Notre Dame Run Game Needs More Diversity And Consistency

Notre Dame's run game has been inconsistency and puzzling from a schematic standpoint, which needs to change

There is no question what Notre Dame wants its identity to be on offense in 2022, even if the Fighting Irish have struggled to carry that out for much of the season. Notre Dame wants to be a team that can run the football, and according to head coach Marcus Freeman, to run on teams even when they know it is coming.

Through six games the results have been wildly erratic, and the Irish ground attack lacks diversity in the manner it attacks teams and it has lacked consistency from a success standpoint.

Notre Dame averaged just 117.7 rushing yards per game through the season's first three games, but that began to change against North Carolina and BYU. The Irish racked up 287 yards (5.6 YPC) in a win over the Tar Heels and 234 yards (5.2 YPC) in a win over the Cougars. It was expected that Notre Dame's surging ground attack would dominate a Stanford defense that came into that matchup giving up an average of 207 yards per game on the ground.

That ended up not being the case, with Notre Dame rushing for just 150 yards (4.4 YPC) against a porous Cardinal defense.

Its performance against Stanford showed where Notre Dame is still lacking when it comes to being an effective ground attack. The lack of consistency from a results standpoint is hurting the offense, but the reason for the struggles is what must be addressed.

Lack Of Diversity

There really isn't much diversity to Notre Dame's ground attack. I'm not a fan of running a wide array of run concepts and I'm rather fond of the notion of having a smaller handful of plays that your players can master, and then running those concepts from many different looks. So it's not the lack of volume that I have an issue with, it's the types of runs.

Notre Dame's ground attack, especially against BYU and Stanford, was far too inside run focused. The Irish run their Duo concept a lot - too much in my view - and the runs that go with it are mostly Counter runs and the occasional Mid-Zone. Rarely have we seen Notre Dame attack on the perimeter with the run game.

This is a huge handicap, and it's something that makes the Irish offense much easier to prepare for and to defend. This is especially true when Notre Dame uses its multiple tight end alignments. It has put an unnecessary burden on the offensive line and tight ends, who are often having to deal with being out-numbered in the box and being out-leveraged on the edge.

I would argue that Notre Dame needs to be more of an Inside Zone team than a Duo team, for many reasons, but that's not the point here. Whatever the staff decides to build its inside run game around must be complemented by an effective outside running game.

We saw this in 2017 when the Irish had a dominant ground attack. Inside Zone and Counter were huge parts of that offense as well, but Notre Dame added an off-tackle G Scheme and a highly effective perimeter Buck Sweep concept that served as a great complement to the primary between-the-tackles runs.

Here are a couple of examples.

That was against North Carolina in 2017. Here's a clip against Boston College from that same season.

This kind of inside-out balance is needed, and the lack of it has greatly hindered the ground attack this season. It makes it much easier to out-leverage and out-number the Irish ground game.

Misusing Chris Tyree

The biggest head scratcher of Notre Dame's ground attack has been how it has used junior Chris Tyree. An explosive runner with home run speed, Notre Dame has mostly used Tyree in a manner that one would expect from a power back.

Tyree has been given a high volume of Duo runs in recent weeks, which doesn't fit his skill set. Much of Tyree's success in college has come on the Inside Zone (touchdown runs vs Syracuse and Clemson in 2020 as examples) and counter runs (Florida State in 2020). Tyree also isn't being used to attack the perimeter of the defense at all, which is a wild though when you consider his 4.3 speed.

We saw him used effectively in the pass game early in the season, but that is gone too. It's incredibly puzzling to watch how offensive coordinator Tommy Rees has decided to use Tyree, turning him into a downhill, A-gap runner instead of using his game breaking speed, and allowing that to serve as a complement to sophomores Logan Diggs and Audric Estime.

If Notre Dame wants to get its ground game rolling it must create more diversity, and then do a better job using its backs in areas where their games are suited best.

RPO's Are A Must

The lack of RPO (Run Pass Option) usage in this offense is maddening. I do not know why Rees refuses to make this a bigger part of his offense. The best friend to a run game is a quality and well executed RPO game.

With so many teams looking to out-number Notre Dame, a multiple and effective RPO game would not only protect the ground attack, it would give Notre Dame more opportunities to get its best athletes the ball in space.

This is a part of the offense that has largely disappeared, and it needs to change immediately. There is zero excuse not to have this as a regular part of the Irish offense. If Notre Dame starts using RPOs more frequently, and more effectively (which means broadening its usage), the ground game will become even more impactful and the offense will become more efficient and explosive.

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