If you've watched Notre Dame play, you've seen the play at least a dozen times. Tommy Rees drops back and fires a quick pass to Michael Floyd or Theo Riddick on the perimeter. Floyd is so hard to bring down he almost always gets a nice gains. The same goes for Riddick, a converted running back.

Coach Brian Kelly said the perimeter screens serve another purpose as well.

"It's the natural progression of our offense when we want to play a little faster," he said. "We wanted to pick up the tempo, felt like at USC our tempo really worked against us, and we tried to really make sure that that's the point of emphasis. It's just been more of a point of emphasis as to where we want to go offensively."

Kelly said he wants to stretch teams horizontally as well as vertically.

"If you look at our running backs and our offensive line which is a strength and you put Michael Floyd in a position where you can throw the ball out, you're forcing the defense to defend the entire width of the field," he said. "So stretching the defense -- it's not just about stretching it vertically. It's about horizontal stretch. So that's a part of our offense that I think we got away from a little bit and it's been a focal point, that horizontal stretch."