Notre Dame is a good, talented, and experienced team. I’d say an easy two-thirds of their offensive and defensive starters would be first-stringers at Tech right now. They’re fresh off a convincing win over a good Stanford team; they opened the season with a slug-fest win over Michigan, though this version of the Irish would probably have put up another two TDs on the Wolverines.

Offense

Scheme-wise, the West Coast flavor is the most dominant aspect Notre Dame’s offense. The triangle reads we remember from two years ago are still there, there’s a good bit of under-center work, the tight ends are playing a bigger role, and Ian Book’s running more bootlegs out of the Walsh playbook. They’ll still go to plenty of shotgun and the pistol, and they churned up rushing yards with the latter. They ran it out of a double-TE pistol set with some noticeable success.

New starting QB Ian Book has been the big story for good reason. He’s accurate and makes good decisions coming off his plant foot.

ABOVE: Book hits a nice out/corner here.

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