Neutral Site game, at Soldier Field Chicago. It's in the early time slot and Fox Big Noon Kickoff will be there along with Gameday. The Irish are -6 or -7 depending on who you look at, but solid underdogs. I think it reflects the fact that we barely escaped losses to a bad FSU team and a MAC team in Toledo that dominated us everywhere but the scoreboard. Last weeks solid win vs Purdue didn't change things. While Wisconsin had a narrow home loss to a current top 5 team in Penn State and had a shot at winning the game late that was turned back by stellar PSU defense. Wisconsin defense has been typically stingy so far this year, while the Irish defense has been prone to giving up the big play. It was encouraging that we kept and explosive offense like Purdue under wraps last weekend, but can we do it agains a good Wisconsin team who will be physical. Can our OL standup to that Wisconsin DL, they are a very good defense. If Wisconsin wins that battle they'll likely win the game. Against Penn State, while Wisconsin rushed for 180 yds, it took them 58 carries to do that, 3.1 yds/carry and Graham Mertz was 22/37 for 185 yards. If we can hold them to those numbers we have a good shot at wining the game. I expect it to be a low scoring game into the 4th qtr. I feel pretty good about our defense vs Wisconsin offense I feel very concerned about our offense vs Wisconsin defense. What will make the difference? Big plays and turnovers. Irish by 7 24-17
Prister on Tyler Buchner At one point, NBC analyst Drew Brees said we had yet to see Buchner make a play from the pocket. He completed a 15-yarder to Braden Lenzy against Toledo. But the point was that in order for Buchner to remain productive, Kelly/Rees will have to expand his playbook, which is done from week-to-week as they go through the growing process. Again, he’s a quarterback who played one season in the previous three years in high school. This is a week – Wisconsin – in which Buchner will need to be prepared to do more against a stingy Badger unit coached by Jim Leonhard. The linebacker pressure applied by Wisconsin will be extreme at times. It’s what they do.
Having Coan as QB has got to be really helpful for pregame prep. He knows Cryst’s playbook and play calling tendencies albeit Cryst’s offense has remained pretty much the same since he arrived in Madison. Jim Leonard is an excellent DC and will likely succeed Cryst at UW. Looking forward to this game.
If our two offensive tackles don't step up their games significantly this could be Coan's last day on earth.
Kelly on his position in ND History. Pretty much nailed it, he hasn't won a Championship. 14 of 24 ON WHERE HE WILL SIT IN NOTRE DAME HISTORY WHEN ALL IS SAID AND DONE "Yeah, I can tell you exactly where I sit in Notre Dame history, the coach that won more games that hasn't won a national championship. That's where I'll sit. Where I feel like we've done is we've played consistent football and we brought Notre Dame football back to its relevance of competing for championships. Each year you raise the bar and you continue to build towards that goal of winning a national championship and I think we have steadily worked towards that consistency, year in and year out. Other than that, everything's judged and rightly so on winning a national championship and I have no problem with that. I knew that coming in."
I will give Kelly credit for that statement. He really has has been more successful at Norte Dame than I anticipated.
Kelly has made.some brutally honest statements on camera. I admire him for that. I remember a very telling interview at halftime of the Championship game in January 2013. If y'all remember that I don't think the Notre Dame fans appreciated his honesty that night.
That brutally honest and humble statement should endear him to all ND fans......but it won't, and that's unfortunate. After reading his statement, I've gained a new level of respect for him. He knows his place in the "hall" of ND coaches, and he has no illusions about where he stands. He is 100% correct that he's brought ND football back to relevance and that he's established consistency - with a couple of "blip" years - compared to where we were in the years between Holtz' retirement and his hiring.
I agree with you Sid, where ND football was at the end of the 2009 season was down and there were certainly doubts that we'd ever be relevant again. Davie had one good season in 5 years, and Willingham had one good season in 3 years, Weis had 2 good seasons in 5 years and finished on a down note. Kelly has had 2 undefeated regular seasons, and a 1 loss CFP season. He's not been a big game winner like Lou was. In Lou's day the teams to beat were Michigan, Ohio State, FSU and Miami amongst others, he had a great record vs Michigan, lost both games to the Buckeyes, beat arguably Bobby Bowden's greatest team in a Game of the Century, and beat a great Miami team on the way to a Nat'l Title in 1988 and also in another great game in 1990 before the series ended for 20 years. Lou was able to get his team prepared for big games and win a lot of them, not all of them but a lot of them. That's something Kelly has struggled with. He does have some big game wins, the 2012 win at Oklahoma was a great win and he's beaten some good USC teams and had a great win vs Stanford also in 2012. I think many have never forgiven him for the way he handled the end of the 2012 season when he clearly was trying to get the Eagles job. Many think that he neglected the team while he was pursuing that job including during bowl prep. They also still remember the "Get used to it" response to the reporters when questioned having Tommy Rees throw a fade in the endzone against Tulsa with time running out when the short FG from a reliable kicker would have sealed the win. Of course the fade was picked off and we lost to Tulsa. Also if you remember he made some ill advised comments in 2010 about his guys and the old coaches guys that upper classmen like Manti' Te'o took offense. I could go through a litany of issues the fans have had with Kelly, but all of those aside the Irish program is a good spot in 2021 compared to where he took it over after the 2009 season.
For you "other type of football" fans.... NOTRE DAME vs. MICHIGAN Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan | U-M Soccer Stadium TV: ESPNU Live Stats: Click Here Twitter Updates: @NDMenSoccer Game Notes: vs. Michigan THE MICHIGAN SERIES • The Irish and Wolverines will meet on the pitch for the 21st time on Tuesday evening. • Notre Dame holds a commanding lead in the all-time series with a record of 13-3-4 against Michigan. • The Wolverines won the most recent matchup, defeating Notre Dame by a score of 1-0 in South Bend in 2019. • In the last matchup in Ann Arbor, the Irish defeated Michigan by a score of 2-1 during the 2018 regular season.
Kelly seems to be a realistic coach. I like him, but he coaches in a far different football world that the great Notre Dame coaches in the past. Not sure that Notre Dame is willing to pay some of the price to win National Championships in this environment. And I say that with all due respect and actually an admiration for them.
Bill, you're right. Unlike the championship ND coaches, Kelly doesn't have a large feeder network of Catholic high schools. In the past 2 decades many have closed. Further, the political climate ie. the opposition to religion especially Evangelicals have made religious universities less desirable. Kelly has an administration that handcuffs his ability to recruit many HS stars. Players are required to do more than lift weights and watch film, they're required to go to class and take exams in regular school subjects. Many top recruits couldn't be bothered with anything other than preparations for the NFL. Given his handicaps, he's done remarkably well. I'm not sure Ara could have succeeded and it seemed as though Holtz near the end of his tenure was struggling with the constraints too. I wonder if the championship winning coaches in college football could win under the same circumstance.
Unlike some of our conversations in prior years, I cannot disagree with anything you say. It's a different world and in many ways I think the old world was better. It seems not that many years ago where the NCAA passed some rules requiring athletes to live in the same dorms as regular students. Now the have special buildings to live, get all the academic help they want, swimming pools and much better lifestyle than the average student. Now we have the new rules where they can actually become millionaires while playing college football. Not saying it is all bad but it sure is different that the past.
Brutally honest of Kelly. He made some mistakes early on at ND but has evolved into a top coach in a pressure cooker situation. We have as good a stable of 4* players as anyone. But the 5* cupboard is bare. That is the single biggest difference between us and them. We saw it against Clemson, Ohio State and Alabama. And those kind of players are looking right past college to the NFL . That simply does not mesh with the ND philosophy. Who else recruits with a "40 year plan"?
Much speculation that Sedric Irvin Jr will verbal to the Irish today. He's a 4 star 2023 RB from Miami. His dad played at Michigan State and was a very good college RB, short injury plagued NFL career.
Sedric Irvin Jr is Irish. I found this quote from his dad interesting...sounds like Dad wants to be supportive but wants him to have his eyes wide open about going to Notre Dame. 'Well, Son, it's your decision. You have to live it. You have to go there and play. You have to go to class. You have to live in that culture. So it's your decision.'”
There still are quite a few Catholic HS out there who produce terrific players. Just look at Ohio, where the big Catholic Schools are very competitive in Ohio HS football. Bishop Gorman in Las Vegas is a major producer of Div 1 talent as is Mater Dei in So.Cal along with other So.Call Catholic HS, in Fla St. Thomas Aquinas is a big producer of Div 1 talent. New Jersey has several big-time programs. I don't think the problem is that there are fewer Catholic HS, I think that now days you can't assume that the players are Catholic. Many of the players aren't Catholic but are there because the program is so good. I do think that many (not all) of the highly rated players don't really care about academics and that may figure into their decision about where to play. Mike Frank and other ND recruiting gurus have said for years that one of the negative recruiting strategies against ND has been that academic angle. But I do believe that the biggest factor is winning, Alabama dominates recruiting because they win, they have a lot of players drafted in the high rounds of the NFL draft. Same for Clemson and Ohio State and Georgia. Look at Lou's early classes at ND, he got a ton of highly rated players, they weren't deterred by the academics but instead wanted to play for a winner and ND at the time was winning and beating their big-time rivals and having players drafted at a high level. What's changed, mainly the winning. Now our recruiting has been trending up as we've won more, and that's with Kelly as a coach who is known to not be an aggressive recruiter. Urban, Dabo, Saban all have out recruited ND because they outwork Notre Dame/Kelly on that front, and they are winning big time games and players get drafted. As I mentioned earlier the ND recruiting guru's have all said that Kelly doesn't make the effort that the top coaches make in recruiting. My question is in the current situation if we had a HC who was highly organized, highly motivated and made sure all of his staff were committed to not just being great coaches but to making the effort to bring in top talent that fits, would we see classes that were consistently in the top 10 or top 5? I don't know but I'd like to see if it could be done.
Back to the Actual ND/Wisconsin game. From what I've read the problem for the Irish OL will be those Wisconsin LB's coming on blitzes. The are very adept at delayed blitzing and their DL is very good at providing them lanes to come at the ND QB.