Over/Under: Rushing Yards By Notre Dame Quarterbacks

In the first five seasons under head coach Brian Kelly from 2014, Notre Dame’s highest rushing figure by a quarterback was Everett Golson’s 298 in 2012, followed closely by the 283 in 2014.

In the three other years during that time, Fighting Irish signal-callers totaled 97 (2010), 90 (2011) and minus-30 (2013).

Even Golson was not a natural with the table-setting read-option play, though, and a good percentage of his rushing yards were off scrambles or improvisation.

Throughout those five seasons, if one could pick out a single game against a high quality defense that manifested ideally how Kelly wants his offense to function, it was the 31-28 win over LSU in the 2014 Music City Bowl: zero turnovers, 263 yards rushing (96 from QB Malik Zaire) at about 5.5 yards per clip, a dose of “chunk plays” mixed in, including a 50-yard touchdown, efficient passing between Zaire and Golson (18 of 26), especially off play action with the run game operating well, and red zone success with three touchdowns (plus the game winning field goal as time elapsed).

So prior to the 2015 season, with the expectation that Zaire would be the QB throughout it, we set our preseason over/under for rushing yards at the position at 750.

Alas, Zaire was lost for the season because of an injury in game 2 — but the position still amassed 719 yards rushing: 520 by DeShone Kizer, 103 by Zaire and 96 by freshman Brandon Wimbush.

Not coincidentally, Notre Dame finished with more than a 200-yard rushing average for the first time since 1998 — when bowl games are also included — and the 34.2 scoring average was the highest at the school since Charlie Weis’ first season in 2005 (36.7).

“Quite frankly, the way our offense is set up as a one-back alignment, it’s hard to have an effective running game without the quarterback being involved,” Kelly told Blue & Gold Illustrated in a one-on-one interview for the 2016 Football Preview. “If it’s strictly a one-back offense, it’s too easy for the defense to hone in on that running game.”

With all three QBs returning this season as legitimate dual threats, Kelly said he and the staff will less likely have a cap on how many times they will be called to run, whereas in past years that was the case.

“We’re probably not going to have that conversation this year,” he said. “We’re going to say, ‘Let’s just play our game and whatever it ends up …’ Now, we’re certainly not going to put him in harm’s way, but we’re going to run our offense. That’s one benefit of having the quarterbacks that we have.”

Last year marked only the fourth time an individual quarterback at Notre Dame eclipsed 500 yards rushing for the season. This year should be the fifth, with 750 yards again a pretty good over/under figure. That would make it about 60 yards per game if it’s 13 games — with the right to move it up to 800 if there hopefully is a 14th game played (the championship in the four-team Playoff).

In other words, somewhere in between a Deshaun Watson at Clemson (1,105 yards and 12 TDs in 2015) and a Baker Mayfield at Oklahoma (405 yards and seven TDs).

Including bowl games, here are the top 10 rushing totals in one year at Notre Dame by a quarterback:

1. Tony Rice (1989) — 934 yards

2. Tony Rice (1988) — 775 yards

3. Carlyle Holiday (2001) — 666 yards

4. DeShone Kizer (2015) — 520 yards

5. Paul Hornung (1955) — 472 yards

6. Jarious Jackson (1999) — 464 yards

7. Jarious Jackson (1998) — 453 yards

8. Tom Clements (1973) — 434 yards

9. Joe Theismann (1969) — 426 yards

10. Paul Hornung (1956) — 420 yards