Having watched Sam Hartman all season, he took himself out of the Heisman race with multiple very average games.
Joe Montana was there at the entrance to the Lockeroom and he and Hartman had a hug. Good to see Joe back
In the stats are for losers categories. If you had told me that 1. Irish on get 13 1st downs 2. Sam Hartman throws for only 126 yards 3. The Irish only have the ball for 25 minutes I would tell you that USC beat us 48-7
This was a big recruiting weekend and this atmosphere and the big win is bound to help. Of course we need to follow up this by winning out!!
You stole my topic ! And we only had 251 yards total offense. The power of the turnover. The power of special teams. We did USC like Louisville did us last week. We saw two QBs in as many weeks eliminated from the Heisman race. One thing that continues to concern me. No deep threat except for Tyree. It really has reared its head the last few weeks. What happened to Mayweather? Only played at the end against Louisville and was MIA last night. Jean-Baptiste and Bertrand were unstoppable.
Congrats to the Irish! Great win! I thought the pressure/cover packages Freeman and Golden cobbled together to throw at the Trojans were top shelf, got in Caleb's head and dominated the game. With 5 TO's, offensive and defensive totals can be very misleading. Holding that offense to 300 total yards is a great, great defensive performance. On a yards per play basis, SC averaged 4.1 -v- the Irish 5.1 that's a convincing margin. The Irish were much the better team. If you played SC 10 times, you'd win 7 at least imho. That said, I do agree with George, the one glaring missing ingredient that Marcus needs to land is at least one, ideally multiple, outside threats that can truly strike fear in a DC.
More interesting stats. In the five offensive drives where ND had to cover 70 yards or more the offense generated four punts and a FG.
Great Defensive game for the Irish. I never thought ND could keep Williams contained that well. Exact opposite of last year. Great Win! Go Irish!
Well last week I ragged on our special teams and they came up really big last night. They also seemed to be making a bigger effort to block punts. I thought that the O line did a much better job in pass protection last night. Hartman had time but not many receivers open. The offense didn't make any mistakes and let the D win last night's game. You're not going to have great offensive stats when your D gives you the ball on the 13 and then the 2 yd. line. Still lots of work to be done with the running game. Did you see where while the rest of the team had gone up to the locker room, Estime was out on the field reveling with the students. I'm not sure but I don't think that we had any pre snap penalties last night. Overall, a pretty well played game except for that mess at the end of the half. Marcus is still learning. I still am not happy with our OC but the WR coach better come up with more quality and depth. After that crushing defeat last week, the team was ready to play and at an emotional peak. We've just come off a 4 game stretch of night games with teams that have a combined record (not counting their game with ND) of 21-1. (Looks like Louisville came down to earth and got beaten by Pitt yesterday) We get a much needed week off and then play teams we can beat if we play at our best. We're still not complete enough to be a winner in the playoffs but we're slowly improving.
Oh I forgot!!!! Revenge is a dish best served cold. Last year at SC Seems ND stuck it up his last night. As I read online Wendy's is going to use him in their next commercial with the theme PICK 3!!!!!!
Just a short post script. 1. Read where ND has not given up a sack at home this season. If true, that's pretty impressive. Perhaps we owe the O line a little more respect. 2. Speaking of respect, and this is just a pet peeve of mine, I watch College Football Final Sun. mornings. At the end of the show they give helmet stickers to players who have outstanding games. Why wasn't Xavier Watts mentioned? Two ints. another pass broken up, a forced fumble, a fumble recovery with a score and 7 tackles!!!
Just a thought but do any of the other ND fans here believe that we are seeing a work in progress as far as Freeman goes as a HC? He appears much different this year than last (in a good way) and really almost game by game. I was so disappointed after the Louisville and tried not to watch or read any ND related media or College football sites in general until this Saturday. I knew there would be plenty of negative Marcus Freeman stuff out there and I didn’t want to hear or see it. I believe in this guy and have seen what he can do as far as bringing talent to ND. Given time I think this is the guy who will get ND to serious title contention. Saturday’s game against usc convinced me even further. After last seasons’ debacle in The Coliseum where Williams was running around like some video game character finding an open receiver to the throw the ball downfield to over and over again, the staff found a way to contain him. Obviously he learns from his mistakes and is still learning That win Saturday will reap many more rewards yet to come as there were a ton of recruits there and were presented with a great view of what Notre is and can be in the future. Give Freeman a chance. It will pay at off big time in the future.
Freeman does have a lot of support from fans and hope he succeeds as he has shown that he gets ND and is working hard to raise the program. Kelly never reached that level of support, but never the less ultimately he has to win at a high level.