It all comes down to this game. This is the "conference" championship game. Win and we're in the conversation, lose and it's Hello Fiesta Bowl. Kelly vs Stanford is 2-3 with the 2 wins being very close and tough wins. 2012 everybody remembers the goal line stand that preserved the win, and last year we should remember the pass to Ben Koyack by Everett Golson in the corner of the endzone to seal the win. But 2010,2011, and 2013 they handled us pretty easily. It seems like Kevin Hogan has been at Stanford for 10 years, but he was a RS Freshman in 2012 when we played them. He's been up and down as a Stanford QB, he has had some really great games and he's had some stinkers. If he's on, they will be very tough to beat. RB Christian McCaffrey is a Heisman Trophy Candidate and an outstanding multipurpose player. We have to be able to stop him running the football. Stanford Defense has not been as good as some of their previous ones, so maybe we can score a little more, in the past Kelly teams have struggled vs Stanford defenses to score 20 points. Missing Kevarie Russell is a big loss as is not having CJ Prosise for the game. Before he was hurt he had some good runs vs BC and showed what he can do with the football, well except that run where he got stripped. Still I wish we had him ready to go, he's a good combo with Adams, I don't know about Dexter Williams. Everybody says Dexter has a lot of talent and will be a "star", except he's like a lot of young backs...not too good at picking up the Blitz. I don't want to see Kizer go down because he wiffs on a blitzing LB. I'm not sure who will replace Russell, Kelly said it was going to be multiple kids, so I worry about that for sure. Not that Russell has had some amazing year, he's has made 2 very big INT's though. He said on Twitter or Instagram or someplace something that indicated he won't be back. But to tell you the truth unless the NFL is just blown away by his Combine workout, there isn't really much on his resume this year that will get him drafted. For his draft stock he'd be better off coming back. The only guys that have eligibility left and should go are Stanley and Jaylon. Prosise is a kid who might not go till the late rounds or even go undrafted even though he's had a great season. Of course next year with Folston coming back, with Adams a year into the system and maybe even Williams ready to contribute he might find that his caries decrease and his stats less impressive. Fuller definitely can improve his stock coming back.
ND is a little like Fla in that they slipped a little ( UF a lot ) last Saturday but have another chance to win and impress. In ND's case not as much ground to make up but still some uncertainty at the end even if they win ( depending on other games ). In UF's case more ground to make up but in a great position at the end if they make it. Problem is getting there for UF. ND has a much better shot at it because winning one game over Stanford is much more doable than beating FSU and Bama in successive weeks.
No doubt UF has a tougher road to go down. Wins vs FSU and Alabama would certainly get them in the conversation. It's much like where Ohio State was last year. They went to East Lansing and beat MSU soundly and then beat UM and just destroyed Wisconsin. I don't think they make it if they had beaten Wisconsin by 24-17.
Terry, I think you sell Russell a little short. He's second on the team in tackles behind Jaylon. He's had a pretty good year. However, he may not be 100% by the time of the NFL Combine. He has a lot to consider.
ND <t>I wonder if Cage is going to be able to play in this one. It would be nice to have him for this one.</t>
Huh? Like Gip said, he's second on the team for solo tackles. That's not amazing? IMO he's been a mainstay of our DBs.
Well I guess all those tackles are a good thing, but he's been beat a bunch in coverage and despite those 2 picks he hasn't had the season I sort of expected from him. He's hardly been a shutdown corner we thought he was going to be. But maybe the year off hurt more than anticipated, and maybe Uncle Rico's defense is too much to learn in 1 summer camp. I don't know, but he'd be in the category for me of players who didn't play as well as expected. Unfortunately for him though this broken leg is probably going to hurt his combine workout. He might be in a spot where he graduates in Dec and ordinarily would take off the Spring to go to one of those groups who specialize in getting players ready for the NFL combine. But if he's recovering from a leg issue he might not be able to take full advantage of those trainers other than to get healthy.
ND <t>Well as I kinda expected, the Irish drop to #6 in the poll and probably rightfully so coming on the heels of a very bad performance against BC. What gets me is members of the sports media seemed absolutely gleeful when they heard the news and you could almost see a smile on some of their faces as the results of the poll were announced. Sometimes I forget just how hated the ND nation is by so many. Sad. <br/> <br/> Regardless, I don't think it really changes much for ND. It's still all about beating Stanford and seeing what happens to the rest of the top 10. Still a lot to be decided this weekend. <br/> <br/> I wish I had a lot of confidence the ND would be a winner on Sat but it's hard to be optimistic with all the injuries. Kizer will have to have a good or great game as well as the rest of the offense. We won't win with 4 or 5 turnovers against this Stanford team for sure. <br/> <br/> I watched the latest Season with Notre Dame episode tonight and still have to say I like it a lot.</t>
In a sense, a win is a win. Lose (again) and you're definitely out. More football to be played. In Notre Dame's case also, all of the teams ahead have conference championships to play. They have even more football to play. Also, either Iowa or Michigan State is going to lose before it is all over. Once again, I think the committee may have put both of those teams ahead of Notre Dame knowing that with all likelihood they would meet in the Big 10 CG and therefore one would be dropped out. I think they did the same thing earlier with Alabama and LSU.
I agree with George. Sure in the overall scheme if we'd lost to BC it'd be final but we still have hope. But in the real world the committee is looking at wins and assigning relative value. OU had a close win over TCU, they are saying that was a better win than our close win over BC. They are looking at the body of work of MSU and Iowa and saying their wins are better than our wins. They have decided that the common opponents don't mean as much between ND and OU since they were in Sept and early Oct. As much as I want to rail against the committee and say it's a conspiracy that they are mostly representatives of the Power 5 conferences and as such are looking out for the conferences and will do and rationalize as much as they can to make sure that the 4 slots are filled with conference members. Only allow ND in if they just absolutely have to let us in. This team had it's destiny in it's hands, they had 2 games against weaker opponents. Granted both Wake and BC had shown all season that they were very good on defense but also had shown all season that they were bad on offense. But still if we take care of business vs Wake and BC then we'd be in, still would have had to beat Stanford of course..2 loss teams do not apply. But now it's more than beating Stanford. We have to do it with style and/or hope that the B1G produces a champ that is unacceptable. Such as if Neb beats Iowa and then Iowa beats who ever they play in the B1G champ game. We have to hope OK State beats OU. It'd actually be nice if Auburn or UF could upset Bama. I think that if we'd have not allowed those garabage time points vs BC it might be different. Of course if we'd not have crapped the bed in the redzone and put up 40 points on them that would have worked as well. But we have what we have, our destiny is no longer in our hands, sure we have to beat Stanford but even doing that we have to rely on other teams and the committee seeing our "resume" as better than the other 1 loss teams.
From a technical standpoint it would appear that the loss of CJ Prosise was a turning point. Since he went down Will Fuller has been on a milk carton and the only way you can see an Irish TE in action is to watch the Cincinnati Bengals. And to further complicate matters Kizer is has regressed as well, probably for the same reason. No one could watch is the last two weeks and make a irrefutable argument that we are a top four team. We are definitely trending the worng way while teams like Michigan State, Baylor, and Oklahoma are peaking at the right time. Iowa is a feel good story but their schedule offers no support for their record and I am pretty sure the trail ends for them in the B10 championship game. With all that said, a win over Stanford coupled with an Iowa loss and an Oklahoma loss should put a right back in.
The problem with Prosise and the TEs are related. When you lose that many experienced RBs you have to rely more on the TEs for pass protection. If we beat Stanford there is no conference reason why we should not be in. After all we may well end up beating the champions of the PAC and AAC and would have lost to the champions of the ACC by 2 on the road in a hundred years rain. I guess a schedule with 3 conference champions isn't enough now is it?
ND <r><QUOTE><s> </e></QUOTE> Couldn't agree more.<br/> <br/> I'm trying to keep this all in perspective and thinking how I honestly thought we wouldn't be able to win 8 games this season after the loss of Zaire coming on top of the loss of our starting TB, DL etc, etc. and to see how we have done is outstanding. Can't be too disappointed in the team only the loss of players due to injury.</r>
It's the time of year in which I think I'm taking crazy pills (I am)... I am sorry but I don't see it with Oklahoma. They got beat, solidly, by a Texas team who was blown off the field by the Irish. Granted, we shat the bed against BC but all Iowa has done is win ugly all year, unless they were playing a shitty team (and boy do they have some shitty teams on their slate). Oh well, let it all play out before we start bitching
:idea: :arrow: re: 4 minutes to kickoff It's NoCal. The party is outside of the stadium and the fans file in at their own pace. My other son and his girlfriend were at this game. re: Kelly Why does he do it? We lost two games this season because he goes for two early in the game. BOTH the Clemson and Stanford losses were inexcusable. As they were lining up for two the first time, I was yelling "NO! NO! We'll need that point if you miss!" Sure enough, we scored to TIE the game with 30 seconds left; then kicked the extra point to go ahead. If we had just kicked the point earlier, we would have taken the lead on the TD, then gone for two to prevent the field goal from beating us... Oh well. At least this will prevent us from bothering our neighbors with a bunch of whining. Where do we go now? Fiesta Bowl? Back to Music City?
My post mortem 1. Most glaring was the red zone offense. Stanford's was a thing of beauty. Ours was a stumbling attempt at brute force that almost always resulted in only 3. 2. PAP (pissing away points) JO'Co touched on it above. First we blow a PAT early. Then for no good reason we go for 2 and fail. That's 12 pts from 2 TDs Those missing 2 pts. Stanford's margin of victory. 3. Utilization of the MSU Suicide defense in the closing moments. If Stanford were on the 5 yd. line would we line up all our D backs on the back of the endzone? That would be just as stupid as our "zone" defense leaving a 40 hole in the middle of the defense. It looked to me that on the first play we rushed 3 and dropped 8 and Hogan couldn't find anyone open and was flushed into a face mask penalty. On the next play we rushed 3 and dropped 7 (!) leaving a spy on Hogan. Rushing 3 gave him time to find the gaping hole in the middle of the defense vacated by the spy. 4. Stanford played an almost perfect game mistake wise. They had no turnovers and had one penalty for 5 yds. Even then with all that they still needed a 45 yd FG at the gun to beat us. 5. Our kids played hard until the end. Considering how beat up they were, considering that the played on the road 4 out of the last 5 weeks and went coast to coast this week they gave a fine effort. 6. I'd rather be out of the playoffs because we lost on the field that being jobbed by a bunch of conference partisans who owed the Big 12 one after last year.