There is occasionally a game, or weekend, that makes me sit back and realize just how much I love College Football.
This weekend, kicking off at noon Saturday and not stopping until late in the evening, bookend by Clemson vs Florida State and Ohio State vs Notre Dame, is what makes the sport so great. The latter, in particular, is a game that has so much to add, and so much of the pageantry that you don’t really find in any sport. 2 classic Midwest educational institutions and football powerhouses, no matter how far back you look. Two teams with lots of question marks, and two coaches desperately in need of a big win.
Everything from the color scheme of the uniforms to the matchup on the field is going to be electric. Here is how I see it breaking down…
When Ohio State has the ball…
Many Ohio State fans think that the OSU offense has been disjointed at best, concerning in many ways, and up against it as they head to Notre Dame.
Early in the season of handicapping, it’s important to continue to remember the pre-season baseline for each team. My words about this Ohio State offense were:
“the biggest question mark is going to come at offensive line…”
“I’d project this offense is going to fall from the Top spot, but still a top offense – probably Top 8, not top 1…”
All of that still checks out. I also think that Day has played the first 3 games about as good as you would want if you want to get all of your guys reps, get the offense moving, and keep things off the film. The play calls have been rather bland, and I would argue that’s on purpose. He successfully kept quarterback options on campus, while giving the guy we all assumed would be the guy, the job in the end.
Last year, the Ohio State/ Notre Dame matchup was the first game of the year and while OSU returned CJ Stroud and a pretty solid offensive line, JSN was the only really hyped WR, with Harrison being a “breakout candidate,” after the Buckeyes lost both Olave and Wilson to the NFL. Al Golden schemed up a pretty good defensive effort, coming out in 2 high safety Cover 2, not allowing OSU and Stroud to really take the top off of the Notre Dame defense. And then JSN exited early in the game and Stroud was really left with some inexperienced WR and facing 2 high, the need to be patient. Eventually, Ohio State drove the field a few times and we know how that ended.
I think we’ll see a similar approach here from Al Golden, but playing 2 high is going to put the Notre Dame defenders in quite a bit of conflict if they can’t generate pressure man vs man in the trenches. I just don’t really see that happening. The one concern with this Notre Dame defense heading into the season was having dudes on the defensive line that could really create disruption without exotic blitzes, and I still think that remains to be the case. The last thing you want is any quarterback with time in the pocket to allow guys to find space, likely in the middle of the field, to create mismatches. No one in this game is bad, but I’m not sure Notre Dame has a gamebreaker there that will force Ohio State to be uncomfortable. So that means that we’ll likely see Golden have to dial up pressure with Betrand and Liufau coming up the gaps to try and get to McCord. Doing that creates the inherent conflict. . Harrison will likely be bracketed by one of the safeties, which opens things up quite a bit for a bevy of other super talented pass catchers. My guess is we see Stover have a nice game here up the seams. If Notre Dame insist on continuing to sit in 2 high, Ohio State will likely be happy to try and run the ball early and I’d imagine they do it rather successfully. Notre Dame is likely fine early in this game to give up some chunkier plays on the ground – they do not want this game to get started with them getting beaten over the top. They’ll test McCord by bringing some blitzes, but I think Ohio State is probably in good shape to be able to handle what they send early. If I’m Golden, I force McCord and the Buckeyes to be patient, not taking chances in man coverage on the outside, a matchup that you don’t win more often than not.
Obviously this is the best offense Notre Dame has faced this season; it’s silly to say that, but it’s also important to reiterate that it is in a complete different stratosphere than NC State. Many of the “well you saw what the defense did to NC State” should be ignored. NC State has a huge lack of playmakers on the outside and a QB that struggles when throwing the ball in traditional sets. Ohio State is quite literally the opposite of that, so buckle up.
My hunch is we see Ohio State approach the mid to low 30s in this one. There are just too many weapons for Ohio State and I think we’ll see some wrinkles from the offense we haven’t seen yet this year.
When Notre Dame has the ball…
Sam Hartman has been a true revelation to the Domers this season, as they had to deal with the excruciating struggle of having pass catchers without a QB in 2022. They made a change at both coordinator and quarterback and while I think the QB one is obviously a success, the jury is still out here on the coordinator.
The Ohio State defense in 2023 has been what all Buckeyes fans wanted last year when Knowles was hired. Of course the competition so far this year hasn’t been great, but there are some promising things here. Ohio State has been rather vanilla on the defensive creativity so far, and still rank 2nd per PFF in pass rush grading. Beyond that, When rushing 3 or 4, Ohio State has created pressure 31% of the time, ranking 28th in the country. Ohio State has 31 pass rushes on the season. 4 came rushing 3, 20 came rushing 4, 5 came rushing 5. The assumption here is they’ve actually blitzed 7 times this year (rushing 5 or more). I think we’ll see Tuimoloau and Jack Sawyer both get their first sacks of the season here as Knowles dials up some pressure, as he is known to do.
While the Notre Dame offensive line has been touted as one of the best in the country, I currently have it ranked 50th. They rank 69th in passing down sack rate, 50th in OL yards and 44th in sacks allowed. Good…but when you look at quality of competition, probably not great? OSU’s defensive line has equal or worse rankings, but I suspect that we’ll see a little bit of a different front 7 for the Buckeyes.
I don’t have much bad to say about Hartman. He’ll take what is given to him, but he does have a bit of the yolo mentality dating back to his Wake days, having no issue throwing the ball up and stretching the field. He led CFB last year in average depth of target (pff), at 12.8. The challenge with that is the biggest weakness of this Notre Dame offense – the WRs.
High 3 star Jayden Thomas leads Notre Dame in targets with 16, with 4 star true freshman’s Rico Flores and Jaden Greathouse tied for 2nd with 12 each. A tight end doesn’t have a reception yet (EDIT: this is wrong, there are tight ends with receptions - PFF just didn't have it recognized) and there isn’t a clear alpha in the group, and that may not be a problem in general, but I think it could pose issues here against Ohio State. Denzel Burke and Josh Proctor have looked great so far, and I don’t think there is a WR that truly worries the Buckeyes in man coverage against their secondary this year. I think we’ll see OSU secondary line up on the line of scrimmage and effectively say, “lets see what you got.” Sure, if you give Hartman time, anyone can get open and he’ll likely find them, which is why I think we’ll see some pressure dialed up here by Knowles and the Bucks.
The key unlock in college football on defense, if you ever watch UGA or Bama’s defenses, is generating pressure without having to commit extra guys to the pass rush. OSU will likely be able to do a little bit of that in this one, which creates a lot of challenges for the Irish. They’ll have to equally be patient and take what is given to them if they aren’t able to allow WRs to get open, and that’s somewhat of how I see this going. If Notre Dame can back up the OSU front a little bit, this offense will open up and we will have a bit of a ball game, but I struggle to see that happening. Notre Dame clearly doesn’t have a tight end that can threaten linebackers in coverage, their WRs probably won’t be able to win in man coverage more often than not against more talented players in the secondary and that gives OSU the ability to focus on the run.
While Day said this week that everything starts with Hartman, I think OSU approaches this another way. They’re likely happy to play a bit of man on the outsides so long as they can continually generate pressure but more importantly, stop Audric Estime. Estime is the unluck here for the Irish in my opinion. If Ohio State has to continue to commit more in the box to slow down Estime, then the OSU backers and ends will be caught in conflict, will not be able to focus on getting pressure, and the pass game will likely open up a bit for Hartman. OSU has played no one that can run the ball at all, but their rushing defense numbers this year are fantastic.
All in all, unless Estime can do what the Michigan running backs did to Ohio State last year, I am not sure I see this passing offense (WRs) carrying this offense.
Can Estime do that? He’s super legit, so certainly, but looking back at that Michigan game last year, if you take out one 75 yard run by Donovan Edwards, Michigan ran it 29 times for 102 yards. They had a success rate of 37% rushing the ball and only 3 runs, including the 75 yarder that graded as explosive. Obviously different teams, years and players, but the point is, Ohio State had a pretty good game plan to stop a run first attack. Sure, you can say that Hartman is a better passer than McCarthy, and I’m not going to really argue that, but one begets the other, and if your WRs don’t scare an opponent and can’t get open off the line, you better have something schemed up to slow down the attack, because the dogs will be coming. I think that’s more of what we see here.
Summary
This is a huge game, so no need to read into the intangibles in this one. No team is more motivated, there is no “revenge” angle. These are 18-22 (24 in Hartman’s case) year old guys playing in front of 80,000 in one of the biggest games of the season and of their lives. Everyone is motivated in this one.
Ultimately, I think the OSU offense has just too many weapons to combat what Notre Dame throws at them. Notre Dame has been ran on a little bit too much and I don’t think they’re keeping the Buckeyes out of the 30s in this one. In the end, I trust the OSU D to slow down these ND WRs more than I think the ND defense can stop all of the different attack angles from the Buckeyes.
Certainly, this could be way off – I’m on record to be wrong 40% of the time, but this is how I feel as though the game may break down. Enjoy the great day of college football, bet within your means and have an awesome weekend. We deserve it!
Final Score
OSU 31, ND 20
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