Notre Dame Football: Comparing Ian Book to His Irish Quarterback Predecessors

Brian Kelly’s Notre Dame Fighting Irish are 3-0, which means the coach is naturally addressing rampant speculation that starting quarterback Brandon Wimbush will soon cede his position to backup Ian Book.

What do we know about Book, a 6-foot, 203 pound junior? The El Dorado Hills, Calif. product has run 206 plays at Notre Dame, or 734 fewer than Wimbush, a senior, has.

Here is Book’s stat line so far, in comparison to previous Irish quarterbacks through their first 206 plays (Google Sheets version here):

There is a lot of variance here, so here’s a chart with four quarterbacks who put up numbers most similar to Book’s in their first 206 plays: Matt LoVecchio, Dayne Crist, DeShone Kizer and Wimbush.

The closest statistical comparison to Book is Crist, who had run 65 plays in 2009 as a backup to Jimmy Clausen before getting hurt. With Evan Sharpley graduated and Clausen off to the NFL to prove Mel Kiper Jr. correct, Crist took over the starting job in 2010.

Crist ran his 206th play under center about halfway through his third start that season — against the Michigan State Spartans.

My question to our loyal readers is this: Do you feel more or less confident in Ian Book’s ability to lead this 2018 Irish team and win games than you did about Crist’s ability to do the same in 2010?

COMPARING WIMBUSH AND BOOK

Now let’s look at the two competing quarterbacks from this year.

For perspective, Wimbush’s 206th play came in the first half of last year’s Boston College game. So he had already played against the UMass Minutemen and Pittsburgh Panthers (in 2015) and the Temple Owls and Georgia Bulldogs.

The run/pass mix is pretty much the same.

The Wimbush-led offense averaged 7.7 yards per run play, while the Book offense averaged 5.8 yards. The quarterbacks’ yards per completion and yards per attempt are almost exactly the same.

The Book-led offense is responsible for more first downs, and, perhaps surprisingly, almost as many via his legs as Wimbush’s legs (9 vs. 10). Book and Wimbush — by both their arms and their feet — both account for about 55 percent of all the first downs the Irish were getting. Wimbush has a slightly higher percentage of all of the runs that earned first downs while he was quarterback.

At this point, Book’s teams have scored more touchdowns (13 vs. 11) and he’s thrown for more (5 vs. 2). It’s probably no surprise that Wimbush has run for more touchdowns (4 vs. 0).

Book’s arm (passing) and his feet (running) account for 38 percent of all the touchdowns scored while he’s under center. Wimbush’s arm (passing) and legs (running) account for 55 percent of all the touchdowns.

Here’s my personal reservation with Ian Book — the interceptions.

Book has thrown four, or one out of every 20 pass attempts. At this point, Wimbush had only thrown one. The counter-argument, of course, is that Wimbush had already committed four turnovers (three fumbles, including one returned for a score in 2015) to Book’s four. The second counter-argument is that Wimbush’s interceptions have also increased this year. (For a career, he’s at 2.8 percent of all pass attempts turning into INTs.)

The “explosiveness” section won’t come as a surprise to any Irish fan. The amount of pass plays in excess of 20 yards favors Wimbush as does the amount of times Wimbush ran for 12 or more yards. Through 206 plays, Wimbush’s arms and legs were responsible for 15 of the 26 explosive plays the offense generated, or 58 percent. Book was responsible for 9 of the 21 explosive plays, or 43 percent.

So after looking at this data set, how does it impact your perception of Book in relationship to Wimbush (if at all)?

RECAPPING LAST “GAME”

After every game, I like to compare Wimbush’s stat line to his predecessors who have played quarterback for the Irish since 2000 and have logged as many snaps.

The wrinkle is that, since I’m looking for a specific segment of plays, they never overlap with one game of a predecessor. (It’s typically parts of two.)

So here’s how Wimbush looked in play #874 through play #940 of his Notre Dame career, in comparison to Carlyle Holiday, Brady Quinn, Clausen, Tommy Rees, Everett Golson and DeShone Kizer.

Holiday: 17 snaps vs. the 2002 Pittsburgh Panthers, 50 snaps vs. Air Force Falcons.
Quinn: 28 snaps vs. 2004 Michigan State, 39 snaps vs. the Washington Huskies
Clausen: 51 snaps vs. the 2008 North Carolina Tar Heels, 16 snaps vs. Washington

Here’s play #916, a 10-yard throw that turns into a 30-yard gain courtesy of Golden Tate.

Rees: 1 snap vs. the 2011 Wake Forest Demon Deacons, 66 snaps vs. Maryland Terrapins

Here’s play #910, a 19-yard touchdown throw to Michael Floyd. (You may want to check your volume before hitting play here.)

Golson: 27 snaps vs. the 2014 Purdue Boilermakers, 40 snaps vs. Syracuse Orange

Here’s play #929, a 50-yard throw that turns into a 72-yard touchdown reception by Will Fuller.

Kizer: 19 snaps vs. 2016 Michigan State, 48 snaps vs. Duke Blue Devils

Here’s snap #904, a 44-yard touchdown pass to Kevin Stepherson. Despite the 1-2 start, all seemed right in this exact moment.