Final home game of the season, Senior day. But it will be different, parents/families will be in attendance but won't be out on the field and their sons won't be running out to them for a group family hug. From his press conference today. ON HOW THINGS ARE GOING TO LOOK FOR SENIOR DAY THIS WEEKEND "I allow no hugging. No hugging, I have a no hugging policy. I'm kidding. Senior Day will look different. As you know, the attendance will be made up of faculty and staff. Families will be there. They will not be on the field until after the game. We will not do the traditional pregame where our players run out and it's primarily because they're running out to faculty and staff. Most of our guys would run out to a standing ovation because they do so well academically, so I'm sure all the faculty and staff that are there would give them a round of applause. I was being facetious again because you can't see me. But I think the way we had set up was that postgame we will have the jumbotron up, we'll put up a bio of each one of the players, they'll take pictures and be recognized as such in their Senior Day." The Irish go for their 24th straight home win, and Ian Book goes for his 30th win as a Notre Dame QB, which will make him the all-time winningest QB in Irish history. Not bad for a guy who hasn't got a great arm, is too short, and doesn't stand tall in the pocket like Mac Jones or Trevor Lawrence!! Braden Lenzy will be a full go, Zeke Correll dealing with a high ankle sprain, might not be a go for Syracuse, and Tommy Kraemer is going to practice this week but not likely to play. No word on C'Bo Flemster. A win this weekend clinches the spot in the ACC Championship. Kelly talks about the final game at Wake Forrest but the FSU/Clemson makeup game that same day seems to be in doubt. Most fans think that if Clemson doesn't play that the Irish shouldn't have to play their makeup game with Wake Forrest either. Maybe the ACC could get another opponent for Clemson that weekend, who knows. Syracuse having a bad season and the Irish should roll over them and hopefully get backups like Brendan Clarke (QB) some playing time. I said in another topic that I like coach Dino Babers, if you've seen some of his locker room stuff on Youtube he's fun to watch. Hopefully this season is just a blip and he'll be back next season. Seems like one of the good guys. I do think it's interesting that if the Irish win out to the ACC championship game and win they are in of course, if they lose but it's not a bad loss that they are still in. I want to beat those guys though, with Trevor Lawrence and not back into the playoffs! Go Irish.
In what I think will be a common occurrence in college basketball this Dec/Jan, the ND/Western Michigan game was cancelled. WMU couldn't come up with enough players to suit up and play. Irish Women will take on Michigan on Thursday night, they expect to get some of their players back including last year freshman phenom Sam Brunelle.
It's official Notre Dame v Wake Forrest, the makeup game for the earlier cancelled game due to ND Covid issues will not be played. This automatically puts ND in the ACC Championship game. Clemson must beat Va.Tech this weekend to qualify.
I put this here for JO'Co. He has mentioned several times how great a player Javon was as a high schooler in Calif. He's not had that level of success at ND and came close to being booted for an off the field incident a couple of years ago. But this year has been a coming out party for him. Just in time for the Irish and his NFL asperations. 3. Javon McKinley is one of the best big play wideouts in college football. That’s not something I ever expected to write. It’s true, though. That’s the player he has been for Notre Dame and it’s been huge with the absence of Kevin Austin and Braden Lenzy from the lineup. McKinley has eight receptions of 30 yards or more this season. That’s only one less than North Carolina’s Dyami Brown and Alabama’s DeVonta Smith. It’s two more than Boston College’s Zay Flowers and Oklahoma State’s Tylan Wallace. It’s three more than Clemson’s Amari Rodgers and four more than Louisville’s Tutu Atwell. Look at those names and think about whether or not anyone would have expected McKinley to be mentioned in the same company as them as a big play threat. I’m sure there are some other fifth year players who played at Notre Dame who have gone from barely contributing to a starring role. I can’t think of any recently who have come close to what McKinley is doing. It’s a remarkable story.
Another remarkable story this year has been Chase Claypool's performance with the undefeated Pittsburgh Steelers. He seemed to come out of nowhere, with his incredible combination of receiving and blocking skills. He even scored 4 TDs in one game. Did Kelly even throw the ball to him four times in one game? I'm not a fan of Kelly's passing game; with McKinley or Claypool or anyone else we've had, although the pass offense does look better this year with Tommy Rees calling the plays.
Claypool really did develop at ND, he had a good Jr. Year 50 catches for almost 700 yards, but last year he had 66 catches for over 1000 yards and 13 TD's. He also had a great combine. He didn't really emerge out of nowhere to being a rookie star for the Steelers. But he wasn't as highly thought of as CeeDee Lamb of OU or both Alabama WR's (Jerry Jeudy and Henry Ruggs) or Tee Higgins of Clemson but he was on everybody's radar after his Sr. year production and his combine performance which was awesome esp for a WR his size. He went from being somebody who people talked about moving to TE to a legit NFL WR.
Kelly said today that Center Zeke Correll will be a game time decision and that if he doesn't go they will move Josh Lugg to Center and plug in Dillan Gibbons at RG. He's got an ankle issue, I think I read that it was the dreaded "high" ankle sprain which is tough to recover from without a lot of rest. It would have certainly been a good thing for him to get more snaps at Center since last week was his first start ever.
Every Coach in Div 1 is going to have to make some decisions on bring back players whose eligibility ordinarily would have expired this fall but because of the freebie extended by the NCAA will be able to return for another year in 2021. Here's what Kelly said about this ... On roster management of fifth-year seniors potentially returning next fall: "We've talked to our guys. We've had some conversations. I think some are considering it. Some are going to look at what's in their best interest and we're trying to guide them. We want to help them make the best decisions as it relates to their future. "If they can come out and make it a really good situation for them or can they come back and really parlay that into something better - they're going to consider all those options and we're going to help them with all that information. "We're not going to bring a kid back just so we have a good team. We're going to bring a guy back if it makes sense for them to come back so they can parlay that into a better situation. That's the only reason why it would make sense. We're having some of those business decisions and discussions that if it makes sense, we'll discuss them and we're open to them. We want to get them as much information so they can make intelligent decisions."
McKenzie Melton to Notre Dame? Talk is that ND should take a look at Grad Transfer Melton. Reason, he was a great player before the injury and we have no QB with experience for 2021. Me I do wonder about the locker room when you bring in a transfer QB and all the QB's who have been practicing and waiting for their turn are sat back down. The other thing is will he be the same player he was before the injury?
Melton hasn't played for 2 yrs. He returned to running this fall but he has some heavy hardware on his leg. The kid had real talent, the question is, is he gun shy and how mobile will he be.
Irish sleep walking through the 1st half, up 3 - 0, but Syracuse defense made up mostly of freshman look like a top rated defense instead of one that has been abused by everyone
Well we finish with a little life. A couple of Syracuse mistakes lead to 14 points and then a quick drive for the last score late and we go to half 24 - 7. Offense has not looked crisp, not running the ball well, defense started to get their feet under them so hopefully we can come out and put it away in the 3rd qtr.
We got the win, it wasn't impressive, I give credit to Syracuse for coming in and playing their asses off. The stats looked good ran for 280 and threw for 280. But in spite of the numbers we had a hard time running the ball against them and their coverage forced Book to run, which he did effectively picking up 2 crucial TDs running to go along with the 3 passing TD'S. I think all ND fans were hoping to put them away early and be able to play a lot of backups from mid 3rd qtr on, see Clark and Pyne. BTW I saw somewhere that Clark was in a knee brace and didn't take any pre-game snaps. Instead Book played till late in the game and so did most of the starters on offense. That 80 yd TD run by the Syracuse kid was against a mix of backups and starters. I will say that I kinda like Dino Babers, he seems like a good guy. Still would have liked to have put up a big number early and cruised to a 40 pt win! Kelly didn't mention any injuries in the post game. But both Hayes and Bauer appeared to get nicked up on the same sideline play in the 4th qtr. We do have 2 weeks to get ready for the ACC championship game, hopefully Zeke Correll and Tommy Kraemer will be ready, Kraemer did play a couple of series in the 1st half today. Glad to see C'Bo get some carries and look good, so he should be 100% for Clemson.
Ian Book is sort at maybe the high point in his career, that 5 TD performance vs Syracuse where he literally put the team on his back and willed them to the win on Sr. Day. Everybody is talking about Book, how he has raised his game, he should be invited to NYC for the Heisman, etc. After the Duke game to open the season a lot of people were lamenting that Jurkovec had gotten away to Boston College. Of course this is always a temporary thing, if he beats Clemson again, he'll move up a notch and should he actually win a CFP game another notch, and dream on should he beat Alabama for the National Title he'll be a candidate for Sainthood. But should he fall flat he'll find out likely that fame is fleeting!! I hope not he's been a great college QB, not in the same sense as Mac Jones, Trevor Lawrence, Kyle Trask, Kedon Slovis, etc....but as a leader and somebody who leaves it all out on the field.
Throwing 267 passes without an Int. is impressive to me. At times I get frustrated when he doesn't pull the trigger when he gets time but I guess that you have to balance that with his lack of TOs. When you don't turn it over you have a great chance of winning and that's why the Irish are 10-0 right now.
From Kelly's Press Conf today On LB Bo Bauer: ”Bo had a contusion. Nothing structurally. Not ligaments. Not tendons. He appeared to be really good (Sunday) at check-in. Once again, nothing that Rob Hunt gave me showed anything that would keep guys from being part of our practice on Wednesday.” On QB Brendon Clark’s knee brace: “Brendan had ACL surgery in high school and that knee has been cranky. The knee brace is to give him some more stability through the rest of the season. He’ll get evaluated at the end of the season as to whether there needs to be a procedure, cleaning it up, or a reassessment as to where he is with that knee.” On health of team: “The health of team is good. We had a couple guys who were evaluated for head injuries. They seem to be making really good progress. No feeling here today that anybody would be disrupted from that perspective. They should continue to clear as we move through the normal protocols from that standpoint.”
Clark maybe having knee surgery is not good news. If he does that means he'll miss Spring Drills and that will be a set back for him. We'll only have 2 QB's, Pyne and Buchner who hasn't played since 2019. Like a lot of people I wonder if it might be a good time to evaluate Grad Transfer QB's?
Walk On Punt returner Matt Salerno...getting the big hit! I wonder what that was that flew off his helmet? I guess it could have been his mouth piece.