Irish hold BSU and then drive the field for a TD. 21-7 Irish. Nice drive, some good runs and some good throws by CJ.
Solid gritty win, held them to 7 points and we definitely left some points out there, but we covered the spread so there is that. Over all the offense and Carr weren't as sharp as they were against Purdue and Arkansas but Love and Price were awesome. Defense was definitely better with 4 picks and 4 sacks, was it the competition or are we making strides. As they noted though, this win isn't going move us up in the polls maybe 1 slot or so, we really needed to crush these guys 42-7 to move the needle with the voters. Bring on NCState!
Horribly sloppy game penalty-wise,but Boise might have had more penalties than us. As the announcer said, we know what Coach will be working on this week.....discipline. Has anyone noticed the pass blocking of #4 and #24? It's been outstanding. A good sign that the RB coach is coaching fundamentals. They both are great RBs, and their pass blocking will help their positions in the NFL draft. I hope the defensive front 7 and DB performances will shut up the "Fire the DC" crowd for at least the next week.
There must have been over 250 yds. of penalties called yesterday. I saw penalties I didn't know existed. For instance a defender tackles a quarterback who is running down the sideline past the line of scrimage and is tackled at the sideline. PENALTY. ROUGHING THE PASSER??? That rule no longer applies when the qb leaves the pocket and it sure as hell doesn't apply when he crosses the line of scrimage. Next, a defender grabs a runner while he is in bounds and spins him out of bounds. That is a late hit??? Later in the game a Boise defender did the exact same thing and it wasn't called. Then there was the roughing the passer call on the ND interception that even mild mannered Freeman couldn't take. We won by three TDs. Still the game was almost unwatchable and wasn't nearly as entertaining as it could have been. We saw either gross incompetence or a crew that had a lot of money bet on the under yesterday. Our D looks pretty good when it isn't playing against top teams.
The safety who spinned the ball carrier out of bounds was a freshman from Fort Wayne. It was a stupid move. It wasn't a late hit. It was unnecessary roughness. I agree with it. I've seen it called recently in another game. It's a stupid thing to do. I couldn't understand why the same OB roughness by a Boise player wasn't called.The roughing the passer call was ridiculous. The DL was in mid flight when the QB released the ball. He couldn't stop in mid air. I believe the flag was thrown based on how it looked. I don't blame Freeman for being visibly angry. Most calls yesterday on both sides were legit, but overall IMO the refs were inconsistent.
We're up to #16 in the AP Top 25 Poll. Miami is #3 and A&M is #5. Some teams ahead of us will lose. We need to make sure we don't.
General feeling on Chris Ash is not different with Saturday's defensive effort. Most online fan/experts want him gone. Hope is that Luke Fickell will get fired at Wisconsin and Ash will move on and we can hire Fickell. ...or Golden comes back. New unhappiness is that NC State is on Peacock, many feel it's there because Swarbrick got some kickback or quid pro quo for the current deal we have with NBC.
That would prove to be an unlikely development, but I am confident similar situations have occurred. Fickell was very successful at Cincinnati and he has had a tough time at Wisconsin. Not sure what has transpired but I think he is a good defensive coach, not sure about head coach thogh?
NC State stats. QB CJ Bailey is #4 in total yards #5 in Completion percentage RB Hollywood Smothers is #2 in Rushing Irish defense better be ready.
On a Women's Basketball note, the 2026 recruiting class gained another top 100 player in Jacey ABii from Texas who is #9 in the rankings. We have 3 top 100 players coming which is a turn around from the last few years of just 1 HS recruit coming in to the program. Lots of Portal players instead. I think the new GM for Basketball , Pat Garrity, has had a big influence on this trend.
There were some penalties that were refused because of the gain on the play. Totals were probably over 250 yds. The amount doesn't favor a team much but it sure effects the over under betting.