Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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"It's way too early to even guess with Malik. He's a high school senior and knows about this much of our offense [displaying a pinch between his thumb and finger]. He wants an evaluation. I told him, 'I'll give you an evaluation when you've been here long enough to be comfortable to get an evaluation.' There are going to be situations that are going to come in a game that he's never even seen in practice. "At the end of fall camp I might be able to give you a little better answer with Andrew. As the third quarterback last year, he hasn't had any reps with us in a long time once last fall came. We need to get his mind set and get him focused back on being a guy that can go into the game, compete at a very high level and help us win games." BGI: Two years ago you had 29 turnovers, and last year you sliced it to 15. You were able to manage the offense to protect the great defense. Is that the modus operandi for this season, too, because defense again is the team strength, or might you be able to expand and take more chances? CM: "We can definitely develop in some areas. You're in the second year with this offensive staff intact and the kids kind of get what's going on, so there's going to be some growth. There were some things we would have liked to do last year; we just couldn't do them, or weren't ready to do them. "Two years ago we had a strong defense, but the 29 turnovers continually put them in situations that you can't be a solid defense. You can't put people on a short field. You can't turn the ball over and take points off the board. "If you want to win games, you better win the turnover battle. That's been documented at every level of football — unless there is just such a discrepancy between the abilities of the teams." BGI: What needs to improve the most with the red-zone offense, which finished 70th last season? CM: "If we can throw the ball better, a lot of it will fall into place. We could run the ball, but in situations that we should have been able to take advantage of better pass looks, we couldn't necessarily do that. … If we throw the ball more efficiently, our redzone offense is going to get better, our field offense is going to get better, we're going to punt the ball less, we're going to kick less field goals … "There were times we would have liked to take more advantage of the pass looks we had, but we weren't that good in that area, so we kept pounding the ball because that's what gave us the best chance to win." BGI: Do you think you weren't as efficient with the pass because the first priority was, "Don't beat yourself with turnovers like we did two years ago"? CM: "Probably a little bit of that, but more so, 'What are we good at?' Last year we were good at running the ball. We weren't great at making decisions in our passing game. We had a redshirt freshman quarterback where there is a lot of stuff happening out there. "You play good teams in awesome environments week after week, so there's a lot of pressure just trying to keep him developing without throwing him to the wolves, and trying to put him in situations where he can be successful. Every week there was something new he was seeing on defense." BGI: Do you have that knowledge luxury with Tommy Rees that can compensate for not having Golson's physical skills? "We can definitely develop in some areas. You're in the second year with this offensive staff intact and the kids kind of get what's going on, so there's going to be some growth." Martin CM: "Yeah, he's a smart kid, he makes a lot of good decisions, but he was still a part of the 29 turnovers two years ago, so he's got some decisions that he has to improve on, too. I think he made only one really bad decision last year, but last year for him it was more short tests with him — not with him out there for the whole game. There's a difference there, but he certainly did a better job of protecting the football than he did two years ago. "Teams lose games and say, 'We won this stat and we won that stat … but if we just didn't turn the ball over …' Well, no crap! The most important thing is if you win that battle, you're going to win most of your games." BGI: What will the identity or strength of this offense have to be if you're going to have last year's success as an overall team? CM: "Just keep developing. We weren't nearly as efficient as we expect to be or need to be to be a full, well-rounded offense. We complemented a very good defense, but we'd like to take some situations and be more productive ourselves and take some pressure off our defense and put more points on the board. "But we're not going to do it at the expense of giving the ball to the other team [on turnovers] where it's costing us games." BGI: Do you have the ultimate backfieldby-committee situation? CM: "There are two guys we think we have a handle on with George [Atkinson III] and Cam [McDaniel]. But then you have a slew of other guys who haven't even started here or have done very little here. Even NFL teams now are using three running backs in a game, realizing that it's a physically demanding position and they take a lot of hits. To have a guy fresh in the fourth quarter is a pretty good thing. "You don't have a guy at this stage who was as versatile as Theo was, so all the jobs that need to be done, some of the kids are better at some of them than other ones, so you use them that way." BGI: What role do you see for Amir Carlisle? He seems to be a crucial X-factor, like a Theo, as a running back or slot man? CM: "I have no idea. He's practiced three days at Notre Dame. We're hoping to get him healthy this camp, and if he stays out there all camp, we might still not know exactly all the things he's good at until we play a couple of games." BGI: You noted this spring how TJ Jones is on a different tier than the rest of the receivers. TJ isn't a first-round player like Michael Floyd or Tyler Eifert, so what has separated him so much from the pack? CM: "TJ Jones has started [30] games here. The rest of the receiving corps combined hasn't come close to that, not even a third. The other guys are coming along fine, but TJ has been through the rigors, lived all the situations on the field, and he's smart and he's tough. "There's not going to be 10 guys in the country that run better routes than TJ Jones. He'll be a first-round route runner. Now, does he have Floyd or Eifert's size? No. But his ability to catch the ball is also first-round ability. He's not a first-rounder, but he has some high-end skill sets." BGI: Will there be a greater onus on the running game because you might not have the "aircraft carrier" figure that the rest of the offense can build around? CM: "I don't know if we can have a greater onus on the run game than we did a year ago. We ran the ball into some looks that I never dreamed of running footballs into, but we still did it, and we did it very effectively. "Your point is well taken. There are inexperienced receivers, there are inexperienced running backs. We do have four of our six starters up front if you count [tight end] Troy [Niklas] as an in-line guy. "You'd like to be able to run the ball and rely on that, that would be awesome." ✦ Blue & Gold Illustrated 2013 Football Preview ✦ 39 38-39.Offense Q&A.indd 39 6/25/13 2:30 PM