Great comeback by Notre Dame in the second half. Wild 4th quarter with the blocked extra point by Texas and the return by the Irish for a safety. Someone had to lose. The game could have gone either way.
Texas has made a huge improvement from last year. Very physical. Strong definitely has the players in his corner. Good team that will get better. My game synopsis? Kelly wasted the first half offensively with the QB experiment. No chemistry on offense with the constant changing. Zaire's short drives kept the defense on the field. He never got into a rhythm: Kizer was fine but had to sit for half the game until Kelly finally made the decision he should have made Aug. 1. WRs are going to be a work in progress all year. St. Brown and Hunter are solid. TE got one look. RBs look good. Ran hard all night. Took a pounding in the heat. OL line worked their butts off. I expected them to be more dominant but I had nothing to go on but three months of hype. They will be very good. Now the defense...... What defense? From the start it was obvious that this was a signature Uncle Rico "40" defense. They had all the hallmarks; poor tackling, soft corners, mental miscues and glaring vulnerability down the deep center. Texas went right after Sebastian and Nick Coleman and were handsomely rewarded. The young Longhorn OL collapsed the Irish D on the edges whenever they needed tough yards. On the plus side, Nyles Morgan had a boatload of tackles and is clearly the leader of this defense. I would tap into that and let him be the coach on the field emotionally. He could be a spark. Some of the young freshmen DBs did not look too bad and made a lot of tackles in the second half. What's the "40" defense? They will give up 40 points.... the offense needs to score more. Kelly was jawing with Uncle a lot in the first half; my gut feeling is that he is on thin ice with the HC. That is not a Top 25 defense. How they bounce back with Nevada is going to tell the tale for this season. I look for several new faces on the field.
You know as a fan of a team that has to re-live the Flutie Hail Mary or watching Ohio St beat us in overtime for the National Championship over and over again I can attest that "instant classics" are not very fun if your on the losing end of things...
Nyles Morgan had 13 tackles including 9 solos. Incredibly , Kelly said at his post game presser that he still was not decided on his starting QB.
The targeting rule needs to be abolished or officials that blatantly get it wrong should serve suspensions as well. That no call that could have been overturned by replay and wasn't should have the entire replay booth suspended for at least half the season. That hit in the end zone by Texas was the textbook definition of targeting and it was not called and was not reviewed. To me, this rule is a tool to control game outcome rather than a way to protect the players. As you know, I am not one to criticize officials, but a rule that is not strictly enforced in all games is a rule that needs to be thrown out.
ND <r><QUOTE><s> </e></QUOTE> I'm no football coach but I did stay at a holiday Inn last night. Kizer IS the starting QB.</r>
Tim, At this point in time, I would agree with you. Kizer is a leader and the team seems to perform better when he is in the huddle!
Tough loss for ND, and would have also been a tough loss for Texas. I am happy for strong, I think he is a class act and I hope he is successful at Texas. So far 6 top 25 teams have lost and one more will tonight bringing it to 7. A couple of those were matches between two ranked teams so not all upsets.
I am not upset about the loss because the O played well enough to win and our D did not. How many cover zero blitzes do we need to get burned on at midfield before Uncle Rico realizes that it's not going to work. Texas played well enough to win and took some of our best shots right on the chin. Good for them. I am absolutely livid about the no call on the targeting in the end zone. Nevermind the fact that he had the ball and it was knocked loose by the hit. (That TD would have put ND up 11 and forced UT's hand offensively for the first time all game) That hit was a career ending type of hit and in the old days, your ass would have been ear holed (deservingly) on a toss sweep the next chance the opponent got. We supposedly don't have those unwritten rules anymore because we have rules in place to protect the players long term safety. I don't ever want to hear another word from Big12 fans about Pac12 officials. That was a Big12 crew that had all night to review that call upstairs and they did not. The TV crew paid little to not attention to the hit, other than to praise it. That is why I'm pissed on a Monday morning. Win some, lose some, **** happens. In the big picture, hits like that are the text book definition of the violation and they all pretended that it didn't happen. I do believe we went on to have a FG blocked on that drive, did we not?
Well it was an exciting game, huge crowd, atmosphere was big time... Observations, all of which have already been covered. 1. very disappointed in our OL, I thought these guys would really dominate the Texas line but they didn't. Now granted we ran for over 200yds, but it seems like with the exception of that opening run we had to fight and claw for every yard. 2. I hope we are done with the 2 QB system. I think Kizer earned the job. Some think that putting in Zaire may have cost us points. Don't know. 'But it should be Kizers job going forward. 3. I was worried about our young WR's and TE's. While they had some success for sure, also had some inconsistency. I think they will get better as the year goes on. 4. Defense, I wasn't worried about the DL, everybody seemed to have a good camp and while they were young we had numbers and the narrative all fall camp was we should be good against the run. Well last night we were not good against the run. Big disappointment. LB's well if your DL can not eat up the OL and those OL's get to the LB's then bad things happen for the defense. That happened Tx running backs just pounded us play after play. Back end now i was worried about that and it was maybe worse than i expected. There were big plays Texas missed early in the game. Pass rush, for the most part none, blitz didn't work much either. Tx QB's in general had all the time they needed. 5. Special Teams, our punter was inconsistent, a shank and when we had a chance to bury them late in the game with good punt it was not a good punt. Punt and Kick returns were good and coverage was good for the most part as well. 6. Blocked kick...there were reports all summer that Yoon was having some issues and it wasn't going smooth. He makes that and we don't go to OT. Of course then on the other side if we don't block the xtra point we don't go to OT either most likely 7.OT I knew if we went to OT we were in trouble. Texas running game was going well with Swoopes, we had no answer for them. After giving up the big lead the Tex defense had stiffened . We we went to the 2nd OT and had to kick I told my nephew that was the ball game Swoopes was pretty much a guaranteed 5 yds a carry or more at that point. And if we some how made it to the 3rd OT when you had to go for 2, then Swoopes was likely making it each time and we might not. 8. Targeting, it was clearly targeting by every definition of the rule. I saw one guy on Texas board say he didn't lead with his helmet but his shoulder ...trouble is ....by rule it's helmet, fist, forearm or should blow to the head that trigger targeting. Intent doesn't matter result only thing that matters. It was clearly a targeting call. I did not know that the booth could look at the play whether or not a flag was thrown. I did know that they looked at them to determine essentially whether or not it was an ejection. So I doubt if we'll ever know why they didn't look at them. I do hope ND talks to the B12 and gets an explanation and that booth crew should be fired for negligence. Won't change the game, but those guys should pay a price. I will say that this rule esp since it involves ejection and suspension for the next game it controversial to say the least. There will calls or lack of calls like this almost every weekend, there will be some that are missed and some that are called on the field that are wrong. But it needs to be gotten right and refs should be punished or face something. It's a player safety issue. FWIW ND fans defensded Stephon Tuitt a few years ago for a targeting ejection when they felt it wasn't his fault. So fans tend to side with their players, some are so obvious that even fans say it was deserved but sometimes it's close and naturally side with their player. Texas fans today feel that the non-call was justified but did think that the booth should have reviewed it and nobody knows if they did or didn't. Tough loss, but can't worry about it anymore, have to work to get better and not worry about anything other than beating Nevada. Naturally there is the call for Van Gorder to be fired today and for Swarbrick to start back channel process to find a replacement for Kelly.
- Torii Hunter's injury was one of the worst cheap shots I've ever seen. That's saying something considering that LSU cheap shot on a player who was running off the field. If I was Torii's father I'd yank him off the team now if the refs won't protect him. Look at Samardzija. His football career would have ended years ago, but he's already made $100 million in baseball and he just began a new contract with Frisco... - Kizer put up 47 points: Zaire put up zero. Case closed... - Deep down the middle...what we all feared... - Texas lines were bigger and better than I expected... - Loved that frosh QB for Texas. He is fearless... - On the bright side, USC is really suffering out here. It was the first time in 20 years that they had been held without a TD. On top of that, the rumors that their former head coaches and co-offensive coordinators, Kiffin and Sarkisian, were colluding with each other all summer to orchestrate the massacre has driven them mad...
Just got back. Have to say I've never come across more hospitable fans than those in Austin. Walking to the stadium, in the stadium, walking back to the car, not once did I hear a derogatory comment by any Texas fan. Even though they sell beer in the stadium I didn't come across one slobbering idiot. The noise was just incredible all game long. Not much more to add to what's been said. DBs were outclassed, Zaire was a waste of possessions, and the poor tackling was the biggest reason that we lost. We just don't have enough top talent D players to handle top teams. Although they showed a number of replays on their jumbotron they never showed a replay of the hit on Hunter. I texted Commish and a friend and they both thought it was a clear targeting infraction. If the reason for the rule is to prevent serious head injuries, they're failing miserably. That hit caused the injury that the rule was meant to prevent. Either enforce it or forget it. but don't enforce it on occasion.
We had a number of targeting calls last year that we argued about. This one I don't get...I could see missing it in real time but how can you not call it on review? Seemed very clear.
As can be expected the majority of Texas fans feel it was close but a good no call. Most give the reason that they feel like Hunter lowered his head before the hit causing the Texas player to hit him around the head and neck but even then they feel he contacted his shoulder first and also that there was no intent. A few thought it was targeting and we got away with one, and one guy said that if it was targeting then the Irish got away with some hits.
I've finally gotten to review the video. At the time of impact Hunter's head is forward and the blow is to his face. He has just landed having jumped for the ball. Apparently Texas receivers can land safely with their legs unbent.
ND <t>Kelly needs to stop the nonsense now. Anyone with eyes can see Kizer should be the starter. Sit both Zaire and Kizer down, tell them Deshone is the starter and Malik is the backup. If Zaire wants to transfer then so be it. Wimbush is waiting patiently for his chance. Stop the BS.</t>
Re: ND <r><QUOTE author="Tim Gentry"><s> </e></QUOTE> I agree with Tim. My son suggested that Zaire start working out at slot receiver or running back. <br/> <br/> Kizer is not only cl;early the best on this team; he may be the best in the nation and definitely in the Top 5.<br/> <br/> Wimbush is considered a real talent and they just recruited another studf QB.</r>