Game Observations: Notre Dame Offense Is Up And Down In Win Over Navy

Analysis of the Notre Dame offense from the 35-32 win over Navy

Notre Dame (7-3) had an outstanding first half performance against Navy, but that was followed by a brutally bad final two quarters. Here is my analysis of the performance.

*** Notre Dame OC Tommy Rees did a good job getting the pass game going in the first half. Rees used a nice mix of play-action, bootlegs, RPOs and some drop backs to get the ball out to the wideouts. The issue is that in the second half Navy adjusted and brought a lot more edge pressure, but Rees didn't adjust. Navy got sack after sack on Notre Dame drop backs, but the Irish refused to call a screen, a quick throw or anything else that would make Navy pay for their aggressiveness.

*** The offense went from brilliant in the first half to as bad as we've seen all season in the second half. Notre Dame racked up 323 yards in the first half but had just 16 in the second half. I'll have to go back and break the film down to see if Notre Dame made adjustments that didn't work, or if they simply didn't adjust. Either way, the offense was abysmal in the second half.

*** Navy has a good rush defense, but Notre Dame didn't help themselves with the game plan or execution. The line didn't get much of a push, but the run game lacked any kind of nuance or creativity. Duo was overused in this game, and we didn't see the zone, counter, outside mix in this game that was needed to make Navy pay for being so box centric. Notre Dame simply tried to regurgitate a watered down version of the ground attack we saw last week, but Navy was ready for it.

*** I was quite frankly shocked we didn't see screens and empty throws to the backs in the second half with how much Navy was loading the box and bringing edge pressures in the final two quarters.

*** Notre Dame's backs had very little room to run, so it's hard to really hammer them too hard for the lack of run game production. What they can be criticized for is the poor pass protection. Both Logan Diggs and Audric Estime had bad misses in pass protection in the game.

*** While the offensive line had its own issues in the run game, the tight end blocking also struggled, especially sophomore Mitchell Evans.

*** Quarterback Drew Pyne had the best half of his career and the worst half of his career .... all in the same game. Part of it was on him, absolutely, and part of it was the failure of the staff to give him some stuff in the second half that attacked the Navy aggressiveness. When given chances, Pyne was unable or unwilling to pull the trigger and get the ball out.

**** In the first half Pyne completed 14-16 passes for 234 yards and four touchdowns. He also kept a bootleg for a score, and the junior accounted for all five of Notre Dame's touchdowns in the game. He showed poise, went through his progressions well, attacked the middle of the field and he showed he can get the ball down the field. He was also very good on third-down in the first half, especially third-and-long situations. 

*** In the second half Pyne looked to lock in on reads, he held the ball too long and he did a poor job recognizing where the pressures were coming from. Many of the second half sacks were by defenders that the protection scheme couldn't account for. Pyne needed to recognize this and get the ball out quickly. By failing to do so he took too many sacks.

*** All the growth we saw from Pyne in the first half, which was outstanding, evaporated in the second half. I don't know if I've ever seen such a dramatically different performance from half to half in a game from both an offense, and a quarterback in my life.

*** Notre Dame's wideouts were excellent in the game. When given the opportunity in the first half they made a lot of plays. In the second half they were not given those same opportunities and the production dipped. Both Jayden Thomas (3 catches, 80 yards, 1 TD) and Braden Lenzy (5 catches, 67 yards, 1 TD) were excellent in the first half, and Deion Colzie chipped in with 2 catches for 50 yards, with both converting third-and-longs. 

*** One area I want to see Pyne improve, and this has been an issue for a few weeks, is to throw the ball to the check downs. He forced a ball over the middle to Jayden Thomas in the red zone, but if he hits Estime on a check down he has a lot of room to run. This is often true.

*** I'll need to watch the film to see the offensive line issues. One thing was obvious, the interior offensive line had a very hard time handling the quickness and movement of Navy, who was able to stone the interior of the line and create negatives throughout the game.

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