SOUTH BEND — Five games into his Notre Dame football experience, senior quarterback Riley Leonard has no complaints about his offensive line.

Even after losing three starters, two of them for the season, the big bellies up front for the Irish have reached the first bye week with their quarterback and their reputation intact.

“Everybody thinks it’s me who’s avoiding sacks and throwing the ball away and getting the ball out,” Leonard said after moving to 4-1 with last Saturday’s win over Louisville. “But I had a lot of time today. All credit due to my offensive line.”

Just three quarterbacks at the FBS level have more rushing yards (374) than Leonard through the season’s first month; two of those are from service academies: Bryson Daily (Army) and Blake Horvath (Navy) along with John Mateer (Washington State).

And while Leonard is still building up his resolve when it comes to standing in the pocket, the trend line is clearly pointing upward.

“I have some young guys in there, I have some old guys in there,” he said of his line. “They jell really well together, and I trust them with anything. They do an outstanding job.”

According to Pro Football Focus, Notre Dame has allowed 37 total pressures this season, or roughly seven per game. But against Louisville’s ferocious front seven, Leonard was sacked just once, and that came in the final three minutes-plus of a 31-24 win.

“I think Louisville had more of a contain mindset for me,” Leonard said, “so I wasn’t able to escape the pocket maybe like I’m used to, but that’s fine. No problem with me. They do a good job up front.”

Analysis: Breaking down the College Football Playoff chances for 1-loss Notre Dame football

Signs of progress were evident to Aaron Taylor

Aaron Taylor saw this coming.

In a phone interview ahead of the Week 3 blowout at Purdue, the College Football Hall of Famer and 1993 Lombardi Award winner forecasted steady improvement for the Notre Dame offensive line he led three decades ago.

In his role as a CBS studio analyst and founding member of the Joe Moore Award selection committee, Taylor pays granular attention to offensive line play throughout the country.

Despite breaking in first-time starters this year at three spots – right tackle Aamil Wagner, left tackle Anthonie Knapp and left guard Sam Pendleton – Taylor could see signs of progress, even in the loss to Northern Illinois.

“Playing this position as long as I have, with the Joe Moore Award and watching as much tape as I do, it takes five or six weeks for lines to finally begin to jell,” Taylor said. “There are some growing pains early for a lot of teams. Depending on how talented you are and how experienced you are, you’re going to start out at different levels. But every line unit in the country is going to be better in Week Six than they are in Week Two.”

Even after losing third-year center Ashton Craig (torn ACL) and right guard Billy Schrauth (ankle sprain) in the first half at Purdue, the Irish were able to plug former starters Pat Coogan and Rocco Spindler at those respective spots.

Schrauth could return before the second bye week arrives at the end of October, by which time offensive line coach Joe Rudolph should know more about the staying power of Pendleton at this early stage in his career.

Aaron Taylor: Notre Dame football great says it's all about the WIN: What's Important Now

“Despite how bad it was (against Northern Illinois), there were some traits and some tells and some things that showed up that you’re excited to see where it’s not a total wash,” Taylor said. “It’s not like Northern Illinois just kicked their a-- and pushed them all around the field and they were sulking. It wasn’t that at all. They competed.”

Analytics with a grain of salt

From the outside, Notre Dame’s offensive line still has a long way to go to reach a championship level.

Pro Football Focus grades the Irish at 57.6% in pass-blocking efficiency, placing them in a tie with Michigan, two-time reigning Joe Moore Award winners as the nation’s top offensive line. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that rating is tied for 109^th out of 134 FBS teams nationally. When isolated for pass-blocking efficiency “on a per-snap basis with weighting toward sacks allowed,” Notre Dame’s offensive line is tied for 112^th out of 243 teams at the FBS and FCS levels.

In terms of run blocking, Notre Dame is faring better at 41^st nationally (68.2%) among FBS teams.

Taylor, however, cautions against treating such analytics as gospel. Asked if PFF.com grades are part of the Joe Moore Award selection process, Taylor broke into laughter.

“No, absolutely not,” he said. “We watch the tape and we evaluate it ourselves. That’s all I’ll say about that.”

While Wagner carries a pass-block grade of 72.2, Pendleton (52.9) and Knapp (35.0) have struggled mightily in the eyes of PFF.com’s video analysts. Among 316 tackles with at least 100 snaps, Wagner rates 106^th in pass blocking while Knapp is 294^th.

Among 314 guards to reach a similar threshold, Pendleton ranks 268^th.

In Knapp’s case, especially, that doesn’t seem to jibe with the eye test, and it certainly lacks the in-house grading nuance that comes with knowing the assignments on a particular play.

“That’s the only way to do it,” Taylor said. “You can’t look at stats. You can’t trust somebody else’s eyes, and certainly not the eyes of the standard that’s supposed to be Joe Moore, who sent 52 guys to the NFL in 18 seasons. That’s almost three per year.

“He did things differently, so we’re looking at different things. Some people like to rely on that and take their word for it. There are variances, and we saw that right away. I think the NFL sees that. The people that enjoy the grades the most are the fans, but within the football world it’s irrelevant.”

Aaron Taylor: Make assessments with caution

In the season-opening win at Texas A&M, Leonard survived a steady onslaught from the blitz-happy Aggies.

While message boards lit up with concerns about the free rushers that streamed in from the left side on more than one occasion, Taylor’s film review was more forgiving toward the two first-time starters in question.

“We have to be really careful about trying to assess when guys are coming free,” Taylor said. “If you have a six-man, half-turn protection and they bring the seventh that you hadn’t accounted for, that guy’s hot. That’s on the quarterback. It’s his job to be able to navigate that.”

Leonard, too, was playing his first game behind the Irish offensive line after three seasons at Duke. And, don’t forget, that was his former coach with the Blue Devils dialing up blitz packages on a steamy night in Texas.

“You have to understand it was Mike Elko,” Taylor said. “Even us as a group, when we looked at it, unless you know what the adjustments were – we know in general what the protections should be – but when they’re bringing two from the field or two from the boundary or they fire zoom and it’s simulated pressure, you have no idea what they’re supposed to do and it can look bad.

“I always caution people: Unless you’re in that room and know fully what it is, it’s really hard to make assessments about who came free and why and whose responsibility that was. Because a lot of times, if my guy drops out and I see somebody coming late, I may bail out late and try to nick that guy. He may end up getting a sack and it may look bad that I was late, but I was trying to do something extra versus being assigned to that player.”

If that sounds like an impossible task, well, Taylor gets it.

“Now I’m not making excuses, because I don’t know either, and it didn’t look good at times,” he said. “I just want to caution you and everybody from putting too much into that because it’s not always what we think.”

Joe Moore and the standard Joe Rudolph carries forward

What Taylor does know for sure is that he shares a kinship with Rudolph, a fellow disciple of the late Joe Moore.

“(Rudolph) mentioned it overtly and we talked long and hard about it,” Taylor said. “You walk into his meeting room, there’s a lot of things about Joe Moore and some of the things that (retired line coach) Harry Hiestand had that are timeless and universal inside of that room. The through-thread of the lineage of what the standard is still exists in that room.

“The challenge becomes meeting that standard. That’s always the tough part, but watching Notre Dame, our position as offensive linemen is to get the play started and to give it a chance. And the first thing that has to happen is your footwork: Coming off the football, getting that backside shoulder and foot into the ground and moving people. Notre Dame does that really well.”

Taylor spent a day with the Irish during August training camp and came away impressed.

He credits NFL.com draft analyst Lance Zierlein, a Joe Moore Award committee member whose father (Larry) was a longtime NFL line coach, with enumerating the three essential parts of any block: initial contact, sustain and finish.

“An O-lineman has to win two of those three phases to have a successful block,” Taylor said. “Notre Dame right now is phase one and a half and they need to at least get to phase two and then add that final piece with the phase three to become the unit that they’re capable of being.

“Joe Rudolph understands that. What I watched at practice, what I’ve seen on tape, they’re on their way but they’re young. They’re working their way towards meeting the standard given the set of circumstances that exist right now, and it’s not an easy journey.”

Again, speaking ahead of Week 3, Taylor could appreciate the trendline.

“My money is by Week 8 or 9 or 10, we’re going to see a much improved, more mature, functional offensive line that we’re used to seeing,” he said. “It’s hard because it takes time and you have to be patient, but from what I know about Joe Rudolph, what I’ve seen in his room, what I’ve seen on tape, what I’ve watched in the drills, the coaching points I was listening to, he stresses the little things and those will get done.”

Mike Berardino covers Notre Dame football for the South Bend Tribune and NDInsider.com. Follow him on social media @MikeBerardino.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Notre Dame football offensive line is holding its own amid transition