8) 1. Thank God for the game plan. The Irish chewed clock all day and kept the ball away from one of the most talented offenses in the country. ASU has now lost only to Stanford and Notre Dame and almost came back at the end of both games. I'm glad they're behind us. They can be somebody else's problem now... 2. Three cheers for the OL! Will Sutton was the 12Pac Defensive Player of the Year in 2012 and there are folks out here (not me) who think he's the best in the country. He's a good one, but Ronnie Stanley and Christian Lombard kicked his arse. He finally left with an injury, but he was ineffective long before that. The SDevils put their best players over the kids on the right side and it didn't work. This was the best I've ever seen Stanley and Lombard and it's the first time I've seen a game where Sutton wasn't living in the backfield throwing bodies around. Wowza! 3. Tommy Rees...sigh... 4. Cam McDaniel is the best running back in the school. He's also the best football player that the Irish put in the backfield. Can you say "Rocky Bleier?" 5. Corey Robinson is amazing. Further down the road he may be unstoppable. Look at TJ Jones. He's made himself into one of the better slot receivers in the country... 6. Stephon Tuitt looked like a high, first-round draft choice today. That ASSU QB will be seeing him in his dreams... 7. Dan Fox's swan dive into the end zone was a 10.0 on the Richter scale. As he was in mid-air, looking for a landing strip my mind flashed to the dancing hippos dressed as ballerinas in Fantasia... 8. Jaylon Smith is really starting to hurt the opponents. He hits hard and covers well; maintains his discipline and always seems to be around the ball. He and Cole Luke are starting to find their place in this defense... 9. So much for Dr. Hendrix getting more playing time. Kelly makes those announcements, then just let's it all ride with Tommy... 10. Troy Niklas is just under 6'8"......about the same size as Hulk Hogan. Any time he is single covered in the end zone he should be the main target. On his TD, the Dback hit him before the ball got there and he didn't even move. His body mass is just too much to disturb by light weights and he just catches the ball with his hands...
Congratulation to you Domers! I did not think you could do it with an offensive team like Arizona State.
I stood near in Hulk Hogan in Atlanta airport. He is 6'8" in heels. Niklas is bigger. Kyle Brindza was huge in this game. GA III is running hard, just has no idea what he's doing. On each ASU TD pass, our defenders never saw the ball. This trait goes back to Lou Holtz at the end of his tenure. Kelly's sideline demeanor the last two years is a major positive.
Jarrett Grace gone for the year with a broken tibia. Daniel Smith probably finished too with s suspected fractured ankle. Ouch! :?
We're winning in spite of Rees, not because of him. No one hurts us more on the field than that kid.. and I'm tired of ragging him. It's not his fault he's on the field. We've been an inconsistent team with inexplicable play calling and no real heart for most of Kelly's tenure. The best team we had, was the team that de-emphasized Rees. Draw your own conclusions. ASU is going to beat some people this year...
We had more false start penalties than I can rember in a long time. I couldn't tell if it was because of the loud noise from a huge crowd in a domed stadium or distraction from the huge jumbotron board. Thank goodness we don't have those problems at ND. Why is it necessary to rip Rees? 1. Why not EG who had his ass thrown out of school? 2. Why not Quitter Gunner Keil? 3. Why not the other QBs on the roster who can't beat out Tommy? I just don't get it!
Very well said, Gip. Corey, I love ya, but you are full of ****. You are so fixated on Rees that you've lost all objectivity and any analytical credibility you might have had. Jim, you can sigh all you want, but read Gip's comments above, and let's see how many times you sigh. For the rest of you stat freaks, who cares what his stats are? Stats are for losers. We are not last year's team. We are this year's team with all its warts and shortcomings, but we come to play every single week. we're 4-2 with 6 games remaining. You whiners need to sack up and start supporting every single player on this team, even the ones you don't like.
We support Tommy and we are not full of ****. How can anyone analyze the game without mentioning the QB?
Look, you know I'm as full of **** as Corey in my own way, but how do you justify the following kind of comment? I understand criticizing play calling. It's as American as boneless wings. But playing with "no real heart"? Really? How about this one? I agree that in 2012 Rees as a role player behind Academic Boy worked well. But we all know that there were numerous reasons for the 2012 undefeated season. The QB play was only one. To compare last season's team with this one - whether QB, LB play, TE play, DB pass coverage, rushing game, etc. - is apples and oranges. Like I said it's a different team with a different set of warts. There's a fine line between analysis and opinion tainted with bias. That was my point to Corey. Re: your sigh, I was as upset as anyone when Rees threw the pick 6. It probably destroyed his chances of winning the Heisman. However, he deserves credit for contributing his part to the win. To paraphrase Gip's question why do you find it necessary to rip Rees when he comes to play, plays to the best of his ability, and works hard to overcome his mistakes and help his team win? Whether or not your sigh was a rip is in the eye of the beholder. I'll grant that I may have overreacted to it, but on the heels of Corey's rant, I was fired up. I know that in most games we play, Rees is the second best QB on the field by a long shot, as was the case vs. ASU. But he's proved himself over 4 seasons to be a gamer of the highest caliber. He's my kind of player. Again referring to Gip's comments, until someone comes along to beat him out, I'm behind him 100%.
Say what you want.. but let's turn to someone else. Someone not an ND fan.. someone who probably enjoys the Irish suffering. In recapping the game: Is he full of **** too? I guess you missed the point of my post. I'm frustrated that kid is on the field. You can say that we don't have better QBs, but at this point in time, I'm gonna call ******** on that. This is an offense that won with big numbers at stops before ND. Our offense and team was better without Rees. That's a fact. People hang their hat on Rees' great comebacks, but if you'll remember, I pointed out even then that Rees shouldn't get the credit.. the WR should. He throws all sorts of passes.. But the point really isn't to rip Rees and even I'm tired of it... I'm seriously questioning WTF Kelly is doing. I live in an area in which you meet an ND fan about every 3 to 5 months in the wild. Most folks you meet hate the Irish, but love football. The number one question I field about this team is 'Don't y'all have another QB?' We can run the ball. We block for him. Our defense has talent, but is thin up front due to injuries. We should be trying to hold onto the ball like last year. That draws defenses up... it gives Rees some optimal situations for his skillset.. but this 'let him sling it around' ******** is killing us. Anyone who thinks Rees won that game, and not our OL, needs a football tutorial.
Oh, I would like to point out 2 things.. perhaps they weren't clear enough. The 'playing with no heart' is something that has been a trademark of Rees' offenses... These Rees years have been the toughest to analytically be an ND fan since the Powlus years at ND. It was virtually impossible to evaluate the Irish then because of Sid's proximity to the issue.. So, it became something that was best left unsaid, and let the proof develop on its own... Boy did it. Now we have a guy who couldn't carry Powlus's jockstrap getting that same kind of support.. and that's fine. Cheer cheer for ole Notre Dame. I get it. But if you've read multiple posts I've made now about this, you'll note I said it's not his fault he's on the field. I very much doubt that the other QBs can't beat him out... very, very much. I am questioning our HC. I openly question so many things we can't do and should be able to do especially because this guy has now been there long enough to run out of excuses. oh, and I forgot to cite that quote before... http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2013/10/6/4808808/top-25-reviewed
I do not share Corey's harsh opinion of Tommy Rees. I think the young man has shown plenty of heart, sometimes with a home crowd booing him. My "sigh" comment was about the situation that Tommy finds himself in, through no design of his own. Let me make myself clear: I blame Kelly. How is it, that after four years of recruiting, all we have at QB are two guys who are barely adequate with nothing behind them, but a freshman who isn't ready yet? It's not like QB is just any position. This situation should never happen and yet we find that Mr.Kelly is the third head coach in-a-row with a nearly bare cupboard at the most critical offensive position... (Sigh...)
I think Rees has maxed out his talent. I don't think he was ever recruited to be the starting QB at ND. Yet over time, ore reason totally not of his doing, he has found himself in that role. Clearly he has had more character and talent than his fellow QBs he has replaced. who either were overrated, quit and transferred or got tossed out of school. He has been the constant. He can't run at all, will make bad decisions under pressure at times and is the NCAA all time leader in delays of game / wasted time outs. But he is the best we have to offer. Hendrix will be a great MD one day. Zaire came from a small school program that I am extremely familiar with and will take time to grow into this role, if ever. I think Kelly has tried to fill the position but could never have anticipated Golson's stupidity or Kiel's immaturity.
I respect and like my friend Corey. Same with Jim. My problem is that I get too worked up over things that really are not worth getting worked up over. We all want the same thing for ND football. We just have different approaches and perspectives. I need to respect those differences and not react so strongly to those opinions - er, analyses - that differ from mine. There is a lot of knowledge and insight among the ND folks here. I will try to do better at silently respecting the differences among us.
ND <t>Sid,<br/> <br/> <br/> I think you and I are a lot alike when it comes to being critical of the ND football players and team. I'm just not wound that way. I tend to defend them all until the overwhelming evidence says otherwise. It hurts when I see others that are being critical of them. <br/> <br/> I know all the ND fans here have one common interest and that is to see the Irish do well. I may not always agree with them but try to understand they are just expressing their point of view and let it go. Key word there is "try".<br/> <br/> On Rees:<br/> <br/> I genuinely like this young man a lot. I appreciate what he has done for this team(I'm not gonna rehash everything). I honestly think he is doing the best he can and plays to the best of his abilities. He's just not the QB this offense needs. There is nothing we can do about it at this time though. In the game against ASU, if Golson had played I'm sure we would have won by double digits easily. He just adds that much to the position. Obviously Hendrix isn't an option. If he was, Kelly would have started him by now so that is out of the question. The Freshman is....a Freshman and if Kelly thought that by playing him the offense would function better, he would have played him. He obviously doesn't have any problem playing other freshmen. <br/> <br/> We just don't have any option right now. We just have to play it out with Rees, support him good or bad. It is what it is.<br/> <br/> <br/> <br/> [/quote]</t>
After some reflection. It was still a much needed win. We have our warts for sure and they aren't going away in fact our already thin LB crew just got thinner and less experienced. They are talking about playing Schmidt a walk on who has a big heart and all, but still the kid is a walk on, and a true freshman in Deeb. Given the limitation of Carlo and Fox, things look a little grim at ILB. On Tommy, I hate to see the some times extreme negativity directed at him just like I hated it back in the Ron Powlus days. But he's a limited kid and it is what it is, no sense in screaming every week for Tommy to be more accurate, or Tommy to make a throw that requires a stronger arm. He's a place holder, a kid who works hard and doesn't deserve the negativity. It would help a lot if we had an excellent running game for him to rely on but at this point we don't. If we get to the Stanford game at 9-2 I'll give Tommy, the defense, Kelly, etc their props. They had the chair pulled out from under them when Golson did what he did. If you remember Kelly said in Fall camp he thought this team needed to score more points. A lot of people thought that meant he wanted to win games comfortably and not have to rely on his defense to shut teams out in the redzone. But I think he knew that Tuitt was way less than 100% and that he lost a lot in Spond and Motta and Kap and knew this years defense was not likely to be anywhere close to last years. On RB..we had 6 and now we seem to have 2 GAIII and Cam, Bryant is done for the year, Folston supposedly had hamstring problems, Mahone has had injury problems and really isn't ever likely to play this year, and Amir Carlisle except for that 40yd run on the first play from scrimmage hasn't really shown all that much, he's not as good a back as Cam, he's faster though. Anyway, I was very glad for the win. I wish we hadn't given up that last TD. I wish that Farley had remembered it was 4th down and not picked off that pass, we'd have had the ball inside the 20 and maybe got another score. I was impressed that Arz was bascially not able to run the ball, the kid Gris averages 18 pts/game, scores a TD every 8 or 9 times he touches the ball, he did get the last TD of the game so we didn't shut him out, but he wasn't as effective as he has been in his career. Watching their QB Kelly operate really made me realize how big it is to have not just a QB who has a live arm, but who can get 10 yds for you on scrambles and designed runs. I think if we had Golson this year we'd possibly be undefeated, you never know of course but 4-2 without him and with no running game to speak and a backup QB is not bad.
Did anybody mention our Kicker? After looking like a kid who walked out of the stands on his first try, he stepped up and made a crucial 53ydr which was the longest of is career. Not to mention he has been excellent punting the ball. After the Spring game when he looked like he couldn't punt the ball over the line of scrimmage he's come a long way. He's eligible to come back next year. That's a good thing.
You don't get to be the Don by not noticing details. I mentioned Brindza back in my original post. Fuggedabouit!