Notre Dame Football: Compliments, criticisms and conclusions vs Michigan

Criticisms

Notre Dame’s run game was non-existent

In a game that most thought would be a ground and pound type of game in the pouring rain, Notre Dame managed a putrid 47 yards rushing on 31 rushing attempts.  That amounts to a meager 1.5 yards per carry.  Given that Tony Jones Jr. had rushed for over 100 yards in four of his six games prior to the Michigan game and the fact that the Irish got Jafar Armstrong back from injury for the first time since the first series of the season, one would have thought that the Notre Dame run game would have been successful.

It was the opposite, with the Irish unable to gain anything all game.

Conversely, the Notre Dame defense made Michigan running backs Hassan Haskins and Zach Charbonnet look like Tyrone Wheatley and Tim Biakabutuka reincarnated, as they would combine to gash them for 223 yards rushing on 35 carries, an average of 6.4 yards per carry, destroying any notion that weather was the reason the Irish couldn’t garner any semblance of a run game.

The Irish offensive line was dominated

Notre Dame was dominated up front by the Michigan defense. The Wolverines would manage only two sacks and five quarterback hits in the game, but offensive line of the Irish would fail to get any push in run blocking schemes at any point in the game. Any time a team manages only 180 yards of offense on 60 plays, one has to look at the level of play of the offensive line as an issue, because if they are doing their job, there are holes for the running backs to run and the quarterback has time to find open receivers. Neither happened. Take away the three play 75 yard, touchdown drive orchestrated by Phil Jurkovec in garbage time and this effort looks even more pathetic.

Notre Dame’s special teams play was brutal

Perhaps the biggest turning point in the game came early on, when the Irish blocked a Michigan punt. Inexplicably, Jonathan Jones dove at the loose punt, failing to recover it, but touching it in the process and allowing Michigan to recover it for a first down. This effectively took away any momentum the Irish had gained early and Michigan would never look back. While Jay Bramblett would have a solid average of 42.3 yards per punt on his ten punts in the game, he shanked a few of those punts for 28, 29 and 33 yards. However, punts of 61 and 58 yards brought up the overall average. Granted, it was inclement weather and that played into the poor punts, but the end result was excellent field position for the Wolverines.