Battle Of Giants: Notre Dame football has perfect blueprint to counter Penn State’s juggernaut in Orange Bowl…

Notre Dame football is days away from their Orange Bowl showdown with the no. 6 seed in Penn State. PSU may have some glaring weakness, but their offense is one best in the nation and is highlighted by the best tight end in the sport.

Tyler Warren, the Mackey Award winner, shines bright for Penn State in their historic season. Warren is a unique player who has played multiple positions and has done it all for PSU, but the Fighting Irish might have a perfect match for this PSU dominant player.

Notre Dame football perfect counter to Warren’s dominance

The Irish rank no. 2 in FBS in man coverage in the 2024 season and have dominated tight ends, as they allow only a 40.1 passing rating when a tight end was targeted, which ranks 2nd in FBS, according PFF.

Notre Dame defense ranks first in team passing efficiency at 94.1 and allows just 167.4 passing yards per game, which is fifth best in the nation and gives up only 13.6 points per game which is second best in FBS.

This Irish stout defense continues to showcase it skills and it goes deeper than their All-American, Xavier Watts. In the quarterfinals according to PFF College Football, Adon Shuler had the highest grade mark as a safety with a score of 82.8.

Shuler led the team with eight tackles while forcing a fumble in the first half.Adon Shuler has allowed just a mere 50% of tight end targets to be caught according to PFF.

Shuler and All-American Xavier Watts will have to deal with Warren and all that he brings. All-American Xavier Watts, who leads the nation in interceptions the last two seasons with 13, was named the defensive player of the game in the Sugar Bowl.

He had 37 coverage snaps, just was targeted one time and allowed zero yards. He had seven tackles, six were solo and one was for a loss.

The Irish secondary is led by Xavier Watts, Leonard Moore and Christian Gray, as each have eight or more pass deflections this 2024 season.

Despite missing their All-American in Benjamin Morrison, the Irish secondary has stepped up big time for the most part and locked their opponents down.

This Al Golden led defense is just one of four teams to run man coverage higher than 50% this season.

Playing man defense is what has worked best against Penn State and Leonard Moore, Freshman All-American, has stepped up huge for Notre Dame.

When a wide receiver is targeted Notre Dame has third best coverage grade according to PFF College Football in the Power four with a 90.3 mark. Penn State only targets a WR 35% of the time which is lowest in FBS.

With Drew Allar heavily favoring Warren, Watts and Shuler main priority will most likley be Warren, and leave Gray and Moore to play man against the Nittany Lion wide recivers.

Warren vs Notre Dame football iron wall

However, stopping Tyler Warren isn’t really an option, as it is more the Irish defense need to contain him as much as possible.

When you dive into Warren 2024 historic season, it is something Irish need to be concerned about, even with how good their secondary is.

Warren shattered the Big 10 tight ends record stats this season as he owns tight end records in receptions with 98, receiving yards with 1,158 and total touchdowns with 12. The Nittany Lions tight end also has 655 yards after catch, which leads all tight ends this season.

Warren is 6-6 and around 260 pounds and had eight receiving touchdowns and four rushing touchdowns on the year. He is the first Big 10 player in the history of the conference to have 8+ receiving TD’s and 4+ rushing TD’s in a season.

The tight end out of Mechanicsville, Va. has drawn comparisons to Travis Kelce and is a unanimous All-American and finished in seventh place for the Heisman trophy, which was the best finish for a tight end since 1977.

Warren averages 78 receiving yards per game, but no other Penn State player averages 50 or more yards per game.

Warren had possibly the highlight play of the season against USC where he was center and snapped the ball ran downfield and caught a 33 yard touchdown pass. He finished the game with 17 catches for 244 yards.

Warren had 6 receptions for 63 yards and two touchdowns in the quarterfinals against Boise State. Shuler and Watts vs Warren will be a matchup for all football fans to enjoy.

The Notre Dame football secondary will look to continue its dominance, but will have its hands full with one of the best tight ends of all time, in Tyler Warren.