Notre Dame Run Game Has Taken A Step Back In 2023

Transcript

00:00 [BLANK_AUDIO]

00:03 I was having an email conversation with somebody today.

00:07 And we're talking about the offensive line and

00:09 we're back to what we kind of always are with the offensive line.

00:13 There's a group that thinks it plays really well.

00:15 There's another group that doesn't think it plays pretty well.

00:17 I found myself on opposite sides of this at different times.

00:21 This season, I don't think the offensive line has played really well.

00:26 When I look at this Notre Dame offensive line, I see a football team that hasn't

00:31 run the ball for over 100 yards in a while.

00:34 I think some of the numbers they have had in recent games are inflated.

00:38 The Clemson game, they averaged 183 rushing yards.

00:41 And when you look at it and

00:43 you take away what their numbers were after the first quarter, not very good.

00:47 You look at the fact that 64 of those yards were in basically quarterback

00:50 scrambles.

00:51 So pure run game, you're talking now being under 120 for the game.

00:56 Against Clemson, you run for only 155 against Pitt, only 125 against USC.

01:01 Now I know short fields, right, and all that, but

01:03 only 4.3 yards per carry against Pitt.

01:06 You only went for 44 against Louisville, 1.6 per carry.

01:09 You went for 159 on Duke.

01:11 Part of that was again a 17 yard quarterback scramble at the end of the game.

01:15 And then a 30 yarder to put it away at the very end, and then 176 in Duke.

01:19 They haven't gone for over 200 yards since the Central Michigan game.

01:23 And Notre Dame this season through 10 games has only rushed for

01:26 over 200 yards twice.

01:29 And one of them was against an FCS team.

01:31 When you look at last season through 10 games,

01:34 Notre Dame had run for over 200 yards five times.

01:37 And so there were still some of the up and

01:41 downs last year that we've seen this year existed both years.

01:45 But what we haven't seen is the ups for

01:48 this year's offensive line have not been nearly as good.

01:51 And I'm sorry, I know we'll get all the excuses in the world,

01:55 first year position coach, and new guards, and all that kind of stuff.

01:58 But Notre Dame played with two starting brand new tackles last year.

02:02 The center was new.

02:03 He was stepping in.

02:05 You had Jarrett Patterson was a turner, but he was playing a new position.

02:08 And Josh Lugg was playing a new position.

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