B.C. is not having a very good year, but they did beat a good N.C. State team last weekend and they did it with their backup QB, Emmett Moorehead, who was terrific in their comeback win vs NCSTate. Hafley has waffled a bit on who is his QB, before the NC State game he was adamant that Phil was their starter as soon as he's healthy. After the NCState game he waffled and said that Jurkovec was in concussion protocol so that they didn't know if he'd be able to play anyway. He sort of kicked the can down the road. This game no doubt means a lot to Jurkovec, it's his return to Notre Dame Stadium where he once dreamed of playing and leading the Fighting Irish. But that didn't happen and for whatever reason he, Kelly and Rees didn't mesh, he had a horrible Blue/Gold game in 2019 and that was pretty much it for him. I rewatched his post Blue/Gold game interview and it was painful to watch him try to answer the questions. __________________________________________________________________ Notre Dame football fans were excited to see the progress of backup quarterback Phil Jurkovec, but left Saturday’s spring game underwhelmed. Phil Jurkovec’s performance in the Notre Dame football spring game was tough to watch. His post-game interview was perhaps even tougher to watch. An obviously downtrodden Jurkovec answered questions relating to a multiplicity of issues in his game, all of which were magnified in his first game donning the blue and gold. He seemed to struggle to string the right words together in response to the more specific aspects of his problematic outing. The lack of confidence he exhibited in his responses to reporter questions echoed the same lack of confidence that he exhibited on the football field minutes before. In short, Jurkovec came across as disappointed and overwhelmed. He had every right to feel disappointed. He completed 15 of 26 passes for a paltry 135 yards. He took 12 sacks. Granted, the rules of the spring game prohibited Jurkovec from utilizing his legs to the fullest, thus taking away an integral part of his game. Yet, in most cases, it looked like he would not have escaped the pressure anyway, waiting too long to make a decision and striking the typical “deer in the headlights” pose that has come to characterize quarterbacks who struggle to think quickly. Notre Dame Football: A Realistic Look at Jurkovec’s Spring Game Performance He stayed for the 2019 season as Ian Book's backup but left after that season when he only got a few snaps as the backup. Book coming back of course meant he was going to sit another year at ND and he left. More than a few blamed Kelly/Rees for ruining him and not giving him a chance to compete with Book or bringing him in when Book struggled at times in 2019. Book won a lot of games as a ND QB but many fans were frustrated by his lack of arm strength limiting the downfield passing game, something most thought wouldn't be a problem for Phil and Phil was a very good runner at QB as well. At least in HS. But bottom line Book was the man and Kelly wasn't changing horses for Phil. So he left. Since he left he's a couple of time thrown some shade at the ND program (Kelly and staff) but that's not surprising. He went to BC and was the starter and until injuries started to happen he was really good, more like the Phil Jurkovec who was such a great HS QB and what ND fans were hoping for from him. I saw more than one post that speculated he would be the best QB on the team the minute he stepped on campus. Sadly for Phil that didn't happen and even though he's showed talent at BC he's also been hampered by injuries every year. This was supposed to be his Revenge game with ND, we played them at BC in 2020 and Phil was the BC starter vs Ian Book. Book out classed him head up, Book 20/27 for 283 yds and 3 TD's with no INT's 10 carries for 85 yds 1 TD Phil 18/40 for 272 yd and 2 TD's with 1 INT. 7 carries for 34 yds and 0 TD's That's the story for this game. Other notes are that while Moorehead had a good game passing he was 29/48 for 330 yards and 3 TD's. But he also threw 2 picks and the BC running game was non-existant they had 23 carries for -1 yards no doubt there had to be some sack yardage in there, but their leading ball carrier was 6 carries for 13 yars. Moorehead was 11 carries for -1 yards, I'm betting that was due to sacks. So we have a team with, at least based on their last game, no running game and a backup QB who threw 2 picks. Of course from their standpoint they are playing a Notre Dame team that gained 12 yards against Navy in the 2nd half. Other thing to note it's going to be very, very, very cold in Notre Dame Stadium Saturday, in the high 20's and maybe low 30's. But it will be dry! No real advantage to either team since both are cold weather programs, it's not like bringing in Miami in November. I remember the Rams going to Minnesota for playoff games and the Vikings would be on the sidelines in Jerseys and the Rams would have heavy cloaks and be huddled around heaters. Big advantage for the Vikings, we won't have that advantage.
Some more good news for the Irish Women's basketball, after thinking we'd have a 1 person recruiting class, a really good player in Emma Risch but just her. Then a few days ago a player ranked even higher than her announced for Niele Ivy's Irish, but most thought wow how great is that 2 highly rated top 25 players but that would be it. Well today the #5 rated player in the 2023 class Hannah Hildalgo, who is from Krebs neighborhood in Jersey, so it's an incredible class for Coach Ivy, one of the top 3 classes this year and another Jersey girl on the team. We like those Jersey girls, they are tough as nails as the Mabrey's have shown us. Congratulations Coach Ivy a great effort by you and your staff to put together a top rated class.
George lives in the northern part of the state. Hidalgo is from a school in Haddonfield, Paul VI, which didn't exist when I lived there many years ago. My wife was from Haddonfield. Hidalgo lives in Merchantville, which was the center of my family's life, where we went to church and where I attended elementary school. Her father is her coach. Interesting that she's "only" 5'6", which actually is tall for a girl but shorter than most D-1 basketball players. Obviously, her height is irrelevant to her outstanding play.
A couple of basketball games for Irish fans tonight. Irish women are at Northwestern and on Big10 Network while the men entertain Southern Indiana at home on the ACC Network
Thanks Terry. If I'd known I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself. When I told Commish that he said "I know what you mean, I bet the under."
Happy birthday Mike! I have already passed all of my kin in the age bracket. My health is still pretty good, but after three or four hours I am ready to quit any type of yard work. Stay the course.
Watching ND Women vs Northwestern. There was a little dust up between a NW and ND player and things got a little heated. They called double technicals but what was shocking was that they threw 3 Northwestern players out of the game for coming off the bench. Now they didn't get very far, one of them was NW's best player a Soph Post, and she stepped a few feet on the floor then one of her teammates grabbed her and pulled her back but she got ejected as well. I didn't see the 3rd player they threw out . 2 starters, the Irish lead by 17 at half, hard to see NW overcoming 3 players being tossed. Watched the 1st half of the USI/ND men. Irish were comfortably up at half but checking the box score now USI outscored us in the 2nd half 45-40. We win 82-70. Not sure what happened in the 2nd half. I see that Brey went 10 deep which is unusual for him and all the starters were in double figures. Irish 3-0 now
I watched some of the men's game and most of the women's game but missed the dust-up. In both cases, I saw a torrential rainstorm of three pointers. Not much revealed about the men's team vs. USI. The women's team looks very good.
I live northeast of Haddonfield about 60 miles in central NJ. Basically she is straight across from Philadelphia. That is a nice town.
Sorry, George, for the wrong geographic reference. When I lived there many years ago, I thought of everything north of Trenton as North Jersey.
Thanks Bob and Sid. I agree with Tim. This looks like a high blood pressure Sat. We seem to have some really bad games on senior day. The loss to a terrible Syracuse team quickly comes to mind. Oh well the year of no QB is coming to an end soon.
interesting Sid. But even as a big Pyne fan its hard to ignore the play on the field. I just hope that he has a good game on Saturday and we win. He and Rees are the whipping boys right now rightfully or wrongly. Did Rees put him in no win situations with the play calls, or did Drew just not see the opportunities he had to beat that all out rush. I don't have the answer. But they both have to do better this Saturday