the Notre Dame defense. If you had told me at that moment that State would hold Notre Dame to 10 first-half points, I would have assumed that State was leading, possibly by two scores. 

Alas, that was not the case. Since then, Notre Dame has predictably started to figure out its problems, while NC State’s offense has fallen down the stairs, tumbling all the way to a seven-point performance where it never even reached the red zone. The offense was atrocious on Saturday, and it squandered an opportunity to capitalize on the defense winning some redzone roulette in the first half. CJ Carr was going to eat in this game, and he did, but the defense did enough to win by keeping Notre Dame one-dimensional longer than many thought they would. 

This is pretty good two-gap technique here from Cleveland and Harsh, a big part of State's run defense.

State tackled pretty decently, and when it does that, it’s a pretty good run defense. It slowed down two elite running backs enough to take away the easy answers for Notre Dame, and that forced the Irish off balance for long enough to crack the door open. Notre Dame struggled to run the ball in the red zone, and that’s how it ended up 1 for 3 on trips inside the 20 to start the game. State claimed two Irish red zone possessions as empty visits, exactly the kind of stat you had to have to give yourself a chance. 

DJ Eliot played a little bit more man in this game than the quarters base you see so frequently. It doesn’t really matter because State is bad at both and it generates very little heat on the quarterback. Eventually, the defense buckled under the weight of those shortcomings, and it had no cushion to land on because this was the worst game CJ Bailey has played. He was all over the place all day. Quarterbacks are going to miss throws, but just like everywhere else, you really needed the height of your ability to win a game like Saturday’s. CJ struggled, leaving timing routes behind guys, overthrowing go balls, and throwing three picks. 

I didn’t think this was a horrible game from a processing perspective for the sophomore signal caller, although he definitely got moving too fast in the second half, at which point he started jumping some reads he should have been more patient on. It’s hard to get truly discombobulated against Notre Dame, because when you play Notre Dame, you know what you’re getting most of the time. This team is going to play man coverage. It's a smart bet for a team with superior talent. Roper showed up with a binder full of man beaters. Many did not work, but the ones that did were cashed in at far too low of a rate.

It's not complicated here. This is just a miss.

This is a flood concept. It's a simple and common single-side passing concept that's often ran with pocket movement, which it is here. Usually, this is read flat route to out breaker to backside cross. I think this is a fine read from CJ. He's patient on the second level route and it comes open off the natural rub, but the ball is just behind and short.

This is also just a miss.

This is an RPO tagged to outside zone. No issue with the throw read on the play, but the ball is just behind him.

This one should have been an explosive.

Here, State is going to run a dagger concept, a super popular zone beater, but it's going to switch release the boundary and use a double move to run the go route that's typically a clear out route in dagger. Joly wins, Bailey throws the alert, and he overthrows it. He would also miss Rogers on a sure touchdown later in the game and overthrow Smothers on a third-down play where Roper got Smothers running a go route against a linebacker.

This was the first of three picks.

This is "all go special," AKA 4 verts, from State. Notre Dame is going to play Tampa 2 here, and it's going to get there in a messed up way that probably confused the quarterback. But either way, I think the targeted receiver ends up being right. Notre Dame is in a 2-high shell presnap and it's showing press on the receiver to the weak side. Bailey should alert this route. If the weak safety turns to the strong side, meaning he's playing a poach coverage, you've got a 1v1 down there that you might like. That's basically what this route is for in this play, and if you remember the long pass to Noah Rogers against UNC, that was this exact scenario. Bailey checks it, and it's obviously not there when Notre Dame bails to Tampa 2. So now you're reading Joly to Jackson in an attempt to stretch the tampa defender, which is 34. You can see that guy basically ignore Joly, so that's where the ball goes. If 34 widens toward Joly, Bailey would be ripping this ball Jackson on the bender. This is not an easy throw but it is a hittable throw. The pressure does not help with the timing, but the throw itself is gruesome.

As noted, the pressure doesn't help the timing of that play. This loss and the issues with the offense most certainly do not fall entirely on the quarterback. There is also stuff like this.

This is smash drive, another pure progression that reads almost exactly the same against zone or man. There is nowhere to go with the ball here. Sure, you could dump it to Scott for a nice 0-yard gain if you wanted to. It's man coverage from Notre Dame, but Scott's guy does a nice job gaining some depth to help cover the smash component of the play. This is cover 1 rat from Notre Dame, meaning man coverage with one safety in the middle and one low zone player in the middle. Notre Dame exchanges that low zone responsibility off the drag route and it eliminated Joly's cross and Jackson's drag route, both of which won initially. Bailey takes a coverage sack. State was bad, but this is an important example to remind us all that the other team is also playing and is pretty good at doing so.

State’s run game was also pretty dreadful. The offensive line has not played well as of late as it continues to shuffle guards. Outside zone was the predominant run play in South Bend. It was about the only thing they called and it just wasn’t productive.

This has good frontside development. Grant (74) and Smith (79) are effective creating the horizontal movement that you want in outside zone, but State isn't able to separate the backside. It starts well for Sowells (72), but it falls apart as the play goes. In a perfect world, Andersen (54) is able to overtake that block from Sowells and Sowells can then block a linebacker who can no longer be right. This is a big play if that happens. When you're able to overtake reach blocks, you're able to destroy the gap integrity, and that's when outside zone is at its prettiest. Andersen cannot get there, and Notre Dame is able to chase it down.

My hope is that this is rock bottom for the offense, and that they'll start an upward trend over the bye week. Pitt scares me with the way that freshman QB is playing, and State really needs to win that game. It won't without a strong showing from the offense. The bye week could not come at a better time.