Hey guys - ND fan here who's making the short trip up from Lincoln Park for the game on Saturday for the game. I've been up to Evanston before but haven't yet made the trip to Ryan Field so looking forward to it. I've checked in on your board a bit and saw there was some talk about ND and thought I'd give you a (largely biased) opinion of what you'll see this weekend.
Offense
QB - Ian Book has been a huge improvement over what ND came into the season with at Quarterback in Brandon Wimbush and it's why they've been a different, more dominant team since he made his first start against Wake (averaged 23 ppg with Wimbush but 40 ppg with Book). He makes very good and quick reads in both the short passing game and the zone read game. People underestimate his athleticism, especially in the pocket and he'll move the chains on 3rd down 2-3 times a game. His arm strength doesn't allow him to consistently hit on deep shots though, and he'll throw the occasional bone headed pick because he can have a gunslinger mentality without the requisite arm strength.
RB - Dexter Wliliams and Jafar Armstrong will get the bulk of the carries Saturday. Williams is very athletic and has great burst through the line but can be a liability in pass pro. Jafar Armstrong is a converted receiver so he lets them do some fun things with formations and personnel groupings. He's similarly athletic but, given it's his first year at RB, can miss some reads at the line of scrimmage.
OL - With the loss of McGlinchey and Nelson to the NFL, Notre Dame went from the best OL in the country to probably the 25-30 range nationally. They recently shuffled things against Navy and showed solid improvement but obviously that was against a bad Navy team. They've had trouble in games this year against odd fronts.
WR - Not a ton of top end speed to take the top off the defense but a lot of athleticism and size. Myles Boykin has an enormous catch radius and he and Book have a very good connection Chase Claypool is similarly huge and the best athlete here but has troubles where he'll lose focus for stretches of time. Dominant blocker when engaged. Chris Finke is the slot receiver and is your prototypical "insert every euphemism for white slot receiver" type of guy. Sure handed and slippery with solid routes but won't blow you away athletically.
TE - Big, physical, athletic group. We've done a lot more multiple tight end sets this year, mixing and matching personnel to take advantage of the group's strengths. The leader is Alize Mack who is as athletic as WR but has had issues with drops .
Defense
DL - This ND's best position group, full stop. Julian Okwara and Khalid Khareem at the two DE's have been dominant and get after the passer. The 3 tech, Jerry Tilliery, is having an All-American type season in his senior year. He had 4 sacks against Stanford. The Nose, Jonathon Bonner, is a solid but unspectacular 5th year senior.
LB - 2/3 of this group are very good and athletic in Buck (Strong side) Drue Tranquill and Mike Backer Tevon Coney. Tranquill sprained his ankle last week against Navy but is supposed to be good to go for Saturday. I'm skeptical he'll be 100%. Coney is a prototypical Mike who racks up tackles though isn't great in coverage. Rover (Weakside Backer) Asmar Bilal has had trouble matching up athletically in pass coverage.
DB - At corner, ND has one dominant cover guy in Julian Love who's getting All-American love and a Junior in Troy Pride who had been having quite a good year until last week when he got benched against Navy after looking disinterested as a tackler. The safety's are the strongest I've seen ND have since the days of Harrison Smith. Alohi Gilman is a Navy transfer who is aggressive and physical against the run and Jaelen Elliot, after 3 years in the program, has had the light go on, particularly in pass coverage.
Special Teams
We've given up two KO's for TD's this year and have looked particularly weak there. Justin Yoon is the senior place kicker (doesn't kick on kickoff's) and has been money throughout his 4 years at ND.
Overall Thoughts
This ND team has been very interesting to me because it's so counter to every other ND team I've seen BK have before (who by the way, many of you underestimate as a coach, especially in the last two years. He's about to have 3 10 win seasons out of 4 years) because it's based upon a strong and physical defensive front 7 and an offense who consistently moves the chains by picking defenses apart in the short and intermediate passing game. Historically, Kelly led ND teams have fallen off in November so that's definitely a trend we'll keep an eye on going into a stretch to finish the year where we travel Callifornia to Chicago to South Bend to New York to California again in a weird quirk of the schedule.
Overall, I just think this ND team likely has too much talent for Northwestern to hang with for 4 quarters, especially when I imagine Ryan Field will be about 2/3 ND fans. I think Fitz is a good solid football coach and NW always plays teams tough but it's still the same team that lost at home to Akron, and likely is even worse after losing Jeremy Larkin.
I think ND wins this game by about 14-20 and I'd take a final somewhere in the ballpark of 38-20. Best of luck this weekend. Let's have a good time.
Offense
QB - Ian Book has been a huge improvement over what ND came into the season with at Quarterback in Brandon Wimbush and it's why they've been a different, more dominant team since he made his first start against Wake (averaged 23 ppg with Wimbush but 40 ppg with Book). He makes very good and quick reads in both the short passing game and the zone read game. People underestimate his athleticism, especially in the pocket and he'll move the chains on 3rd down 2-3 times a game. His arm strength doesn't allow him to consistently hit on deep shots though, and he'll throw the occasional bone headed pick because he can have a gunslinger mentality without the requisite arm strength.
RB - Dexter Wliliams and Jafar Armstrong will get the bulk of the carries Saturday. Williams is very athletic and has great burst through the line but can be a liability in pass pro. Jafar Armstrong is a converted receiver so he lets them do some fun things with formations and personnel groupings. He's similarly athletic but, given it's his first year at RB, can miss some reads at the line of scrimmage.
OL - With the loss of McGlinchey and Nelson to the NFL, Notre Dame went from the best OL in the country to probably the 25-30 range nationally. They recently shuffled things against Navy and showed solid improvement but obviously that was against a bad Navy team. They've had trouble in games this year against odd fronts.
WR - Not a ton of top end speed to take the top off the defense but a lot of athleticism and size. Myles Boykin has an enormous catch radius and he and Book have a very good connection Chase Claypool is similarly huge and the best athlete here but has troubles where he'll lose focus for stretches of time. Dominant blocker when engaged. Chris Finke is the slot receiver and is your prototypical "insert every euphemism for white slot receiver" type of guy. Sure handed and slippery with solid routes but won't blow you away athletically.
TE - Big, physical, athletic group. We've done a lot more multiple tight end sets this year, mixing and matching personnel to take advantage of the group's strengths. The leader is Alize Mack who is as athletic as WR but has had issues with drops .
Defense
DL - This ND's best position group, full stop. Julian Okwara and Khalid Khareem at the two DE's have been dominant and get after the passer. The 3 tech, Jerry Tilliery, is having an All-American type season in his senior year. He had 4 sacks against Stanford. The Nose, Jonathon Bonner, is a solid but unspectacular 5th year senior.
LB - 2/3 of this group are very good and athletic in Buck (Strong side) Drue Tranquill and Mike Backer Tevon Coney. Tranquill sprained his ankle last week against Navy but is supposed to be good to go for Saturday. I'm skeptical he'll be 100%. Coney is a prototypical Mike who racks up tackles though isn't great in coverage. Rover (Weakside Backer) Asmar Bilal has had trouble matching up athletically in pass coverage.
DB - At corner, ND has one dominant cover guy in Julian Love who's getting All-American love and a Junior in Troy Pride who had been having quite a good year until last week when he got benched against Navy after looking disinterested as a tackler. The safety's are the strongest I've seen ND have since the days of Harrison Smith. Alohi Gilman is a Navy transfer who is aggressive and physical against the run and Jaelen Elliot, after 3 years in the program, has had the light go on, particularly in pass coverage.
Special Teams
We've given up two KO's for TD's this year and have looked particularly weak there. Justin Yoon is the senior place kicker (doesn't kick on kickoff's) and has been money throughout his 4 years at ND.
Overall Thoughts
This ND team has been very interesting to me because it's so counter to every other ND team I've seen BK have before (who by the way, many of you underestimate as a coach, especially in the last two years. He's about to have 3 10 win seasons out of 4 years) because it's based upon a strong and physical defensive front 7 and an offense who consistently moves the chains by picking defenses apart in the short and intermediate passing game. Historically, Kelly led ND teams have fallen off in November so that's definitely a trend we'll keep an eye on going into a stretch to finish the year where we travel Callifornia to Chicago to South Bend to New York to California again in a weird quirk of the schedule.
Overall, I just think this ND team likely has too much talent for Northwestern to hang with for 4 quarters, especially when I imagine Ryan Field will be about 2/3 ND fans. I think Fitz is a good solid football coach and NW always plays teams tough but it's still the same team that lost at home to Akron, and likely is even worse after losing Jeremy Larkin.
I think ND wins this game by about 14-20 and I'd take a final somewhere in the ballpark of 38-20. Best of luck this weekend. Let's have a good time.
