Notre Dame Football: Key Offensive Matchups vs. Wake Forest

Chip Long vs Wake Forest Secondary

The Wake Forest secondary is the best position group on their defense with returning talent, but haven’t shown in thus far, allowing over 300 yards passing per game. Five of their top seven tacklers from last season’s secondary were underclassmen who are back, with safety Cameron Glenn being the lone returning upperclassmen.

Wake’s cornerbacks are the playmakers of that defense. Corners Essang Bassey and Amari Henderson are juniors who are coming off a season where they combined for five interceptions and 28 pass breakups. Bassey alone had 19 of those breakups, which was good enough for ninth in the nation and finished the season on the All-ACC Honorable Mention list.

These two combined with Ja’Sir Taylor, who played in 10 games last season as a true freshman, create an athletic, aggressive bunch that can make plays all over the field. Outside of these three, there is a lot of youth and inexperience that will see the field in nickel and dime packages that Notre Dame will have to take advantage of.

Now, the offensive coordinator vs. Wake’s secondary? What?

Yes.

We’ve criticized Wimbush, we’ve criticized the receivers – and both have deserved it, but some focus and blame needs to be put on the play-calling. Last week the play-calling hindered the offense all game. When the Irish run scripted offensive series — they look like a different team. Notre Dame has scored points on all three opening drives this season, so how there can be such a drop-off in offensive production the rest of the game makes no sense.

Just looking at the passing game, Notre Dame is clearly struggling — and throwing six or seven wide receiver slip screens per game is not going to fix it. We have the big, physical blockers for it, but Wimbush has shown he cannot accurately throw those passes and they continually put the Irish offense behind in drives. Hopefully, Notre Dame can take advantage of their improved running game and incorporate more play-action or roll-outs that can get Wimbush outside the pocket and allow routes to develop downfield. Wimbush is not a pocket passer and we need to stop treating him like one.

I trust that Chip Long knows what he’s doing and understands his game plans better than I do, but it’s hard to be confident in the passing game when we don’t play to our quarterback’s strengths. Wake Forest has talent in their secondary, but have struggled so far in 2018. Maybe this is the week the Irish can get things clicking through the air.

Advantage: Wake Forest