As Notre Dame Fighting Irish get set to take on the Ohio State Buckeyes in the College Football Playoff national championship game, it’s pretty clear that the Irish will not be making many schematic changes to their defense.
Throughout the season, Notre Dame has played the vast majority of its defensive snaps in man coverage, with a single-high cover-1 scheme as their most prominent coverage. However, this could pose a problem against Ohio State.
The Buckeyes have arguably the top receiving corps in the entire country and have thrived against man coverage all season. In fact, quarterback Will Howard leads the nation in completion percentage and quarterback rating when facing man coverage this season.
But despite Ohio State’s strength against man coverage, it sounds like Notre Dame is committed to playing their style of defense and is not expected to make many schematic changes.
“A lot of teams have went to the zone mindset when playing them,” Notre Dame cornerback Leonard Moore said this week via Eleven Warriors. “I think Penn State played a decent amount of man. That’s their identity. But I think that going into this game we’re not going to change who we are. We’re going to play man coverage like we do every week. We’re going to go out there and challenge their receivers.”
And Ohio State does not expect them to make any drastic changes, either.
“What [the Irish do] they do very, very well. So for them to change up what they do, would be kind of silly,” Ohio State wide receivers coach Brian Hartline told ESPN. “They’re really, really good players, great players on the outside. And we’re really great players on the outside, too. It’s what you want in a game of this magnitude.”
It’s clear that we’re going to see a matchup between the dominant Notre Dame man-to-man defense and Ohio State’s prolific passing attack.
We’ll have to see which team comes out on top.
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