I believe Golson’s up to the task, but Kelly’s play-calling has forced Golson to make throws he simply isn’t ready to make consistently. Kelly could help Golson immensely by calling better plays with a higher percentage of success. Specifically, very few red-shirt freshmen can consistently throw a 15-25 yard back-shoulder or a throw to a TE south of the LBs but north of the safety. Those sorts of throws require remarkable touch that Golson clearly doesn’t have consistently right now. But the beauty of the 5-wide is that it gives you far more and easier short and intermediate throws on out, curls and crossing pattern that are far harder to defend and have a much higher percentage completion based on level of difficulty. Additionally, it opens up the pattern where the WRs run deeper patterns to draw the CBs and safeties and QB throws a check down which requires the RB to beat a LB for a long gain. Golson has had far too few sustained confidence building drives, but Kelly’s play-calling has had a lot to do with that In any case, simply great to look forward to game of this importance this late in the season.

You are, of course, talking about offense. I’m not sure we have a QB to direct the offense as you suggest. I suppose we’ll see, but Golson has too many mistakes in him yet and Rees is limited. It will take a great coaching performance to win in Norman, let’s see if Kelly is up to the task.

Overall team development is great, but you only have so many chances to win it all, and this year, make no mistake about it, the Irish have a legit shot.

The Sooners, the Trojans and the Tide are the road through which the National Championship goes.

All three will score 21-28 minimum. Bank on it.

Can a lumbering run up the gut Irish squad score that many? Well, the objective evidence is no. Heck, we could only muster 17 against BYU.

This team can outscore the Sooners, the Trojans and the Tide, but Kelly’s got to re-discover his creativity. Kelly only need to study the tape of Sunday night’s Steelers win at Cincinnati and the tape of the Packers’ win at St. Louis to see real imagination. Golson doesn’t have the accuracy of Rodgers, but Big Ben is never going to be accused of being a pure passér, yet the imagination of the plays in those games was sick.

Reverses, misdirections, flea flickers, … the Steelers did it all. This is not rocket science. College players are even more susceptible than pro players to rush all out, and the Irish have so many guys with good speed, one seam and you’re looking at 20-45 yards.

Kelly needs to step it up. Pure and simple. Otherwise it’s 10-2 or 9-3 and the who-really-cares.com bowl.

Yes, scoring is the only (readily) available stat for those years.

Kelly’s defense played better than his offenses in every year but one. What it speaks to is overall team development. You don’t field top 25 defenses consistently by chance. Only at the end of 2009 did the defense give up a lot of points, overall they finished 11th, 25th and 30th in the country in scoring.

At Notre Dame his defenses have given up less than 21 points a game his first two years and are currently giving up less than 10 points a game.

The suggestion that Kelly’s team have consistently played great defense is simply not true. As Kelly’s UC bio states, his formula for success starts with a creative offense … his UC Bearcat defenses were generally regarded as porous Ds that, while sometimes causing turnovers, gave up lots of points … and caused his offense to rack points like a pinball machine to succeed, which they did.

The hallmark of Kelly’s fantastic offenses at Cincinnati was frequent use of up-tempo, no huddle and 5-wide sets. His spread offense spread the field, created lots of natural space and opened up running lanes that resulted in long dashes when used, which was rather sparsely.

This year, the Irish are blessed with a strong defensive line and a great linebacking corps as we all know. The secondary is an amalgam … but it’s a lot of young, untested guys who haven’t had particularly significant challenges like USC, Alabama, Oklahoma, Oregon, KSU, etc.

Last week, the Irish would’ve lost if BYU had something remotely resembling a college QB, which they don’t. The secondary was exposed by a terribly average offense.

My point? The D will not carry this team, by itself, to a National Championship.

Kelly’s O has got to step it up.

He has the talent. He has at least 5 and arguably 6 great WRs, a First-Team All American TE, a solid offensive line, and a reasonably mobile QB with a strong arm (Golson).

The problem? Kelly refuses to spread the field, refuses to consistently go 4- and 5-wide and his play-calling has been decidedly unimaginative.

For a while that was because his communication of plays to the QB was so bad, but he’s cleaned that up. He has a phenomenal ground game to be sure, but against the Oklahoma, USC and Alabama’s, he won’t be able to run up the gut. We saw that against Michigan, whose D line was far superior to the Irish’s O line.

For the Irish to run the table, which they can, Kelly’s gotta spread the field and get GAIII and Davonte Neal more touches.

Spreading the field will also make it far easier for the Irish to run the ball in down and distances that would suggest a pass play.

That analysis is spot on Jack! I am hoping BK’s conservative play calling vs. BYU was a ploy to give OU a false sense of security or perhaps keep them guessing as to what kind of game he will be calling on offense. BK could be planning to use the element of surprise on Stoop. I hope he runs play action pass the whole first drive.