Well time to put Ball State to bed and move on to Vanderbilt, this is a game I will be on the ground in South Bend to view the Fighting Irish in person. Anybody interested in my streaming our tailgate live on Facebook? :roll: I'm looking forward to seeing the new stadium upgrades, they were of course controversial but I'll have to see for myself. There are those out there that feel that the stadium was forever ruined by the first expansion. Vanderbilt, a 2-0 team from the SEC East, not supposed to be a very good team this year but so far has played well and their defense has been good and they have outscored their opponents (Middle Tenn and Nevada) by 76-17. Right now unless our offensive line gets untracked I expect that we'll have to battle Vandy to the very end. I expect our defense to keep us in the game, not shut them out but play well. It really all comes down to OL giving Wimbush some time and the RB's some lanes and Wimbush settling down and making plays not mistakes. Go Irish.
"You're never as good as you think you are after a win or as bad as you think you are after a loss." Lou Holtz
good old dandy Vandy! They aren't a bad team, but they are a team that we should beat handily. They can, on a given night, give anyone fits. I think they're well coached. They play team defense and like to flow to the ball. The chance for us getting outcoached in this game is pretty substantial. That worries me. Other than that, we should be better at every position. They're recruiting a lot of stud sleepers from this area and have landed some great commits, but those kids won't be suiting up Saturday. The offense has to control the LOS, they absolutely have to, if not we're in for a contest. If we control it, we win in a walk.
From the Vanderbilt perspective. https://vucommodores.com/news/2018/9/11/football-quick-hits-notre-dame.aspx
ND <t>Have a great time Terry.<br/> <br/> Two thoughts..<br/> <br/> 1. Start Book = ND wins<br/> <br/> 2. Start Wimbush = ???????<br/> <br/> One more thought...<br/> <br/> If you start Wimbush have him RUN THE BALL!</t>
We really got away with one today. Vandy looked like the better team except for the scoreboard. They left a lot of points on the field. Wimbush is a running back playing QB. This is as good as it gets. O-Line blocks to a B average on the run, a D on the pass. Kelly decision to go for it on three yard line instead of making it a two possession game in the 4th quarter is the classic case of balls over brains. He got away with it but it was completely the wrong decision. And what the hell is he doing with Book? We have scored 24, 24 and 22. The wheels are about to come off.
I was thinking the same thing George. Either we're about to click and it's going to start coming together, or we're going to have the wheels come off. We constantly hang our defense out to dry. I have no idea what Kelly is doing 75% of the time. We have the athletes though.
I woke up this morning actually feeling worse about this win than I did yesterday. I suspect this may well be a bowl team from the SEC (especially looking around the SEC this year), but that's a team we should have beaten by 4 TDs.
I don't understand what Kelly is doing on offense. Why is Book being substituted in for one play to hand off? I can't analyze any of this.
I think that book poses a bigger pass threat than Wimbush and that defenses will not be as stacked for the run as they would be for him. Book really pissed me off when he threw that 2 pt. conversion pass out of bounds. If it's short you're receiver might be able to out muscle the back for the ball but when over throw it OB it's just stupid.
I watched an interview with Saban and the another with Kelly last night. I am convinced it's about expectation and preparation. Saban expects his team to play at a level that Kelly doesn't believe teams can operate at this early in the season. Granted, this is just me reading tea leaves, but that's the impression that I took away from both men.
Well I have to admit I had sort of a sick feeling when Vandy had the ball on their last possession. Then when we stopped them on the 1st 4th down I breathed a sigh of relief till I saw the flag come out. At that point I just knew we were going to loses and I thought the last play was probably going to be a PI as well and didn't see the ball come out till they showed it on the jumbotron. Both those PI's that were late looked like bad calls to me but then I didn't exactly have the angle. As far as the weekend goes, it was a gorgeous weekend at Notre Dame. We stayed in one of those Rent Like A Champion places and it was up Ironwood across State Line in Niles, it was an absolutely gorgeous home in a gorgeous neighborhood. 800$ for the weekend. We went to campus and met this guy in Sorin, you might recognize him. Fr. Edward "Monk" Malloy. He still lives in the corner room at Sorin, he keeps is door cracked on football weekends and anybody can come in and talk to him. Brian lived in Sorin all four years and was Dorm President his Sr. Year so he has come history with Monk. He was very gracious and encouraged us to root home the Irish! The Pep rally is a shadow of it's former self, home pep rally felt more like the road pep rallies that I've been to in Austin. Afterwards we went to the Evil Czech Brewery which has taken over the spot of the Mishiwaka Brewing company. It's an interesting place, craft beer of course, but not Four Horsemans! The food is different as well, no Sheppards Pie! But I did have some taco's where the beef ingredient was "Cheek Meat" ...actually very tasty. All the waitresses were nice and heavily tatted up of course. A little different atmosphere than back in the day! The campus itself was as beautiful and friendly as always, we talked to a Vandy fan who had been to a ND/Vandy game in 1995 when his son was 4 years old, he was back with his son who had twin 4 year olds. He said he told his son that this was the best place in football to road trip to and so they all came and the son said of course he didn't remember it from age 4 but it was everything his dad said, beautiful and friendly. But wow has the campus changed. Last time I was there was 2013 and of course a lot of changes had been made, but in those 5 years even more has changed it's dramatic how different it is now from when Brian was a freshman in 1986. This was one of those games that Corey says, take the win. OK I'm glad for the win. But while we are still ranked in the top 10, we don't feel like at top 10 team. I was glad to see our runing game get 250 yds that's good, but passing game is weak. It's going to cost us. The defense, Vandy figured something out and we couldn't stop them, and while we did keep them off the scoreboard with some big plays we couldn't capitalize on them. When Yoon missed that FG, I thought we were dead. When we won it was a relief and I thought to myself, Corey says win and move on! So that's where we are! We'll see how it works out. I can see us beating WF next week, but not Stanford unless something changes.
Great report Terry! Serious question, when is the last time that an ND opponent was called for holding? I'll wait... That's not justifying our shitty showings. I think they speak for themselves. However, both Ball State and Vandy held all day long and I don't remember them being called for it.
it's come to my attention that ND's opponents have not been called for holding this year. This ACC thing is great.......
Nice report Terry. Like the photo of a time when Commish had hair and Corey didn't have eyes. Planning on getting back to campus next spring for my 50th. It was a lot easier getting there from Mich. There was lots of hope for our O line before the season started but coaches know when to move on. Jimbo knew when to bail on FSU and I'm guessing Hiestand didn't look forward to this year's line.