FirstTimer
Freeman Error
Michigan State
The Great
Robert Blanton. A special nod this week to Robert Blanton. While he has played great football all season long on Saturday he put on one of the most impressive defensive performances I can recall seeing out of a Notre Dame defender since Shane Walton, or perhaps even as far back as Jeff Burris. Blanton was tremendous in pass coverage, great in run support, and while he had a few obvious "big plays" every play he made was also the right play. His post game interview oozed with the class and humility of someone raised in a military household and you can really tell Blanton is one of the guys on this team that "gets it".
The Good
-Cierre Wood/Jonas Gray. While most of the attention was on the Michigan State running game Wood and Gray come out and combined for 26 carries 126 yards and two touchdowns. Wood continued to impress, even though he didn't see much of the ball in the second half, and Gray turned in possibly his best performance. Wood stayed patient and Gray did a good job of running down hill like a player of his size should. As we mvoe towards the cooler fall months where weather can and will become an issue the Irish running game will have to stay solid and efficient.
-Michael Floyd. Not a spectacular day by any means but yet again Floyd caused matchup issues all over the field. He was targeted early and often and then in the second half made a big play down the middle of the field for 30+ yards, drew a pass interference call, and blocked extremely well. Floyd is truly a player that even in a six catch 84 yard performance can't be measured by a mere box score.
-Harrison Smith. Mike Mayock said it the best: Smith put on a clinic, especially late in the ball game. Smith recovred from a less than impressive game at Michigan with a very good showing. His plays against the pass were impressive but he was also very stout in run support. It was a great way for a senior leader to step up and rebound from a shaky game the week before.
-Aaron Lynch. I hope at the end of the year we can look back and simply just call this game "The Arrival" for Lynch. He started the game off with a literal bang on a crushing sack of Kirk Cousins that lead to a Michigan State turnover. All he did for the rest of the game was wreak massive amounts of havoc in the Spartan backfield and leave Cousins running for his life in most passing situations. Lynch ended the game with an absurd SIX quarterback hits. Even though the Spartans offensive line is young and was seen as a possible weakness headed into the game Lynch's domination was still impressive for an 18 year old in just his third college game.
-The rest of the defensive front seven. Everyone else needs a mention here. Kapron Lewis-Moore, Ethan Johnson, Darius Fleming, Manti Te'o, Steve Filer, Troy Nikas(minus the slip), and of couse Louis Nix all played a tremendous football game. Between the pressure on Cousins, to the stuffing of the Spartan run game they played fast, downhill, attacking football. They helped to make the defensive backs lives a lot easier and in the end the defense ends up only allowing 13 points to the defending Big 10 champions.
The Bad
-The Tommy Rees interception. There's not much to pick on this week here other than that. While overall Rees played a very solid football game his interception early in the game was incredibly frustrating for two simple reasons; First, Rees seemed to throw the ball without even really seeing the throw all the way. He did a nice job looking off the defense to the far side of the field and had the right ide about coming back to Eifert on the back side drag but Rees seemed like he had already decided to throw the ball, and how he was going to throw the ball before he even turned his eyes. That's not an anticipation throw in that situation. That's a throw you have to see before you let it go. Rees didn't seem to really see the throw before he let it go because....Second, Eifert was open; and by open I mean absurdly wide open. All Rees has to do is actually see the throw before he let it go and he would have seen the backside safety dropping underneath. If Rees puts any loft on that throw at all it's over the linebackers head and Eifert doesn't have a defender within 30 yards of him and might still be running right now. That's the second straight week where Rees mis-read a play and Eifert was wide open but Rees couldn't find him or make the correct choice. Brian Kelly put it nicely in the psot game interview that Rees is still young and still learning and knew what he did wrong as soon as he came off the field. That's encouraging but it's going to be really encouraging when Rees starts to hit Eifert for big gains and touchdowns after making the right read.
The Ugly
-Special Teams. Obviously the Atkinson kickoff return is not included here but almost every other phase of special teams was bad. Kickoffs and kickoff coverage was bad. Ben Turk was again awful, just awful. I refuse to believe Kyle Brindza can't out kick Turk. I'm not at practice and don't see what goes on but at this point who cares what Turk does Monday through Friday because he can't seem to replicate it on Saturday's, and hasn't at any point in time during his career here. Atkinson also had a fumble on one of his returns that he thankfully recovered. All this brings me to John Goodman. If John Goodman can not be trusted to not muff punts he needs to be benched. Now. The only reason hes back there is because he doesn't fumble. If he does there is no rationale to keep him back there catching punts. At this point in time I'd rather see us give someone like Roby Toma a try back there. Cam McDaniel would also be an interesting possibility and perhaps even give Riddick another chance. HerLoyalSons.com nailed it with their thought that on a team full of high level atheltes Notre Dame can't seem to find anyone capable of catching a punt and running with it. It boggles the mind. With a young quarterback who isn't overly spectacular we need to get more out of our return games, especially with a defense capable of going into lockdown mode.
-The penalty on TJ Jones after his touchdown. What?! Wood thows up the "diamond" after his two scores, every player at Miami, Ohio State, Oregon, and *insert school with Adidas logo gloves here* does it. TJ Jones does it and gets flagged? Unless there was some other explanation given that I missed that call is and was a joke.
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Finally! A win! The stat of the day has to be this: This is the first double digit win over Sparty since 1993. You read that right. 1993. It was an 18 point win over the 15th ranked team in the nation. Michigan State has since dropped out of the Top 25 but at this point I don't care. The 15th ranked defending Big 10 champions came into South Bend and were beaten by 18 points. Going on the road to Pitt worries me. Even though Pitt looked less than impressive even before the collapse against Iowa they still have a lot of talent, some big wideouts that will pick on Gary Gray, who regardless of what Brian Kelly says didn't play that well, and will be looking to take out some frustration about an embarassing loss in Iowa City. The Irish running game and defense will have to bring their "A game" for this one but we are in a nice situation right now. We have three very winnable games before the USC matchup on October 22nd. Pitt, then to Purdue, then home against Air Force before a bye week. Notre Dame has a real chance to swing from 0-2 to 4-2 really quickly. Assuming the defense even stays solid all we need to do to win games is not shoot ourselves in the foot with costly turnovers. Turnovers will happen, I understand that, but the muffed punts, the bad interceptions, etc need to stop. If the defense is going to get the ball from us they need to earn it. Too often right now we are doing to much to help them out in the turnover department. Clean it up and this team will start winning football games at a very high volume.
Go Irish. Beat Pitt.
The Great
Robert Blanton. A special nod this week to Robert Blanton. While he has played great football all season long on Saturday he put on one of the most impressive defensive performances I can recall seeing out of a Notre Dame defender since Shane Walton, or perhaps even as far back as Jeff Burris. Blanton was tremendous in pass coverage, great in run support, and while he had a few obvious "big plays" every play he made was also the right play. His post game interview oozed with the class and humility of someone raised in a military household and you can really tell Blanton is one of the guys on this team that "gets it".
The Good
-Cierre Wood/Jonas Gray. While most of the attention was on the Michigan State running game Wood and Gray come out and combined for 26 carries 126 yards and two touchdowns. Wood continued to impress, even though he didn't see much of the ball in the second half, and Gray turned in possibly his best performance. Wood stayed patient and Gray did a good job of running down hill like a player of his size should. As we mvoe towards the cooler fall months where weather can and will become an issue the Irish running game will have to stay solid and efficient.
-Michael Floyd. Not a spectacular day by any means but yet again Floyd caused matchup issues all over the field. He was targeted early and often and then in the second half made a big play down the middle of the field for 30+ yards, drew a pass interference call, and blocked extremely well. Floyd is truly a player that even in a six catch 84 yard performance can't be measured by a mere box score.
-Harrison Smith. Mike Mayock said it the best: Smith put on a clinic, especially late in the ball game. Smith recovred from a less than impressive game at Michigan with a very good showing. His plays against the pass were impressive but he was also very stout in run support. It was a great way for a senior leader to step up and rebound from a shaky game the week before.
-Aaron Lynch. I hope at the end of the year we can look back and simply just call this game "The Arrival" for Lynch. He started the game off with a literal bang on a crushing sack of Kirk Cousins that lead to a Michigan State turnover. All he did for the rest of the game was wreak massive amounts of havoc in the Spartan backfield and leave Cousins running for his life in most passing situations. Lynch ended the game with an absurd SIX quarterback hits. Even though the Spartans offensive line is young and was seen as a possible weakness headed into the game Lynch's domination was still impressive for an 18 year old in just his third college game.
-The rest of the defensive front seven. Everyone else needs a mention here. Kapron Lewis-Moore, Ethan Johnson, Darius Fleming, Manti Te'o, Steve Filer, Troy Nikas(minus the slip), and of couse Louis Nix all played a tremendous football game. Between the pressure on Cousins, to the stuffing of the Spartan run game they played fast, downhill, attacking football. They helped to make the defensive backs lives a lot easier and in the end the defense ends up only allowing 13 points to the defending Big 10 champions.
The Bad
-The Tommy Rees interception. There's not much to pick on this week here other than that. While overall Rees played a very solid football game his interception early in the game was incredibly frustrating for two simple reasons; First, Rees seemed to throw the ball without even really seeing the throw all the way. He did a nice job looking off the defense to the far side of the field and had the right ide about coming back to Eifert on the back side drag but Rees seemed like he had already decided to throw the ball, and how he was going to throw the ball before he even turned his eyes. That's not an anticipation throw in that situation. That's a throw you have to see before you let it go. Rees didn't seem to really see the throw before he let it go because....Second, Eifert was open; and by open I mean absurdly wide open. All Rees has to do is actually see the throw before he let it go and he would have seen the backside safety dropping underneath. If Rees puts any loft on that throw at all it's over the linebackers head and Eifert doesn't have a defender within 30 yards of him and might still be running right now. That's the second straight week where Rees mis-read a play and Eifert was wide open but Rees couldn't find him or make the correct choice. Brian Kelly put it nicely in the psot game interview that Rees is still young and still learning and knew what he did wrong as soon as he came off the field. That's encouraging but it's going to be really encouraging when Rees starts to hit Eifert for big gains and touchdowns after making the right read.
The Ugly
-Special Teams. Obviously the Atkinson kickoff return is not included here but almost every other phase of special teams was bad. Kickoffs and kickoff coverage was bad. Ben Turk was again awful, just awful. I refuse to believe Kyle Brindza can't out kick Turk. I'm not at practice and don't see what goes on but at this point who cares what Turk does Monday through Friday because he can't seem to replicate it on Saturday's, and hasn't at any point in time during his career here. Atkinson also had a fumble on one of his returns that he thankfully recovered. All this brings me to John Goodman. If John Goodman can not be trusted to not muff punts he needs to be benched. Now. The only reason hes back there is because he doesn't fumble. If he does there is no rationale to keep him back there catching punts. At this point in time I'd rather see us give someone like Roby Toma a try back there. Cam McDaniel would also be an interesting possibility and perhaps even give Riddick another chance. HerLoyalSons.com nailed it with their thought that on a team full of high level atheltes Notre Dame can't seem to find anyone capable of catching a punt and running with it. It boggles the mind. With a young quarterback who isn't overly spectacular we need to get more out of our return games, especially with a defense capable of going into lockdown mode.
-The penalty on TJ Jones after his touchdown. What?! Wood thows up the "diamond" after his two scores, every player at Miami, Ohio State, Oregon, and *insert school with Adidas logo gloves here* does it. TJ Jones does it and gets flagged? Unless there was some other explanation given that I missed that call is and was a joke.
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Finally! A win! The stat of the day has to be this: This is the first double digit win over Sparty since 1993. You read that right. 1993. It was an 18 point win over the 15th ranked team in the nation. Michigan State has since dropped out of the Top 25 but at this point I don't care. The 15th ranked defending Big 10 champions came into South Bend and were beaten by 18 points. Going on the road to Pitt worries me. Even though Pitt looked less than impressive even before the collapse against Iowa they still have a lot of talent, some big wideouts that will pick on Gary Gray, who regardless of what Brian Kelly says didn't play that well, and will be looking to take out some frustration about an embarassing loss in Iowa City. The Irish running game and defense will have to bring their "A game" for this one but we are in a nice situation right now. We have three very winnable games before the USC matchup on October 22nd. Pitt, then to Purdue, then home against Air Force before a bye week. Notre Dame has a real chance to swing from 0-2 to 4-2 really quickly. Assuming the defense even stays solid all we need to do to win games is not shoot ourselves in the foot with costly turnovers. Turnovers will happen, I understand that, but the muffed punts, the bad interceptions, etc need to stop. If the defense is going to get the ball from us they need to earn it. Too often right now we are doing to much to help them out in the turnover department. Clean it up and this team will start winning football games at a very high volume.
Go Irish. Beat Pitt.
bama: the entire time and having to remind them that neither of them were actually playing in the game so they needed to just shut up.
