For all the people complaining about the defense. Mid 30s against a

ND Offense: opening drive - 75 yards, 18 plays, 9:45 = 4.16yrds per play - https://www.espn.com/college-football/playbyplay/_/gameId/401677192

ND O, next 4 drives: held the ball for ONLY 5:16 minutes while ONLY gaining 11 yards, in 11 plays = 1yrd per play. Effectively, ND did not see the ball again until halfway through the 3rd quarter.

Out of 37:08 football minutes (1Q, 2Q, & first half of 3Q), ND Offense only held the ball for just over 15 minutes or 15:02. That's only about 40% of the time. So, which part of ND's team was on the field longer? The Offense or the Defense? If the offense is not scoring points (7 points in 37 minutes of game time - dorment for 61% of the entire game) is that considered a good thing or a bad thing? Is that the Offense putting the Defense in a good or bad position?

Additionally, ND's Offense DISAPPEARED for 37% of the ENTIRE game. ND's offense went dark, 3 and out for a full quarter and a half. The entire 2Q and the first half of 3Q the offense wasn't even present. That's a QB problem, but I won't go into that.

This EXEMPLIFIES the offense putting the Defense in a TERRIBLE position. Especially considering the high octane capabilities OSU has. See Oregon and TN games. So, relative to this information, these facts and those matchups; the Defense played lights out given their backs were against a wall and a talented offense.

In the final 23 minutes - 4Q and backhalf of 3Q, ND's O had the ball for 30 plays, 240 yards, and 12:44 minutes (60% of the clock minutes) = 8 yards per play. It was also aided by two huge missed tackles (Greathouse 9yd pass into 70yd TD, Evans 8 yard pass into 30yd gain) and two or three pass interferences. Again, the O not being aggressive early and often was the most EGREGIOUS mistake of the entire night. When too late, we found out the OSU D-backs could not cover and were susceptible to a high number of penalties--which help the offense & ND defense.

OSU O scoring drives were on average 4 minutes.

ND O scoring drives were on average 6 minutes (counting the missed FG - should have hit). ND's scoring rate is too slow and archaic for modern football. Not to mention we were in a game where you know you need to score points and a lot of them. There was literally no time for Brian Kelly clock it drives, but that's the game we called. Yes, we were protecting our weak link - QB arm.

The average number of offensive possessions in a college football game is 26 or 13 per side if we split evenly. Time of possession is generally even (can be lopsided) so 30/13 = about 2:30 per drive if you assume a TD every time.

As you can see OSU was much closer to 2:30 (1.6x) and efficient (scored points 75% of drives) in their time of possession on Offense.

Not only was ND's offense very slow, TOO SLOW at scoring (2.4x) they were also VERY inefficient (scored points 33% of drives).

The Offense was flat-out the entire problem during the championship game.

Link: https://www.espn.com/college-football/playbyplay/_/gameId/401677192