Key Takeaways From The Notre Dame Offense Against South Carolina

What we saw out of the Notre Dame offense from the Gator Bowl win over South Carolina

Notre Dame earned a hard-fought come-from-behind victory against South Carolina in the Gator Bowl. The Irish trailed the 19th-ranked Gamecocks 21-7 at the end of the first quarter before rallying for a 45-38 win.

It was an entertaining game that had a lot of really really impressive aspects but also plenty of areas where improvement is needed. The key was getting the win and heading into the offseason with a 9-4 record, a bowl win and victories in six of the last seven games.

We learned a lot about what the Irish offense is, and can be, from the victory. Here are my key takeaways from the Notre Dame offense in this game.

The Good, The Bad And The Brilliant Of Tyler Buchner

Notre Dame got back quarterback Tyler Buchner, who began the 2022 season as the starter before going down with a shoulder injury. Buchner came to Notre Dame with a lot of hype after being ranked as a Top 100 recruit that was a five-star player before missing his senior season.

Buchner struggled for much of the first two games, especially in the loss to Marshall. Against South Carolina we saw the playmaking brilliance that has some fans enamored with his potential, we saw the inconsistency that can frustrate coaches, and we saw the big mistakes that has turned some fans off of him. That last one shouldn't be the case, but that's the nature of playing big time college football, patience with some fans just isn't a thing.

Buchner finished the game with a career-high 274 passing yards, he rushed for 61 more yards and racked up a career-high five touchdowns in the win. Buchner averaged 15.5 yards per completion, which was the team's third best output of the season, trailing on his 17.7 against Ohio State and the 15.8 against Navy./

Some of the throws he made were tremendous. The third-down drag throw he made to Jayden Thomas was one of the best single throws an Irish quarterback has made in years, and his off his back foot bomb to Braden Lenzy was a huge part of the victory.

Buchner's ability to make plays with his legs clearly adds a great deal of value to the offense, and it played a role in the success of the ground game, which struggled early as South Carolina game planned to slow it down.

I could write an entire article talking about the big-time throws that Buchner made, and how his ability to throw off platform and change arm angles brings so much value to the offense, but you saw it with your own eyes.

Of course, that's not the only story from yesterday's game. Two stats that weren't in the above praise of Buchner is 3, 2 and 54.5. Three is the number of interceptions Buchner threw, two of those picks were returned for touchdowns, and the last was his completion percentage.

Buchner several layups in the game, beginning with an early miss on a third-and-8 out throw to an open Jayden Thomas.

It is impressive that Notre Dame was able to score 45 points and rack up 558 yards of offense (7.0 YPP) while turning the ball over three times and having a pass attack that was inefficient. It shows the big play potential the offense possesses with Buchner behind center.

Of course, the reason it was a 45-38 win instead of a 45-31 win, or a 45-24 win, or even a 52-24 win, is because of those mistakes. Moving forward, if Buchner can limit the turnovers, throw with more consistency and may more of the layups the Irish offense has a chance to be quite dynamic with him at the helm.

Evaluating Tommy Rees

Reading through the Champions Lounge board and reading through social media posts about last night’s game there is a great deal of focus on the fourth quarter play call that ended with a pick six and kept Notre Dame from blowing that game open.

It was a bad call, plain and simple. There’s no debating that, and offensive coordinator Tommy Rees tried to do too much, or got too cute, pick a phrase that makes you happy. There were other pass calls that would have made more sense, and trying to run the football into the end zone there would have been the ideal scenario.

Okay, can we move on from that call now?

Take that play away and the rest of what we saw from Rees and the Irish offensive staff was outstanding in many, many ways.

South Carolina was loading up the box like the rest of Notre Dame’s early season opponents, and Notre Dame didn’t try and force the run game into the game plan. Notre Dame worked early to get the ball outside, and if not for some unforced errors the early offense would have been more productive.

One of my early issues was that the run game was still to A Gap centric, with Duo still being the focus. We saw some other looks, but it was still a very downhill focused ground attack. At halftime, however, Rees and the offensive staff made adjustments and in the third and fourth quarter we saw a lot more inside-out variation.

Notre Dame ran a quarterback counter trey for a touchdown and another big outside run, we saw them run the stretch play on multiple occasions in the second half, we saw a quick pitch play and of course there was a jet sweep early.

None of those outside runs were big gains, but they were quality gains that combined with the diverse perimeter pass concepts to force South Carolina to widen their alignments. As the second half wore on Notre Dame started to wear the Gamecocks down, and the inside runs started to open up.

Audric Estime got things going with two long gains, and then Logan Diggs ripped off a 39-yard touchdown run to give the Irish their first lead of the game, which came in the fourth quarter.

Notre Dame had South Carolina on its heels throughout the final three quarters, and when the defense tried to adjust and find answers the Irish staff had answers of their own, often times with those adjustments timing up with South Carolina adapting to what was already hurting them.

It was really an outstanding game plan, the execution was good for much of the game and it allowed Notre Dame to outscore South Carolina 38-17 in the final three quarters.

Irish Backfield Shines .... Again

One of the things I liked most about the game plan was how effectively Rees used all three of the running backs. When Estime, Diggs and Chris Tyree are all part of the game plan, both in the run game and pass game this season, the Irish offense has been very, very hard to stop.

See the North Carolina game, see the Clemson game, and of course, see last night.

Rees used 20 personnel (2 backs, 3 receivers) for the first time that I remember this season. We saw him hammer downhill with all three backs, but we also saw Tyree and Diggs both get shots at attacking off tackle or on the perimeter.

Estime, Diggs and Tyree combined for 205 rushing yards (6.4 YPC) and they hauled in seven passes for 99 yards. Diggs got Notre Dame back in the game with a 75-yard catch and run on one of the many aforementioned pass plays designed to get the ball to the perimeter.

Estime and Diggs combined for much of that yardage, but it was Tyree that hauled in the third down reception that got the Irish into the red zone on the game-winning dive.

When this backfield is being used properly, and all of the weapons are being used together, there is little doubt that Notre Dame puts one of the nation’s backfields on the field.

They did all this without the offensive line playing a vintage game. It was good late, but the line has certainly had better games, and the Irish still had a 5.7 yards per carry average, which was the second best outcome of the season.

Third-Down Offense Shines

Notre Dame’s third down offense was largely ineffective for much of the first half of the season. There was a game here and there, but through six games Notre Dame converted just 40% of its third down opportunities (32-80).

Notre Dame’s 11-19 performance against South Carolina was indicative of an offense that was much, much better on third down following the loss to Stanford.

Notre Dame went 3-3 during that stretch of six games with inconsistent, and often ineffective, third down play.

Over the next seven games Notre Dame converted 53.1% of his third down opportunities, and it went for 57.9% against South Carolina. Notre Dame went 6-1 during that stretch.

Notre Dame finished the season ranked 13th nationally in third down offense. For context of how good Notre Dame was in the final seven games, if the offense went for 53.1% for the entire year Notre Dame would have finished second in third down offense.

Notre Dame converted a pair of third downs on their first scoring drive, and the touchdown run by Buchner was a third down call. The Irish converted two more third downs, including a 3rd-and-12, to get a field goal after falling behind 21-10.

Diggs’ 39-yard touchdown that gave Notre Dame its first lead was on a 3rd-and-2. On the game-winning drive Notre Dame converted a pair of third downs before Buchner hit Mitchell Evans for the score on a 3rd-and-7.

Third down success was a vital ingredient to Notre Dame’s Gator Bowl victory, and it was a very key ingredient to the 6-1 finish.

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