(The Rock Report | Notre Dame Football News) – There has been a heavy pre-season focus on the running game at Notre Dame in 2011, but to Kelly the run has always been his ultimate focus. In an article written for peers in coacheschoice.com, Kelly said his scheme, even with a passing emphasis, is about generating big running plays,

“To me it is less what the schemes are about in the passing game.  Rather it is more about getting those big-chunk runs… Everyone wants to talk about our passing game.  We had more of the big-chunk plays in our running game than in our passing game.”

A big-chunk run(to Kelly) is a run of 15 yards or more and the reason Kelly is focused on those plays is because his analysis shows an 80% correlation between big-chunk plays (5 or more a game) and wins (as well as a corresponding correlation between losses and giving up big-chunk plays.)  Those are the plays that lead to scoring, which Kelly says is the sole goal of his offense, not balance.  Kelly noted that there are a lot of losing teams with “balanced offenses”.

Underpinning the philosophy around big chunk plays is the spread, which seeks to spread out the field to create one-on-one match-ups with defenders, match-ups that if won, lead to big-chunk plays.  Not only did Kelly’s running game outperform his passing game with big plays at Cincinnati his running backs racked up some brilliant highlight runs.  His top back, Isaah Pead, averaged 6.7 yards a run and his backup, Jacob Ramsey, averaged 5.9 yards per carry.  Both had runs of over 60 yards on the season.  I can’t remember the last time a Notre Dame back broke off a 60 yard run and the only back I can think of who averaged 6.7 yards a rush in the last 20 years is Reggie Brooks (feel free to correct). The schedule strength between ND and Cincinnati in 2009 was 10 places. At Notre Dame, with a new offensive system, Cierre Wood averaged 5.1 yards a carry last year, the second highest average since 1997.  Prior analysis showed that no school has won a national championship recently without averaging at least 4.2 yards per carry.

In practice, Kelly uses his backs much like USC did with Reggie Bush.  Carroll gave the tough running to SC’s big backs, but used Bush  situationally, putting him in position to gain big yards on every play (thus his gaudy 8.7 yards per carry average .) Bush didn’t run much compared to other Heisman backs, but when he did run; he was set up for big plays.   For comparison Cierre Wood averaged the same amount of carries in his 2010 starts as Bush did his Heisman year (15 and change.) Kelly’s offense is one that the right back can shine in.  It’s an offense geared toward Heisman type runs and that’s not by chance.

Kelly says he focuses on calling a play progression that sets up big runs, he makes his line coaches focus the line on block sustainment on the interior (staying on your feet) and makes his wide receiver coaches coach wide receivers on extended effort on the perimeter. We saw the tip of the iceberg last year.  Fans were shocked to see ND’s wide receivers driving their men down the field last year. They were blocking that hard because Kelly emphasizes it in practice and because he won’t throw to his wide receivers unless they run block on the perimeter.  Kelly’s goal is to give his backs space and a one-on-one match-up to rip off a big run. In his mind, the running back has to defeat one defender to earn a big play.

Enter speedsters Byron Marshall and Keith Marshall, whom ND is pursuing ardently.  As Kelly said, calling plays that lead to big-chunk gains and practicing execution are two parts of the equation, the other piece is the talent. “If you have better players, you have a chance to get big-chunk plays.”  The Irish have a great foundation, but seem to be lacking in playmakers. The current running backs, to this point, have unfulfilled potential.  If you’re not familiar, Keith Marshall (friends with Ronald Darby) is the closest thing to Reggie Bush in this class and is the type of difference maker the Irish need to open up the field. Byron Marshall is the west coast Marshall and more of an every down back, but one who also has breakaway speed.  Having a Marshall opens up the field even more in a spread offense.   You can’t over play a back like that or they run right by you. Marshall type players force the entire defense to play looser.  Anyone who saw Bush against Notre Dame saw this dynamic at work (with a little holding.)

It will be interesting to see how Cierre Wood and Jonas Gray develop in this offense.  Wood started ripping off some big runs last year and Jonas, considered a big back by many, has vastly underrated speed.  Last week Gray, a consensus top 100 recruit and Rivals #4 rated running back in 2008,  said he considers himself the fastest player on the team, “I truly believe that I’m the fastest guy on the team.”  Asked if Wood would agree that Gray is faster? “He might. You’d be surprised,” Gray said. “We raced a few times this summer and we were pretty close. That’s all I’m going to say.”

His high school performance at the Nike Combine in Columbus (where he was laser verified at 4.44 in the 40) and at the Michigan camp (laser timed at 4.45 and 4.37) , would give credence to that assertion.

“I ran the first one and Coach [Ron] English wanted me to run another one because he wanted Coach [Chris] Singletary to see it so he knew how good it was. When I ran in the 4.3’s, Coach English looked pretty stumped.””The first time I ran, I ran a 4.45. When I ran that, I felt I could go a lot faster, so I was aiming for the high 4.3’s.”

Michigan, after first checking the clock to see if it was working correctly, offered that day, btw.

“The margin between Jonas and Cierre is very small,” Charlie Molnar said. “Jonas wasn’t really healthy for the full year we had him (last season). We’re seeing a new side of Jonas Gray.”

Also, George Atkinson, recruited as a wide receiver, has been working at running back.  Aktinson averaged 9 yards a carry in high school, has run a 10.59 100 meters, is 200 pounds already and  has very good open field running ability.  He had one game, albeit against a hapless team where he touched the ball  7 times for 303 yards.  He carried 5 times for 216 yards (43 yards per carry), had a 65 yard punt return for a touchdown and added a 22 yard touchdown catch.

All of the focus on the running game doesn’t mean squadoosh if you can’t block up front and, as noted in You Can’t WIN Unless You Run, the current offensive line seems to have been recruited more for a running game than a passing game, thought it proved adept at pass protection last year.  The offensive line asked coach Kelly if they could play with their hands down for the Utah game and that, combined with more conservative play-calling, seemed to result in a tougher more physical team.  Something Kelly’s looking for in 2011.

“Most of our scripting has been focused on running the football, play-action, and then defending the run,” Kelly said. “We’ve called it building toughness with our football team this week. We know we can play fast, we know we can spread it out and do those things. Now we want our guys focused on toughness as a football team.”

The approach seems to be resonating with the offensive line.  Trevor Robinson noted,

“Any offensive lineman would love going into the defense,” he said. “If we got to call the plays, we’d line up and go downhill every time.”

A move that hasn’t got as much attention, but one that I really like is moving Ed Warriner into the running game coordinator role.  Warriner has three NCAA rushing titles in his career at the Academies, a Big 10 rushing title at Illinois and is steeped in the spread.   If the senior dominated line continues it’s improvement,  Wood and Gray are both highly recruited, upper-class, 4-star backs who have the speed to make the receiver’s downfield blocking pay big-chunk dividends.

Scott Engler