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.