Midweek Musings: Notre Dame vs BC Edition - Offense

Thoughts on Notre Dame football as it gets ready for another big matchup against Boston College, beginning with the Fighting Irish offense.

Thoughts on Notre Dame football as it gets ready for another big matchup against Boston College, beginning with the Fighting Irish offense.

MUST SEE MATCHUP

Javon McKinley vs. Brandon Sebastian and Jason Maitre — Notre Dame wideout Javon McKinley has slowly emerged as the team’s top outside weapon, and against Clemson he was at his best. To run the table the rest of the way the Irish will need a level of consistency from McKinley, and this is an opportunity for him to build on his recent success.

Boston College plays four corners in a rotation, and the two I see most in the boundary are Sebastian and Maitre.

Sebastian is an experienced player, and when he’s on he can be a challenge for wideouts, especially bigger wideouts, since Sebastian can physically match up well. He was outstanding against North Carolina but struggled against Clemson and Georgia Tech.

Maitre is just 5-10, so McKinley has a size advantage there, but the BC corner is physical and competes. Teams don’t beat him the way you’d expect a smaller corner to get beat, which is down the field. If McKinley can go off on these two players it will be a sign of a true break out for him.

BIGGEST CONCERN

Notre Dame holds a matchup advantage against the BC defense on every level. The Irish should dominate at the point of attack much like we saw when these two teams played each other back in 2017, and the perimeter skill advantage also favors Notre Dame. The BC linebackers are tough, but they will have a hard time with the size/speed combination of Notre Dame’s two-headed monster at tight end, and the backers also have to worry about defending Kyren Williams.

So what’s there to worry about? Well, the only two things I worry about are Notre Dame turning the ball over and the offense losing its aggressiveness. Quarterback Ian Book played outstanding football against Clemson, and if he carries the aggressiveness we saw in that game into the rest of the team’s contests he’ll finish his career off with a bang.

The problem, however, has been consistency. Book has been more up-and-down this season than he was last season, and it’s been a big reason the offense has never truly taken off. If he takes a step back, like we saw against Georgia Tech, this game will be far more competitive than it should be, and BC has an offense good enough to pull off the upset if that is combined with turnovers.

If Book comes out firing, and if he comes out aggressive, this game won’t be competitive in the fourth quarter.

STATS THAT MATTER

Notre Dame has converted at least 52% of its third-down conversions in four straight games, and it has topped that mark in five of the team’s seven games. So we can expect another quality third-down performance against BC.

What has often been missing, however, has been consistency from an explosiveness standpoint. Notre Dame ripped off more big plays against Clemson than we’ve seen for much of the season, and that needs to continue if the Irish are going to be legitimate title contenders.

So the numbers I’m looking for are Notre Dame’s yards per play, yards per rush and yards per pass attempt. I’d like to see at least 6.5 yards per play on offense, 5.0 yards per rush (BC has only allowed that just once this season) and at least 8.0 yards per pass attempt. That level of efficiency and explosiveness would be a great sign for the Irish offense.

STEP UP TIME

After the balanced all-around performance against Clemson it’s hard to say anyone needs to step up. McKinley and Avery Davis had the games of their lives, Williams was outstanding, the line played top-notch football and Book was really good.

But I’m going to go with Book in this one. It’s not that he has to do something in a game we haven’t seen him do in a game. This is about seeing him start to string together strong performance after strong performance. If Book comes out in this game and lights it up, and he should against a relatively mediocre BC defense, it will be yet another hurdle he has to climb to elevate his game to the level needed for Notre Dame to compete for a championship.

TWEET OF THE WEEK

Highest-graded P5 offensive lines
1⃣ Notre Dame - 92.5
2⃣ Virginia Tech - 88.2
3⃣ Kentucky - 85.9
4⃣ Oregon - 85.0
5⃣ Alabama - 84.3 pic.twitter.com/6vb8DgH7tk

— PFF College (@PFF_College) November 11, 2020

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