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Not the one at Notre Dame.
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I like Hughes as well. He's a hard runner who seems to have good vision and catches well. However, he's shown a tendency to dance around too much for a back with his size and speed. He needs to realize that with his frame, he needs to just lower his shoulder and punish tacklers. I would have liked to see him get more touches this season especially in short yardage situations.
I'd like to see what Bennett Jackson can do on kick returns. Both return teams need a shot in the arm TBH.
Ethan Johnson's performance so far has been kind of puzzling. You'd think that a move to a 5 technique would have resulted in more of an impact for him, but it just hasn't really materialized yet. On the other side, KLM performed pretty well the first two games, but he's been MIA since.
I think Turk's been doing well overall this season. Aside from that awful rugby style punt that went maybe ten yards, he's been solid. Just under half his punts have been downed inside the opponent's 20. He's been getting solid hang time too (only 2 returns for 4 yards). I would like to see him get more length on his punts while maintaining the time it's in the air.Comment
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Quick thoughts:
-Crist is not accurate. A lot of plays left on the field today due to errant passes. He really needs to work on this. Kelly's offense won't be effective until this is better.
-Offense started out good in the first quarter. Then, they followed that up with a few turnovers that brought BC within a score, and overall ho-hum for the last three quarters of the game.
-Too many dropped passes. While Crist's placement could have been better on some of these, they were still catchable throws.
-Nice to see some of the younger players making some plays. Shembo and Stockton both got to the QB. Calabrese and Te'o were pretty disruptive when BC tried to run it.
-Bennett Jackson looked good on his kick returns. He had a nice head of steam and hit the hole without hesitation. I'd like to see him keep this up.
Not much to learn from this game about the progress of the Irish defense considering BC's offense, but they have another offense that has underperformed up to this point of the season again next week. However, Pitt does have playmakers on their offense that will need to be accounted for.Comment
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The Good:
- Armando Allen. I'll say it again. This guy has beent he MVP of this team. He's been running like a man possesed. His truck stick move at the goalline on Saturday night was painful to watch for the BC defender. He's quietly moved up the ranks to be one of Top 10 yardage guys in Notre Dame history.
- The defense. I know BC's offense sucks. I don't care. Outside of one double move the Notre Dame defense did what it was supposed to do. They didn't let a crappy offense or crappy team hang around more than they should have. Do I think they are a new unit now? No. But it was nice to see them take care of business when they were supposed to.
-The first quarter offense. The running game looked great. The passing game looked in sync and it resulted in points, points, and more points. It was great to see. At times(Mich 2nd half, Mich St second half, and BC 1st quarter) you get to see glimpses of what this team can and will become.
- Manti Te'o. All over the field. Another very good game.
- Michael Floyd. No fumbles! Yeah! In all seriousness he played great football. Caught everything thrown his way and is still an impossible match up for teams.
- David Ruffer. Still perfect.
- Prince Shembo. Limited action but looked really good while he was out there.
- Ian Williams. Played a great game inside on rush defense. Was very stout at the point of attack.
- Bennett Jackson as the KR. Great to see some field position for the offense. If he can keep this up I like Kelly's offense on a short field with Allen, Rudolph, Floyd, Jones, and Riddick.
- Brian Kelly shouting. Loved it. Loved it. Loved it. This is not a great football team. They don't have the luxury of making mistakes and playing bad football and getting away with it. I love how they are held accountable and Kelly goes after anyone and everyone. Turk, Crist, Stewart, Ruffer, Goodman etc. Doesn't matter who it is. Do your job and you won't get your ass chewed out.
The Bad:
- The pass rush. Outside of Shembo...where the hell was it. Where has Kapron Lewis-Moore been since the 3rd quarter of the Michigan game?
- The offensive line. Allen looked great but at times the line gave him nothing to work with. Crist was hurried too much. Not a great game for them even in the win.
- Crist's accuracy. Seemed spotty at times. Seemed like he was trying to throw the ball way to hard when he didn't have to.
- The offense in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quarters outside of the Riddick TD drive. They looked out of sync and just off. Just way off. It was bad. Like 2007 bad.
- Cierre Wood. This kid looks like he has lost ALL of his confidence.
- Brian Smith in pass coverage. Does this guy ever NOT looked confused?
The Ugly:
- Boston College. They suck. Easily the worst team I have seen all season.
- Kirk Herbstreits comments about the Notre Dame defense. Not saying I disagree or agree here. Just rough comments to hear. I'd actually really like to have heard expanded comments of his on it because I felt like the Notre Dame defense was the only thing that kept them in that game against Stanford. Just would like to hear his take and why he thinks that. I don't think Notre Dame's defense is a track team but I don't think they are bad as Herby makes them out to be(a high school team). I repsect Herby's opinion a lot so it'd be interesting to hear from him.
- The Boston College women. We have Taylor Swift....they have..trolls..
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All in all a win is a win. Especially against BC...especially at Chestnut Hill. I was joking with my dad though that even though they won I'd hate to be in the film room because they are going to get their asses chewed out. Like Kelly said after Purdue though..he'd rather be correcting things after a win than after a loss.
2-3. So my 1-5 feeling won't come true. Pitt comes to town next weekend and while I could see it being a win Kelly needs to make sure that they don't get too big for their britches after this BC win. Pitt has something that BC didn't. Playmakers in Baldwin and Lewis. Pitt is having a down year but still has dangerous players. Notre Dame needs to be ready. That being said...they should win. These next four games(Pitt, WMU, Navy, Tulsa) are all "should wins" so now all of a sudden 6-3/5-4 going into Army, Utah, USC seems possible. That's still leaves us realistically looking at 7-5/6-6 for the season. I don't think this team is experienced, confident, consistant, or good enough to pull off an 8-4 season but maybe if they get rolling who knows.
Was very interested to hear the stat that ESPN had that Notre Dame is the only team in the country to have played 3 Top 25 teams to this point in the year. For a team in a "down year" as far as SOS goes and with Utah and USC still on the schedule coming up that's an interesting stat to see.Comment
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And how everyone says ND has such an easy schedule all the time.Was very interested to hear the stat that ESPN had that Notre Dame is the only team in the country to have played 3 Top 25 teams to this point in the year. For a team in a "down year" as far as SOS goes and with Utah and USC still on the schedule coming up that's an interesting stat to see.Comment
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Since ND plays at least one service academy every year, their schedule is automatically a cake walk, and any loss on said schedule further proves how irrelevant they are.
It's a law or something...Comment
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I forgot who is was but I remember an ESPN analyst commenting on Notre Dame's defense and saying it was too slow to be a college defense and looked like a High School defense at time. Anybody else remember hearing that?
I think they can still make a bowl because they still only have one real "road" game. Plus wins over Western, Navy, Tulsa and Army put them at 6 wins. Good enough.Comment
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Beat Pitt, please and thank you.
^ Shouts to MvP for the sick sig. GFX TEAM BACK
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Aaron Lynch is going to visit Iowa and Florida State.
Could be a big committment to lose.Comment
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I found Lynch's comments odd in regards to looking at Iowa. He said Iowa played a 4-3 and was interested in looking there because of that...doesn't Iowa play a 3-4?
*EDIT* NVM. Iowa plays a 4-3.Comment
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I guess Lynch is staying Irish.
He posted on hsi facebook page about it.
I also guess he had people in his ear telling him he wasn't smart enough to make it at Notre Dame.
Who the hell tells a 17 year old kid that?Comment
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Nobody's Irish until signing day IMO. We've seen too many Justin Trattou's and Omar Hunter's the last few years for me to get too excited about a recruit until he's officially on board.Comment
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Quick thoughts:
-Big plays are still a problem on defense. They can be solid for most of the game, but then they make some headscratching mistakes like the Baldwin TD.
-Too many drops today.
-Good day for Turk. 5 punts, 3 in the 20.
-Congrats to Ruffer. The 50 yarder to break Tausch's record for consecutive FGs was icing on the cake.
-Harrison Smith looked good. He's shown drastic improvement from his first two seasons.
-Ian Williams will be missed next year. He may not be the most dominant DT to go through ND, but he's consistently holding down the middle of the line and collapsing the pocket in the middle.
-KLM did a good job as well. Glad to see him showing up again.Comment
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Caught most of the 4th quarter of the Eagles/49ers game tonight, and it was good to see Trevor Laws getting a lot of reps on the Eagles' line. He came up big with the pressure on Alex Smith that resulted in a pick to seal the Eagles' win. Dude was all over the place his senior year at ND. A real shame he didn't get much mention for postseason accolades with him making over 100 tackles.Comment
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