It is a dangerous team that has had 2 weeks to prepare for the Irish. Their QB can break one at any time - if you haven't seem him play, you are going to be amazed. He's tiny but super, super fast.
I hate this game.
(no message)
aggressive defenses at places like Miami and FSU showed that you could stifle it by blowing up the line of scrimmage, attacking the play before it had a chance to start. And for years we have listened to this crap about how defending the triple option is all about discipline, while we watch our defenders stay on their heels and play catch the ball carrier.
Be aggressive, Irish. Blow em up and shut em down.
And this was Navy's closest game.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPT0Tn61ygA
There was a Navy blog analysis of that game that was brilliant, and it laid out how we kept blitzing the linebackers up the wrong gaps to stop the fullback, but the fullback was never supposed to run those gaps, and ND never figured it out, and Navy kept running the FB up the middle, and we couldn't stop them. I think I've got the right game. Anyone remember the name of that Navy blog?
At the link:
According to Brian Kelly, the Irish had been preparing for Navy’s offense a little bit each week so that they would be familiar with it once game week arrived and they would practice against it full time. That would seem to indicate that he took Navy pretty seriously, right? If that’s the case, that’s bad news for Notre Dame fans. They better hope that Kelly just didn’t take Navy seriously, because otherwise– and I’m being brutally honest here– he must be clueless. If not him, then at least the defensive staff. I am very serious when I say that those of you who have read this blog for any length of time know the Navy offense better than the staff of paid professionals in South Bend.
At first I didn’t understand it… Did I miss something? There was Coach Kelly telling Sam Ryan at the beginning of the third quarter that Navy was doing things that they hadn’t shown all year. That Navy had “held back” some wrinkle of their offense that caught him off guard. How did I fail to pick up on this new tweak in the offense? Irish defensive coordinator Bob Diaco said the same thing after practice this week.
As it turns out, I hadn’t failed to pick up on anything. Navy wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary. Kelly and Diaco just have absolutely no clue how the Navy offense works.
Navy started the game in the heavy formation, with two tackles lined up on one side and a wide receiver in the tackle position on the other side. Contrary to Kelly’s comments, this isn’t unusual at all for the Navy offense. Offensive coordinator Ivin Jasper frequently uses the heavy formation when the defense has an inside linebacker with exceptional playmaking ability; in Notre Dame’s case, that would be Manti Te’o. In the spread formation, it’s generally the playside tackle’s responsibility to block the inside linebacker on the triple option, but he might have trouble if the defensive end squeezes him inside. Putting an extra tackle next to him compensates for that by making someone else responsible for blocking the ILB. What it doesn’t do, however, is change the basic mechanics of the play. The first down lineman on or outside the B gap is still unblocked as the quarterback’s first key, and the next player out is still #2 in the count. Since it is the lineman in the B gap that is left unblocked, that’s the path that the fullback takes on his run. If that lineman steps upfield and takes the quarterback, that’s where the running lane will be.
That isn’t something new that the Navy coaches saved for Notre Dame. That is Navy Offense 101. It’s the absolute basics; the bread and butter play run in every game out of every formation. If Diaco and Kelly hadn’t seen it before, then I have no idea what film they’ve been watching, or if they even watched any at all. That isn’t even hyperbole; they thought that Navy’s fullback ran through the A gap. And that was their plan– to send the inside linebackers crashing into the A gap that nobody was running through. That just made those LBs easier to block as either the fullback or quarterback ran right by them and into the secondary.
Now all the coaches’ comments make sense. That’s why Kelly kept calling it “veer.” He thought that the fullback was supposed to run straight up the middle, and that Navy threw a curveball by running one gap outside instead. But it wasn’t a trick; that’s how Navy’s offense has always worked. Now, on the midline option, the fullback does run through the A gap, since it’s an interior defensive lineman that gets left unblocked. The midline is not uncommon, but it is also not the play around which the entire Navy offense revolves. Navy ran the midline a whopping two times on Saturday, both on the last drive of the second quarter.
Once it became obvious that the ILBs had no intention of scraping outside, it was no longer necessary to have an extra tackle on one side of the formation. So Coach Jasper switched back to the base spread formation and just kept running the same play.
Seriously, that’s it. There were some other things tossed in here and there, and we’ll get to those in a minute… But that’s why the fullback and quarterback combined to rush for 300 yards. What’s almost as incredible as this horrible game plan is the fact that despite Kelly’s assertion to the contrary, Notre Dame never adjusted. Those ILBs kept running into the A gap for the entire game. Once or twice Te’o scraped outside to make a play in the backfield, and I’d think,”OK, now we’ll see something else.” But we didn’t. Notre Dame would go right back to the same old thing on the next play, and the Mids would pick up a big gain. Navy never faced 3rd down with longer than 6 yards to go all afternoon, and even that they only saw once. It’s as if the Notre Dame staff flipped on the film projector on Monday morning, said “Oh crap WTF is this,” and decided their best defense would just be to complain about cut blocking and hope for some sympathy from the officials.
Much more at the link...with video to show how not to defend against Navy.
Link: https://thebirddogblog.com/2010/10/29/navy-35-notre-dame-17/
60-30.
(no message)
...and yet Kelly has lost twice to Navy...something good and bad coaches (not named Weis) hadn't done since Staubach.
We shall see...
I don't see anything special here. Their cute little QB is going to get flattened. Poor ball security. Watch out for the halfback pass. Air Force stinks.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtZzWdLw0S8
Otherwise it’s a stupid statement.
(no message)
(no message)
(no message)
is if BK is "helping" coach the defense this week. If he stays home and sticks to the offensive side of the ball, then the D will be fine. The offense will suck again, but the D will be fine.
If he decides his experience is needed on the D side this week, ND is screwed. Be prepared for guys playing soft and reading, reading, reading and then reading some more, while Navy's Oline kicks their teeth in.
(no message)
Simply have no faith in BK to get his teams mentally ready to kick ass or schematically put his teams in position where they can kick ass.
Tough, smart, disciplined teams, regardless of talent, are BK kryptonite.
Hopin you're right.
season. In 2017 it was Navy 43 minutes to ND's 17. Defenders on the field that long, for that many plays against all that cut blocking has effects not just in the game but future games. It's destructive. I lost faith in Mike Elko after that game.
It drives me crazy when Kelly concedes in his Navy press conferences that ND will have limited possessions, i.e., concedes TOP. If you're concerned about the safety of your players, then come up with a tactical or strategic answer to prevent that. ND won the TOP last year 32 mins to 28. Admittedly, that was a bad Navy team that couldn't sustain drives (1 10+ play drive when the game was over) or stop sustained ND drives (multiple 10+ play drives). If you see that the defense can't prevent long drives, then be more aggressive on defense, go for it more on 4th down on offense, onside kick. Find a way to protect your defenders. Don't concede that Navy is going to do what it wants to do.
(no message)
(no message)
navy was running the outside veer and ND hadn’t seen that before. That was the last warning sign I needed that Kelly wasn’t the answer.
Had to be 2010 and the second half was as bad as the first. Basically, he tried nothing and was all out of ideas.
scoring on three play drives consisting of only passes every time we touch the ball. Because everyone knows the way to beat a team who wants to possess the ball is to feed into that with
ultra quick drives.
(no message)
(no message)
...even if the home win streak would fall.
Perfect post.
...is playing against a good team.
with no success. It will be their fault for not executing.
F'ing BK the Clown.