Quarterback Keeper: Who Will Be Taking The Snaps For Notre Dame In 2015

Last week the tumultuous career of former Notre Dame quarterback Everett Golson came to a surprising, yet not shocking end. The quarterback, who at the start of his time at Notre Dame seemed to be the player fans of the program had dreamed of, fell out of favor following his first season in which he led Notre Dame to a national title berth; he was kicked out of school following an academic cheating scandal and after a strong start to the season in 2014, turned the ball over 22 times in the final 9 games and was subsequently benched for sophomore quarterback Malik Zaire. Head coach Brian Kelly proclaimed the two would compete for the starting spot in the spring, but it had become apparent throughout practice that while Golson was the far superior passer, Zaire was too good of a runner to keep off the field. With the possibility of two quarterback system looming, Golson is taking his recently earned degree and pursuing interests unrelated to the Notre Dame football team.

This leaves Zaire as the clear starting quarterback heading into 2015, back up DeShone Kizer has no playing experience and saw close to zero reps while Zaire and Golson battled it out in spring practice; the only other scholarship quarterback, freshman Brandon Wimbush, will not take part in an official practice till August. In some ways, the insertion of Zaire is welcome to fans; he is an excellent runner and is an inconsistent passer, a fact that they hope will force coach Kelly to focus on the former as the backbone of the offense. A run heavy offense is what Notre Dame displayed in Zaire’s lone start against LSU; they ran the ball 51 times for 263 yards and three touchdowns in their 31-28 victory. Zaire contributed 22 carries for 96 yards in that game to go along with a touchdown. It was the type of performance that made many hopeful the Fighting Irish could be successful with Zaire as their leader, especially given the rumors of Golson’s possible departure.

The questions still loom, did Notre Dame just lose its best quarterback and best chance to realize its potential in 2015? I think most who follow the program would agree that Golson, on paper, is the better player. His physical skills are superior to Zaire’s; both possess very strong arms, Golson’s accuracy and ability to throw on the run on unmatched from Zaire. Golson is not the runner Zaire is, but he did run for eight touchdowns last season (including a 61 yarder for a touchdown), and Golson also has 14 rushing touchdowns for his career. Golson also achieved team success while the lone starting quarterback, leading Notre Dame to an undefeated regular season in 2012 and started 7-1 this last year. There are a litany of teams that would be very happy with Golson being their starter, including Notre Dame. But, given all of his success, he has been benched on four separate occasions and turned the ball over at an alarming rate in 2014. Where can Zaire succeed that Golson could not? A look at the stats points to two very important areas, with an assist from incoming offensive coordinator and quarterback coach Mike Sanford.

Throughout his career at Notre Dame, Everett Golson was at his worst on 3rd down with between 4-9 yards needed for a first down to keep the drive going. These are the money downs for a team and its quarterback. In his two years as the starting quarterback Golson was 52-110 (47%) for 641 yards, 4 touchdowns and 4 interceptions on money downs. While Golson did improve from 2012 to 2014 he was still below average on the most important downs for an offense. By contrast, in a small sample size for Zaire, we see the complete opposite trend. In the second half against USC and his start against LSU, Zaire was his inconsistent self on 1st and 2nd down: 13-24, 54% 156 yards, zero touchdowns or interceptions. However, on third down he bumped up to 8-11, 72%, 110 yards and a touchdown. On all eight of those completions, a first down was achieved. He gets BETTER on the money downs. Taking it a step further, conventional thinking on Golson says that while he is not the runner Zaire is, he is still a weapon to tuck and run, getting first downs when the play breaks down. But, his stats don’t reflect a great ability to do that either. On all third downs in 2014, Golson rushed 33 times for 56 yards and three touchdowns. It wouldn’t be fair to hold the yards against him too much, since those can be affected by sacks. But, more alarmingly, he only achieved first downs eight times running the ball on third down, and only three when that distance was between 4-9 yards. A telling stat about their willingness to run Golson lies in the 3rd down play calling with between 1-3 yards to go. Golson only ran the ball five times in those situations in all of 2014, achieving the first down on four. In Zaire’s lone start he ran the ball three times in those spots, achieving a first down on all three attempts.

The second area Notre Dame struggled during the Everett Golson regime was in red zone touchdown percentage. In 2012, Notre Dame was awful scoring touchdowns when they got inside the opponent 20 yard line, ranking 112th in the country, converting only 48.3% of their opportunities into touchdowns. And this was a team that went undefeated in the regular season, which shows just how much the defense carried the team that season. For his part Golson was abysmal in the red zone in 2012, going 16-47, 34%, 131 yards, 8 touchdowns and 3 interceptions. He only had 30 red zone attempts in 2012 that resulted in 57 yards and 6 touchdowns, but their unwillingness to run him was apparent even then. Perhaps this was a fault of Brian Kelly’s as play caller, but as Golson’s stats have shown, he was never that effective running anyway. The same rushing trend continued in 2014 with only 27carries, the same 57 yards and one more touchdown. He did improve as a red zone passer in 2014, completing 59% of his passes and throwing 17 touchdowns to 3 interceptions. As a result, the team improved to 45th in red zone touchdowns, which is better, but not what you would consider very good. The failure to score in the red zone had real consequences in 2014: they were stopped inside the 5 against FSU (yes, the pass interference call was bubkus, but they had three other chances to convert that they missed), they were stopped inside the 10 against Louisville on a go ahead touchdown opportunity that likely wins the game and they were 2 for 5 against lowly Northwestern which resulted in a devastating defeat. That’s three games where the outcome changes based on red zone scoring, three opportunities that, if they are cashed in, leads us to not having this conversation right now.

Which brings us to new starter Malik Zaire; is it reasonable to expect that he will be a better red zone player than Everett Golson. First, he did reach the red zone four times in 2014, and the team scored touchdowns on all four of those opportunities. Again, yes, small sample size, but it is interesting to note that on three of those scores, Notre Dame ran the ball in; two from Zaire, one from Tarean Folston, and both of Zaire’s runs came on called run plays, not a broken play scramble. There is, however, another reason to expect greater red zone success from Zaire in 2014: new offensive coordinator and quarterback coach Mike Sanford. He was hired from the Boise St. Broncos where he held the same positions as he was hired to do at Notre Dame. He was also the primary play caller who possessed a quality running quarterback in Grant Hedrick. It is useful to see how Sanford used Hedrick in the red zone and their success in scoring touchdowns. As a team Boise St. was 16th in red zone touchdown percentage at 70%, up from 30th the previous season. As a thrower, Hedrick was solid in the red zone, completing 62% of his passes and scoring 12 touchdowns to 3 interceptions. The interesting part is how effective he was running the ball with 32 carries for 142 yards and 6 touchdowns. That is 28 more red zone yards than Golson had in his Notre Dame career. Sanford showed he is more apt to use his quarterback as a running threat in the red zone, which has been a weakness of Kelly’s, and the added pressure on the defense led to a high red zone touchdown percentage.

Malik Zaire may not be the passer Golson is, nor as consistent, but Golson was not very efficient on the money downs or getting the most out of his red zone opportunities. Zaire has shown an ability during his short time as the Notre Dame quarterback to be a playmaker and has thus far done well in the red zone and on 3rd down. In sports, it is often not how good you are, but how good you play; to this point Zaire has shown an ability to play better than he actually is. If he can marry the two, Notre Dame has a great chance to exceed what they could have been with a quarterback time-share in 2015.