Did anyone else watch the UVa ODU game? Virginia was clearly looking ahead to the Irish and almost got caught napping. I suspect it'll be a much different UVa that takes the field Saturday.
Corey, I do not think the Irish will have much difficulty with Virginia! Now that I have jinxed you be careful.
ha! Bronco is a good coach and he'll have them ready for the Irish. I worry about the post-big game let down as well. We'll see how it goes. If the team comes out looking to prove something again, I think we'll win against a ranked opponent handily. If not, it could be another close game.
This whole game on offense was on Ian Book, and while ND fans have been critical of his performance it's mostly that he didn't hang in he pocket and let the deeper routes develop and throw them. That he quickly dumped the ball off to his shorter routes. He did complete 39/47 passes for 275 yards, that's 82% completion rate, but it's also only 5.9 yd/per completion. Most of the commentary I've read said his pass protection was pretty good all night, he just didn't trust it. A lot of people have commented that we had open receivers on deeper routes, but he just bailed early and threw the short routes. Kelly admitted that they didn't really commit to running the ball, offered up that they were thin at RB. I'm guessing he just didn't trust the backs other than Tony Jones in pass protection. He did admit that they are going to have to run the ball more going forward. Everybody, but everybody is giving mega kudo's to Clark Lea for getting his young linebackers ready to play this game. They had their best game of the year. They didn't look good early in the Louisville game but have steadily improved. I'm guessing that barring injury this is going to be an excellent defense going forward.
A disappointing result. Both Corey and I expected the Irish to win this game. We felt that we had a better team than Georgia and we still do. We just made too many mistakes, but the opportunity was there. Even on the final play of the game, Book tossed an Alley-Oop to Claypool without seeing Chris Finke who was all alone running down the sideline. If he had thrown it to Finke, we win the game. Oh well... Our defense was sand bagging in the first two games. All the pregame analysis was worthless. My favorite was how "Notre Dame's run defense is ranked 120th in the nation. If they're that bad against Louisville and New Mexico, Georgia might run for 500 yards...or more!" Let the record show that our defense was faster than Georgia. We hammered them from sideline to sideline all day, and held their "NFL running back" under 100 yards. Can you believe Cole Kmet? We finally got to see what we've been missing and he is a monster! They list him at 6'6" 250, but he's closer to 6'7" 270, and he can run. He's not just a TE. They also put him at WR and wingback. He's a MAJOR problem for any Irish opponent! We'll be OK with guys like that getting on the field.
One of gips classmates and the son of Frank Leahy, Jim Leahy, passed away a couple of years ago. The unofficial blog of the class of '69 has an article on him. They interviewed his wife and posted his son's (Pat, ND baseball '95) eulogy. It's an awesome story. The University of Notre Dame Class of 1969 Blog: Memories of Jim Leahy ’69 by Nancy Leahy
Well, I know that stats don't tell the whole story but Georgia led in all of the.major stats except total passing yardage, so I'm guessing that you may get an argument on being the best team. Notre Dame was.ranked no. 7 for.a reason. That reason is that they are a very good team. Georgia is ranked no.3 for a reason too. like I said above, the Notre Dame.tight ends were wide open all night. I think that Georgia had better figure out why. Oh yeah and Notre Dame rushing defense is up.to number 86.
I know Jim a little bit. My roommate and I ran food sales in one of the dorms and we bought doughnuts from him. Always seemed like a good guy. Nice story about his wife and family.
The only bad thing about a guy like Kmet, is they leave early for the NFL. I hope he sticks around after this year.
Yeah the great ones leave after.the 3 year requirement. It has pretty much done away with the redshirt.
Kmet is also a baseball pitcher of some note. I don't know what his MLB future might be, but he will play baseball this Spring for the Irish. He's been mostly a relief pitcher, but didn't play much last spring due to an injury. So I doubt he's on the MLB radar and if he wants to be he'll probably have to come back for his senior year, which means football next fall. He's eligible for the NFL draft in 2020. We have quite a few guys who could come back or go to the NFL. We have 3 starters on the OL who could go or come back. Book could go or comeback. Alohi Gillman our starting safety could go or comeback. I think the main thing is that none of them would likely be a 1st rounder, but if they came back and had good 5th years they possibly could inch into the 1st round. Of course they risk injury.
Here's a real show of class toward Georgia fans by a member of the ND Board of Trustees: Notre Dame fans thank Georgia with full page ad in Athens newspaper
I kind of agree with Prister on this, the 2 incidents were pretty much it and again while watching LSU/Texas LSU defensive players went down a lot in the 2nd half. The announcers never crossed the line and accused LSU of cheating, Texas fans thought they were faking it though to slow down the Texas offense.