At the conclusion of yesterday’s game against Boston College, Notre Dame ranked 117 out of 120 programs in pass defense, giving up 282.43 yards per game. That’s awful with the amount of talent that the Notre Dame defensive coaching staff can utilize. This is Notre Dame, not Navy. Navy, by the way, has the no. 38 pass defense in the country. The Midshipmen allow 195.75 yards passing per game. Now, anyone want to stand up and state that Navy has more talent than Notre Dame?
So, what is going on?
Winning for tradition-rich teams comes down to three main principles after recruiting shakes out: players having the will to win, coaches that maximize the talent that’s available, and unfortunately luck with injuries (see Oklahoma).
The defensive players play hard. That’s not being questioned. Often out of position? Yes, sometimes they are. The effort is there, however, and that’s a start.
Judging by this season alone, there is no doubt that the Notre Dame defensive players missed assignments due to being confused, frequently mind you, do to scheme and/or just not being focused and/or well coached. It’s a complicated equation for each player and each play that took place so far this season. All a Notre Dame fan has to do to be concerned with the Irish secondary is watch the Irish defensive backs right before the snap as they attempt to rearrange and/or comprehend pass coverage assignments.
It’s a Chinese fire drill.
As a fan or just anyone that does not observe coaches meetings first hand (yes, that means all of us), there’s no chance of truly finding out what happened when a player looks completely lost before and/or during a play. That does not mean fault cannot and should not be cast towards both the players and coaches. There have been countless times those situations took place to the Irish defense this season.
Corwin Brown, the current defensive backs coach, and former defensive backs coach Bill Lewis, recruited cornerbacks that suited a man-to-man scheme. Good deal. Just run the scheme. Recruits love the aggressive scheme and it can be highly effective with the right personnel. Notre Dame recruited well for the scheme, but with the youth that Notre Dame had in 2007, the defense struggled (as expected) under coach Brown, then the defensive coordinator. A coaching change heading into the 2008 season shifted the direction of the defense.
Enter Jon Tenuta, a zone coach that likes to blitz. While coach Brown was still listed as the defensive coordinator, he really was not based upon what the Irish attempted to do on the football field each Saturday.
With Tenuta on board, the 2008 personnel did not fit as well as it did with the previous scheme, nor did it this season. For this season, everyone witnessed the disasters during September and even through yesterday’s mind-boggling pass coverage. For whatever reason, the defensive backs just are not adept at consistently making plays with the zone scheme.
Fortunately, Notre Dame began playing quite a bit of man-to-man once again during the Southern California and especially the Boston College game. Even with the change to using a good amount of man coverage, several of the defensive backs still do not consistently make plays on the football, i.e. look back for the ball. That’s an automatic at this level. Automatic! With this particular concern, blame shall be cast towards players. That’s on them. There are no excuses for that. It’s just unbelievable that it happens so often (not quite as much against the Eagles, thankfully).
The players do not deserve all the blame. There’s still plenty to go around.
It comes down to this, the combination of Tenuta and Brown isn’t currently working. As the saying goes, one cannot just change all of the players, so the coaches receive the brunt of the burden. It’s just the way it is.
Is the coaching issue all coach Tenuta’s fault? Is it all coach Brown’s fault? Is it a combination of both? Coach Weis needs to figure out those questions post haste. Now, will he be able to do that?
So far coach Weis essentially hired three different defensive coordinators. One was a bust, one is currently not producing what I feel is the type of defense we should expect considering the talent on hand, and coach Brown only received one year in which he truly ran the defense, with limited talent mind you; a mulligan of sorts.
Regardless of whom the coordinator has been under coach Weis’s leadership, Notre Dame’s defense has not been in the stratosphere of being a championship defense. That’s embarrassing.
Coach Weis has to make some tough decisions moving forward with regards to the defensive coaching staff (not that there are not other issues as well).
Nobody should buy coach Weis stating there being a good combination of philosophies between coach Brown and coach Tenuta based on what we’ve seen so far this year, although he’s obviously in a tough spot if he publicly states otherwise. For whatever reason, a Tenuta and Brown combination does not seem to be working.
While not the absolute best group of defensive backs in the country, it is indisputable that Notre Dame is amongst the elite with its defensive back recruiting during the past four years.
If it’s not the talent, it’s the…
