Official Notre Dame Football Thread

[spiker]

Re-watched the game again earlier...

Fucking sickening how winnable it was. USC didn't really do shit after the first 15 minutes.

USC's rushing attack gashed ND all night. One area where ND did a really good job of adjusting was at the OL. From the get go USC was not blitzing at all but pressure from the front four was hitting home, mainly from stunts. Rees was feeling it. A combination of USC's rushing attack and defensive pressure got them their 14-0 lead to start the game.

The ND OL adjusted magnificently sometime towards the end of the 1st qtr and beginning of the 2nd. They really started to handle the pressure from USC's front four and it gave Rees time to throw the ball. Re-Watch ND's drive right before half time. I don't think USC blitzed once because they were still using the same gameplan that they started with and ND's O-line had already made adjustments to pick up the stunts and over-aggressive pass rush. Rees had all frickin day to throw the ball.

USC didn't really adjust their gameplan at all on either side of the ball, mainly because they had the lead for the entire game. ND figured it out, made the adjustments, and took a shit on themselves at the worst possible moment.

Rees going down when he did was the worst damn thing that could have happened that night. I knew it when it happened and the Crist TO only confirmed that notion. That was truly a heartbreaking loss.

[FirstTimer]

Kapron Lewis Moore is out for the year.

[padman59]

Kapron Lewis Moore is out for the year.

[FirstTimer]

Thre more I watch him play the more I love Jamoris Slaughter. That helmet to helmet hit he got flagged for was bullshit too.

[FirstTimer]

USC

The Good

-Special Teams. A rare appearance on the list in this area. George Atkinson has a great day returning kicks. The 96 yard kick was the loudest I had heard the stadium in years(Washington 2009). Kyle Brindza had a very solid day kicking off, and Ben Turk had maybe his best day in an Irish uniform. Kick coverage was also very solid. After a marginal season over all the special teams unit showed up for the biggest game of the year. Too bad it was a loss.


-The atmosphere for the game. Perhaps the most jacked the stadium has been since the 1993 FSU game. The 2005 USC game was great but This crowd can really only compare to one of those late 80’s early 90’s crowds. If Notre Dame balks as future night games it would be an absolute embarrassment. I’m sure there needs to be things that are fine tuned and worked on but overall Notre Dame hit it out of the park with the presentation for Saturday night’s game.

-The defense…most of the game. Despite getting themselves in a hole 17-0 early on the defense tightened up and played very solid football for the last 2 ½ - 3 quarters. Take away a taunting call on Carlo Calabrese and an awful helmet to helmet call on Jamoris Slaughter and the defense would have turned in an even better performance. Yes, they gave up a bunch of yards but at the end of the day they played well enough to win the football game and didn’t give up any points in the second half when USC wasn’t given the ball in Irish territory. Was it a stellar performance? No. Was it one that should have been good enough to win the football game? Yes. Sometimes against a team like USC and the talent they have that’s the best you can ask for.




The Bad

-The Irish rushing attack. After weeks of dominating it seemed to go away all to easily. Cierre Wood had easily his worst performance of the year and Gray, while effective, wasn’t able to get nearly enough carries. Notre Dame falling behind of course didn’t help matters much in trying to establish the run but the offensive line didn’t have nearly a good enough game at the point of attack. The running wasn’t nearly as bad as some pundits made it out to be, but it still left a lot to be desired.



The Ugly

-Turnovers(Again.)-After weeks of seeming as though the boneheaded plays were behind us turnovers crept back into the picture in a big way Saturday night. Two of the three were incredibly costly and came when Notre Dame had the ball, momentum, and a chance to tie the game. Obviously the Dayne Crist fumble was the worst of them. For Crist, whose career has been snake bitten at best, part of you wants to feel sorry for him but the other half can’t get beyond the fact that the senior leader of this team couldn’t handle a snap in a big situation. The Tommy Rees to Wood lateral was also a killer. The Irish offense had finally been moving the ball in the second half and USC seemed to have no real answer until this play that put the game out of reach for good. The final interception is what it is, but pales in comparison to the impact of the previous two.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I won’t even delve into previewing Navy because every Irish fan worth their salt knows the scouting report and knows what needs to be done. By biggest concern is this: Tommy Rees. I’ve gone back and forth on him all season; from wanting Crist to start prior to the year, to maybe thinking he could turn into the next Kellen Moore, to thinking he’s the next Matt Lovechio, and everything in between. For the second straight season Rees struggled against USC; a big time program with athletes everywhere and a very good defensive coordinator. My biggest fear seems more and more real. Rees is maxed out. He might improve a bit here or there and I love his toughness, demeanor, and poise, but I’m not sure he has the talent or ability to take this team over the hump. With the Notre Dame schedule not getting any easier in the coming years the Irish will need a play maker, not play facilitator, at the quarterback position to win games and get to the top. We need a difference maker at the position at some point. Rees isn’t it. The game Saturday night was more than winnable with Rees at quarterback but the glosses over the larger issue of if Notre Dame does see itself as a National Title contender and running Kelly’s system we can’t have a quarterback that gives us an uneasy feeling and is physically limited week in and week out. It’s too big of a risk on a game by game basis to ignore. As a team running the spread offense your biggest fear can’t be your quarterback and his limitations. Far too often that’s my biggest worry for Notre Dame games.

Rees has always been tough for me to accept as the starter. Every ounce of my football sense tells me that Crist is the senior, the leader, and more talented and should still be the starter. Andrew Hendrix is more talented physically but not well versed enough, especially passing wise to play a major role, and Everett Golson needs time to learn the system and is perhaps the best option for this offense on the entire team. Rees is “a guy”. Really solid and capable of 8-9 win seasons but not a quarterback who can take this team over the top. My largest fear at this point is Kelly falls in love with him and for the next two seasons Rees continues to play solidly, but at the end of the day is nothing more than game manager in a spread offense. Maybe Rees comes back next season bulked up with a better arm, but I just don’t see that happening.

While I hope Rees proves me wrong, I'm not betting on it.

[spiker]

I was at the 2009 Washington game too. I think I lost my voice for a day or two after that one.

[FirstTimer]

Watching some highlights of 07 Notre Dame...wow.

The offense was so fucking bad looking back on it. Allen/Hughes/Aldridge sharing time. The best wideout was David Grimes, followed closely by Kamara. An early Robby Parris. Even George West was playing. GEORGE WEST! Golden Tate was still soooo raw. Forgot about Asaph Shwapp being around still too. Carlson was about the only bright spot of the offense that year. I still remember Weis before that year started. "Armando Allen will be a household name by the end of the GA Tech game." LOL.

The defense wasn't actually all that bad, it had some NFL talent. Laws, Crum (UFL), Lambert, Wooden, Bruton, Zbikowski. I forgot Zibby had to suffer through that season. Poor guy. Kerry Neal never really panned out either. At least he got to play some Quarterback before it was all said and done.

I'll never forget that UCLA game either, when Mo Crum got that fumble and returned it, not to mention his 25 other turnovers that game. Beat an 4-1 team that day. DAMN. Even Brandon Walker hit a 48 yarder! ND was firing on all cylinders! Man those games were brutal to watch, Jimmy had no Oline at all.

I can't believe I'm reminiscing like this for something that occurred 4 years ago. I feel old. Can't imagine what this will be like 10/20/30 years from now.

God damn that season was bad. You could see some glimpses of Clausen's talent more so toward the end of the season though when his elbow started healing up. The pass that really showed it was the TD in the Duke game where he threaded the needle on a post route. The OL that eyar was horrendously bad.

I still remember being in the stands for the Navy game and being amazed out how inept the team was.

Robert Hughes was full on beast mode late in the year too.

[FirstTimer]

I was SHOCKED that was overturned.

What did the officals in the booth see to have enough evidence to overturn the call?

[NAHSTE]

LSU quarterbacks coach Steve Kragthorpe is flying to Indiana on Friday to visit with Gunner Kiel.

[FirstTimer]

LSU quarterbacks coach Steve Kragthorpe is flying to Indiana on Friday to visit with Gunner Kiel.

Do not care.

If we get Kiel...great.

If not. Meh. Whatever. I'm happy with our QB depth as it stands and Kelly will be going ahrd aftr QB's in a year or two and pull in some big ones.

[NAHSTE]

You can have him.

Oh I know we can, it's just a matter of if we want him.

[FirstTimer]

Kelly may have lost some of the guys on the team with some comments after practice the other day.....

:obama:

[FirstTimer]

Aaron Taylor with some real talk

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHAQE7YeHcY"]College Football - Notre Dame Disappointment - YouTube[/ame]

[FirstTimer]

Tremendous thoughts on Keith Arnold in relation to a new playing surface at Notre Dame:

One source close to the football program has told me that Notre Dame will begin serious research on replacing the stadium’s natural grass as soon as the season finishes. No option has been taken off the table yet — keeping the natural surface is certainly still in play. So is replacing the grass with field turf, the surface already on the LaBar practice fields.

An interesting option that might make everybody happy is a surface to what the Packers use in Green Bay. It’s a natural grass surface that’s also reinforced with man-made synthetic fibers, that’s set on a sand-based soil.

Beneath the field is a heating system, irrigation lines and drainage system that has turned the surface into some of the best and safest in the NFL. It’s also designed to keep the grass and ground at 55 degrees even on a day when the temperature is well below freezing.

After years of mediocre playing surfaces often times holding back the athleticism on Notre Dame’s sidelines, any change to the current grass would be a good one. And at a place like Lambeau Field, where tradition also has its own very important place, the Irish might have a perfect match.

[FirstTimer]

The report put the comments in better context..they aren't as bad..

Brian Kelly was greeted with some birthday wishes Thursday -- he turned 50 two days earlier -- and then someone jokingly wondered if Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly still had the requisite feistiness and vigor and energy.

"Ask our players if the energy is still high," Kelly said following practice.

It's been a bit of a big-picture week as much as Kelly wants to keep the conversation to Navy preparation, with a proliferation of questions about what he's building and the kind of player he's coaching 20 games into his tenure.


His answer Thursday: Not the kind of player he wants to be coaching.

"It's more about how I want things done, how I want this team to play, and I haven't been able to get it the way I want them to play," Kelly said. "For me, if they're going to do all the things the right way, and we're getting beat because the teams are just better, I'll be OK with that. But that's not the case right now. I'm not very happy about the way we handle the little things.

"They're all bought-in. Every single one of them is bought-in. I coach a style of football that I want played. We're not getting that style. A lot of the guys that are here, we're retraining. That's in their DNA. That's who they are. Here's the best way to put it: Some of them can't do it. That's our job to get them to do it. Some of them won't do it. And that's our job to take care of that."

Kelly drew a bit of a startling line, too, between the players he brought to Notre Dame and the players he inherited at Notre Dame -- the latter forming the group that currently affects the outcome most each Saturday.

"You can see the players that I recruited here," Kelly said. "You know who they are. We've had one class of recruiting kids that I've had my hand on. The other guys here are coming along. But it's a process. It can't happen overnight. They're getting there. We're making good progress.

"They're 4-3 – we easily could be a lot better than that… I don't want to paint a picture that we're so far away that we can't get to them, but it is a process. We're banging it every day. You keep hitting that sledgehammer against a wall, you don’t see the cracks, then one day there's a crack in it. We're still banging it."
Asked about center Braxston Cave's assertion that the Irish know how to overcome adversity entering the Navy game off a galling loss to USC, Kelly wasn't buying it.

"I think last year's team overcame adversity," Kelly said. "This year's team needs to overcome itself. They need to play better consistently. We had adversity last year. This year, our guys just need to play better football."