Hard to not like that 1st half! USF is bad, but still Irish look sharp on both sides of the ball. OL and rb's look great, Kyren and Chris Tyree have been a great combo bot C'Bo played well and so did Jafar Armstrong when he was in there. Defense is playing a lot of guys and just snuffing USF. Jack Kiser was 3rd string and played like a guy who should have been a starter. Lewis the true frosh CB played well. Only hiccup was the missed FG. Doerer has been so reliable, but he can be forgiven if he's not 100%.
Kiser got the game ball! Well deserved. Fans are thrilled with the OL and the running backs... Not so much with Ian Book, not so much that he made errors and threw picks, but just thought he does show anything special as a Passer
Post game articles all high praise for the depth that the Irish showed on defense yesterday. Missing starters at LB, Safety, and CB. Plus backups at LB and DE. Yet the next men up all played like starters. Jack Kiser and Clarence Lewis especially played well. High praise for the OL the group of running backs... 4 deep! Tony Dungy couldn't stop talking about Tommy Tremble. New TE coach, John McNulty, getting some love for how well the TE's are blocking as a group. Tom Rees getting some love for his sticking with the running game. Don't forget he was to say the least an unpopular choice as OCoord. Biggest areas of concern are the passing game. Book only found the wr's for 4 catches. Most of the completions were less than 10 yards. Mike Frank said it best... Sort of tapping the brakes on playoff talk. I’m not sure this is a playoff caliber team yet. They need to play a good team first, and they need to fix the issues in their passing game, but I do like this ND coaching staff. I think both sides of the ball have the potential to really develop into a dominant unit. I think the defense is close to already being there.
Looks to me like the three best teams in the ACC are Clemson, Notre Dame and based on yesterday Miami may make a statement.
Most thought it was Clemson by a mile with ND and UNC fighting for 2nd place and Louisville and Va.Tech 4th and 5th. Miami's play last night was impressive and they get Clemson in 2 weeks so we'll see how good they are pretty soon. Miami and ND do not play this year in regular season.