For the second straight game, Jack Cooley was shoved to the floor by an opposing player. And for the second straight game, Cooley responded with a scoring outburst for Notre Dame.SOUTH BEND – The common perception about the spread offense is that it’s all about the passing game.
It’s former Purdue coach Joe Tiller’s basketball on grass. It’s the eye-popping numbers put up by Texas Tech quarterbacks under former coach Mike Leach.
It’s new Notre Dame football coach Brian Kelly’s version that produced 308.8 passing yards per game during a 12-0 regular season at Cincinnati last year.
But hidden inside the spread offense are opportunities to run the ball efficiently.
“It’s really at times a misnomer that in the spread offense you are going to just throw the ball every down,” said Notre Dame offensive coordinator Charlie Molnar, who has been on Kelly’s staff since 2006. “At least, the way we do it, if you’ve watched.”
The Bearcats ranked 69th in the nation in rushing last season, averaging 138.7 yards. Though No. 69 was not a high ranking, it was 15 spots better than the Irish’s 84th-ranked ground game that averaged 128.3 yards.
The biggest difference between last season’s running games at Notre Dame and Cincinnati came on the yards per carry. The Bearcats averaged 4.99 yards on running plays, while the Irish averaged 3.84.
“You can’t win unless you run the ball,” Kelly said. “If you just throw it, you’re not going to win all your games. We’re here to win all our games. I don’t know if anybody knew that. We’re here to win them all. And to win your games, you have to run the ball.”
Armando Allen, who will share time with Robert Hughes, Jonas Gray and Cierre Wood at running back, has seen the importance the running game can play in the spread offense and how the formations help create space for running backs.
“You can see more things develop, and there are more schemes and holes you can run into,” Allen said. “And you can show your ability in open space. I think that is the biggest key.”
Another big key to make the running game work is getting the backs to learn the system. Irish running backs coach Tim Hinton said he thinks the position is the most complicated on the team to learn. Along with knowing the running plays, backs also have to be able to line up at every receiver position and know every protection that the line has to know.
“It’s a lot of thinking to be a spread running back,” Hinton said.
Notre Dame will force defenses to do a lot of thinking as it will use four backs with distinctive styles.
Allen is the most well-rounded back in terms of rushing, receiving and blocking. At 5-foot-11, 245 pounds, Hughes can be a bruising back and has the speed needed to get through the holes. Wood, who didn’t play last season, and Gray are strong open-field runners and are elusive in space.
“Each one of them can do things in our offense and complement what we do,” Kelly said. “We will try to insert those players when we’re obviously running schemes that we think that fit them best. But we’ve got, you know, really four different styles at the running back position.
“But they’ve got to run the ball first.”
