Notre Dame vs. Pittsburgh Analytics Preview
Notre Dame takes on a unique challenge tomorrow with Pittsburgh visiting for the penultimate home game of the season. A strong defense as usual under Pat Narduzzi, as well as an offense that has seen a spark with a quarterback change. Let’s dive into the numbers.
When Pitt is on Offense
Pittsburgh’s passing offense has seen a decent jump since replacing former Notre Dame quarterback Phil Jurkovec with Christian Veilleux. Jurkovec was woeful this season, completing only 50.9% of his passes and averaged -0.15 EPA/pass, which ranks 156th in the country.
Veilleux’s accuracy isn’t anything to write home about either, as he himself is only completing 53.1% of his passes. But he’s been much more efficient than Jurkovec averaging 0.13 EPA/pass which ranks 73rd.
This is primarily due to improved efficiency on deeper throws. Jurkovec was completing 37.7% of his passes and averaging 8.6 YPA on throws over 10 yards downfield. Veilleux is completing 45.9% of his passes and averaging 11.7 YPA on such throws.
Pitt has also introduced a lot of quick game to the offense, with Veilleux having the quickest time to throw among Power 5 quarterbacks. That’s helped him have a really strong pressure to sack rate, where only 7.4% of pressures on him turn into sacks. Avoiding these negative plays have also lifted the floor of the offense. Jurkovec averaged 2.98 seconds before throwing the football and his pressure to sack rate was 20.7%. In a similar number of dropbacks Veilleux has taken only 2 sacks whereas Jurkovec has taken 12.
This means it will probably be difficult for the pass rush to put up the same sack totals as they did against Caleb Williams despite Pitt not having a great offensive line.
Pitt has some solid receiving options in Konata Mumpfield, Bub Means, and Gavin Bartholomew, with Means and Daejon Reynolds the primary deep threats.
Given Veilleux’s tendency to get the ball out quick and efficiency when targeting deep, if the pressure isn’t getting home it’s important for Al Golden and the defense to stay patient and play sound coverage than forcing the blitz. This isn’t Caleb Williams where he’s going to hold on to the ball forever in search of the big play. Notre Dame blitzing and the coverage breaking down is probably the only way Pitt will be consistently able to generate big plays.
Encouraging Pitt to run and target short throws, where Veilleux has been averaging 4.2 YPA, is not a sexy defense but probably the best path to success. They are not a good running team but like to run the ball. Unless they deviate from their identity they should put themselves in difficult situations with 2nd and 3rd & longs.
When Notre Dame is on Offense
One thing to watch for is how efficient is the passing offense when Pitt is in zone coverage. They’ve used zone around 70% of the time this year, and Notre Dame’s receivers have been less efficient facing zone compared to facing man. Here’s where the Irish pass catchers yards per route run vs. zone coverage rank among all receivers and tight ends.
Chris Tyree: 3.04 (40th/460)
Jayden Thomas: 3.00 (43rd)
Mitchell Evans: 2.27 (120th)
Holden Staes: 2.24 (123rd)
Tobias Merriweather: 1.92 (175th)
Jaden Greathouse: 1.58 (251st)
Pretty clear how important is getting Jayden Thomas back healthy. And it makes sense why two younger receivers in Merriweather and Greathouse would rank lower, since it can take time to learn and understand the nuances of zone coverage and how to find and sit in the holes of the defense.
One area of concern is Narduzzi and Pit also love to blitz, sending extra rushers over 30% of the time in each game against FBS competition, per PFF.
Cincinnati: 34.4%
West Virginia: 30.8%
North Carolina: 39.5%
Virginia Tech: 43.5%
Louisville: 40.4%
Wake Forest: 48.0%
Teams have blitzed Hartman at one of the lower rates among quarterbacks, 34.1% which ranks 101st. He’s averaging 7.5 YPA on blitzed dropbacks, which ranks 65th, and has thrown a solid 9 touchdowns and 2 interceptions. But he has 7 turnover worthy plays facing the blitz, meaning he probably should have thrown one or two more picks. Conversely, when he’s not blitzed he’s averaged 8.5 YPA and only has 4 turnover worthy plays on about 80 more dropbacks. I’d be pretty shocked if Pitt doesn’t send pressure early and often to try and force Hartman into some bad decisions.
The second area Notre Dame can fall into trouble against a sound Narduzzi defense is the predictability of their formations, particularly when they go under center. This isn’t specific to Pitt and I’ve harped on this the last few weeks so I won’t go too in depth, but Notre Dame is running the ball at an absurd rate when they go under center and is nowhere near efficient enough to make it worth it.
I’m not saying never run the ball, just please stop going under center. Notre Dame has been hyper efficient when running out of shotgun. I’m just asking for either less predictability or reduced reliance on under center looks when it’s going to be so run-heavy. Especially facing a team that loves to blitz, spreading the field and forcing the defense to choose to either vacate the box or defend one-on-one across the field is probably important.
We’ll see how much self scouting Notre Dame has done during the bye week. Notre Dame is the much better team and the gap between them and Pitt is too large for them to be on upset alert. But any changes—or lack thereof—will be important to watch as they head to Clemson next week and try to position themselves for a possible New Year’s 6 bowl game.