While I am certainly no aficionado of Notre Dame and their offensive and defensive philosophies, as I recall from his Cincinatti days Brian Kelly is a spread guy that is big on pushing tempo. If we were to commit more guys to stopping the run our secondary would get the equivalent of dropping the soap from the ND passing game - even if their QB licks donkey ********s.
The problem is, we haven't found an effective way to stop a spread look yet with MDO's two-gap philosophy. We give up huge amounts of open grass in the passing game and we get no leverage against the run, it's a Catch 22 that yields the results you have seen to this point. If we can't find a way to stop the zone read we are going to keep getting blasted, and I don't think dropping another guy in the box fixes that by itself. Our DL has to be able to take away lanes for the RB and the LB's still have to properly fill gaps and we haven't done it yet. Even with guys we all know are very talented like Eddie Johnson and Denzel.
I think we should all just accept the fact that we are going to have to outscore even the most anemic of offenses until we can find some sort of front 7 combination that can slow the running game on its own.
What I would like to see is a combination of blitzing both to stuff the run and to pressure the quarterback, start dictating to the offense rather than being reactive. Yes, that leaves open the possibility of the O hitting an explosive play, but nothing else is working.
I know that is totally contrary to MDO's philosophy though, and I know that it's pointless to hope for it because it won't happen.
