Key Takeaways From The Notre Dame Win Over UNLV – Offense Edition
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Breaking down what we learned about the Notre Dame offense from the win over UNLV
Notre Dame earned a convincing 44-21 victory over UNLV as the Irish bounced back from its loss to Stanford. There were some positive developments from the game and there are still areas where improvement is still needed.
Here are the key takeaways from the Irish victory, beginning with the offense.
Wide Receivers Play Better – The numbers won’t show it, but outside of a drop by Lorenzo Styles the wide receivers played quite well. If the quarterback reads were correct the wideouts would have had a lot of opportunities to make more plays. Even in limited opportunities the wideouts performed well.
Jayden Thomas hauled in a 37-yard post route on the game’s opening drive, which set up the team’s first opening drive touchdown of the season. Braden Lenzy made plays after the catch on a RPO and a jet sweep. The wideouts were open a number of times, including Lenzy coming free for what would have been a long touchdown and Tobias Merriweather was open twice on third downs, but the ball never came his way.
The blocking wasn’t great but it was better as well. This unit still needs a lot of fundamental work, and coming off the line with more urgency is certainly one, but this was a step in the right direction.
Offensive Line Thrives – Once again the Notre Dame offensive line continued ascending in spite of self-imposed disadvantages (from a scheme-game plan stand point). The line continues to get more of a push at the point of attack, the timing of their combo blocks was better and their pass protection was excellent. Quarterback Drew Pyne had all day to throw in this game. It wasn’t a perfect game from the line by any stretch, but they continue to play good football since the first two games of the season.
The push from the line allowed running back Logan Diggs to have a career best performance of 130 rushing yards on 28 carries.
RPOs Show Up …. Sort Of – One of the big mysteries from the offensive game plans week after week is the lack of RPOs (run pass options). They have been there here and there, but they are woefully under-utilized and there really is no justification for that.
We did, however, see the Irish implement them more against UNLV than we’ve seen this season. Pyne hit Lenzy and Styles on RPO throws, and both were able to use the space they got from the RPO to make defenders miss to move the chains. There were other opportunities to hit RPOs but the read wasn’t made.
It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, but hopefully this was just a first step to this much-needed weapon being a much bigger part of the Notre Dame game plans moving forward.
Drew Pyne’s Woes – Quarterback Drew Pyne had a rough performance against the Rebels. There were some good moments, no doubt, but as the game wore on the junior signal caller struggled more and more. Pyne’s miss reads cost the offense far too many chances to turn field goals into touchdowns, and sometimes worse.
When Pyne is confident in what he’s supposed to do he can hurt teams, and we saw that against the Rebels. The issue, however, is that far too often Pyne looks unsure of his reads and where he’s supposed to go with the football. In those instances he tends to either lock in on Michael Mayer, or he rushes his mechanics to other players and is off target.
Pyne wasn’t always helped by his teammates, as Mayer dropped a pair of key throws, including what would have been a touchdown on a drive that instead ended with a field goal. He also threw a great ball to Styles on a third down drag route but the sophomore dropped the ball.
Run Scheme Remains Frustrating – I’m still puzzled by Notre Dame’s run scheme. The team’s insistence on running between the tackles at an abnormal rate, and the lack of creativity from an alignment and personnel standpoint, is puzzling. The inability to spread the field, constantly running into out-numbered boxes and the reluctance to run the ball outside with any kind of consistency makes it easier to defend the run game schematically.
Notre Dame rushed for over 200 yards for the third time in four games, but the statistical success says a lot more about how good the offensive line is playing, how good the backs are and honestly, it shows that Notre Dame is going through a stretch of the schedule that has bad run defenses on the other side of the field.
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