Notre Dame Football: Execution Key to Notre Dame’s Success in 2019

The difference between a good team and a great team is execution. For Notre Dame football, consistent execution is the the key to getting over the hump.

Make no mistake about it: Notre Dame football was manhandled in the Cotton Bowl last year. What looked to be a close game leading into the half quickly became a game where a win seemed out of reach. In the wake of a blowout loss such as the one suffered by the Irish in the College Football Playoff, it might be appealing to make sweeping generalizations about disparities in talent between the two programs in the contest.

Brian Kelly was quite clear in his post-game conference. His opinion was that he did not witness “an overwhelming difference in terms of talent.” He went on to say that “if we were better tactically and technically today, if we coached better and we made plays today that we have been making all year, we would have had a pretty darned good football game going into the fourth quarter.”

What does “coaching better” mean? How does a team go about “making plays”? What does it mean to be “tactical” and “technical”? One word comes to mind that encompasses all these things: execution.

While I think depth was also a problem in the semifinal game (evidenced perhaps most obviously by the absence of Julian Love), I happen to agree with Kelly here. A team need not the same amount of talent as the other to defeat them. Don’t get me wrong. Talent helps. At times, talent can even be an anecdote for poor execution. But excellent execution by a woefully less talented team (compared to that of their opponent) can indeed result in defeating that more talented team.

The Notre Dame team that lost to Clemson was not woefully less talented compared to the Tigers. Clemson had some more talented players in particular positions. They had depth in places where the Irish did not. They had a quarterback who played lights out. This all may scream “more talented” to some. That’s fine. But we saw the Irish struggle against Pittsburgh, USC, and Northwestern as well. This was not because the Irish were less talented than these teams. This was because those teams executed better than Notre Dame did for a time.

For the sake of argument let’s say that the Tigers were generally more talented than the Irish. Notre Dame executed horrifically from start to finish in the game. And for all the poor execution that we witnessed, they were still only down six points with 1:44 left in the second quarter. If the Irish executed 50% of the way they should have, one would think the game would have been much more competitive. In this case, I believe that a focus on execution would have evened the playing field significantly. A Clemson team that looked so much more talented would not have looked so much more talented. The Tigers would still have looked like a darn good football team. But so too would the Irish—one that could match the Tigers.

As a coach (admittedly of baseball, not football), I have had much experience in facing teams that were obviously more talented than mine. There were times when we lost these games. But there were also plenty of times when we won in close contests. In these situations, the talent of the other team was not enough to overcome just how well we played. We made the right plays. We moved guys over. We threw strikes. We had quality at bats. We put ourselves in a position to win at the end of the game.

In his post-Clemson conference, Kelly went on to say that “we’re on the brink.” What gets a team off the brink and into the winner’s circle is execution. Talented teams who do not execute run the risk of losing. Less talented teams who do not execute almost guarantee losing. Notre Dame has enough talent to beat anyone if they execute consistently. We saw this last year. They beat everyone but Clemson. But against elite teams like Clemson, a team cannot flinch. They must execute not just as well as they have throughout the course of the year. They have to execute even better. They cannot have a bad quarter—they cannot even have a bad thirty seconds.

This is the missing piece for an Irish team that has had its fair share of talent in the Kelly era. The execution has been largely inconsistent from quarter to quarter, game to game, and year to year. While the powerhouses of college football do have talent year in and year out, they also have the unifying characteristic of consistent execution. Again, talent is nothing without execution. It is hard to deny that Nick Saban and Dabo Swinney (and formerly Urban Meyer) are obsessed with the notion of execution perhaps above all things. The results speak for themselves. They know talent is not enough.

If the Irish want a chance of playing for a national title again next season and beyond, the team needs to execute consistently. They don’t get the five-star athletes that the elite programs do. That is alright. They will hang in there with any team they play with the talent they have if they are able to do the simple things right and limit their mistakes. We saw evidence of this last year in making marked improvements in the areas of fumbles, interceptions, and pass completion on high percentage throws. These things alone helped Notre Dame win games last year that they did not win the year before.

As we prepare to watch the spring game this Saturday, let us pay particular attention to the way the team executes. For it is in execution that the hope for an Irish championship lies.