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RECAP THREAD: ACC Championship Game
The Irish fell short in their biggest test of the season, and we believe a poor offensive game plan, not a massive talent gap, was the driver of the loss. The Irish have good coaches but adjustments need to be made, and here is how. (1/18)
The Irish fell short in their biggest test of the season, and we believe a poor offensive game plan, not a massive talent gap, was the driver of the loss. The Irish have good coaches but adjustments need to be made, and here is how. (1/18)
For full context, please check out our analytics primer. In addition, since ND changed its game plan at halftime facing a win probability of <5%, we have separated first half and full game charts to showcase ND's performance when it was in reach. (2/18) https://www.onefootdown.com/21438547/primer-for-understanding-analytics-recaps-and-previews-college-football-notre-dame-advanced-stats-nd
We frequently recommend beginning the game with throwing and play action to pull opposing players off the line of scrimmage. The Tigers ran with Etienne twice on their first three drives, putting the ball in Lawrence's hands 14 times including 5 play action passes. (3/18)
Once the Tigers connected on the deep PA bomb to Rodgers, the seeds had been planted to attack with the rushing game. Travis Etienne generated the most EPA of any RB against the Irish on ten carries (not most efficient, the most sheer EPA even with this small workload). (4/18)
The chart on the left is the first half, although Clemson's full game EPA/rush was still a massive .52 EPA/rush. The chart on the right is their pre-game season stats. This had not been an elite rushing offense, but they made it one with an excellent game plan. (5/18)
This is from the first game. Look how much worse Etienne was. In this game, likely due to not having Lawrence, they insisted on running on early downs into stacked boxes (sound familiar?) when it wasn't working. In the rematch they made adjustments, and reaped the rewards. (6/18)
Even despite all this, it was not a bad ND defensive day. They played well enough to give ND's offense a chance. Games between elite teams in this era are usually shootouts (look at the scores of CFP Title Games), and you can't blame your D for allowing points to Clemson. (7/18)
Notre Dame's offense was given a chance and they chose not to take it. Passing on early downs was extremely effective in the first half, yet the Irish chose to run the ball 62% of the time on first down. The goal here was to control the ball and shorten the game. (8/18)
The idea of shortening the game is to give yourself a better chance at an upset by having less possessions and therefore more varied outcomes. This makes sense at first, until you realize how frequently you are going to end up in third or fourth down. (9/18)
This can be seen most directly on the 2Q turnover on downs. The 4th down miss by Book was a throw the Irish needed and a poorly placed ball. However, running on all three prior downs to control the clock when your QB was 6/7 for 105 yds at that point was the true mistake. (10/18)
Lawrence's coaches never put him in a position like this. The Irish have done this to Book routinely. In the first game, Book was 7 of 14 converting third downs with an avg distance of 8.6. This is not sustainable, which we learned from going 3/11 on third down Saturday. (11/18)
If you're going to run a ton, at least use a lot of PA too. Instead, the Irish ran PA just 3 times in the first half with high success. They then confusingly used it more in the second half in a clear passing situation (down by a lot late) and the Tigers weren't fooled. (12/18)
While we should have passed more, this was not Book's best performance either. We use the broadcast angle to watch film, so we are unable to see ourselves if it is Book's fault the ball is not getting out or if the WRs are not getting open. (13/18)
For now, we use @PFF_College data to deal w this, and their analysis wasn't kind to Book. They assigned 4 of the 6 sacks and 5 of the 15 pressures to him not getting the ball out. It's unfortunate Book was leaving the pocket, because he was lethal from the pocket all day. (14/18)
This pressure clearly impacted Notre Dame's deep passing game. Book did not attempt a throw deeper than 20 yards in the first half, and his average depth of target overall plummeted from 13 in the first Clemson game to 7.8 in this one. (15/18)
All of this is not to say that the Irish have awful coaches. This is a great team having a great season and these coaches deserve credit for that. However, if Clemson can make the adjustments they needed to make from game 1 to game 2, the Irish should be able to as well. (16/18)
Brian Kelly is a great coach, and we have hope that he will make similar adjustments to those Dabo made for the Alabama game. If he does, the Irish can absolutely hang around and have a chance at an upset. If not, the beatdown may be far worse than this. (17/18)
Thank you all for reading! For more info check out our full recap on @onefootdown, and check out our podcast Shake Down The Numbers that will drop tomorrow and be pinned to our account. As always, Go Irish! Beat Bama! (18/18) https://www.onefootdown.com/2020/12/22/22195181/acc-championship-analytics-recap-ian-book-kyren-williams-brian-kelly-michael-mayer
