We knew Marcus Freeman being thrown into the Fiesta Bowl followed up by an opener at Ohio State was going to be a tough hill to climb and a hole to dig out of as the new Notre Dame head coach. Losing to Sun Belt team Marshall at home in embarrassing fashion is like erecting an entire mountain chain of adversity to overcome now.
At times like these–after really bad and painful losses–the aftermath often turns into who can be the most negative, and I get it. I’m certainly not going to zag (although ready for some excellent zagging if you can find it!) but there’s really no point in getting too deep into what we witnessed on Saturday afternoon in South Bend.
Notre Dame is not a very good football team, bordering on being pretty bad especially against expectations.
Stats Package
| STAT | IRISH | HERD |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 21 | 26 |
| Plays | 75 | 71 |
| Total Yards | 351 | 364 |
| Yards Per Play | 4.68 | 5.12 |
| Conversions | 5/15 | 5/14 |
| Completions | 21 | 16 |
| Yards/Pass Attempt | 5.81 | 6.90 |
| Rushes | 37 | 50 |
| Rushing Success | 52.9% | 47.7% |
| 10+ Yds Rushes | 3 | 5 |
| 20+ Yds Passes | 3 | 0 |
| Defense Stuff Rate | 31.4% | 20.0% |
There wasn’t even a faint glimpse of good football for the Irish against Marshall. The offense didn’t score until late in the 1st half, immediately gave up a long field goal drive to go down into the break, while the pain continued consistently in the last 2 quarters.
Offense
QB: D
RB: D
TE: A
OL: F
WR: D
It’s hard to process a lot of what we’ve seen but I think it’s pretty clear that Notre Dame, and by extension Tommy Rees, believed they were going to be able to rely on a good offensive line and running game to anchor this offense. This idea has been blown up (just like the linemen on many snaps!) and it’s obviously leading to a lot of questionable play-calling, trying to ram through what isn’t working, which is getting compounded by Notre Dame at times forced into trying things that are not their strengths.
The offense is not doing anything well right now, just zero competency to lean on and build off of that with a young quarterback.
The run game, supposedly the foundation, has been horrid through 2 games. Zeroing in on the running backs and this is as bad as I’ve seen from this group stretching back to the Charlie Weis days. Estime has shown flashes when he gets the rare opportunity with space in front of him but isn’t talented enough to be a big playmaker. For someone who moved quickly into the bell-cow role in the backfield, 54 yards in 2 games isn’t going to cut it.
I was no big cheerleader for Diggs being a difference maker coming into the season, either. I have to assume he’s not 100% healthy because if he’s fine his 16 yards on 11 carries this season is frightening.
Rushing Success
Tyree – 3 of 3 (100%)
Estime – 4 of 10 (40.0%)
Diggs – 0 of 7 (0.0%)
Buchner – 9 of 11 (81.8%)
Styles – 1 of 1 (100%)
Pyne – 1 of 1 (100%)
Chris Tyree has looked decent so far this year, and for some reason, wasn’t featured much against Marshall. That is baffling given he’s the one guy (outside of maybe Styles) that you can feel confident will be dangerous with the ball in his hands.
I have a mix of emotions with Buchner at quarterback. Part of me thinks this current condition of the offense sets him up so poorly and that with Drew Pyne under center things will get extremely dark. Still, the offense craves quick and decisive decision making with accurate passing to try and open up the run game and those aren’t Buchner’s strengths now. Instead, we’re getting a decent passing performance, pretty good running from the quarterback, but it’s surrounded by poor line play and lack of help at the skill positions.
For example, Mayer and Styles combined for 14 catches on 23 targets for 172 yards. That’s pretty decent. The next 2 wideouts with the most targets were Lenzy and Thomas who combined for 2 catches on 10 targets for 13 yards, plus they were both targeted on similar interception plays.
The Avery Davis injury was devastating. His services in the slot would be so welcome right now. I don’t know what the answers will be but I think situations where Lenzy is getting targeted so often moving forward will have to end. We have enough evidence that it’s not much a solution for the Irish.
Defense
DL: D
LB: C
DB: C
I was harsh on the defense last week and I know most of the scorn against Marshall will be reserved for the offense. Most of the stats against the Herd were fine, too. They got off the field enough, kept the points down, and if this was a usual 25-point win against a Sun Belt team, at most, we’re probably scratching our heads a bit that the defense looked shaky a little too often.
The stuff rate was back up to where it should be against this caliber of opponent. It weirdly didn’t feel like that played out, largely because Notre Dame is really suffering from a lack of BIG plays on defense. Through 2 games not even a single turnover yet. Has the ball even hit the ground for the opposing offense?
Marshall really wasn’t too bothered on offense all afternoon which is concerning. Their quarterback play was efficient and their ground game, while hit or miss, really grinded down Notre Dame and kept the Irish offense off the field.
Stuffs vs. Marshall
Cross – 4
Kiser – 3
Bertrand – 2
Bracy – 2
Mills – 1.5
Joseph – 1.5
Foskey – 1.5
Brown – 1
Ademilola, Jus – 1.5
Ademilola, Jay – 0.5
Bauer – 0.5
Hart – 0.5
Henderson 0.5
My biggest issue against Ohio State was a lack of physicality and that looked to be a huge problem versus Marshall. The Herd running back Laborn rumbled for 15(!) successful carries, which at his current rate, is an entire season’s worth of positive carries for Logan Diggs.
The one thing that kept jumping out to me was that Marshall’s offense was how I thought Notre Dame’s offense would look, at minimum. They put the ball in their running backs hands a lot, had a decent amount of success with 12 first downs on the ground, and didn’t ask their quarterback to do a ton but when he did it was smart and fairly risk-free.
It makes you mad about the Irish offense all over again, but at the same time, watching Marshall be that successful against the Notre Dame defense isn’t ideal either.
Final Thoughts
You have to imagine Tommy Rees will be on the hot seat from here on out and that he’ll be looking for opportunities elsewhere even if things improve and he can have a graceful exit. If the Buchner injury is long-term I don’t know what can be done to fix this offense.
Harry Hiestand probably needs to go and bringing him back is looking to be a big mistake.
Like I said, it’s being overshadowed by the offense right now but something feels very off with the defense, too. It doesn’t seem to be easily explainable. Is Al Washington doing a really poor job with the linemen? Is something not clicking with the Freeman-Golden duo? I suspect we may have to wait a while until things become a little more clear on this side of the ball.
This is year 6 for Matt Balis and I’ve always said eventually every strength coach will be turned on by the fan base. Will Balis now come under more scrutiny?
Our writers room has been debating about what happened to this program. I’m not sure there’s a consensus. However, it’s possible we really glossed over some of the roster issues during a coaching transition. Also, the off-season of so many people turning and laughing at Brian Kelly while really embracing Marcus Freeman could’ve led to a lot of complacency and stagnation from some of the areas where Notre Dame could hang their hat–like both of the lines. People are throwing around the word “soft” and it’s bewildering and concerning.
I have to bring this up that at times like these, this is why it’s so important for the media to be around the program a lot more often. Freeman really closed up shop and kept things pretty tight this off-season. There was a narrative that he was getting down to business and really being physical during practices. But when the team comes out like this in 2022, it’s like what the hell? That led to what now feels like a lot of incorrect assumptions about this football team. Maybe we don’t need to know but it’s obvious we’re not getting the full picture on this roster.
Gun to your head, will Angeli play more snaps than Pyne this season if Buchner’s shoulder injury keeps him out for a while?
The Irish really need to do something at wide receiver. Again, in the small samples the media saw during fall camp it was believed Jayden Thomas was going to have a good year. Then, he’s getting completely thrown around on a pick six, it’s so frustrating.
You have to fight for the ball.
Has Tariq Bracy been the best player on the team so far in 2022? He’s been really good in coverage and around the ball a ton. Conversely, has it been a disappointing year for Cam Hart?
One thing that continues to not work great is Notre Dame constantly blitzing linebackers who are not getting home or rarely bothering the offense. You can excuse that against Ohio State. Against Marshall, it seems like such a waste.
I’m guessing Jarrett Patterson isn’t 100% healthy. He played uncharacteristically poor today.
I’ve been watching the USC-Stanford game while writing this review and the Trojans may beat Notre Dame by 50 points. Maybe Stanford feels they can beat the Irish, too.
The new NBC crew was okay during the broadcast. I thought it was explained well during our Slack chat that it does feel like it’s public access, though. Collinsworth doesn’t have a classic announcer voice and there’s nothing special about the call. The halftime show was an abomination. Let’s hope NBC doesn’t decide to bring 2 alum players from each team out for every home game to do school trivia instead of talking about the game. From the booth to the sidelines it does feel like NBC is going to be trotting a lot of new voices out there to see who could work for their upcoming Big Ten contract.
Last year, Drew Pyne was nothing but decisive and full of confidence, one might say overconfidence. He was neither in his brief appearance on Saturday while throwing an ugly red zone interception.
I can’t say that at any point did I truly believe Notre Dame would beat Marshall. If there was a point it was after taking a lead in the 4th quarter with Marshall having the ball at their own 6-yard line with 10:32 remaining. That they went all the way down for a touchdown was absolutely back-breaking. And the Buchner pick six happened just 2 plays later.
Assuming Buchner is out for the season, gun-to-head do we go .500 or better?
Under. 3-9, I think. Wins over UNLV, Navy, and [insert random bad team here, probably UNC].
It seems like 6 wins would be an accomplishment.
Cal
Stanford
UNLV
Syracuse
Navy
BC
I think we can still win these games. But honestly, Cal, Stanford, and BC would have me nervous.
Game preview next Friday is gonna be real fun.
if any of you think we’re beating Navy, you’re insane. This team has absolutely none of the physicality to put away Navy
One can only hope that is the case!
This is an alarming but fair question. Man, I really, really, really do not want to do this again.
This is what happens when you transition to a new regime. Nothing is guaranteed.
No, this is what happens when you hire a HC with no prior HC experience. We know exactly how this goes. Since Rockne died, there are literally no exceptions to this rule at ND.
Maybe we can hire Fickell this year
Honestly, that is my hope. We should not make the same mistake twice in a row.
I realize that sounds extreme but problems cannot be ignored. They need to be addressed.
Wait, like firing Freeman over the next 1-2 months and signing Fickell?
If this is a 2-10 or 3-9 type year, yes. Probably in December.
That’s also a risky long-term move. 2023-24 would likely be real rough because recruiting could really crater.
Fickell would probably say no, as well. In that situation, at least.
This is exactly the conversation we had last December.
Now we are here.
We also had the “ND should take Kedon Slovis” conversation at that time and *some* of us were obviously right, who’s to say, I don’t recall who was on what side of that discussion 😉
Does Slovis have Drew Pyne’s glorious beer gut?
“obviously right”
/plays well against a WVU team that just lost to Kansas
//also currently injured
Kedon Slovis is still a (much) better QB than Tyler Buchner at the start of the year, pretty clearly is better than whatever Buchner was on track to become by the end of the year, and also if he got hurt we’d have more QB depth. Taking him was the clearly correct move!
Worst-case scenario Buchner would have transferred away, which, it appears in retrospect, would have been fine too (though that wasn’t part of my thinking at the time). In any case the case for taking Slovis was, it seems to me more now than ever, clearly correct. And, assuming Buchner is out for the year, they should absolutely be looking to recruit a grad transfer over him this upcoming offseason too.
Not disagreeing here, just trying to remember whether Slovis was interested in coming to ND and we didn’t want him? Just can’t remember.
I mean is wanting us to take Slovis a legit complaint or just a pie in the sky hindsight kind of thing.
I honestly can’t remember.
He would have come if he was told that he’d be the frontrunner for the QB job going into the season. The coaches were not willing to say that.
OK, that seems like something that we certainly should have been saying.
However, if you look long-term maybe it wouldn’t matter too much for this year (the OL and WR are bad so could Slovis really carry us to 10 wins, doubtful) and then after this year Slovis leaves.
What if Buchner transfer when Slovis wins the job. Look at our QB room for 2023 then. Angeli and Powlus? We had better hit the transfer market again and better hope to get someone great.
Tommy Rees’s (and, yes, Brian Kelly’s) high school recruiting has been so bad that we probably should have gone with grad transfer QBs for 2021, 2022, and 2023, I agree.
If things were different he could have had Walker Howard and maybe several other top QBs so can we blame him?
I don’t necessarily disagree but that is not really a recipe for success. If a QB is a grad transfer, that means he is probably not much better than a fringe NFL prospect. And that is assuming we get the 1 or 2 best grad QB transfer, who everyone else is chasing.
I don’t have the solution, but the grade transfer market for QBs is not it IMO
I agree that is not a path to winning big, but unfortunately it was our best option for last season, this season, and very likely next season because our options are bad! They probably should get rid of the position coach there, whoever that is.
That’s fair. I’m not sure that we have had better options. Tommy did turn our poor offense around last year so I suppose we can hope, but the shame is that this is two years in a row that we have entered the season with a view of what we can do offensively and both years it is quickly apparent that we will not be able to run that offense that we planned for the whole offseason.
That is probably the biggest sign of failure that I see.
I don’t think you promise the starting job. Saban never does. Witness Eli Ricks , former all American transfer from LSU not starting. Hardly played today vs Texas for Bama.
Not even remotely accurate. Slovis’ girlfriend plays soccer for the Pitt soccer team. They brought back their whole o-line from a ACC championship team and their last QB was a 1st round pick.
There’s no way in the world that a guaranteed job at ND was the deciding factor. ND reached out, but it didn’t really go anywhere because Pitt was just a much better fit for him personally and quite frankly he wasn’t all that interested in anywhere but Pitt.
(And he wasn’t even officially, publicly named the QB1 in Pitt until late into training camp).
I am aware his girlfriend goes to Pitt, but not to reveal premium info but as recently as yesterday one of the ND beat writers said that the recent they didn’t get Slovis or JT Daniels is they weren’t willing to say they’d be QB1.
And, in real time, the same folks were saying Slovis was willing to come to ND if they were willing to go with him. They’ve been consistent, if nothing else. I suppose it’s possible the coaches were blowing smoke and trying to build up Buchner by saying they would ride with him over Slovis/Slovis never would have come, sure, but this was all definitely coming to the reporters from the ND coaching staff. So they were either convinced they could have gotten him or were lying to the reporters.
On the “well if you have to make that promise, do you want him?” question, the answer is obviously yes lol jeez you just make the promise and get him to commit and if he struggles you can always change later.
That premium info couldn’t be less right, when it comes to Slovis at least. Just a totally myopic ND slant that has no accuracy for what his options were. He never wasn’t going to Pitt to be with his gf, end of story. Probably just pumping a little more into the narrative to make it worth paying for.
That’s also possible. I have grown increasingly cynical about the ND beat reporters, particularly the inside info people, but not yet “make stuff up” cynical. Maybe I should be.
I’m not sure I would or any coach would be real comfortable bringing in a kid who needed that promise. If they aren’t willing to compete to be the starter I’d be questioning how good they really are. It’s one thing to have the confidence or overconfidence that you will come in and win the starting job hands down, but not willing to compete for it throws a red flag for me.
Grad transfer is very limiting. ND needs to get over its undergrad transfer policy or stay no better than second tier.
Yep, if we are limited to grad transfer QBs then we are in real trouble.
With Slovis’ history, he would’ve been injured in the 1st quarter against Ohio State and after that it’s been made pretty clear re Buchner we’re no better off, right?
But yes, theoretically adding QB depth would be good.
Good point. Perhaps it’s a bit like adding Coan (mobility wise) behind this line so far. He would have gotten beat up a lot.
Yes? It was pretty clear our QB room needed depth, if nothing else. And the transfer portal did well for us at QB last year. That was the best solution for our QB situation in 2021, it likely would have been in 2022 as well.
Yet an actual good to very good FBS qb, which Buchner most certainly is not.
I know but cutting ties with Freeman based on 2 games carries a ton of risk, just as much as hiring him.
Well, that’s why I’d wait for 12 games, not 2.
Okay, I’ve got you down for keeping Freeman with >3 wins!
Probably, yeah. Firing a coach after one season is a drastic thing to do, so it should only be done in drastic scenarios, which is why I said 2-10 or 3-9.
4-8 would be horrible, of course.
No way ND can fire him. Racists that they are. Just ask the media. Would make the Willingham dust up look like child’s play.
Totally foreseeable at the time of the hire, by the way. But the lemmings went over the cliff anyway.
Fickell seems not to have lost a beat since losing Freeman.
I’d guess it wasn’t so much Freeman magic at Cinci as much as Fickell’s competence that has had them where they are.
Are you out of your goddamn mind?
It seems like a huge overreaction to do that. Everyone knew this was likely to be an immediate downgrade in coaching but an immediate upgrade for recruiting. And improved recruiting takes a few years to take effect. So this was a long-term investment of at least 2-3 years.
It might be. But we’re going to lose credibility on the recruiting trail in a hurry if we keep playing like this. I think we have already lost most of it on offense.
To be clear, I don’t think this will actually happen. But I think it should be ND’s break glass in case of emergency plan.
Ironically, we’ll probably keep the talent on offense for 2023.
Maybe see Freeman actually deliver the class before assuming anything?
Okay, thanks.
I don’t think it a long shot that if things continue as is we lose a couple commits (P.Bowen). One or two top guys and we are in Kelly recruiting territory. Or at least not far from it.
I haven’t run the numbers but if Bowen bolts that alone I think knocks this class into upper-tier Kelly territory, and the way this is going I don’t think more defections can be ruled out.
Well looking at where Kelly’s recruiting has left us the past two years, I’d say the rankings for his classss were grossly overrated.
Weren’t you the guy all in on Freeman because of his Korean/black lineage?
Oddly, not a criterion for being an ND head coach.
I thought it was virtue signaling at the time. You had lots of company though.
Log off for a few minutes my man.
There’s a few guys here who probably should do that.
NO. this is good. this is deliberation. this is how we SOLVE problems.
I’m heading to ND nation for a bit.
haha, exactly.
There’s no need to be this angry and argumentative with other Notre Dame fans.
Maybe think about taking some time away from here for a bit.
It’s interesting that your way of dealing with someone who disagrees with you is to say shut up. It’s not a sign of anger to state a different opinion. I’m not and haven’t been for a very long time angry about ND football.
I don’t live in your bubble. I’m a realist after many decades of ND life/fandom. And I’m very direct, which is different from angry. Pointing out facts that counter a position made by others is not argumentative in the sense you mean.
You’ve been a proponent pretty consistently that ND couldn’t break through to top tier elite because Kelly had reached his ceiling and wouldn’t/couldn’t recruit the necessary talent.
You were over the moon that Freeman would change all that.
That totally ignores the obvious , that no ND coach can recruit at the necessary talent level to become one of the elites in cfb.
This is because of ND’s own restrictions on who it will allow to be recruited, both out of HS and via the portal. I believe Kelly turned this program around, won many more games than his predecessors, then left because he saw a real opportunity to have a shot at a natty.
So what do you see differently? If it’s not argumentative to ask that?
Well I’ll say it if Murtaugh won’t: shut up.
You claimed that people only liked Freeman for his race, which nobody has ever actually claimed, immediately after posting that people unfairly critique ND for being racist. That’s not realism. That’s a borderline racist straw man that you now are demanding Eric defend. No, that’s not just a difference of opinion. Yes, that’s argumentative.
Nobody wants to engage with someone who makes disingenuous, untrue arguments.
Actually, Murtaugh is the guy who brought up race in the first place, in his original post. But evidently referring to that is a sin.
Oh well. Life goes on
He wasn’t all in on him because of his lineage, as you put it. He gave quite a few reasons why he felt he was a good hire. But as you’ve proven here many times, reading comprehension and formulating arguments aren’t exactly your strongest skills.
There’s a reason why something like 90% of the negative reps on our website are directed at you, and it’s not because you stick to the facts.
There are quite a lot of varied opinions about Notre Dame football and Marcus Freeman shared on this site, and pretty much everyone can get along pretty well.
Except you, figure it out.
kiwifan won’t be participating here for a while. This kind of comment is not acceptable in light of what we want our community to be.
We’ve always welcomed and encouraged healthy debate. We pride ourselves on being one of the most civil places on the interwebs for ND-related discussion, and to be honest that’s required very little moderation over the years because of how well all of you interact with each other. We hardly all agree with each other all the time, and in fact there have been plenty of spirited debates here, but being decent to each other and the world at large (Michigan excepted, natch) has always been the theme. Kiwi’s participation in this thread did not meet that standard, and this particular comment is clearly over the line. It’s fair to be proud of a Black/Korean head coach being chosen to run your program – that feeling needs no defense, not for the Asian-American representation in our writers’ room nor anyone else.
More broadly speaking, I’ll lift the site’s usual restriction on profanity for just a moment to offer a quote that I think puts a nice bow on this particular discussion, courtesy of Timothy Olyphant’s Raylan Givens: “If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole.”
Even for you, this remark is incredibly over the line. Might want to consider logging off for a long while.
Unless Freeman commits a crime, they can’t get rid of him for at least three years, even if we went 0-12 and it were in part to hire an obvious win like Fickell. Even in that scenario, for obvious reasons the media backlash would be unbelievable.
Well, we’ve been there before.
oh for sure it’s not happening but a man can dream. Maybe Luke will be very patient
Right because hiring someone with HC experience solves everything and has no downsides and would of course continue everything good from the previous regime.
Lou Holtz come back, baby.
Maybe to teach at the law school, he’d be a good fit there.
I get that.
ND’s only successful coaches since Rockne’s death all had prior college head coaching experience. Do you disagree with that?
Ah but did the previous failure coaches have offensive wunderkinds leading the charge for them and righting the program towards a bright new future?
Also, nobody said anything like that. Be honest.
Of course not, but at ND we have a solid history of non achievement in hiring head coaches who’ve never done it before.
Something somebody said about those who ignore history being bound to repeat it comes to mind.
I’m not saying that hiring someone with HC experience wouldn’t have been a good idea and I know ND’s history and lack of success with coaches who haven’t been head guys before, however I think this argument is overdone.
Rockne never was a head coach before ND and I get that was a long time ago but if you want to pull history out to judge someone’s current qualifications then the Rockne point is valid.
I don’t know if Freeman will end up being a good hire or not. Right now it’s not looking good. However, he has served under numerous other successful head coaches and has been successful at every stop. I just kind of think it is a bit of confirmation bias to blast the decision to hire him.
Why does it work very well at places like OSU and not ND? there is a very small sample of assistant coaches hired to become HC at ND.
I have thought a lot about the possible freeman comps (coordinator directly to major HC). Riley and Day seemed very unlikely as comps but my biggest guess is there was sound infrastructure and a plan in place when they took over. They had a ton of support from the previous successful head coaches and presumably mentors in place. BK dipped out and never looked back.
Georgia is the one interesting comp. They had won 10 games in 4 of the previous 5 years before kirby took over. They went 7-5 in year including losses to vandy, georgia tech and almost losing to someone absolutely terrible in week 2. Obviously kirby figured it out relatively quickly and right now everything seems impossible
The downside comp is Jimmy Lake (without shoving players).
for sure, ambitious is the more apt word than interesting. obviously kirby would be ideal. and i’m sure there are dozens of failed coordinators I forgot about. what’s up will muschamp
Muschamp and Tom Herman not working as head coaches at major programs are two of the more surprising coaching fails to me.
Kirby spent 5-6 years learning from Saban, and has the rings to show for it. He’s basically taken Saban’s “Process” and applied it at GA.
Georgia’s track provides some hope, but on the other hand, UGA and ND don’t have much in common. Trying to model ND’s program after a huge state school in the deep south doesn’t make a ton of sense.
I’m not totally sure why it works at other places and not ND. But the pattern cannot credibly be denied — when ND hires a head coach who has never been a college head coach before, it is a failure. Brennan, Kuharich, Faust, Davie, Weis.
If there was even one counterexample to point to in the last 90 years, I’d feel better, but there isn’t.
While I like Jac Collinsworth I was not a fan of him calling the game. I didn’t like the crew overall. It’s hard to explain but Jac is more conversational than I’d like and Garrett barely analyzes the actual plays (he would just say it was good or bad) but he uses the same descriptions over again.
Garett sounds like a video game commentator and not a particularly new game. Jac sounds like he should be on the college broadcast. I mean the broadcast for Notre Dame’s in house footage
Right on both counts
I thought it was really bad to be honest. I ended up just muting the TV.
Jac twice did not understand that Marshall had subbed on offense and the officials were bound by rule to allow us to do the same. And the discourse surrounding a Marshall receiver who quite clearly caught the ball on a bounce as if there was any chance it was a clean catch was ridiculous. A very poor broadcast.
Yes, that’s right. I remember him saying he had no idea why the refs were slowing things up. Ugh.
That was #2. The first was when Marshall tried to quick-snap a 4th and 1 and stupidly substituted, so the refs stepped in and Jac said something like “the officials slowing things up for some reason”.
He’s not the first PBP guy I’ve seen screw that up this season, but I, some dumb Joe Schmo on his couch, shouldn’t be able to see elementary things that highly-paid broadcasters are whiffing on that badly.
Yes, that’s been a pet peeve of mine for years. And they have much better/faster views of things than we do at home.
I just can’t get over how terrible the OL is. I watched every play in the 1st half twice (couldn’t bear to in the 2nd half) and I can’t remember a single time they actually opened a hole for a RB. Any successful run was either a perimeter run (jet sweep) or a QB run. There is just absolutely no push at all. One play we had a guard pulling and he had to run like 2 yards into the backfield around the C and other Guard who were dominated. Of course, he was late to his block, partially whiffed, and the RB (I think Diggs) is tackled for a 1 yard gain.
I suppose there are a decent number of pass attempt where Buchner had a decent amount of time but the run blocking is absolutely awful. It’s as bad, or maybe worse than last year. I think that Heistand was a bad hire and while there would I’m sure be a transition stage it is hard to believe that there is a technique issue centered around changing coaches that results in an OL simply being pushed around consistently by vastly lower levels of talent.
I’m left thinking that Rees had this glorified view of Heistand and thought that he would turn a really bad OL last year into a great one. That almost never happens and I think that clearly we are playing 2 guys who are simply not at the level of above average college starter (Correll, and Lugg), 2 guys who are largely still promise and not production (Alt and Fisher) and 1 injured OL who has been a great Center but hasn’t ever played guard before in college. Clearly Harry is not turning around this OL and so the whole offensive plan that Tommy had is crashing down.
There are certainly other issues on the team. Coan, Kyren, Austin, and Davis all helped cover up some of these issues, but they are all gone.
On Defense the DL is really terrible and I’m ready to see some of Prince Kollie. The LB outside of Kiser simply don’t look athletic enough. Bertrand and Bauer have not been terrible but not difference makers either. Liafua could end up being like JOK and I”m praying that’s the case but right now I don’t see a whole lot of impact.
The DL is just really bad right now. We lost Hinish and Amosa but really we should be overall better than last year. Perhaps Washington is a better recruiter than Elston was but at this point the coaching aspect is not looking guard. We seem to constantly try to bull rush and eat up blockers rather than shooting gaps, using stunts, or slants to take advantage of our speed. When we do actually shoot gaps we create havoc but it is far to little and we don’t set the edge with any consistency right now either.
Washington was the LB coach for Ohio State last year and got fired for being a very bad LB coach. It’s possible that he’s just a bad coach.
I suppose that is very possible. OSU linebackers were much better last week against us than they looked all last year for sure.
Yeah, it was an odd hire
Even if he is a bad coach, that doesn’t quite explain why Foskey, e.g., has been so bad. Did Foskey forget how to play football with a new (now presumably bad) coach?
I just also don’t understand the lack of touches for Tyree. Eric mentioned it and he is right. Maybe he is not the best traditional RB like Kyren was last year but he only got 5 touches tonight and Diggs gets 7.
How does arguable your best or second best playmaker get 5 touches. That is ridiculous. On the season he has rushed for 9 carries and 45 yards. Not amazing but that is 5 ypc and is at least serviceable.
I mentioned this a bit in a lower comment but I think that the biggest criticism of Rees is perhaps his unrealistic judgement of what the offense last year and this year would be capable of entering the season. Both years it appears we put in huge amounts of offense and time to try things that in fact we really weren’t capable of.
Last year it was that we couldn’t pass protect long enough for a down field passing offense to work. This year we can’t run block at all and so our running based attack is doomed. That is terrible coaching. Forget in game adjustments. How about evaluating your current players properly so you can install an offense that will attempt to minimize their weaknesses and play to their strengths.
I’m not saying that there is a definite solution for this year’s offense but it certainly could not have been based on the foundation of being able to run the ball. There is no way that you should watch a few practices of this OL group and then think to yourself “Man, we are going to be great at OL so I should mold our whole offensive identify around being able to run the ball without a ton of misdirection and designed QB runs”.
Also, where are the swing passes, screen passes, and slants? That are all relatively easy throws and reads that we seemingly don’t have in the playbook for our inexperienced QB.
Agree with everything you said. Wasn’t Al Washington fired from OSU? If so what for? If he was fired, why did Freeman hire him?
I was never enamored of the Rees hire or his production as a coach.
I wonder how much money Foskey cost himself by coming back. Even if he doesn’t drop at all from where he would have been drafted last year, that’s basically a year of your football career wasted. He looks bad. Getting pancaked over and over by Marshall is embarrassing.
If you’re Michael Mayer, how soon do you start thinking about sitting out the rest of the year? Your #1 QB refuses to throw to you when you’re wide open at the sticks all game and you still put up 8 catches for 110. Your #2 QB (who might be starting for a while) probably wouldn’t start at a MAC school. Your offensive coordinator refuses to send you down the seam more than once per game. And this team is bad. If I were him, I would probably start my NFL prep and not risk an injury if we lose to Cal.
I don’t know how NFL contracts work regarding how much the money drops per round etc, but I have to think it’s quite a bit at this point for him. Still time for him to turn out a productive season but so far he’s essentially been a non factor.
The Mayer question is a good one. Was talking about this exact thing last night with a friend. He doesn’t seem like the type to walk away for draft prep mid-season but man, if I were him I’d be having some talks with my coaches.
Tough to see any kind of major turnaround in 6 days but they need a good performance in the worst way.
Had a BVG thought…is Rees trying to be too complicated for the college game? Corollary: a freshman QB should be able to learn the whole playbook, and TB didn’t last year. Was it the playbook too complicated or TB can’t pick it up fast enough?
Self-reply: I remember getting a bad feeling about TB when he sat out the spring game with a non-contact injury. A running QB needs to be durable. Tough, sure, but durable too. I don’t think TB is durable. Like I don’t doubt Avery Davis is extremely mentally and emotionally tough, but he got a bad deal on his knees.
I work out with guys in their 40s and 50s who go pretty hard – think burpees, but with cinder blocks. I can’t do what they do, because parts of me break down. But these guys have bodies that just don’t break down, or just recover quickly when they do. Not that every QB needs to be Nolan Ryan durable, but I get a bad feeling TB has taken his last meaningful snap at ND.
TB just isn’t that good at throwing. accuracy is something you develop at a young age. It’s like becoming a great musician- it doesn’t happen after you hit your 20s. Every time he throws, since I first saw him, I thought “wow, he doesn’t how to throw a football at a D-1 level.” neither did Phil or wimbush. They either recruit guys who are mobile with big arms and no accuracy or undersized guys with no arm but OK accuracy,
Buchner doesn’t even really have that big of an arm. Taking him over JJ McCarthy looks like an eval miss.
It just seems like they are bad at assessing QBs, and we somehow get stuck with these “fool’s gold” QBs who are 4-5 start talent but with a catch, such as only played 1 year of football, big arm but weird throwing motion, etc.
I watched several other games with what I imagine were not “highly” recruited QBs, who just understand the basic mechanics of throwing because they’ve done it all their life in some corn field. Thankfully, Angeli at least can throw the ball and some arm strength too
I think that’s why I was a-okay with Coan last year. He had flaws, especially his penchant for not just taking sacks but accepting them, but he also could make some solid throws
yes. interestingly, Coan was probably the first QB since Kizer, who could routinely make Collegiate throws at all 3 levels. Also interestingly, Golson was probably the best we had since Kelly came.
Not that this matters. Reese can’t call a game. He’s everywhere, all over the map.
Yep, that’s my take away both on Coan and Rees. Honestly Coan probably saved Kelly millions of dollars by being competent enough last year to keep the offense moving – having to rely on freshman Buchner or Pyne last year would have been disastrous. Meanwhile, hopefully some NFL team comes calling to give Rees an analyst position or something because I can’t see a Duke level program knocking at the door and after they retained him before (!) finalizing the Freeman hire it seems unlikely that we’ll can him directly
I think Golson was our best all around QB since Tony Rice, talent wise. I also think his head got screwed up by Kelly.
Terrible accuracy and his deep balls were floaters. I’ll maybe give him a little credit in that Lenzy is completely terrible despite being the potential break out player of the year since like 2015 at this point, but he’s far closer to noodle than dragon on the spectrum
remember winning Lenzy over from Oregon and how good that felt? Oregon has Moore and we have Lenzy
Maybe Moore doesn’t pan out. Winning Lenzy back at the time was still good regardless of what happened. But it’s frustrating to see him never put it together and hear about what a big part of the offense he should be this year
The thing that makes me think that Dante Moore might be a bust is that Tommy Rees wanted him.
Hi from France. Last night hurt so bad, I figured I’d just bag it. For me, it was omg, here we go again — in my own lifetime, Terry Brennan, Gerry Faust, Bob Davie, C Weis… and once these down cycles happen, it just gets interminable. For a bit of time, I got… discouraged… But this site has won my heart, so, after all, I read everyone’s comments on the Instant thread and now this one. Thoughts:
Ancient Chinese Secret and Kiwifan expressed perfectly my own extreme concerns about hiring a head coach for ND with no previous hc experience. (Which btw despite my admiration for what I saw about MF’s character, I voiced on this site back when Jack S pulled the trigger and hired him.)
To pursue this — Goldendomer, I find your comments about the current team and its issues extremely well done, and your rejoinder about the lack of hc experience was thoughtful. Also gbsk made a similar point. And it’s true, Rockne was an exception. But I think it’s the exception that proves the rule. In fact, Rock’s once in a generation brilliance set up the fundamental tensions at ND that establish why hc experience is a sine qua non. Those tensions are between a fundamentally examined education with aspirations of greatness, and football aspirations of the same highest order. That is to say, the ND job is just that little bit different from all the others. You can take BK’s whining once removed from here as a recent indicator. But honestly it was Ara Parseghian’s fervent espousal of the absolute necessity of having previous experience that has stuck with me ever since.
So I think we’re stuck in another crappy cycle where somebody we can really like as a person is going to be trying to learn on the job, with tons of built in problems we all kidded ourselves he wasn’t going to have. (BTW, Eric, yes and yes to the need for more media access!)
Well — enough handwringing, let’s go positive. How about those special teams? Growth! Good results! Harvard punter!
I heard this on a podcast last night. It seems that after Mass (ok Freeman brought that back) there was a small pep rally type thing on the way to the stadium. Does that really seem like a wise use of pre game time? It seems like the type of thing an inexperienced coach would say okay to, to me. I think this is the type of distraction Ara might have been talking about.
No a mini-rally doesn’t seem like a good use of time. Honestly (and I go to Mass) I am not sure about that either. BK had a good feel for protecting the mental condition of the players.
So here’s a similar “who knows but…” The return at 3 in the morning from Columbus, and MF saying tough tamales, we stick with the schedule, so suck it up. OK he says he wants physical toughness. But arguably that was maybe not a good path, especially after a very tough demanding away game? The team had no spark yesterday.
Hi Noise,
We feel your pain buddy.
To your list of failed coaches with no previous HC experience, we can add Hugh Devore, the interim coach for a year after Kuharich was fired while we were students.
We’ll see what happens rest of the year, but things don’t look good, sadly.
I see the picture on the masthead has changed. Ugh…I look forward to the next one.
Forgot to mention this…
What a performance from Charles Huff. Stone cold assassin demeanor and didn’t panic at all. Just his 2nd year at Marshall and only 39 years old. He’ll probably be getting a decent P5 job soon.
Think he’ll be ready in 3 years? I jest sort of, maybe someone to keep an eye on?
Do I need to start refreshing The List™??
Sigh. Maybe yes.
I hope not, because I really like Marcus Freeman. But early returns don’t seem great. I hope he can turn this around.
I think we could afford to wait a few more games before deciding Freeman’s fate.
Of course, we need to wait at least one full season, and realistically, at least two.
But we should be mindful that almost every justification for his hiring has gone up in smoke in 3 games:
“The players love him!” Well, they sure don’t play like it. They played a hell of a lot harder and better for mean old Mr. Kelly.
“Maintain the culture!” The culture vanished over the course of one offseason. Getting it back will take years.
“He’s a super recruiter!” This one is still intact, but keep a close eye on it. If recruiting starts backsliding because Freeman has no credibility as a gameday coach, it’s time to cut bait and deal with the consequences.
i dont think it will take years. Kelly turned 2016 around into a very good 2017 team.
Well, Kelly is in Baton Rouge now.
If — IF — this turns out to be a 3-9 disaster season, building back from that will indeed take years.
Well we had a nice run from 17 to ’21. I think this is a year I’ll focus more on the NFL and maybe hit the gym more on saturdays. Would like to get back to repping 350 on squat rack
I’d bet good money Kelly turns around LSU before Freeman learns how to be a top tier HC.
Kelly left us with the dumpster fire we have now. The guy squandered every opportunity to,recruit better and hire better offensive coaches after two playoff runs, to the point where we have maybe one reliable skill player.
See my previous notes about why no ND coach can bring in the talent needed to beat the Bamas of the world. Self imposed handcuffs.
Agree newslang. Things can turn around quickly (a few key grad transfers wouldn’t hurt!).
But BK was already a good, B+ level coach after 2016. It was quite remarkable to me anyway how he was able to swallow his arrogant pride and reset — which few who have been successful are willing or able to do. But he already had the experience and the tools. The whole problem for Marcus Freeman is that lack of experience.
(Or at least maybe. Like many of you, I really hope he can dig down and dig out the wherewithal to fix much of this. But that kool-aid has already been drunk once.)
I might not be panicking enough, but I don’t see this take. Marshall was Ball State game or Toledo game or even Virginia Tech from years past, just Notre Dame didn’t win this time.
Other than the result (very bad!), I don’t see why this is too much different from many other poor games. Just so happens that through (veteran) QB play or (veteran) coach inputs, ND found a way to win before. Now it’s gone.
If they do stumble to like 3-9 this year, I’ll be wrong, but right now, idk. I think a lot is fixable/explainable. Make some o-line changes, adjust the strategy now that it’s clear they’re not going to be a power run team, maybe play Tyree more, etc.
I don’t think the sky is falling, even though that game was inexcusably bad. There’s been many other recent inexcusably bad games too! I don’t see it as culture is gone, just the result was different.
I thought the same. Great game plan and stuck to it like a bloodhound.
Another thought: has the unlimited transfer portal opened up paths for confronting a team at the outset of a season which is absolutely unlike any version anyone has seen? Kudos to Huff, not just for getting them in the fold, but molding them into a team.
Any idea how many transfers Marshall had this past year?
They said early in the broadcast along with the number of freshman and I thought both numbers were in the low 20’s. I could be wrong in the number. I do remember being surprised at how many there were though.
I thought I heard 22.
Re the portal, that’s absolutely the case Noise. Mel Tucker built a BiG contender from the portal, Riley, Napier, Cristobal and many others have brought many players in.
Saban only brought in two for the ‘21 season, one of them being Jameson Williams, maybe the best deep threat WR last season. He brought in 5 this year, all starters.
ND needs to be able to make full use of the portal to be competitive. Policy currently precludes that. I think the portal is more important than high school recruiting. The players in the portal have CFB proven ability, good or bad, on film.
There was a very good discussion on this on another thread — all to point out how really tough it is for ND to get undergrad transfers. This one factor could spell the end of our ability to compete at the high end.
Part of the problem is the grad transfer haul wasn’t great either. Apparently they did kicked tires/tried to get the ASU kid who went to UF and the other mostly punt returned from Iowa (both I think have been great early, at least relative to ND receivers) and came up empty handed.
Under grad transfer problems are real and one thing, but even with that I don’t think they did as well as they possibly could have for the grad transfers this year either. Might not have been for a lack of effort, but still a real problem.
I think by definition, grad transfers are not going to be elite, especially at the skill positions. If they were elite, they’d opt for the draft usually before graduating. I don’t think it’s possible to find enough grad transfers to elevate the program.
Coan was about as good as it gets in the grad transfer pool for a QB.
Absolutely. While I was watching the game, all I could think was “their offensive gameplan and playcalling is so much better than ours.”
I was really impressed with him. I thought he whiffed the decision to kick a FG from in close to go from 9-7 to 12-7. Felt like a life raft given what they were doing to ND, and it briefly looked like it was when we went down and scored. But other than that, everything he did was dynamite.
Does Freeman do a Sunday presser? Should find out today what Buchner’s status is if so.
He didn’t last week, maybe because of the very late return? I am thinking the same.
I haven’t seen any updates re: Buchner’s injury. I don’t remember seeing it but a friend told me one of the other players was supporting TB’s arm, under his elbow, on the sideline after he went out yesterday. Do you remember seeing that? That doesn’t sound good if so.
Does anyone here not see what’s happening after we had a 28-7 lead and the opportunity to win a NY6 bowl in the first time what feels like forever? I think Marcus is a great guy, a good friend to the players, and I would love to play for him. Of course, Brian Kelly, not so much. We saw him on the sidelines screaming at his quarterbacks. I am sure Dayne Crist still needs a therapist. Yet, you cannot deny he is a good coach. In his first three years we are playing bama for the National championship. Point being, I am worried that Marcus is too much of a hand shake, hug, guy. I want Marcus to instill some fear. We have the talent. We need the heart. The will. The desire.
Probably not a lot of hugs and hand shakes going on right now.
https://twitter.com/tnoieNDI/status/1569093114148651009?s=20&t=cGZMVoRDepTqNPzOFJ0cww
That’s awesome. I feel for the team as we all have been there but that’s encouraging
It’s bad when you know my first feeling was, “Oh great, now they’ll be extra tired for the Cal game.”
So you’re not taking the ND -12 line?
Just saw that and no. But, I think a win is in the cards!
This is slightly better than 2007, but just slightly.
Still no official update on Buchner’s injury?
So the rebuild from the hole Kelly left us in will take longer than expected. You can call me an apologist for Freeman if you want, but that game solidifies my view that Kelly’s regression back into lazy recruiting, narcissism, detachment from the team, and bad hires have put the program in a bind. After seemingly getting some life from a great o line in 2017, and Book throwing to a couple NFL guys in 2018, it’s been diminishing returns on offense. Speaking of which, the offensive staff has been a combination of mini BVGs, in the inability of two “Kelly Guys”, Rees and Quinn, to either evaluate or develop players, and Del Alexander’s failure to recruit recievers in general and stop the ones on the roster from leaving the team mid season. Kelly basically gave up on recruiting skill players, which is why we have zero proven ones, and figured the o line would power the team to wins, which was great until it was all guys that Quinn had recruited and coached up and now apparently no one can block. QB recruiting has been a disaster, as all of them since 2016 have been mediocre knockoffs of Tommy Rees and are no where near talented enough to complete with top teams. Speaking of Rees, his hire was an absolute joke, a physically uncompetitive player who supposedly had a great understanding of the game, which didn’t jibe with his penchant for throwing crippling interceptions. He spends two years as a nepotism hire as an NFL assistant to the assistant, then Kelly brings him on to coach qbs (no discernible development there), and makes him the OC in order to have a yes-man there. Rees must have a phenomenal agent, because it’s shocking to think that Miami or the Rams really really wanted to give him a multimillion dollar contract to run their offenses, when his signature play was Ian Book dropping back, not seeing his first read, and scrambling around to gain yards. In short (yes, I know this post is far past that), I think Kelly saw I big rebuild job ahead of this program, due to his coasting after getting to the playoff in 2018 (and being unable to turn that into a talent bonus in recruiting), and decided to go to a place that he assumes will recruit itself based on where it is and the huge piles of money that boosters are allowed to throw at recruits, so he can stay on the golf course and ride NIL to the championship he thinks he deserves. The 2021 season was an unbelievably lucky job of duct taping enough of an offense together to beat a lot of meh teams, and this year’s squad hasn’t seemed to develop any replacements for the talent that left or is out for the season. At least last year had Kyren around to pull a rabbit out of a hat, and eventually good Jack Coan. We’ve just seen what happens when… Read more »
One of the best points made in all the comments on this and the other thread is that two of the three most important selling points for Freeman are up in smoke (namely: (1) they’ll love him and play hard for him and (2) program stability). But, the most important one is recruiting. If he can hold the class together and shake some things up – to me, it seems that it has to be ridding the program this offseason of the offensive coordinator, who is clearly a poor identifier of talent and recruiter, no matter what Tom Loy tells us – then there’s still hope for program improvement over the Kelly era. And the hope is the important thing.
nd09 giving the “I believe in hope” speech to the comment section is the most worrying sign yet as to how bad things are 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_TJHIV5vDs
Interesting decision at Nebraska to fire Frost yesterday at a cost of $7.5M more than if they waited 2.5 weeks to do so. That amount has got to be more than “budget dust”.
Buchner done for the season. AC sprain/separation, surgery tomorrow.
https://notredame.rivals.com/news/breaking-notre-dame-loses-qb-tyler-buchner-for-four-months-due-to-injury