Opponent Insider: Talking Notre Dame Football With Bryan Driskell

Michigan and Notre Dame will play for the last time in the foreseeable future this Saturday and it has the potential to be a great game.

Irish Maven editor and analyst Bryan Driskell took some time to talk about Notre Dame heading into this weekend’s rivalry game between the Wolverines and the Irish.

Q: Ian Book hasn’t been very good this year against good teams so how do people see him doing against Michigan in Ann Arbor?

Driskell: I don’t think Book “hasn’t been good” this year against top teams. He threw for 275 yards against Georgia, and made three throws in that game that were as good as any he’s made in a Notre Dame uniform.

Against Virginia he started 8-8 and led them to two touchdown drives to start the game. Book did what he needed to do against USC, including a time-consuming, game-clinching touchdown in which he converted a pair of third-and-longs.

The issue is that he hasn’t been as good as people expected him to be in his second season as a starter and he has yet to put together four good quarters.

With Notre Dame fans the optimism with Book against Michigan is three-fold. It’s partly about him trending upwards in recent games and partly about the thought of “he’s due.” I’m not a big proponent of that final though, and at this point Book needs to prove he can be the guy Notre Dame coaches and fans think he can be. The final part is that Notre Dame fans don’t view Michigan as being in the same class as Georgia.

Q: What is Notre Dame’s offensive strategy going to be? Use Chase Claypool, Cole Kmet and receivers? Lean on the run game with Jafar Armstrong healthy? Etc.

Driskell: Chip Long likes to be balanced. He will certainly look to attack Michigan with Claypool and Kmet, but targets like Lawrence Keys III, Braden Lenzy and Tommy Tremble will also like be parts of it, since they are Notre Dame’s most explosive athletes. Getting Jafar Armstrong back should also help Long with his desire to be multiple.

But he will also look to find ways to establish the ground game. Whether or not that means leaning on the run game and using it to set up the pass, or using the pass to soften up the defense in an attempt to open up run lanes, remains to be seen. We’ve seen Long do both depending on the opponent. My guess would be he looks to throw early.

Notre Dame’s offensive lines have been very good for several years. There are some new faces this year compared to last but how is that unit performing?

There are some new faces from when Notre Dame played Michigan, but four of the five current starters have been in their current roles for the last 12 games, with the exception being two missed games from right guard Tommy Kraemer late last season.

The unit has been a bit up and down at times. They struggled to run the ball early even though Louisville and New Mexico are average to below average run defense. Then they opened up enough room for Tony Jones Jr. to rush for 131 yards and average 7.3 yards per attempt against a Virginia defense that currently ranks 14th in the nation in run defense and is allowing opponents to rush for just 2.79 yards per carry.

Over the last three games Notre Dame has averaged 232.7 yards per game on the ground and 5.9 yards per carry in its last three games, which includes a 308-yard outburst against USC; but USC isn’t Michigan, so this will be a much, much better test of whether or not the line has finally found its groove in the run game.

Pro Football Focus recently tweeted that it had Notre Dame ranked as the nation’s best offensive line in pass blocking efficiency, and that has been a strength of the unit all season. It has faced defenses that bring a lot of pressure (Virginia, Louisville), but with all due respect to Virginia - who ranks 5th in the nation in sacks - it doesn’t have Michigan’s personnel.

Michigan’s offense has struggled on its own, but what about Notre Dame’s defense is going to make it tough for the Wolverines?

I think if Notre Dame’s defensive line is on its game then the Wolverines will have a hard time scoring. We saw that last year, when the Irish defensive line beat up Michigan all game long. The Wolverines couldn’t run the ball and had to rely on big plays in the pass game, and it was aided by a kick return for a score.

Notre Dame is a far more disruptive defense than it was a season ago. Right now, Notre Dame ranks 5th in the nation in tackles for loss per game, and it’s on pace for 115 tackles for loss after registering just 78 last season.

The rub, however, is that the more aggressive scheme has resulted in the defense giving up more big plays, and that’s the major concern I have in this game. We saw against Virginia that despite the line being dominant for four quarters, Virginia was able to dice up the defense in the first half, with Bryce Perkins going 18-22 for 233 yards in just two quarters. Notre Dame was able to adjust and shut Virginia down in the second half, but if Shea Patterson is on his game the Wolverines have the playmakers outside to rip off a bunch of big plays, which could make life difficult for the Irish.

What needs to happen for Notre Dame to win in Ann Arbor?

They just have to play their game. We’ve seen Notre Dame dominate in every facet of the game this year; run game, pass game, run defense, pass defense, special teams. The issue is they haven’t done all those things, or even three of those things, in the same game for four quarters.

Notre Dame outplayed Georgia for the two quarters and out-played them in the last half of the fourth quarter, but during the third quarter and early fourth quarter the Bulldogs turned a 10-7 halftime deficit into a 23-10 lead. We saw the Irish fall behind early on the road to Louisville before roaring back and dominating in the second half.

There’s a reason Notre Dame is 4-11 in true road games against ranked opponents during Kelly’s era. Notre Dame is a better team than Michigan, their record’s and just about every statistical matchup shows that.

But Notre Dame was also the better team than Miami back in 2017, and it was better than Stanford that year as well, at least on paper. Those games were both losses because Notre Dame didn’t handle the environment well at Miami and couldn’t play for four quarters against Stanford. It held a fourth quarter lead before falling apart and ultimately losing by 17. They couldn’t put it together for four quarters.

If Notre Dame can avoid the pitfalls we’ve seen on the road in past games, if it plays clean and if Book can execute the gameplan then Notre Dame will win.