Notre Dame lined up against a FCS team on Saturday in South Bend and the results were predictable. After an initial tussle of back and forth play, the Irish exploded for a copious amount of points and spent most of the 2nd half emptying the bench against Tennessee State. I have a Sunday trip to the nationally renowned Strong Museum today as well as a Labor Day weekend BBQ to plan for so this will be one of the quicker game reviews in recent memory.
Stats Package
| STAT | IRISH | TIGERS |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 56 | 3 |
| Plays | 63 | 58 |
| Total Yards | 557 | 156 |
| Yards Per Play | 8.8 | 2.7 |
| Conversions | 9/11 | 5/15 |
| Completions | 24 | 8 |
| Yards/Attempt | 11.2 | 3.0 |
| Rushes | 33 | 36 |
| Rushing Success | 60.6% | 36.3% |
| 10+ Yds Rushes | 4 | 1 |
| 20+ Yds Passes | 7 | 1 |
| Defense Stuff Rate | 28.0% | 19.0% |
Offense
QB: A
RB: B+
TE: A
OL: B+
WR: B+
Notre Dame scored touchdowns on all 5 offensive drives in the first half before Sam Hartman took a seat to enjoy the festivities in the remaining 2 quarters of play. We are basically picking nits and that’s about it for this game.
Hartman was sharp with only 3 incompletions, if a little too patient at times and forcing himself to scramble on a couple snaps. Was he looking for the big play, perhaps? Thus far, Hartman only has 7 incompletions through 2 games which is pretty nice. He also chipped in a 9-yard run and an additional touchdown on the ground, too.
Steve Angeli got extended reps and had some bright moments. It was about as easy of a situation to come in and work the offense. His overall numbers look more on the gaudy side (8 of 11 for 130 yards and 2 TD) although 2 of those completions came on 82 yards of touchdown plays to running backs out of the backfield. On the other attempts, Angeli was 6 of 9 for 48 yards…solid but not spectacular.
We even got true freshman Kenny Minchey in the game and he completed a pair of short passes. It’s progress.
The pass blocking was typically top notch and Tennessee State was held without a sack and hardly a quarterback hurry against any of the 3 Irish signal callers. I thought the run blocking was fine but there weren’t as many gaping holes as I thought we’d see across the afternoon. A success rate just over 60% against a FCS team is pretty meh. The Tigers stuff rate was a little too high and I was surprised by 6 tackles for loss for the visitors. I also wouldn’t have expected Audric Estime to have twice as many unsuccessful carries as anyone else on the team.
Rushing Success
Estime – 9 of 13 (69.2%)
Hartman – 2 of 4 (50%)
Ford – 0 of 1 (0%)
Payne – 4 of 6 (66.6%)
Love – 3 of 5 (60%)
Price – 1 of 2 (50%)
Velotta – 1 of 1 (100%)
Assaf – 0 of 1 (0%)
However, there’s no doubt that this was a big day overall for the running backs. Including receiving yardage, the tailbacks combined for 314 yards and 4 touchdowns.
Is it fair to say it was mostly a quiet day for the receivers?
Only the top receiver Jayden Thomas caught more than 2 passes on a day where the ball was spread around pretty well. I don’t believe Deion Colzie was targeted during the game. The freshmen Jaden Greathouse and Rico Flores continue to Do Good Things combining for a modest 4 catches and 61 yards. Chris Tyree caught a beautiful 24-yard pass from Hartman and cut up field just in time to score a touchdown.
A week after not factoring into the passing game, we saw the tight end position come alive against Tennessee State. Mitchell Evans tied for the game-high with 4 receptions, including catching 3 straight to pace the ridiculously easy 38-second drive that went 80 yards for a touchdown right before halftime. Holden Staes got in the mix with his 1st career touchdown pass, a little 4-yard catch to cap off that final Hartman drive in the 2nd quarter.
Defense
DL: B+
LB: A-
DB: B+
This was a strong effort for the Irish defense after Tennessee State opened the game with a 15-play drive while scoring their only points of the game. The Tigers did have 3 red zone trips which felt like too many but was bolstered by the Devyn Ford fumbled kick return (more on this below). We’ll see what happens when they face a real offense but through 2 games Notre Dame hasn’t allowed a touchdown (well, they haven’t allowed a touchdown at all) in 5 red zone trips by opponents.
Had TSU made their 2nd field goal (blocked by Jason Onye) it’s worth pointing out the score would’ve been 7-6 with just over 1 minute remaining in the 1st quarter. We might have heard some groans throughout Notre Dame Stadium!
Only 1 sack is a bit disappointing against a FCS opponent. Although, both of the Tennessee State quarterbacks were really athletic, squirrely, and escaped pressure really well. It would’ve gotten extremely dark if they weren’t quick in the pocket.
The Irish rotated a lot of backups in the 2nd half and credit to them for only giving up 77 yards total. This was one of those games where the Tigers could’ve snuck 7 or 10 points late in the contest to make it a little less ugly. Notre Dame was able to rely on its depth and get a lot of freshmen and walk-ons some quality playing time.
The stuff rate was there for a good day, over 1 in 4 plays, although just 5 tackles for loss left something to be desired. Tennessee State wasn’t backed up very often and just didn’t have the passing game (67 total yards, the fewest passing yards for a non-triple option Notre Dame opponent since Boston College 2019) to keep moving the chains and sustain drives.
Stuffs vs. Tennessee State
JJB – 2
Botelho – 2
Harper – 2
Keanaaina – 1.5
Cross – 1
Mills – 1
Liufau – 1
Bertrand – 1
NaNa – 1
Kiser – 1
Burnham – 1
Vernon – 0.5
Ford – 0.5
Zinter – 0.5
Nothing has jumped out as a weak point on the defense so far through 2 games, which is good! The triple option and FCS opponent skews things thus far but if I had to pick something I’m curious if the pass-rush is going to deliver when needed most. To me, it looks like the defensive line in particular has a bunch of nice and solid players but not a couple of game-breakers able to lift the whole unit at times.
Final Thoughts
This is far from the most difficult schedule to start a season in school history. Still, it’s fun to see +92 in point differential through 8 quarters of play so far. Perhaps more impressive, the Irish are +5.47 yards per play in 2023. I can’t imagine Notre Dame has started too many seasons with that gaudy of a YPP differential.
Drayk Bowen missed the game with an undisclosed injury. However, a lot of true freshmen saw the field including QB Kenny Minchey, RB Jeremiyah Love, WR Braylon James, WR Rico Flores, WR Jaden Greathouse, TE Cooper Flanagan, OL Sullivan Absher, DE Brenan Vernon, LB Jaiden Ausberry, LB Preston Zinter, CB Christian Gray, CB Micah Bell, and S Adon Shuler.
Wait, wasn’t this targeting inflicted on Devyn Ford?
It’s important to remember that you only need to meet 1 criteria of several in the targeting rules for there to be a personal foul. If you don’t launch, leave your feet, or lead with the crown of the helmet, it doesn’t mean it’s not targeting. I honestly think if they want to keep the targeting penalty in tact they need to focus on the only thing that really matters right now in the rulebook: “Forcible contact to the head or neck area.” In this case, the Tennessee State player’s helmet makes forcible contact with Ford’s helmet, snapping his head back and knocking him unconscious. That is targeting.
I thought Antonio Carter’s targeting call was a little more controversial (he was lower, led more with his shoulder) but he did end up making forcible contact to the helmet.
Hartman has completed 82.5% of his passes so far this season. Will he break the single-season completion percentage for the Irish?
I’m a little surprised at the miles they’ve put on Audric Estime so far this season. 29 carries through 2 blowout wins is a lot for the top running back on the team. At the same time, they are getting “The Stable” involved really well, too.
There was this weird off-season freakout on the internet that Aidan Keanaaina was going to lose his roster spot. Well, he’s still on the team, just doubled his career tackles against Tennessee State, and picked up his first career tackle for loss.
Giving up a 58 yard kick return was probably the worst part of the game for Notre Dame.
Does Jac Collinsworth have Covid? He’s missed both games on NBC so far, which is unusual. I hope he’s okay.
This is the first time in a while against a really weak opponent where I didn’t see any “the stadium will be half full” complaints. The announced attendance was 77,622 and the stadium did look quite full.
Lots of missed tackles. Outside of Henderson’s pick, and finally seeing urgency in the red zone, I was underwhelmed by the starters on D. Fortunately, they tackled well last week, and seemed assignment sound, so not a huge concern.
I thought the backups were very dialed in, which probably makes sense given the opponent. The young talent in this team, especially on D, is pretty awesome.
I was also impressed with Cross. Thought he created a lot of pressure and was clearly the cause of that INT.
My key stat: Jason Onye now 2 for 2 jigging on TV after the game. Let’s keep that streak going.
Did the official in the booth review the Ford hit or was he out getting a hot dog ? How the guy could watch both plays and come to the conclusions he did is mind boggling.
I really hope the refereeing isn’t this lousy all season. They’ve made some grossly bad calls over the first two weeks.
Anybody know what words of wisdom eddie gave marcus during after the game hand shake? His face had a look of ” damn. That hit home”
“Just between buckeyes, i can’t stand Ryan Day. Hand him and his poorly manicured beard the L.”
IIRC most of the static on Keanaaina was stirred up by one particular idiot on NDN who was carrying on like a hysterical helicopter dad and impugning Freeman’s character. It was an embarrassing spectacle. Anyway, it’s good to see AK contributing on the DL.
The II podcast said like every offseason podcast that he was told he wasn’t going to play this year/was an attempt to get him to leave. Good thing he didn’t.
Your mistake is believing the II guys prediction of something, instead of the confident assertions that they knew (insert major event) was going to happen but couldn’t say anything until after the fact.
The latter is definitely a Pete Sampson special. I really actually like Pete because he’s the only one who gives a reasonable/quasi-level-headed view of ND recruiting (not just at II but also otherwise good writers like Jamie Uyeyama are pretty aggressive homers when it comes to ND recruits; not like, Tom Loy level homerdom, but pretty close) But Sampson really could stand to break his habit of saying he knew something was going to happen after it happened because he had some intel. Share the intel!
Anyway, though, w/r/t Keanaaina I think the II guys were basically reporting news that the coaches were allowing them to report (which is what they do all the time – the more time I spend on the boards the more I realize that it’s often pure access journalism). So, IMO/reading between the lines, the coaches wanted the word out that Keanaaina wasn’t super welcome, told him and the II guys – who were very much of the mind of “why are they pushing him out?”, to be fair to them – and Keanaaina stuck around through spring practice and then something changed.
Who do you recommend we listen to when it comes to ND recruits ?
Honestly I think if you just paid attention to Wiltfong at 247 and the 247 composite only – plus the writers here with their scoring system, of course! – you’d have a better (or at least more-accurate) sense of who’s good and who’s not on average than including the ND recruiting reporters’ takes as part of your perspective.
Honestly? Jamie Uyeyama. I have to disagree very strongly with the characterization above – I don’t think Jamie is a homer at all, let alone an aggressive homer. He’s been tactfully honest about a number of signees over the years and puts far more effort into his recruit evaluations (with a smaller scope, granted) than the 247/Rivals/On3 guys do.
Hell, just in this season’s Freshman Orientation episodes of the Rakes of Mallow pod (highly recommend, btw) he was very candid about concerns that the ’23 class lacked a true LT prospect.
ISD in general is very good. Matt Freeman and Christian McCollum sometimes have favorites that they clearly pull for – Matt was a big Buchner guy as a fellow Asian-American and Christian roots for anyone from his home turf of New England – but again I would say it’s a stretch to call that aggressive homerism overall. On the flipside, Loy is certainly a bit sunshiney, and if you want to see aggressive homerism watch how Wiltfong covers Ohio State.
Bottom line, there’s no singular resource I would recommend leaning on. I think Jamie is the best evaluator out there for ND prospects, but he’ll tell you himself he misses plenty because that’s how evals work. If you have the time and the inclination read them all and get a composite view of your own. Tone down Loy, tone up Sampson, remember that Wilftong loves him some Buckeyes and that Rivals pumps up guys who go to their camps. None of it means those guys aren’t worth listening to, just stuff to keep in mind.
Per below, I’m probably being unfair to Uyeyama. But I think you can just straight up ignore Loy and Sinclair at 247. For sport, I’ve been jabbing at Loy a bit for his hilariously hyperbolic Tyler Buchner predictions on the II board, and the dude just will not take an L.
To be fair, Tom Loy’s job is to get inside information on recruits. If he was negative and wasn’t somewhat of a homer (“big pickup for the Irish!”), then high school kids/coaches would stop talking to him.
Also, I would not label Jamie U as a homer. Think he does a good job of being critical when necessary while still being a fan.
I think Jamie Uyeyama does the best job breaking down recruits, if want to read about their skills. He definitely heaps praise on a lot of the commits when talking about them. They are, after all, going to be ND players, so he focuses on their strengths. But if you look at the actual scores he gives players, they aren’t particularly homerish.
For the current class his grades avg 90.7 vs 90.6 avg for the composite. He essentially has the class with 3 studs, a bunch of mid-low 4 stars, and a few of the bigger projects in a while. And overall, a good deal worse than last year’s class.
He’s notably higher (2+ pts diff than composite) on Larsen, B Young, Mullins, and Rezac, while being lower on Johnson, Thomas, and Urlacher.
But, for how we compare to others, the composite is the best. Statistically composites are better than individual experts.
I may be being unfair to Uyeyama; good pull on the current-year data. My very unscientific sense, though, was in prior years he would have something like 80% of our recruits above their 247 composite score. I could be wrong!
I understand they sometimes get intel they can’t share, but then just don’t claim you knew it the whole time. Getting their cake and eating it too.