My report card. OL : C. Very mediocre effort TE : B. Freshman Jones looked good. Blocking? WR : D. Poor separation RB. : D. Basically abandoned the running game. QB. : B+ some poor decisions but he remained cool and his athleticism carried the day. K : A. Did everything asked of him DL : A. Dominant most of the game LB. : B- Did Nyles Morgan get caught with Kelly's wife or something. You can call Joe Schmidt's year "Lost in Space". I quit counting his missed tackles. CB. : C- could have been much lower without Russell's game ending INT and the ten dropped passesby Temple, including a TD. S. : B. Played pretty well, especially the run. ST : C. Not a factor Coaching: B- Team was flat and taunting from the start, an odd combination. I sensed Kelly knew this was not going to be a good night and he willed the team through it. His shoving match with his own assistant coach was a first.
There's a saying in boxing that the toughest opponent is an undefeated fighter. And Temple was. They say that the longer you let an underdog stay in the game the better they play. And Temple did. They say if you win the turnover battle you increase you chances of winning. And Temple did. Watching that game was like passing a kidney stone...you're just glad it's over. The Temple defense was a reincarnation of the Broadstreet Bullies in the Stanley Cup playoffs. They were clutching and grabbing our receivers on every play. Replays showed that they were hitting the receivers before the ball got there. You're just glad it's over.
Yeah Temple did not come to that game intimidated and they wanted to be the one doing the intimidating. I thought Shumate got jobbed on the targeting call. I was disappointed that Temple was able to so completely shut down CJ Prosise. I understand that they came into the game focused on taking him out of the game, but still it was discouraging to see the middle of our OL just get run over by Temple on the way to the ball carrier. I know Nick Martin is playing with an ankle injury and all, but still he got dominated. Our DL for most of the night really played well, a few plays got away from them and at least when Temple went to the trick plays our guys were in the same zipcode and prevented a scoring play. On the 4th down score after Schumate went out, Barratti made an awful play..or rather I should say he took himself out of the play. He's way too rusty, once was a promising player but injuries and only playing special teams has left him with no game. Kizer, in spite of the 2 picks, only one of which was on him had an awesome game. When you look at the games this year. He comes in late and wins the UVA game, He beats USC in the 4th qtr comeback win, and then last night. If we're close and have the ball late, Kizer seems to not get flustered and seems to make things happen. Some guys just have that and some don't. Now granted I'd rather not have to come from behind in the 4th qtr, but if you do he's a pretty cool customer. I leave the hand wringing over Joe Schmidt to the rest of you guys. On to Pitt.
Wasn't thinking about it that way, but it's an accurate description of how I was feeling, watching our lack of composure down the stretch. Two team captains get stupid, senseless penalties that really hurt us at the time (Regardless of your opinion on the targeting penalty, it was a stupid move by a DB who should know better). I still believe in the leadership of this team, but IMO we have a long way to go to before we can consider ourselves a legitimate contender. For the first time in Kelly's tenure, I was disappointed in him. He showed a pitiful lack of composure going after the asst. coach, and the entire viewing audience saw it. It was embarrassing. He could have handled it more tactfully. I hope he's smart enough to learn from it. I don't want any of the above to detract from Temple's gritty performance. They masterfully bottled up Prosise all night. They flew to the ball like it was magnetized and they were the magnets. Their games vs. Memphis and Houston will be interesting. Their coach is going to be on the radar of a lot of coachless teams following the season. Correction: It was not a team captain who was called for targeting.
The penalty on Nick Martin was esp bad, he's a captain..it was way too late. On the Kelly incident with David Grimes, it was unfortunate no doubt. Everything I've read says that Grimes was on the sidelines really getting on the refs and he's not supposed to do that, he's on the Strength Staff. So he was out of line, and somebody needed to handle him. It's too bad it ended up being Kelly and it was briefly ugly. It's not the first time I've seen a HC have words with an assistant or in this case a non-assistant. It won't be the last. It's more news than it deserves because it's Kelly and everybody goes back to his purple faced tirade with the QB in his first year (or was it his 2nd year). Yesteday a NCState Assist Coach pushed DeShaun Watson when he ran out of bounds on the NCState sideline. That was uncalled for and unsportsmanlike, he apologized later. People forget that Lou went after an assistant in the tunnel at Boston College one year, it was his RB coach (can't remember his name) who was getting into it with tauting fans. Also people forget Lou going out on the field and embarrassing Huntley Bakich on Nat'l TV by grabbing his facemask and dragging him off the field. Huntley never got over it and left Notre DAme after that, Lou tried to apologize to him and his parents but the damage was done.
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Matkavatch #8 was incredible. He is the best MLB I have seen at the college level since Luke Kuechley at BC. That kid was in on everything.
ND <r>I don't know about the A, B, C, D etc grades for the teams' performance but if it makes a difference I would give ND a C for overall performance and Temple an A. Unfortunately for Temple, our C is better than their A game. <E>8)</E><br/> <br/> Win and move on.</r>
Tim, I trust you did not fall asleep watching the game? :roll: That was a great pass Kizer threw on that last touchdown!
Terry, he did not leave ND. He remained in school and was on the team his entire 4 years, although he never seemed to rise to his potential. He graduated with a degree in ( I think) architecture and married an ND girl. He was the son of a single mom, so IF Lou apologized, it was only to his mother.
When that pass was in the air I thought it was going to be picked off from the angle they were showing live, after that they showed different angles and Kizer really put it right where it had to be, anything else like a little more air under it and it's picked.
ND <r>Don,<br/> <QUOTE><s> </e></QUOTE> Oh no, I was wide awake for that play. As a matter of fact I think I was actually <B><s></s>standing<e></e></B> in front of the TV at that point. <E></E></r>
ND <t>the 2017 recruiting class keeps looking stronger and stronger:<br/> <br/> Robert Beal became the latest member of Notre Dame’s 2017 class when he gave his verbal commitment to the Irish on Sunday night, joining offensive linemen Dillan Gibbons and Josh Lugg along with tight ends Brock Wright and Cole Kmet.<br/> <br/> The 6-foot-4, 215-pounder from Norcross, Ga., chose Notre Dame over offers from schools like Alabama, Auburn, Florida State, Michigan, Ohio State, Texas, Baylor, Clemson, Florida, South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia Tech among several others.</t>
That was an awesome pickup for the Irish, the 2017 class is really off to a great start, everybody we have committed so far is a really good player. Irish didn't have much change in the polls, and I will be curious to see where the committee puts us, I'm expecting to be around #10 plus or minus a little. Temple, rightfully so didn't fall out of the top 25 and those guys if they keep playing like they did on Sat night have a real shot at winning the rest of their games and playing either Memphis or Houston in the AAC Title game with a shot at a New Years 6 bowl bid. I think injury wise we came out of the game pretty well, I was worried about Sheldon Day's arm, he seemed to let it hang loose when he came off the field which made me wonder if he'd hurt his shoulder.
Sid you are right he did graduate from ND, but he didn't play football all 4 years according to his wikipedia he tore an achilles and that was it. Re: Kizer and the wing flapping... Turns out he's an Eagles fan and he was not taunting the Owls, apparently a lot of Eagles players flap their arms after they score. Don't watch a lot of Eagles so I don't know if they do or not.
You are correct, sir. I had forgotten about the torn Achilles ending his ND career. I just remembered him being there all 4 years. He was in my son's class and was responsible for Brian walking on. He was visiting our home just prior to the start of their freshman year (He and his mom had moved there for his mom's work), and he learned about Brian's HS senior year (from me :wink. He talked Brian into going out for the team.
I guess the final word on the Sideline incident with Kelly/Grimes. http://www.wndu.com/home/headlines/Kelly-says-he-regrets-sideline-incident-with-Grimes-339872112.html
This is too funny....after a game where Kelly goes after David Grimes on the sideline..he's named the Dodd Coach of the week! It's been the subject of constant debate on ND websites, if you don't like Kelly this is just another reason why you don't like him. If you like him you are sorry that it happened but think it's overblown. I'm sort of somewhere in between. I'm certainly sorry it happened, it looked bad on TV. But I also realize Kelly is a volatile guy on the sidelines, even though he's mellowed out some from the Purple Faced incident. He still gets in the grill of his QB's, might be one reason Golson moved on. http://www.thedoddtrophy.com/brian-kelly-named-dodd-trophy-coach-of-the-week/