Notre Dame vs. Texas A&M Preview

Let's get this thing started

Notre Dame kicks off the 2024 season tomorrow night where we’ll see if the offensive line manages to give up a sack on every play.

I kid, but it does feel like that’s what many in the media have led us to expect.

I wrote about how offensive line performance impacts offensive efficiency a couple of weeks ago and there’s a stronger relationship between rushing efficiency and offensive line talent than passing. The big guys up front have a much bigger say in rushing efficiency because they need to clear space for the running backs to have a chance at success. While being under pressure in the passing game turns up the difficulty for the quarterback, they still can control the outcome of the play by getting rid of the ball quicker or escaping from trouble in the pocket.

The Irish offensive line is definitely a big question mark given they have a combined 6 starts, but that doesn’t inherently mean they will be a bad offensive line. It’s more that they have a wide distribution of outcomes and we can’t really have any certainty about their true ability.

That’s where I think a lot of the coverage has gone a bit off the rails, with the implication that this line is going to struggle because of the lack of experience, rather than their actual talent.

The only way to get experience is to play. At one point in their career, everyone from Joe Alt to Zack Martin had to start their first game before we knew they would become Joe Alt and Zack Martin.

This isn’t to say Notre Dame has that caliber of talent on this year’s offensive line, but rather let’s not just automatically assume they don’t because they haven’t played.

With that, let’s get to the game. In the previews this year I’m going to try and point out a few angles in each game from that have gone under the radar from an analytic perspective. There are better analysts out there who can provide the traditional scouting reports, I’ll try to fill in the gaps with data in these articles.

Basically a coin flip

Realistically, this game is a coin flip. I know the spread has moved around from -1.5 to -3 for the Aggies but if you look at the preview card above it’s tough to come up with another takeaway other than these teams are pretty even.

Both teams have quarterbacks coming off of season-ending injuries and offensive line question marks.

Conner Weigman is probably the better quarterback but doesn’t have Riley Leonard’s mobility. Texas A&M might have more talent on the defensive line (and overall) but Notre Dame had a higher pressure rate last year and was much better defending the run.

For every point for the Irish there is a counter-point in the Aggies favor and vice-versa. This is a tight matchup, with Texas A&M a much better team than their preseason polling suggests. Anyone who suggests one team has a significant advantage over the other is being hyperbolic.

Riley Leonard’s Legs

I didn't have time to do a full write-up this offseason but one of the things I investigated were what metrics translate from one school to another for different positions. For the quarterback, the number one predictive metric was pressure-to-sack rate (what percentage of your pressures result in sacks).

Luckily for the Irish, they have one of the best signal callers at avoiding sacks since the PFF era. Riley Leonard has a 95th percentile career pressure-to-sack rate, with only 11.5% of his pressured dropbacks resulting in sacks.

That’s the biggest advantage Notre Dame has should the offensive line struggle against the Aggies pass rushers, and a factor that is going overlooked in the matchup. Sure, if the line struggles they will make Leonard’s job a whole lot more difficult. But he has shown the ability to get out of trouble and do damage with his legs.

One thing to watch for is how much man coverage Texas A&M will play. They were one of the man-heaviest teams last year, doing so on 43.2% of passing plays (22nd in the country). Mike Elko certainly knows all about Leonard’s rushing ability and it’s probably not ideal to have your secondary turn their backs on Leonard that often.

In his two years at Duke, the Blue Devils played man about 32% and 36% of the time which is around average. But Texas A&M was better last season when playing man coverage (7.6 YPA, 74th) than zone (8.5, 94th). How Elko decides to defend against his former quarterback could have a big say in how the game goes.

Getting the ball out of Conner Weigman’s hands or forcing him to hold onto it

Al Golden has turned the Notre Dame defense into a well-oiled machine.

On early downs last season, the Irish ranked 3rd in EPA/Pass allowed and 30th in EPA/Rush allowed. They blitzed very often, played man coverage at one of the highest clips, had a top ten pressure rate and forced incompletion rate, and played a really entertaining brand of defense.

This wasn’t bend don’t break, this was a defense that attacked for 60 minutes.

Conner Weigman is a talented quarterback and probably the better passer in this game. He also has an identical career pressure-to-sack rate as Riley Leonard, having done a great job at avoiding negative plays.

Notre Dame should try and keep the ball out of his hands as much as possible. First, the Aggies rushing attack was not great last season averaging -0.07 EPA/Rush on early downs with a 35% success rate. When throwing, they had a 0.11 EPA/Pass and a 45% success rate. With Rueben Owens out for the year, A&M could continue to struggle to run the ball efficiently this year and incentivizing them to take the ball out of Weigman’s hands would probably be the optimal play.

But when Weigman does dropback to pass, the key will probably to get him to hold onto it as long as possible. In the earlier graph you’ll notice Weigman had one of the quickest average time to throw last season. And while his efficiency is basically the same whether he gets rid of the ball quick or not, his propensity to take sacks increases significantly.

• Less than 2.5 seconds

  • 7.6 YPA

  • 0% pressure-to-sack rate

• More than 2.5 seconds

  • 7.3 YPA

  • 18% pressure-to-sack rate

This is different from Riley Leonard, whose pressure-to-sack rate is very similar in the two splits (11% vs. 12%), likely due to Leonard’s scrambling and playmaking ability.

Weigman’s game is more predicated on timing and getting the ball out quick. If Notre Dame can continue to be the elite pass defense group in 2024 that they were in ‘23 and give the pass rush time to get home, they will have a better chance at getting the Aggie quarterback off of his game.

This is why I think Notre Dame has a slight edge. While Leonard isn’t the same caliber of passer as Weigman yet, his playmaking ability and rushing threat when things go sideways could give the Irish offense a get out of jail free card a couple times tomorrow.

We’ll see how this plays out in a little over 24 hours. Go Irish.