In looking at it, 2018 was somewhat a mirror image of 2012: Struggling during the regular season putting away mediocre teams while throwing in a gem or two, get exposed in the bowl game.
Throw out the first three games and look at when Book took over. Offense looked terrible most of the game against Pitt, the first half against Virginia Tech and Northwestern. A bad Navy team made the defense look silly in the second half, and a USC team that would have been beaten by any other top-5 team by 4 TDs was only a narrow victory for Notre Dame.
Aside from the second half of the Navy game and the one quarter against Clemson when Love was out, the defense wasn't the problem. I'm tired of seeing the offense getting bogged down series after series after series. Book was an upgrade from Wimbush, but even he proved to have severe deficiencies too many times. My brother was at the game and said Book time and time again failed to see open receivers, many of them down the middle (same problem Wimbush had), and a sportwriter whose name I've forgotten tweeted the same thing. So I don't know if the QBs are taught to look for the sideline receivers first, if Long's route designs are not optimal, or what. And we all know the offensive line by advanced metrics wasn't even a top-40 line.
I'm still pleased with the direction the team has taken the past two years, but the next step up has to be the offense. And as I pointed out before, I don't believe Chip Long is the right guy.
ntial to winning in college. Look at USC's QBs during Carrol's reign; only Carson Palmer was worth a shit past college.
you can only do so much given their limitations
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The "eye test" is just excuse to inject personal bias into the equation. It is total BS.