Notre Dame Football: When will the Irish start throwing the ball down field?

The offense for the Notre Dame football team took a step in the right direction against USF, but when will the Irish start taking shots down field?

Ian Book’s season hasn’t exactly started with a burst of fireworks. Against Duke, he started slow and played like it was his first game starting, not the first game of his third year. Against USF, who’s best position group on the entire team is the defensive backs, Book settled down. Still, he didn’t dominate the way the Notre Dame football team did as a whole.

A large part of why Book hasn’t dominated is the style of the offense. To this point in the season, they haven’t pushed the ball downfield. In fact, Notre Dame has only completed one pass that went more than 20 yards downfield in the air. It’s not easy to put up big passing numbers when the offense isn’t looking to push the ball downfield.

This is largely to do with the current make up of the receiving corps. Braden Lenzy, Notre Dame’s speed threat, was unavailable for the Duke game. During that game, Ben Skowronek went out of the game with a hamstring injury. That was an issue, because Showronek came into the season with more career catches than the rest of the receivers on Notre Dame combined.

Meanwhile, chemistry between Ian Book and Javon McKinley hasn’t been where it needs to be, and while Avery Davis had an excellent touchdown catch, he hasn’t done much more through two games.

Through the first two games, Notre Dame’s wide receivers only caught 11 passes. Meanwhile, the running backs have caught 8 passes and the tight ends have 13. The question is, has this lack of production and explosiveness been from a lack of ability, or by design?

The emphasis on tight ends was noted by Brian Kelly, who said, “It’s less about game plan and more about who we are.”

What he is saying, without coming out and saying, is that Notre Dame doesn’t have the talent at receiver to play in spread formations and air the ball out. Instead, they need to rely on the tight end position, which they’re stronger at, and play more off a ball control game on offense.

In short, the design is to play into the offense’s natural strengths, rather than what would best exploit an opponent’s weaknesses.

In the long run, Notre Dame needs to figure out how to open up the passing game. It may not not affect them in the games that the Irish are supposed to win, but against good teams who can score on a weakened Notre Dame secondary, it’ll be an issue. Certainly, if you want to compete with Clemson for the ACC title, Tommy Rees and Ian Book need to figure out how to attack downfield