One stat illustrates why Notre Dame football's passing game is struggling

The Notre Dame football team may have finally won convincingly on Saturday, but that doesn’t mean that everything is right with the world when it comes to the Fighting Irish offense. In fact, there’s still one aspect of Mike Denbrock’s attack that needs a fix and needs it soon.

Despite putting up 66 points and despite Riley Leonard running for over 100 yards and passing for more than 100 as well, more than a few Irish fans were still unsettled by the lack of a passing game. A deeper look at what’s been going on shows there’s still definitely a problem.

It’s not a mystery that Leonard has been unwilling to throw deep for one reason or another. While he’s completed 62 percent of his passes, they have almost all been very close to the line of scrimmage. Against Texas A&M and Purdue it didn’t hurt the offense at all. However, sooner or later Notre Dame football is going to need to throw deep every now and then.

In 2024, Leonard has attempted a grand total of five passes of 20 or more yards through the air. He hasn’t completed a single one of those passes. The lack of completions is concerning but it’s the extremely low number of attempts that stands out the most.

Notre Dame football QB must find a way to trust his arm

5 attempts in 3 games comes to trying a 20+ yard pass just over once a game. Compare that to 21 attempts in 7 games last year. He had 51 attempts in 13 games in 2022. The drop-off is quite striking. 

It’s worth noting that there’s been a drop off in accuracy, too. In 2022, he completed 41 percent of deep throws. In 2023, he completed just 19 percent (4 completions), and of course, Leonard doesn’t have a single one this season.

The question now is whether this is an actual trend, considering the much fewer attempts due to less games played in each of the last two years, or whether the Notre Dame football is having problems with his accuracy deep down the field. If it’s the latter, that’s a massive problem moving into the meat of the Fighting Irish schedule.