South Florida makes it's second appearance in Notre Dame stadium. Their win in their last trip was a crazy game, and Skip Holtz was the coach at the time. The weather was awful that day, with a long delay. It started off bad with a Jonas Gray fumble as the Irish were going in for a TD and the early lead, that went 96 yds the other way for a USF TD. The game ended 23-20. It was the end of the career of Dayne Crist for the most part as Tommy Rees came on and threw for almost 300 yds and Dayne was pretty much done, although he finished the year and then transferred to KU. This year hopefully will be different, USF has a new coach in former Clemson OCoord Jeff Scott. They won their opening game vs The Citadel but can't say it was an impressive win. I don't know the line but we should be heavy favorites. Kelly had a press conf today and a few things came out. 1. Braden Lenzy after not playing last week, will be the starter 2. Kyle Hamilton is in a boot, sort of day to day. Might play 3. Ben Skowronek is likely out this week with the hamstring. 4. There were 2 positive tests for covid and those players are in iso now. No comment on if other players are also out as a result of contact tracing.
The most critical time of the week is after the games. Those post game parties are just a positive waiting to happen.
A lot of good information from Brian Kelly in today's presser. Here’s Everything Kelly Said Monday Ahead of the USF Game
o.k. so I'm confused(yes, I'm old) . Why do I keep seeing articles and websites that say this game is being played in SB?
It is being played in South Bend, but NBC has the U.S.Open this weekend so the game is moved to another NBC Universal owned outlet, USA Network.
An interesting observation by Jamie Uyeyama over on ISD about the importance of plays over 30 yards....big chunk plays as they call them. This is from a free article if you'd like to read. Last season when the Irish had a drive that included a play of 30 yards or more, they scored points 93.8% of the time. 84.3% of those drives resulted in touchdowns. The average points per drive was 6.19. That’s not just a one year anomaly for them. Over the last three seasons, they averaged 6.03 points per drive on 99 offensive series. They scored on 93% of drives and scored touchdowns on 81.8% of them. There were only seven drives when a drive that included a play of 30 yards or more didn’t result in points. They were almost all scoring opportunities, it was just that Notre Dame failed to cash in on them (like missing a field goal against Virginia or throwing a red zone interception against Virginia Tech). Only once they did have a play of 30 yards or more and end up punting. 6 Thoughts on a Thursday
Tim Prister did a write up of the return of Charlie Weis Jr to Notre Dame as the USF OCoord. Charlie Jr said all the right things and I find this pretty interesting. High praise for Charlie Jr. I don't know if the article is a paywalled article. Charlie Weis Jr. Earns Right To Make His Own Mark Charlie Sr. relays the story of a visit he and Charlie Jr. had with legendary NFL personnel director Gil Brandt. “So Charlie Jr. leaves and Charlie asks me, ‘So what do you think of him,’” Brandt said. “I told him, ‘I’ve met two people in my life where I knew, without a doubt, he would be a successful coach. One was Bill Belichick.’ Then Charlies asks me, ‘Who was the other?’ I said, ‘He just got up and walked away.’” “I think he’s probably one step away. He’s one move away from a head coach,” said Charlie Sr., who served as Notre Dame’s head coach from 2005-09. “I don’t think it will take him very long. That’s how I think it will play out. He’s what people are looking for in today’s college football.”
Thanks, Terry. That's a great article. It's obvious that he's an outstanding OC and headed for bigger things. After reading about his offensive philosophy, I'm concerned about how we can cover it. It makes me even more interested in watching the game than I was before reading the article. Thanks also for the prior post of the excerpt from the ISD article. I normally am not a stats geek, but the trend is obvious and something to get excited about when we have plays of 30 yards or more.
Brian Kelly wants his offense to get off to a faster start. Article on ISD, free. Brian Kelly Wants Faster Start from Notre Dame on Saturday Quarterback Ian Book finished Saturday's game going 19-of-31 for 263 yards, one touchdown and a pick. Book has drawn heat this week, but Kelly isn't overly worried as he felt his quarterback was a little anxious in week one. "More than anything else, probably just a little too amped up and needed to settle him down a little bit this week," Kelly explained. "A bit more patience in the pocket. Maybe a little too anxious to make plays. "I know he's had a good week of recognizing that. From my perspective, watching him this week (he) fully understands how some of those smaller plays turn into big ones. He's got to make those for us and I think he will."
The Irish will be without a couple of players today due to Covid. HIPAA prevents the Irish from announcing who these players are I think, from what I've read it'll be obvious to those who pay attention to the starters and to who plays as a backup. I imagine that Kyle Hamilton might not play even if he could to give the ankle another week to heal. Ben Skowronek of course won't play. Most of the game predictions are for the Irish to cover the 27 point spread. We'll also likely get our first look at Xavier Watts and Jordan Johnson (5* true frosh wr). I do hope that we get off to a fast start and that late 3rd qtr we see the backup QB, Brandon Clark, and let him run the offense not just hand it off.
I see that the Pac 12 possibly will vote this coming Thursday and could start Oct 31 or Nov 7. They say they hope to qualify for the CFP. If they don't start till Nov 7 they could only get 6 conference games in plus a Dec 19th Champ game. While I don't think it's likely that the ACC/SEC/B12 get to play all the games that they have scheduled, I wonder how the committee will handle situations where say the Pac 12 champ is 5-1 and there are SEC/ACC/B12 teams who don't win the conference champ game and are say 8-2
Well the players who are out are now listed. Entire Buck lb 2 deep was wiped out, not sure who will start. TaRiq Bracy Brendon Clark Kyle Hamiltoin Marist Liufau Shayne Simon Lawrence Keys Ovie Oghoufo Jahmir Smith
Tough break for Clark. Book may be finished early. Hope to see Johnson our WRs haven’t impressed so far.