Notre Dame Quarterback Play A Championship Stumbling Block

If Notre Dame wants to become an elite program it must get much better play from the quarterback position

It has been over 25 years since Notre Dame was truly one of the nation’s elite programs, the kind of program that can go toe to toe with anyone, and can compete for a national title in any season.

Head coach Brian Kelly and his coaching staff have gotten Notre Dame as close to that stage as it has been since Hall of Fame coach Lou Holtz’s glory days (1988-93). While Notre Dame is closer, the Irish are still a middle of the pack tier two program.

There are areas where Notre Dame can compete with anyone. The offensive line in 2015 and 2017 was arguably the nation’s best, and the Irish defense ranked 16th and 5th in efficiency the last two seasons (Fremeau Efficiency Index).

Notre Dame has produced seven first or second round draft picks at wide receiver and tight end over the last decade, the Irish secondary was outstanding in 2018 and 2019, and the defensive line has been quite good in recent seasons.

One position that has lagged well behind the others is quarterback play. Throughout the Kelly tenure the quarterback position has been good at times, average at other times and downright bad in other instances. When it comes to playing well against the top teams on the schedule the Irish quarterbacks have been below average.

When you look at teams that are competing for and winning championships in the College Football Playoff era there are three key ingredients to each team. Strong defenses, impactful ground attacks and top-notch quarterback play. 

Playing well in big games has been a staple for the six teams that have won titles since the playoff began in 2014, and it has been a major weakness of the Notre Dame offense.

Let's look at the statistics against Power 5 opponents that finished in the Top 25 for the playoff era champions and compare it to what Notre Dame did against Power 5 Top 25 teams the last two seasons.

The only team that comes even close to Notre Dame’s paltry quarterback play against Top 25 teams is the 2017 Alabama title team. That Crimson Tide squad gave up just 11.9 points per game that season and gave up just 17.8 points against Top 25 opponents.

The other five title winners blow away Notre Dame’s quarterback play in Top 25 games. Whether its completion percentage, TD-INT ratio, yards per attempt, yards per completion or passer efficiency, the Irish quarterback play isn’t anywhere close to being productive enough to win on the big stage.

It’s even worse against the very best teams. Notre Dame is 23-3 over the last two seasons, but it is 0-2 against Top 10 opponents and is just 3-3 against Top 25 teams (2-3 against Power 5 opponents), and poor quarterback play has been a big reason.

Here are how the playoff-era champions have performed at quarterback against Power 5 Top 10 opponents.

Notre Dame cannot win a championship with this level of quarterback play unless it has a generational defense, which is what Alabama had in 2017.

Notre Dame has thrown more interceptions in those contests than touchdown passes, has the lowest completion percentage and has a significantly lower pass efficiency rating than any other team.

This isn’t just a problem over the last two seasons. This problem has existed for the last decade. What has changed in recent seasons is the positions around the quarterback have improved. To take that final step the quarterback play needs to get a lot better.

Here is a graph showing how Notre Dame’s quarterbacks have produced in the Kelly era against Power 5 Top 25 opponents. Again, this refers to teams that finish in the Top 25 at the end of the season.

Some of those numbers are incredibly bad. The production from the quarterback position against top teams in 2013 and 2019 are downright abysmal. For context, the 2013 offense would have ranked 113th out of 130 teams in quarterback rating if those were the overall numbers. It’s a sloppy comparison, but it shows what that low of a number means.

The 2019 offense would have ranked 120th in passer rating if you extend it over the whole season.

The 2015 quarterback play was the only one where the quarterback play was statistically in the ballpark of good enough against top teams, but during that season the defense was one of the worst Irish defenses of the last decade. That has been the story at Notre Dame during the Kelly era, they are good enough at some positions but then struggle at others, and it seems to change year to year. They can never get everything going at the same time, and quarterback has been a constant problem.

If you take the 2015 offense and put it with the 2018 or 2019 defense you might have something, but even then it’s still not on the level of the title teams in the playoff era.

Things get really ugly when you look at Notre Dame’s success - or lack thereof - against Top 10 opponents.

Notre Dame has played 15 games against opponents that finished the season ranked in the Top 10, and the Irish are just 2-13 in those contests.

During Notre Dame’s 33-6 run, the Irish are 0-3 against Top 10 opponents, and the quarterback play has been awful in each game. Notre Dame has just two passing touchdowns in those contests, has failed to top 6.0 yards per attempt in any of those games and has been at 9.5 yards per completion in the last two seasons.

Notre Dame quarterbacks have thrown 21 touchdowns and 16 interceptions in those games.

If you look at the national title teams of the playoff era, they’ve played 19 games against Top 10 teams. In those contests their quarterbacks threw 52 touchdowns against nine interceptions. If you take out Joe Burrow’s insane 22 touchdowns against five Top 10 teams this past season, those title-winning quarterbacks have thrown 30 touchdowns and nine interceptions in 14 games against Top 10 opponents.

Notre Dame QBs against Top 10 opponents in the Kelly era (15 games)

6.3 yards per attempt
11.7 yards per completion
235.7 passing yards per game
21 passing touchdowns
16 interceptions
114.24 passer rating

Playoff winning QBs not named Joe Burrow against Top 10 teams (14 games)

8.0 yards per attempt
13.0 yards per completion
268.4 passing yards per game
30 passing touchdowns
9 interceptions
146.71 passer rating

If Notre Dame wants to compete for a title in 2020 or any year in the future these numbers to change, dramatically.

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