Terry, I know exactly how you feel. A win is a win but how you execute matters for future games against better opponents
Another good performance by our banged up defense. Leonard's accuracy has improved little during the season. One minute he throws a deep crossing route and hits the receiver perfectly in stride. Next minute he overthrows an open receiver in the end zone by 5 yds. Our running game has been carrying us but we can be made one dementional.
I saw Dillon Gabriel, a Heisman candidate, overthrow receivers in the endzone more than once last night. Happens all the time. Bottom line for me, I don't care how he does it, he wins. I consider him a throwback to Tony Rice, who probably was one of the worst passers ever for a ND starting QB, but he could run like a TB and he won. I'm not inferring that ND will win a NC with him, but he's doing the job asked of him, and he's winning.
I’ll take the over Virginia. Officials were terrible. Defense great again despite the loss of starters.
Seems to me college football has changed markedly since Tony Rice was our QB. Teams with outstanding passers challenge for the NC not those running the option. For instance Gabriel has thrown for 22 TDs and 3066 yds. Leonard has thrown for 12 TDs and 1789 yds. Gabriel is undefeated with a stronger strength of schedule. We can't recruit top WRs because we don't have QBs who can get them the ball. Seasons like this have an impact on future teams. We're 81st in passing yards. What top receiver would want to play for that inept a program?
Tim, I've followed Navy closely this year only because I have a granddaughter there. In my opinion, other than ND and Army, Rice and Tulane probably are the 3rd and 4th toughest teams on their schedule this season. In other seasons I might consider Memphis and East Carolina tougher but not this season.
I like Riley, and I'll grant he's not been a great passer this year. He doesn't have a great OL and his receivers struggle getting separation. Would he be better with a better OL, who btw is as we know is very in experienced, with at the start of the season only had 6 starts combined. But they have potential to be great just not this year. How about his receivers, I watched more than a couple of bad drops yesterday. But no doubt he's not Brady Quinn, or Jimmy Clausen or even Ian Book. He's been good enough though to get us to 9-1 and a good shot at 11-1. We've scored a lot of points this year. I have seen Mike Frank opine that it really hurt his development that he missed Spring drills and wasn't able to full participate in summer drills either. But I'm glad we have him. I look forward to next year when we'll have CJ Carr who everybody says is an excellent passer and while nobody ever mentions Ben Minchey he's reportedly a very talented kid. I don't expect Angelli to be here next year.
Amazint the ND fans you see in the stands. Sat. apparently Jim Tressel and Lloyd Carr were decked out in ND colors.
In my wildest dreams I never could have imagined Lloyd Carr in ND gear. I am also still shocked that his grandson is not a QB on the Michigan roster. I always thought Carr hated ND with a passion only exceeded by Bo and Fielding Yost. Tressel I can see, even though he's a Buckeye legend but he's apparently also very close to Marcus. Still quite a sight.
I think we all would agree that our defense has played very well all season and the stats show that, but in spite of great stats I have to put it in the context of our weak schedule. ND's defense is only allowing opposing offenses to complete 47.7% of their passes. Pretty remarkable given how efficient and prolific offenses are today. No other defense in CFB is allowing less than 50%. If ND keeps this up, it would be the best mark in CFB since 2016. ND is also only allowing a passer rating of 88. That would be the lowest in CFB since at least 2016 (I stopped looking after that) They've given up only 6 passing TDs and have 15 interceptions.... so a QB is 2.5 times more likely to throw an interception than a TD against ND. All the more impressive considering ND has missed its best two edge rushers, top CB, and backup CB for a big portion of the season.
Lots of complaints about the ACC crew in the ND game. 1. The fake punt, the crew said we couldn't line up that way and subsequent writers have checked the rules and we could line up that way. Too late, and I don't expect an apology from the ACC 2. The fumbled punt. Now this one I didn't quite understand. The ND kid had it bounce off his chest and into the UVA kid who caught it. 3. Now this one was bad, the UVA wr who made a supposed catch but actually didn't and he dropped the ball, but replay didn't stop the game to review and UVA wisely lined up and snapped the ball quickly. So there was no recourse. Freeman probably should have dropped the red flag, but it all happened so fast. oh well...we won the game any way.
Two ND's collide tonight in the Joyce Center (I know it's officially the Purcell Pavillion, but I'm old school) North Dakota Fighting Hawks (formerly the Fighting Sioux) visit the Fighting Irish for a Men's basketball match.
Irish beat North Dakota 75-58. Markus Burton had one of those games where the ball kept finding the hoop. Julian Roper came off the bench and had a great game. 1st time we've not hit 80 this season. Good win though. Irish Women go to USC on Saturday and face a very talented USC squad. We won't be at full strenght as Maddy Westbeld is still out as are both of our Grad Transfers. Plus Sonia Citron has struggled out of the gate with a pre-season injury she is playing through. We could really use Liatu King back for this game and for Sonia to 100%