Well the Fighting Irish are returning to Dublin for a tilt with the Midshipmen in Aug. of 2023. And as expected there's all sorts of whining by some on the BBs. The complaint that the travel will somehow impact the following week's game is wrong since they have the next TWO weeks off and then play Cent. Mich. The positives are many including a good recruiting tool. The Navy game replaces a mid November home game for an Aug. game in Ireland and just on weather alone that's a big plus. Additionally and maybe the most important, ND will begin practice two weeks earlier which can't but help with the OSU game on 9/23. I'm really tempted to go if my health holds out. The game is scheduled for Mary's 75th birthday.
Irish go 3 and out the first 2 possessions, but started to roll after that, went for it on 4th down on the 3rd drive in the red zone but failed. Next drive resulted in a FG, then they inserted Buchner and he had a great drive for a TD. Then with 2 minutes and the ball on the 5, Coan comes in and gets the big play to Kevin Austin 17-3 at half, Irish offense and defense finished the half on the upswing, also looks like Navy lost their QB, that can't help their offense. I feel pretty good about the 2nd half, they get the ball first, stop them and tack on another score and that likely will do it.
Just as I comment on the defense handling Navy they are marching right down the field and we finally stop them and force the FG. But that drive consumed more than half the qtr. We have to score on this possession.
Irish got a safety and then a great drive with Kyren doing Kyren stuff for another score. 27-6 Irish. If I were the coach I would put Drew Pyne in for the next drive and let him work with 1's and run the full offense.
Well Brian Kelly didn't take my advice, went with Coan / Buchner. Logan Diggs was the star of the last drive. Sadly it looks like Avery Davis has a knee injury, I hope it's just a sprain but I won't be surprised if it's worse. Irish win 34 - 6
You won't hear me say this again but today....Go Purdue and thank you very much! We may not be going to the playoffs but I can tell you for sure that MSU is not!!!
I had 2 social engagements this evening and had to watch the game on tape. The last play I saw live was Coan taking a sack on 4th down!!!! WTF throw it away better yet throw it downfield to Mayer. In any event, the D was stout and Williams was Williams. I can't believe we've lost another WR. The O line was serviceable but, they were pushing around Navy. Our toughest remaining game is next week vs Va. I hope Hamilton is back by then.
Is Buchner in the doghouse? The Irish are a completely different team with him in the game. Much more up tempo and much more difficult to defend. The team seems to respond instantly to his presence. I have never seen a QB with less escapability or pocket presence than Jack Coan. He is like a tree. You have no need to take a contained rush against him; he'll still be there when you get there. It was a good win that was orchestrated by a shutdown defense against a poor team.
Looks like Whisky is getting its act together and NC also chipped in to make ND's schedule a little tougher.
Reading NDNation after the Navy game you'd have thought we lost the game. Most of the talk was about how Jack Coan should be benched, we need to play Tyler Buchner to get him ready for 2022, Kelly and Rees suck, etc. I do think that Buchner has been getting pretty good playing time, and it's not just in mop up duty in the 4th qtr where he's just running out the clock. That has been what most of Kelly's backups have been given over the years he's been at ND. The exception was Tommy Rees who even when he wasn't the starter like in 2012 had a significant role in the offense. He started a game at Purdue when Golson was out with a concussion and he scored a big TD in the Stanford game subbing in for Golson. The rest of them including Phil Jurkovec, never really got to get into games and be used in a meaningful way like Buchner has been used this year. If Jurkovec had played in games like Buchner, maybe he wouldn't have transferred and he'd be our starter this year.
I thought I saw Buchner in the Navy game for one full series ( TD ) and on spot duty on two others. That's it.
You are not alone in that observation. As I noted much of the post game talk was anger over Kelly not putting Buchner in after the first 2 possessions where Coan went 3 and out. More than a few would really rather just bench Coan and play Buchner even if it costs us a few games, which it's might not of course. But Kelly clearly likes Jack Coan, and wants him to be the starter. His moment of wavering from that was after Buchner came in the first half and jump started the Irish offense vs Va.Tech. When asked exiting the field at halftime about who would start, he said something to the effect that we've found our starter. Of course then Buchner threw a couple of bad picks including one that went for a Va.Tech TD. Coan then reentered the game and engineered the comeback victory and Buchner returned to fill in QB when we needed to jump start the running game. More than a few wanted Buchner to start the next game against USC not Coan. I would certainly like to see Buchner get to run more of the regular offense when he gets into the game, especially if we are up by several TD's and the game isn't in doubt. He clearly can move the team with the mostly running offense mixing in some throws. But that offense isn't going to cut it next year.
Apparently Navy's D coordinator did a good job in preparation and according to Jamie U it was targeted at taking away our RPOs and when we went to an empty backfield, they dropped 8 in coverage. It took a few series to diagnose their D and make adjustments. The execution on some correctly called plays is what held down our success. That included, drops, tipped passes and failure to see an open receiver. I think that the bottom line was that Rees was better than the Offense produced. One thing we can take as a plus is that we scored more against Navy than Cincy and gave up less points. As to Buchner, I had the same thoughts that he should have seen more action. He's done nothing that I can see to not warrant additional PT.
As you know the Backup QB is always popular, unless you have a Heisman candidate in front of him. I doubt if Clemson or Alabama fans were clamoring for the backup to get more snaps to get them ready for the next season when they would take over. Of course Travis Lawrence and Mac Jones were outstanding and ran the offenses to near perfection. But I think we'd all agree that Nick Saban is the best college coach in the last 50 years or longer. But even he didn't play his backup, Bryce Jones, all that much even knowing that he would be the starter next year. I looked it up Bryce Young only played in 7 games last season and only threw 22 passes and I don't think he played in critical situations. Buchner has, and I don't think you'll find another back up QB in NCAA football that is getting playing time to develop them for the next year. Sure you'll find backups who play a lot due to injury to the starter or when the offense is bad and they are changing horses. But not just insert the backup to give him reps other than garbage time reps where they just hand off the ball to run out the clock.