Notre Dame Football: Will Ian Book lead Irish back to playoff in 2020?

Ian Book is back for one final season with Notre Dame football and the goals in 2020 are lofty. Will he lead the Irish back to the playoff?

In his second season of action in 2018, Brandon Wimbush was looking like the starter and even began the season as the No. 1, but it was clear he didn’t have the accuracy to remain under center for the Irish all season.

In fact, Wimbush complete under 50 percent of his passes as a full-time starter in 2017 and then just 53 percent in 2018, giving way to Ian Book.

Book came in and blew away the doubters, completing 68 percent of his passes for 2,628 yards and 19 touchdowns with only seven interceptions. Oh yeah, and he led Notre Dame to its first-ever College Football Playoff appearance.

When Book came back for another season in 2019, there was talk about him potentially contending for a Heisman Trophy. He only started one season for the Irish and it wasn’t even a full one yet he passed for over 2,500 yards and 19 touchdowns while leading Notre Dame to the biggest stage in college football.

Well, his second full season as starter didn’t go quite as planned as the Irish missed out on the playoff — though his numbers were improved. His accuracy declined, though. He completed just 60 percent of his passes which was down eight percent from the season before which caused some concern.

Notre Dame’s step back wasn’t completely his fault, though. While he didn’t play well against Michigan in a blowout loss, his defense didn’t do him any favors, surrendering 45 points. Against Georgia, he played a solid game and kept the Irish in it, but no one stepped up on the road and Notre Dame lost by six — he had very little run game production in the backfield behind him.

With a relatively favorable schedule in 2020, will Book be able to rebound in one final ride to lead the Irish to the playoff?

In my opinion, he’ll be back on the short list of Heisman candidates by the season’s end, but his offensive weapons have been trimmed with Cole Kmet and Chase Claypool gone. But returning are young, promising running backs and Braden Lenzy. The defense should be solid once again under Clark Lea and Clemson may be the only opponent the Irish are underdogs against.

Could Book lead the Irish back to the playoff? I could see the Irish going 11-1 in 2020 and that should be good enough to get Notre Dame to the promised land, so yes, he could. Will he? We’ll have to wait and see, but he has done it before and he has the talent to do it again.