Notre Dame Football: 5 reasons not to panic just yet about 2018

1. It’s hard to envision the Irish maintaining this pace

I don’t blame you if you’ve given up on Wimbush as a passer. Through 12 games last season, Wimbush completed less than half of his passes last season for well under 2,000 yards. While Wimbush is currently on pace to finish with 2,352 yards, he’s been significantly more careless with the football, already recording four interceptions compared to the six he threw all of last year.

Of course, what helped balance out Wimbush’s inefficiencies in the passing game was his effectiveness on the ground. Essentially serving as a running back under center, Wimbush averaged 5.7 yards on 140 attempts for 804 yards and fourteen touchdowns. This year? A 2.8 YPC average on 49 carries for 136 yards and only one score.

What’s concerning is that Wimbush is on pace to exceed his carry total by 56 in 2018. So it’s not as if Wimbush hasn’t been getting the opportunities, it’s that he hasn’t been able to do much with them. This has been an awful stretch for Wimbush, but something as simple as minimizing his mistakes through the air would make these last few games look a lot better.

All things considered, there’s plenty of reason for concern. However, Long and Wimbush have been over-complicating things despite playing behind a solid defense. As of now, a 3-0 record and a small sample size isn’t enough to condemn this team, but a similarly disappointing effort against Wake Forest will give Notre Dame fans more than enough reason to hit those panic buttons.