Oh sure... now that the Aggies have a semi decent path to the playoff, the Irish have to go and muck things up for us! Congrats fellas... I know this one will glow for a while.
Oh one other thing, the Irish will be fined by the ACC for the fans storming the field. Last year as an independent no problem! I also hope that mob scene doesn't result in a bunch of COVID-19 positive tests.
All those fans who've been criticizing our QB and our head coach look pretty foolish now. My only criticism of Kelly is his obvious sand-bagging against inferior opponents; like the Pittsburgh game where he ran the basic offense for all four quarters...
I'll play the turd in the punch bowl. The Irish played a great game and I don't think they left anything on the field. They played every card in the deck. I don't even think the loss of Lawrence was the deciding factor as his replacement threw for well over 400 yards. I think the key to our victory was the three starters missing in the middle of the Clemson defense and the couple more that got hurt in the course of the game. That opened up the short and medium passing game that is Book's playground. Book is not a serious downfield threat but is a great scrambler.
I thought Clemson had the best RB in the nation....what was his name? Maybe he was out with COVID. The RB that played saturday only had 28yds.
I love the character of this team. I love the "silent" leadership. I don't know where it's coming from, but it was obvious last night. There were so many things that went wrong and which could have cost us the game: failure to score TDs in the red zone and settling for FGs; Book's fumble at the goal line; critical pass coverage mix-ups. Against the consensus #1 team in the country, any one of those could have been fatal. But we never relented. We held their running game aka Etienne to 34 net yards rushing, an average of 1 yd per rush. Think about that! We ran up 208 net yards rushing, including Williams' early long TD run. Our total defense clearly was superior, especially at the end, when it was most needed. If we continue to perform as we did last night, we'll see them again when they're at full strength. I say, Bring it! P.S. I didn't realize until last night how punishing Williams is as a pass blocker. Also, I feel sorry for the Clemson defender who was leveled by a Tremble-Mayer double-team block on Williams' TD.
If we play Clemson again I hope that we have refs that have the courage to not let Dabo pull their strings. Disgraceful eating of that PI flag.
I think the general consensus was that the ND defense played very well, but it's hard not to notice that we gave up 40 points and almost 450 yds passing. I guess the key factor was that, Etienne, was totally shutdown and he's one of the top backs in the country. They got 34 yds rushing, while the Irish got over 200. That fits with your mantra, run the ball and stop the run to win!! Probably a lot of teams who throw for 400 yds end up losing, because they can't run the ball when they need to run the ball.
That's the "new" age of football Terry... even an elite defense is there just to get some stops... not to take over a game like back in the day. At least not against the elite offenses. So you better be pretty good on offense if you want to get near the top these days cuz a great defense will only get you so far.
Terry, this game reminded me of the ND-Miami game in '88 (which I attended with my entire family). Two heavyweights going at it. Miami's Walsh had over 400 yds passing, but we won 31-30 and went undefeated to win the NC, our most recent. I'm not at all comparing this team to that one. I'm just saying that against the best, you have to bring your best to win, regardless of the stats and the score. We did that. Can we do it again? Sure hope so. P.S The administration has handed down severe consequences for the students' post-game reaction. It's sure to ruffle feathers, but IMO actions have consequences. I'm not going to post the letter to the students. You'll see it somewhere in the news.