Offensive and Defensive Coordination
By omahadomer
A good deal of the praise and blame for N.D.’s football performance over the last two years has been focused on Coach Willingham’s coordinators: Bill Diedrick (offense) and Kent Baer (defense).
Willingham brought both of them with
him from Stanford. Baer had served as his
defensive coordinator from 1999 through 2001 and had significantly
improved the defense from the dreadful 1998 season that saw Stanford
finish 3-8. Diedrick served as
Willingham’s offensive coordinator from 1998 through 2001 and produced
offenses that were statistically more impressive than those of
Willingham’s first three years as head coach at Stanford.
The three years that they were both in those positions at
Stanford, the Cardinal was 22-13 including a Rose Bowl trip after the
1999 season and a 9-2 regular season in 2001 that included a road win
over #2
The results at N.D., however, particularly on offense and particularly last year, have been less than spectacular. Starting with offense, let’s try to identify the deficiencies. Here is how Diedrick’s performance at N.D. compares with his performance at Stanford in several key areas:
Stanford
Points per game: 29.8
Rushing per game: 142.4
Yards per carry: 3.6
Passing yards per game: 280.5
Yards per pass attempt: 7.8
Total yards per game: 422.9
Notre Dame
Points per game: 21.3
Rushing per game: 148.3
Yards per carry: 3.7
Passing yards per game: 176.7
Yards per pass attempt: 5.9
Total yards per game: 325.0
Well, it’s not hard to spot where the
falloff has occurred. The rushing game at
N.D. has actually been better than the one he had at Stanford, but just
barely. The passing game, however, has
been hugely worse – about 100 yards per game and 2 yards per attempt
lower. Though N.D.’s passing game is
better than it was in 2001 (
Several factors could account for the decline. Perhaps N.D. plays tougher defensive teams than did Stanford. That’s probably a bit of the explanation, but almost certainly not the major part of it. Scoring in the Pac 10 conference is only about 2 points per game above the national norm. Stanford mostly plays tough non-conference opponents and the Cardinal’s 2000 schedule was rated harder than N.D.’s and only the 1999 schedule was significantly easier.
The more probable explanation is that N.D.’s offensive personnel has been ill-suited to the offense that Diedrick wants to run, particularly the passing part of the offense. Of course, this does not completely excuse the coaching. Probably, the staff could have done a better job of bending the system to fit the personnel rather than vice versa. But this year, with an experienced Quinn at quarterback, McKnight, Stovall, Samardzija and Holiday all at wide receiver, a bevy of talented tight ends, an offensive line that returns four of five starters (as opposed to last year’s crew that consisted entirely of new starters except for very limited play by Milligan) and running backs who look to be better adapted to the passing game, it wouldn’t surprise me to see this year’s passing statistics begin to approach Diedrick’s Stanford levels.
OK, let’s turn our attention to the defensive side of the ball. Here are the levels in several key statistical areas for Baer at Stanford and then at N.D.
Stanford
Points allowed per game: 28.9
Rushing allowed per game: 134.8
Yards allowed per carry: 3.7
Passing yards allowed per game: 266.3
Yards allowed per pass attempt: 7.4
Total yards allowed per game: 401.1
Notre Dame
Points allowed per game: 21.3
Rushing allowed per game: 111.4
Yards allowed per carry: 3.0
Passing yards allowed per game: 208.9.
Yards allowed per pass attempt: 6.7
Total yards allowed per game: 320.3
Baer’s defenses at N.D. have been significantly better than his defenses at Stanford. Even his defense of last year (which was not nearly as good as the 2002 edition) was better statistically than any of his Stanford defenses.
Here again, the logical explanation would seem to be personnel. Baer proved to be a reasonably good defensive coordinator at Stanford judged by any fair measure. His 1999 defense – though still pretty porous – was a significant improvement from the 1998 team. And in the key measures of yards per play allowed, the trend was generally one of improvement. In yards per pass allowed, Stanford allowed 8.1 in 1999, 7.2 in 2000 and 7.0 in 2001. In yards per rush allowed, the figures were 3.7 in 1999, 3.9 in 2000 and 3.5 in 2001. While the 1999 defense allowed over 450 yards per game, the 2000 and 2001 defenses gave up about 370 and 380 yards respectively.
So, the evidence is that N.D.’s defenses under Baer are likely to perform about as one would expect given the personnel and the difficulty of the schedule.
So, let’s play a little bit of “what if?”.
First, in terms of schedule difficulty, this year’s shapes up to be somewhere in between the 2002 and 2003 levels of difficulty. Howell rated the 2002 schedule at .724, the 2003 schedule at .783 and projects the 2004 schedule at .751. Of course, all of these are relatively hard schedules. But, particularly with the Irish now being even with their early opponents in terms of games played, this schedule looks to be a little more sane than the 2003 schedule.
On defense, the personnel situation probably falls somewhere in between the two years. Having Goolsby back is likely to make a large positive impact, and barring a rash of injuries the front seven should be mostly experienced and talented. If a young secondary can play better than last year’s squad, figure the defensive performance to come pretty close to the average of 2002 and 2003.
A modest improvement in defensive performance from the 2003 levels is, however, probably only sufficient for a 6-5 or so record unless the offense improves significantly. Here, however, I think the chances of large improvement are much greater. Both of Diedrick’s offenses at N.D. have been worse than any offense he produced at Stanford. As I suggested above, however, the personnel for this year looks to be a considerably better fit.
If, for example, the passing game of
this year were to come half way up to the level that Diedrick averaged
at
So, in those seven games in which N.D. has hit the 375 yard mark, N.D. is 6-1 and the average score is N.D. 32 and the opposition 13. In the 18 games in which N.D. has not hit the 375 yard mark, the Irish are 9-9 and the average score is N.D. 17 and the opposition 24. It’s pretty obvious, therefore, that a reasonable improvement in the offense would allow N.D. to win a lot of football games. Notice as well that a decent offense helps the defense. Last year, in the six games in which N.D. hit the minimal level of 325 yards in total offense, the defense gave up only 18 points per game. In the other six games, N.D. gave up an average of 34 points per game.
A few concluding scenarios: If N.D.’s defense plays like it did last year and the offense does not improve, N.D. will probably be a 4-7 or 5-6 team. Perhaps with better special teams play and a few breaks on turnovers, the Irish might be able to squeeze out 6 wins and a minor bowl berth, but that would be about the top end.
The most probable scenario, in my opinion, is that the defense will play at about the average of the last two years and the offense will make up half the difference to Diedrick’s historical average (roughly the 375 yards per game scenario discussed above). If this happens, N.D. will probably be an 8-3 or 9-2 team. A team like this would look roughly like last year’s Purdue team. That Boilermaker squad averaged about 27 points and 375 yards per game and gave up about 17 points and 300 yards per game and finished 9-3 in the regular season, with two of the losses being extremely close (27-26 to Bowling Green – for those who doubt the importance of not being behind in games played, it was BGSU’s second game and PU’s opener -- and 16-13 to Ohio State).
The happiest scenario would be for
N.D.’s defense to play at or close to its 2002 level and for the
offense to make an even greater leap forward. An
N.D. team like that would almost certainly be a B.C.S. bowl squad.