So time to move on from the Texas game. It's done, it's over, Kelly has to focus on getting the team ready for Nevada, the players have to put the loss in the background and realize that they still have a lot to play for this year. Can't dwell on what can't be changed. Nevada is coached by former ND coach Brian Pollian, he's worked his way up through the ranks from sort of an errand boy for Weis to actual head coach. I don't really know how good he is, but he's done a lot of different jobs for some good coaches, Jim Harbaugh, David Shaw and Kevin Sumlin before moving to Nevada where he is about .500 in his 4th year. This is a game we should win and win handily, we should beat them like we beat UMass last year. We should get off to a fast start and the game be over at halftime. But things never seem to be that easy. Vs UMass last year they kept things uncomfortably close in the 1st half and it was 35 -20...ok maybe that doesn't seem all that close but they made some big plays and they were an awful team who never should have probably scored. But the final score was 62-27 so it did get to be a beat down. I guess we are pretty healthy, Hunter is probably out with the concussion protocol. So some more young guys will get on the field. Jay Hayes who didn't play against Texas probably plays so that is a good thing. They had to go to OT to beat FCS Cal Poly, but history tells me that game will not have anything to do with how they play in ND stadium. Mostly we need a really solid win, doesn't have to be a 77-0 game or something like that, but it wouldn't hurt. We have enough good games on our schedule that if we can right the ship and beat Mich State, Stanford and USC we'll be in the conversation for the playoffs. I never expected to be undefeated this year, I didn't expect one of those losses to be to Texas though.
Our schedule is noticeably lighter than recent years. The Texas loss was totally unexpected so, if the Irish are serious about playoff football, they need to win convincingly against everyone they are favored against. And when they play MSU and Stanford they now MUST win. That's a tall order. I don't know how to classify USC after Bama annihilated them. We need to wish Texas continued success and take care of our own business in a demonstrative fashion. The normal "NFL" style win is simply not good enough. This week? How about ND-51 Nevada-13
Couldn't agree more, ND needs to run up the score sadly. The year Ohio State won the Nat'l Champ they lost early to a mediocre Va.Tech at home no less. But then they got on a roll and won out including a huge win in the Big 10 champ game that got them into the playoffs.
It is still doable. At the end of the line an 11-1 Irish squad whose only blemish was a 3 point double overtime loss to Texas in Austin on opening day is pretty convincing.
The one loss to Texas would vary in importance depending on what Texas does the rest of the season. If they stumble to a 8-4 or 7-5 season then it'll hurt us, if they win the B12 it will help us. Since my seats were so high in the Stadium that they came with oxygen, I wasn't really able to see much of how the Irish were lining up on defense. But after hearing that we had a "special" 3-3-5 defense for Texas, I have to wonder why. Kelly said they won't be using that defense the rest of the year, good..it was a failure. It reminds me of Chollie's special offense for Ga.Tech when they came to South Bend, another special failure. As I said I didn't expect an undefeated season, those require more than a little luck and usually a very stout defense. But I was hoping that 11-1 or 10-2 would be the outcome, 9-3 I was thinking would be the worst. Might still work out that way, but unless the defense gets something figured out it could be worse. Hard to outscore teams every week.
Kizer has been getting some great reviews for his performance in the Texas game. There are a couple of draft sites that now have him as the #2 QB for the 2017 draft, only Watson is ahead of him. Now that he's the starter, no rotation, he'll get starters reps and he should get even better as the year goes along. Esp since his young receivers will start to improve as well. ESB had a good game and should build on that, Stepherson after a good spring and fall camp showed that he was a freshman against Texas. But with Hunter likely out for Nevada he should get some good PT and maybe settle down. Mainly we need our OL to perform up to the high standard we expected and we need the DL to also perform. The lines have talent and depth they should get better can't do much about all the youth in the Safety other than coach, coach, coach and protect them as much as possilble.
As bad as the defense played overall at Texas, everything I'm reading says Nyles Morgan had a great game. I hope that continues.
ND <t>Now that we have a starting QB named, this team needs to get the defense settled and move on.<br/> <br/> We do have a good MLB and appear to have found a go to guy at the WR in EQB.</t>
Hunter might play vs Nevada, will be a game time decision. He's not officially cleared yet but is expected to be, and Kelly said he would leave it up to Hunter whether he felt he was ready to play or not. Avery Sebastian is reportedly ready to play. I was listening to a pod cast and they pointed out that Kelly is 3-3 in the second game of the season, with some of the wins being escape jobs..like the Purdue game in 2012. So I'm not looking past Nevada, they are not Praire View A&M!!
A lot of talk this week about Zaire's attitude and how he'll handle the situation of being #2. I hate this, not that it's anybody's fault but Malik's..but he's been a solid player, waited his time and was just unfortunate that 1) he got injured and 2) the guy who replaced him turned out to be great and 3) in opening game that same guy put 6 TD's up on the board. I hope he develops a good attitude about the situation, and prepares well every week so that if we need him that he's ready. I won't begrudge him anything if he transfers in the Spring with his degree to play that 5th year somewhere else. But I just hope he doesn't become a distraction. Prister on the situation. As far as burning Wimbushes redshirt and playing him this year, I guess it depends on how much PT we're talking about. If it was like last year where other than the UMass game he hardly sniffed the field, then I'd rather maybe play Ian Book in blowout games.
ND websites continue to hammer at BVG and Kelly is getting defensive over the questions about him and the defense. I've been through this with Texas, nobody liked Greg Davis, nobody like Manny Diaz, nobody like Strong's first OCoord who was with him at Louisville... The whole Greg Davis thing got to have a life of it's own, most never really gave him credit for the offense with Vince Young or Colt McCoy.
Off topic: While watching Louisville-Syracuse, I saw the ACC crew call targeting - which resulted in the ejection of the Louisville DB - on a play that was nowhere near as egregious as the hit on Hunter. I wish someone would confront the ACC crew who called our game to force them to justify the non-call. I'm not suggesting that we would have won the game if the call had been made. I'm just angry that our guy was badly hurt and nothing was done about it. :evil:
Well after digesting the game for a few days. 1. It is always good to get the win. But given it was Nevada I'm not going to make any conclusions that we've righted the ship. 2. It was good to get the backups some playing time, played 27 different guys on Defense and while the defense did look better, they still have a long way to go, this was Nevada after all not Texas or Mich State. Linebackers as a group played really well, I think this group will be better than last years even though no Jaylon Smith, Nyles Morgan has played very well replacing Joe Schmidt that it's sort of a wash...Lose Joe gain Nyles, Lose Jaylon gain Coney. James Onawalu is having a great Sr. season. 3. DB's...Studstill played well, I think he's going to be a good one, Cole Luke is a good one. We are still short on speed with Dru Tranquil, and I don't really think Sebastian is going to be much of a contributor. It's the freshmen who need to step up now. Nick Coleman as Kelly said is going to get picked on and he needs to step up his play, and his coaches..Todd Lyght need to coach him up. I'd hate to see him become the next Cliff Jefferson. 4. OL to me still not where I thought they would be, it's hard I guess to complain when you run for 200 yds again, but they still don't look like they are really sharp in either pass or run blocking. Good but not good enough. 5. RB's ...does Josh Adams look good or what, he needs to be the starter. I feel bad for Folston, but other than the big run against Texas he hasn't looked as good as Adams. Dexter Williams looked very quick and decisive running the ball as well. I hope Folston gets going, he's a Sr. and I'd like to see him go out with a great year and comeback from the knee surgery. 6. Kizer looks very good, esp considering he is throwing to a lot of first time players. I'm a little surprised that they haven't thrown much to the TE's. That's what Kelly sold Brock Wright and Cole Kmet on, ND being TE U. If they don't start throwing to the TE's a little I wonder if both those guys will stick with the commits. 7. C.J. Sanders..wow that kid has some moves, ESB also looking very good, in fact the WR's even as young as they are have done pretty well and I think they will get a lot better as the season goes on and they get confidence and synced up with Kizer. Overall though a good win that we need to remember who it was against, and not give it more importance than needed. Defensive backfield is incredibly young and that is going to hurt esp early in the season. It may be too much to expect those kids to all grow up fast. The difference between Zaire and Kizer was so dramatic even when Zaire was with the 1st team OL that I have to wonder what Kelly was seeing in camp that made him declare that they were equal. They are not equal. If Kizer goes down, sure I'm glad to have Zaire ready because he has experience but there is a big distance between those two guys.
Daniel Cage getting some love around the Irish internet... Tim O'Malley had this to say and he wasn't the only one.
Thanks, Terry. I don't have a coach's eye to see what's going on in the scrum. That's very good to know.