ND fans are still upset about the coaching, the playing, the tackling, the game plan, the refs, etc in the win at Tallahassee. You'd have thought we lost. Now here comes an experienced Toledo team with a lot of starters back and no coaching staff changes so these guys haven't had to learn new schemes. People are saying they are the top MAC team. So they won't be a pushover. Irish OL needs improvement. They were not good in run blocking and while Coan had a great game, it could have been better had they been better with pass protection. Irish defense needs a big improvement in tackling this week. Also that 3-3-5 defense that they stubbornly stuck with in the late 3rd and 4th quarters when FSU just gashed them inside for easy yards running the ball needs to be put at the bottom of the deck of cards that Freeman selects his schemes from this week. Like all matches like this, if you let Toledo hang around you have a problem late in the game. If you get them down, you need to step on it and bury them. Just ask Oklahoma. Or go no further than last weekend when we were up 38-20 and had the big mo and let up, went to a prevent defense, got conservative. Almost cost us the game. I don't think we'll see Blake Fisher this week, Carmody will get the start and I wonder if we'll see some of Rocco Spindler at LG this week. Zeke Correll had a hard time with that FSU DL, he's a bit light in the britches for an OL. I expect that Marcus Freeman's defense will be a bit different this weekend, still expect them to be aggressive, but better tacklers. I think Jack Coan should have another good game, he does seem to be a calm cool customer back there and made a lot of good throws. Irish receivers except for the two crucial drops by Mayer played really well. One of the bigger surprises for me was that Isiah Prvor looked to be the better player over Jack Kiser who I thought was going to have a breakout year. Of course it's only 1 game. Irish are surprisingly big favorites anywhere from 16 to 18 point favorites. I'll be very happy to cover that spread. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are set to open its 2021 home slate in Week 2 when welcoming the Toledo Rockets to South Bend. The game is scheduled Saturday, September 11 and will kick off at 2:30 p.m. ET on NBC. Toledo (1-0) managed to make light work of Norfolk State in a 49-10 season-opening win on Saturday. Quarterback DeQuan Finn was more effective on the ground, rushing for 82 yards and nine carries and a touchdown. Wide receiver Devin Maddox was the definition of a big play threat, taking two receptions for 91 yards and a touchdown. Notre Dame survived a dramatic encounter in Tallahassee with a 41-38 overtime win over Florida State on Sunday night. Quarterback Jack Coan was 26-35 for 366 yards with four touchdowns and an interception, but UND struggled to run the ball at times with just 35 carries for 65 yards. There was also plenty of questionable tackling on defense that head coach Brian Kelly will want cleaned up ahead of Week 2.
I'm not negative like some re: the FSU game. However, I have two major concerns. You don't "clean up" poor OL performance and poor tackling in one week. I'm glad we're playing one of the so-called "lesser" opponents this week. It should tell us if the second half meltdown vs. FSU was due to FSU being a much better team than expected or if our rushing and tackling problems are so embedded that we're going to have problems all season. Fingers crossed it's the former.
Good News/Bad News on Blake Fisher He does not have an ACL tear!! Bad News he does have some knee issues that will need to be cleaned up and he's going to have Surgery and will miss 6 to 8 weeks of the season, maybe the whole season. Such a promising young player, hate to see it go this way for him and for the Irish.
Some afterthoughts. Because he doesn't have the mobility of Book, Coan hangs in the pocket longer than Book did. Because of that it means that the WRs have more time to complete their routes and get open. One concern I have is that unlike the last couple of seasons, it seemed to me that we were really tired at the end of the game. Perhaps it was the number of plays we let FSU run in that suicide by a thousand cuts defense. I've heard a number of people complain about the lack of speed of our LBs. I hope it's because of slow recognition instead of foot speed. I'm glad we won because when losers rip the refereeing it's sounds like sour grapes. We won but they called a terrible game.
Don't forget you have to sign up for Peacock Prime to see ND/Toledo. There will be some special pre and post game shows. Prior to 2:30 p.m. ET kickoff, Peacock will stream Countdown to Kickoff, a special, exclusive hour-long pregame show hosted by NBC Sports’ Corey Robinson and Jac Collinsworth, who also hosts the weekly ND on NBC Podcast released each Thursday. Robinson and Collinsworth will be joined by Notre Dame student Caroline Pineda. Countdown to Kickoff will feature newly-produced content surrounding the Fighting Irish, including: Exclusive “Mic’d Up” segment featuring Notre Dame head football coach Brian Kelly In-Depth feature profile of projected top-10 NFL Draft Pick Kyle Hamilton A conversation between Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick and NBC’s Mike Tirico about Notre Dame and storylines around college athletics Analysis of the college football season with Tirico and NBC Sports analyst Drew Brees Following the game, Collinsworth and Robinson will continue coverage on Peacock with Notre Dame Football Head Coach Brian Kelly’s post-game press conference, post-game analysis and commentary. In partnership with Peacock, ND Studios and Fighting Irish Media, the media unit within Notre Dame athletics, will be executing the pre- and post-game show. The award-winning team at Fighting Irish Media has previously been charged with producing halftime features for Notre Dame Football on NBC and full games/events for the network (i.e Notre Dame Football Pro Day, Blue-Gold Game, Notre Dame Hockey on NBC Sports, Notre Dame Football vs. USF in 2020). Notre Dame Football coverage will stream on Peacock Premium. Peacock Premium is included at no additional cost for Comcast’s eligible Xfinity X1 and Flex customers and Cox Contour customers. Viewers can sign up at peacocktv.com/nd. Peacock is widely available across devices, details here. Peacock To Stream Special Pregame Show Prior To #9 Notre Dame vs. Toledo
RIP Terry Brennan. I was a ND fan from around 1955 when I also became a Dodgers fan, but I didn't really get it till around 1960 and know much about the players/coaches. So I was aware of him but didn't really know anything about his teams. Notre Dame Mourns The Loss Of Terry Brennan
In a bit of a surprise wr Lawrence Keys has left the team and will transfer. He hasn't been a big contributor in his time at ND, he always seemed to show promise but for whatever the reason he never had a big impact, some of it was injuries. We've lost quite a few wr's in the past year to transfer. We still have plenty of guys to throw the ball to though. In leading up to the season there was some upbeat talk about his role in the offense, but he hardly got on the field vs FSU and I guess he couldn't see that he was going to be a big part of the rotation at wr. Good luck to him. ___________________________________________ Notre Dame receiver Lawrence Keys III will sit the rest of the 2021 season according to a source with knowledge of the situation. The senior receiver played five snaps and wasn’t targeted in Notre Dame’s 41-38 win over Florida State on Sunday night. Keys will graduate in December and will make a decision on his future once he has his degree. The Louisiana native is expected to have two years of eligibility remaining.
Interesting positive story about a guy who was a walk-on player at ND and also in the NROTC program. He's been in the Navy since graduation and is now attending Vanderbilt Graduate School and found out that he has 1 year of eligibility left so he's walking on the Vanderbilt team at age 32. Apparently while for the vast majority of student athletes you have 5 years to play 4 and you don't get to come back later and pick up any unused eligibility, but there is a rule that says your clock stops while in the service which he has been since graduation. So he's got the 1 extra or 5th year still available. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/09/09/tommy-smith-vanderbilt-walk-on-navy/
Updates to depth chart. TE Kevin Baumann is out for approximately the next 6 weeks with a broken fibula. LT Blake Fisher is out for approximately the next 8 weeks with a meniscus injury. LB Shayne Simon is out for the season with a torn labrum. LB Paul Moala had surgery for an Achilles injury (the other foot after tearing Achilles last year). Due to the injuries to Simon and Liufau, LB Prince Kollie has been moved inside from the Rover position and is now in the two-deep. Because there's not much depth at Rover now, WR Xavier Watts has been DCEd to the Rover linebacker position. Jordan Botehlo and C'Bo Flemister are still "unavailable" for this week.
ON ANY CONCERNS ABOUT THIS TOLEDO GAME THEY PLAY SATURDAY "We've prepared them for a really good Toledo team. I think what concerns me the most is the two quarterback situation again. I think that they are very difficult. They've got a very good scheme that puts each of those two quarterbacks in a position where they can make plays. They got receivers that are skilled, run very good routes, but I think their offense is set up with their offensive line. The center, the left guard, the left tackle, they're power five offensive linemen. So, when you have a really good offensive line, really good scheme offensively, two really good quarterbacks, veteran defensive players that returned from last year, like I said, this is a very mature football team. In 2019 they beat BYU, who we know had some very talented players on, they get your attention. That's kind of where we're at." SLIDE
Snake bit at LB, Prince Kollie is out with a positive Covid test. He was just moved in to the 2 deep after all the injuries at LB. Highly rated kid to boot
Easy opening drive, mostly passing only a couple of running plays that didn't gain much. That needs to improve.