O.K, here we go down the stretch. 3 games left. We obviously are really banged up on defense. Don't know who Kelly is gonna put out there on the D-line but somebody has got to step up. I guess the positive here is that Pitt isn't very good on offense and their run game is not good at all. If ND can get pressure on the QB we should be O.K. If they can't pressure him he could have a big day. On offense we seem to be finally putting it all together. The running game has finally taken a step forward and between Folston and McDaniel we should be able to put some yards up. Couple that with a descent day for the passing game and maybe we can get in and out of Pitt with a win and then heal some wounds on a bye week. That's a BIG maybe though.
ND <t>I'm hearing Nix is cleared for practice this week. It would obviously be a big positive. Maybe we'll know more after Kelly's PC today. With Nix in the middle and Tuitt/Day on the ends I would sure feel better about this game.</t>
Photo from the 1953 Pitt Game which Notre Dame won 24-14. The most interesting thing in the photo to me is how well dressed the crowd was back in those days. It's not just ND football games, I see old pictures of baseball games, pro football games that are all the same. I wonder when people stopped dressing for a football game? Of course people used to dress for airline flights as well. We'll have to ask Joel when he stopped wearing coat and tie to Notre Dame games!
I recall wearing a sport coat and tie to the ND-Purdue game in Lafayette in, as I recall, 1969. I don't recall getting that dressed up in the following years. Navy beat Pitt 24-21 recently. While comparing scores is not the most reliable indicator, you potentially could surmise that Pitt has a better defense than ND, at least against Navy's attack, and not as good an offense. We'll see. The last few years we haven't played well vs. Pitt despite the differences in records and rankings.
I watched that game (Pitt-Navy) because I'm a glutton and have too many cable channels. Pitt was the better team and they looked like they had control of the game, until it all went horribly wrong. Even when trailing early, they were controlling the LOS and tempo of the game. It killed them to not score TDs earlier while settling for FGs. They pretty much derailed Navy's offense early, but in the 2nd half they couldn't stop Navy. Navy kicked a FG as time ran out to win.
I did't watch the Pitt/Navy game and only a few plays of the Ga.Tech game. Apparently Pitt does have one stud DL who had big game vs Ga.Tech. But in both those games the Pitt defense played the Navy/GaTech attack (essentially the same given P.Johnson is the mentor to the Navy staff) better than we played the Navy attack. So maybe their defense is a little better than ours. I thought with the USC game our defense was really coming together at the right time, but after the Navy game we are hurting and I'm not sure how we'll hold up in our last 3 games. On the good side, even considering it was Air Force and Navy, our offense is starting to look like it can give our defense a break. If Kelly continues to rely on McDaniel and Folston and they continue to play like they have then toss in an occassional GAIII play to see if he can hit the big one we have a credible running game that Pitt will at least at the outset have to respect and that helps Rees. He's started to trust the TE's and both Nikklas and Koyack are showing that they can catch the ball, that is good for the WR's. The young OL's like Stanley, Elmer and Hanratty are doing quite well and that is a good thing...depth. So I am hopeful that in the last 3 games we'll see a very good offense who can help the defense by scoring some points. At least that's what I'm hoping.
Hercules is killing people blocking and catching. We've become spoiled (in my opinion) in that we've had some lighter TEs who make some real acrobatic catches. Quite frankly, they've bailed our QB out more than a few times over the past 4 years. I don't think Niklas is that guy. At the same time, I remember our TEs blocking well in the past but Niklas is just destroying people on the perimeter. That's not to diminish the blocking of previous TEs, but I'd much prefer the defender be planted in the ground then engaged in the block. I think the upside for the next 3 weeks is that none of those teams run the Air Force or Navy option. There's a lot of things that come into that in terms of blocking scheme etc that our last 3 opponents simply do not do. Getting Nix back will be huge. We need to shore up those A gaps. I know you like Fox a lot, but he really does struggle when the other team runs right at him. The option really makes that point stand out. He does better in pursuit along the perimeter in my opinion. If we can just find a way to close that hole and make the opponent run at Carlo, I'd feel much better about things. I know this is a total exercise in futility, but there really are a lot of 'what ifs' with this team. What if we don't lose Spond and Springmman. What if Golsen doesn't cheat on that test. Just those 3 right there really change the game quite a bit. Playing the hand we're dealt, we're still a pretty good team that does appear to be getting better.
ND <t>I've watched almost all of both the Pitt/navy and Pitt/GT games. I don't think their defense is any better than usc or asu. We''ll score some points on them. Question is, can our D hold them under 20. Do that and we win easy. If not, we're in for another long day.</t>
Since I know you love Carlo I have to post this...you may or may not of course agree with Sean Mele of ISD and his evaluation.
I don't know who Sean Mele is, but it sounds to me like he's trying to show off his football knowledge. After all, that's what he gets paid to do, whether or not he actually possesses the knowledge. You could justify singling out 11 different defensive players for what they didn't do vs. Navy. Calabrese is one body. The Navy fullback literally dragged two or three bodies with him on the runs up the middle. Our tackling all year has been embarrassing, and the Navy game was no exception. What about the outside pitches? Even the second coming, Jaylon Smith, was ineffective most of the time. Where were our middle DL on the fullback plunges? Where were the CBs on the outside pitches? We were lucky to have a smooth running offense to bail out our highly porous defense. No, Mr. Mele. This is not on one player. This was a big picture failure of our defense, both in scheme and execution.
I have some perspective on this because I played the same position as Carlo back in the day and also was a center on a team that ran the triple option to near perfection. I also coached the option for another five years. The only way you will stop it is to run a five man front with the DL crowding the line of scrimmage and penetrating low through the gaps. The DE's should be upright and take a tight contain. The CBs should have the pitch man. The interior linemen plug the gaps. The ends force the QB to turn up inside or pitch early. The Cbs have to be sure tacklers. The LBs take care of anything else. Diaco played a three or four man front. He had the linemen off the LOS and many times upright. They were made to order for the blocking techniques of Navy. He also had his LBs well back... another big mistake. Our upright linemen were getting blow backwards much of the game , in effect making them extra blockers. He had his Dbs playing pass defense against a team that only passes under duress. I am sure the Navy coach was wetting his pants when he saw Diaco's defensive scheme. It was perfect.... for Navy.
Godfather, you should call Coach Diaco and make him and offer he can't refuse before next year's Navy game. Obviously, he needs help, at least when facing a triple option offense. :lol:
I and a lot of other people were mystified by how Navy ran us over last Saturday. Granted Air Force is not a good team and doesn't quite run the same triple option that Navy does, but still the team had to get ready for all aspects of the triple option mentally and that prep was supposed to carry over to the Navy game. Kelly himself even said it was fortunate to play them back to back, implying that prep would carry over. But instead we played worse against Navy, they still consistently got to the edge, and their FB was able to gash us consistently. Go back to last year, none of those things happened, we were all over Navy, now we had Manti Te'o and Danny Spond and Kap and Zeke, etc so I'm sure that helped a lot, but still it's not like we had no experience vs the option. Everybody but the freshmen have experience vs the option. Diaco since that fiasco at the Meadowlands had stuffed the triple option. So why were we so bad last Saturday. Everybody I read says essentially the same thing as Krebs, why did Diaco feel the need to reinvent the wheel. We can thank the Luck of the Irish that the Navy coach felt the need to be creative on that fourth down play instead of going with what had been working like clockwork for him.
For my money, Notre Dame has the worst 'insider' football talk of the major football teams. I can barely make it through half of the articles breaking down the game before I just say 'No' and stop. I still give it a full read, but then I hate myself after for wasting that time of my life. George's assessment is spot on. At the same time, I'm not bus chucking Diaco because the reality of the matter is that we don't (or didn't that day) have the bodies to run an effective 4, or even 5, man front. He was trying to adjust his base to accommodate the depth chart while addressing the specifics of the Navy attack. It didn't work, but I see what he was trying to do.
The biggest mistake Diaco made was playing his DL off the ball because that gave Navy's undersized linemen the room to fire out low. The second biggest mistake was having some of the DL upright ( Tuitt ). That reduced him to a target.
George, I'm serious. You should write a respectful letter to Diaco and explain what you've said here. He might ignore it, but you'd have the satisfaction of having spoken up.
I appreciate the compliment. I didn't write the book on the triple option offense but I know its mechanics inside and out. I think Diaco simply figured that the Irish had enough raw talent to compensate and chose not to re-work things. Air Force runs a sloppy option and it is more a double than triple version. They did not prepare us for Navy who runs it to perfection. The Navy QB had all the qualities of a perfect field general ( or Admiral 8) )in this offense. He was absolutely fearless, he disguised the ball well and he went down the LOS flat ( tight against it ) making himself hard to find. It is very hard to locate the ball on defense under those conditions.
Fire Diaco and bring in Krebs!! Back to the Pitt game, assuming we can put 11 guys out there on defense and get a few stops maybe we can win. Even though this isn't an especially good Pitt team with their wins coming against Bob Davie coached New Mexico, a shootout with Duke, a bad Virginia team and Old Dominion...I still expect that we will get the best game of the year out of them. What I do hope is that our OL can dominate Pitt and keep Aaron Donald, the Pitt DL who had a monster game against Ga.Tech last week, out of the backfield. If we can run the ball on them, that will set up Tommy for some play action to the TE's and downfield passing to the WR's. Basically I think we need to score a lot of points, probably need 30+ points to win. Defense has to get a couple of turnovers some how and the Special teams have to prevent those KO returns and punt returns that we gave up to USC and Navy.