Notre Dame traveled to SEC-land in College Station to open up the 2024 season as 3-point underdogs and came away with what has continually been described nationally as a ‘rugged’ victory over Texas A&M. As predicted, it was a low-scoring affair that was being dragged out through the first 3 quarters until Notre Dame made several key plays down the stretch to seal the win and open the season 1-0.
Let’s review the 23-13 Irish win over the Aggies.
QUARTERBACK: B
Riley Leonard’s first game with the Irish certainly had a lot of ups and downs. In a game like this, with the defensive line they were facing, we have to praise him for not turning the ball over. There was one really close call throw that was nearly intercepted, but unlike A&M, the good guys were able to avoid a back-breaking turnover.
The passing game being pretty uninspiring is probably the most disappointing part of this game, by a lot. We can chalk a lot of that up to Leonard’s first start in this atmosphere, against a good defense, because things looked pretty conservative at best. Certainly, we didn’t see any explosiveness through the air. The final completion to Beaux Collins down the left sideline (a beauty of a catch) for 20 yards was the longest of the game for the Irish with Connor Flanagan’s 16-yard reception in the mid-3rd quarter as the 2nd longest.
It’s just one game, but I didn’t think Leonard looked sharp and his throwing motion seems a little slow and lazy. We’ll see how he looks in a more comfortable setting next week. Building consistency in the passing game has to be priority number one. That aside, Leonard never looked rattled and his running ability opened up the offense just enough to keep moving the ball in key moments.
OFFENSIVE LINE: A
This could’ve been a crippling performance from Notre Dame up front and they actually turned in a remarkable game, especially given the lack of experience. Obviously, things weren’t always great and there were some really poor moments. There were a couple bad snaps from Ashton Craig, a couple key errors from Sam Pendleton, and the run game was bottled up for most of the game.
Still, no sacks allowed is completely bonkers. True freshman Anthonie Knapp looked shockingly comfortable in his first start–no wonder he ended up winning the left tackle position! I suspect the line will have plenty of struggles this year (it would be a very Notre Dame thing for them to struggle next weekend against Northern Illinois) but if they can move from absolutely not a liability to a solid unit most of the time it’s huge news for the Irish.
RUNNING BACK: B-
Fitting how I’m not doing success rate on rushing attempts this year (RIP) and this game was a shining example of the importance of that statistics balanced against explosiveness.
For most of the game, I thought Jadarian Price and Jeremiyah Love looked quite poor while making bad reads while unable to find enough running room to open up their speed and athleticism. That’s clear by them combining for only 10 yards(!) on 17 carries.
But, they didn’t finish with only 17 carries and their other 5 carries went for a whopping 125 yards, including a pair of dagger touchdown runs. So, 6 out of the top 8 explosive plays in the game (adding an 11-yard Leonard rush) came on the ground and ultimately that’s a great sign when the passing game wasn’t relieving much pressure. It didn’t feel like a game where Notre Dame ran for 198 yards but they did!
This was something that I feel like needed to be realized more in the off-season. Both Love and Price have little experience and there will be growing pains. As long as the big-play ability remains things should start to look much more consistent in the coming weeks.
Who was prepared for Devyn Ford to play such a large role in this game?? Perhaps pointing towards the inexperience from the Love/Price combo in pass protection, we saw Ford on the field quite a bit (13 snaps) and he even got 4 targets in the passing game.
TIGHT END: B+
Are we to surmise that Mitchell Evans and Eli Raridon aren’t fully healthy? The former was limited to just 10 snaps while the latter played a bit more with 24 snaps. Neither of them received a target in the passing game.
So, Cooper Flanagan and his tiny shoulder pads with his first career start and he caught both of his targets for 25 yards. Not bad! He seemed to hold his own while blocking (although he picked up a holding call on a Leonard run) while shouldering so much responsibility for the true sophomore. The coaching staff must be super high on his future.
WIDE RECEIVER: C+
The injury to Jordan Faison didn’t look great and let’s hope he’s not out for too long. To me, that looked like it’s potentially a high ankle sprain that will be tough to come back from, especially for such a quick player like Faison. On just 23 snaps, he was limited to 2 catches for 12 yards on 3 targets.
Going off game 1, transfer Beaux Collins looks like he’ll be in the running as the top receiver on the team. He played 11 more snaps than any other wideout, and maybe more interestingly, saw 36 more snaps than boundary-mate Jayden Thomas. Collins also led the team with a healthy 7 targets and his catch of the game late in the 4th quarter.
There’s only so much to write about here with 158 total passing yards.
I thought Greathouse would be more involved but caught all 3 of his targets for 26 yards, enough yardage to finish 2nd on the team.
DEFENSIVE LINE: B-
Credit to Notre Dame because they did keep A&M quarterback Conner Weigman under constant pressure. Although, this felt like a game where the defensive line was just a little off and not quite clicking on all cylinders. We saw too many offsides, for high expectations a few too many successful runs, and the fearsome sack from Howard Cross was the lone one on the night.
The corps of players here were no surprise: Cross, Mills, Hinish, and Onye on the inside with Botelho, Traore, Oben, and Burnham on the outside. Interestingly, Tuihalamaka didn’t see the field while Bryce Young played 2 snaps.
They ultimately slowed down A&M’s running game (3.5 average from Le’Veon Moss is a good night for the Irish) which was a job well done. However, I hope we see more playmaking in the future, especially from the strong-side of Oben and Burnham. Stuff like A&M’s early 4th quarter touchdown drive for 65 yards on 10 plays without a completion isn’t great.
LINEBACKER: B+
Outside of Kiser, Notre Dame had a lot of questions to ask to other linebackers stepping up into larger roles and I thought everyone answered them pretty damn well. Kiser played the most as expected, while Sneed and Bowen were on the field a lot. In smaller roles, KVA and Ausberry combined for 38 snaps. I saw lots of good things from everyone.
I’m really excited about this group in 2024. Ausberry in particular looked like he was playing at a different speed in his limited snaps.
SECONDARY: A+
This was pure domination. For a while, A&M had pretty good balance on offense and then things deteriorated as the Aggies’ passing game disappeared. Weigman did not complete 3 passes in a row all game. He threw 2 interceptions. Just 40% completion percentage and only 100 passing yards is brutal and has to be incredibly disappointing for Weigman.
One nit pick is that the tackling on the perimeter was a struggle at times. That seems to be pretty normal for the 1st game, though. The defense as a whole seemed to be allowing too many second and third efforts for small yardage gains but it didn’t end up mattering much.
NOTES
Big win! I didn’t think the offense would get to 5 yards per play and they managed 5.6 YPP with some late explosiveness.
I’m not sure how good A&M will be or how this win will be viewed in the future. The Aggies should get to 4-1 and move back into the top 25 especially after seeing how poorly Florida looked in the opening week. The Aggies are probably a 8-4/9-3 type of team unless they make some big strides offensively. Right now, there’s no way they can keep up pace with Missouri and Texas.
To that point, not a great debut for Collin Klein at A&M. Only 3.6 yards per play is rough, and the program’s worst output since November 12, 2022 against Auburn. Although, facing Notre Dame is a tough challenge!
It most definitely didn’t look like punter James Rendell was very comfortable out there. It seemed like they worked so much on him not taking forever to get the punts off that he was far too hurried. In other special teams news, Mitch Jeter looks like he’ll be a major weapon for the Irish.
Marcus Freeman wore a long-sleeve blue tee-shirt with the helmet logo way too far off his chest and close to his armpit. Meanwhile, Mike Elko–who is getting quite the belly–wore an enormous white long-sleeve shirt with a hood that looked a bit silly.
11 penalties for 99 yards might be the biggest criticism from this game. Notre Dame looked well prepared and up to the task if a little sloppy at times.
The early ejection of A&M defensive back Dalton Brooks was one of the dumbest targeting decisions by a player that I’ve seen in a while. Yeah, you’re pretty amped up in the first game of the season but sheesh.
With Notre Dame’s tight ends and Greathouse in the slot, I thought we’d see an abundance of passes over the middle against A&M. With Evans not playing much I guess that changed the equation. Officially, Leonard only threw 3 passes over the middle of the field. Three!
I liked the shiny gold trim on the road jerseys. I’m still expecting the changes to the home jersey to look too weird next week.
The true freshman who saw the field: LT Anthonie Knapp, WR Micah Gilbert, DE Loghan Thomas, DE Bryce Young, LB KVA, and CB Leonard Moore. Gilbert and Thomas looked to be special teams players only.
This win is a great summation of HCMFs/programs growth since 2021:
– price TD came on an audible. Leonard saw 2 high safeties and checked to a run, price broke 1 tackle and got the score. 2023 team did not do this, see louisville game. This is also a feather for denbrock and freeman taking charge of strategic staffing this offseason.
– 0 irish players went down with cramps, and I counted at least 3 for TAMU. Several reasons include what appears to be a strong S&C hire in landow, and the multiple substitutions across the defense, i.e. the anti travis hunter strategy. Instead of a worn down 4th quarter a la ohio state 2022, notre dame was the stronger team down the stretch.
– notre dame secondary was THE dominant force on the field. That’s a far cry from the Julian love injury point fest in the 2018 playoffs. How awesome is it to have a ferocious secondary???
– notre dame offensive line gave up off-season. With 3 new starters. It took 4 games in 2021 to make the joe alt switch, and it took half a week this year for the post jagusah position switch to sort itself out, taking the true freshman over the 5th year.
– key plays on the final TD drive from transfers, beaux collins and riley Leonard. And while Leonard wasn’t stellar statistically, he wasn’t a liability, see 2022 QB play.
– I think the end of first half clock management was solid too. They were great pass 3rd down conversion away from having a good shot at getting more points. Freeman was decisive in when to use the timeout, but also pivoted when the situation changed.
-also, mad props to the 4th down attempts to start the 3rd quarter. That was some BS on the second one, but love the moxy.
Long season ahead, but they won the prime time night game in a marquee SEC stadium with everyone hopped up on mountain dew, and they did it the hard way; how many previous ND teams could overcome 100 yards in penalties in such an environment?
I believe in HCMF, go irish
To your last point: There is zero point zero chance Brian Kelly would have won that game.
None.
Eh, I think there’s a chance BK wins this game.
I don’t think there’s a chance we win this game with last year’s OC. To the point of the receivers, I’m guessing Mike Denbrock knows something we don’t. I haven’t seen the film, but it looked like there was a lot of double high safety, and also I didn’t have a lot of faith in our pass protection for any route that would require a 7 step drop, much less a 5 step drop.
My only nit was the lack of play action on second/third and short. I think there were chances to dial that up for a deep shot, and worst case it ends up like a punt.
Back to Denbrock, at 13-13, ND got the ball on their 15. I was watching with a friend who’s an tOSU fan, and we were both like “No way ND is going 85 yards.”
And they went 85 yards. Without a deep shot.
Brian Kelly would have turtled and ended up playing to cover instead of win, then would have thrown the team under the bus in the postgame press conference
To your point (and as of a few minutes ago) BK has now lost all three of his season openers at LSU.
and he threw his team under the bus and nearly went purple face in the post game!
Pretty harsh grade for the WRs. I think they were (intentionally) not put in a position to succeed since there were seemingly no deep shots called all game. I don’t blame them for that so much as the offensive line/gameplan. I could be wrong though/we’ll see how that goes in the coming weeks. Also I could be grading on the “our WR play has been so bad recently that C+ WR play feels amazing” curve.
I mean, my assumption is that our WRs are bad until proven otherwise. It hasn’t been proven otherwise, but it’s also one game.
We shall see.
We had four WR catch more than one pass, and six overall. Not sure what our totals were from last year, but that’s an improvement against an above average D, right? Also an improvement that our tight end was only the third leading receiver.
WR could have blocked better, and would have loved to see a deep shot to any of seven of our WR.
Elko’s front porch beer gut: A++
His body’s ability to form odd shapes is starting to rival Charlie Weis’
Philadelphia collins has joined the chat
Man nothing slows down comments like a win. Have to imagine we’d be at 100 comments if they lost.Somewhat related I gave up twitter back in the spring and haven’t looked back. I decided to venture over to 247 message board around half. Holy hell what a grim place.
Surprised we ended up +2 in YPP. Think I need to see more from o line and passing game before I feel confident in 11-1/12-0.
Tight end grade feels generous, I didn’t think they did anything, the one long catch was schemed up. D line didn’t shut them down but that grade felt harsh, they still held a&m to under 4 yards per carry.
I joined 24/7-II this summer to just check it out when I was jonesing for any Irish football news. Figured there was a trial period but didn’t double check. Yeah the comments sections are objectively bad. Articles are ok but same info as the pods (which I listen to). Cancelled the next day and found out there is no trial period and a no refunds policy, no exceptions. So just a heads up on that.
[18S premium membership OTOH, amazing value, would pay double]
Haha all good man. I was a member over there for a long time during the 2010s, cancelled around 2016 then I rejoined when freeman was hired. I have mostly tired of it again, recruiting just isn’t very fun anymore, they miss loys coverage, and the board/comments get pretty toxic. But I like TO, it’s engagement plus it comes with paramount subscription so it mostly works out. I never post there
Oh yeah, not knocking the content, I like all of the main 3 staff, TO, TP and PS. I would rather just consume that content audibly while driving or doing house projects. They’re better when they’re chatting. I didn’t get the Paramount subscription because I joined when they were running a discount on the annual fee.
Offense – I’m happy. In particular I thought Denbrock called a very good game. It was clear he was worried about our baby offensive line and the talent of the A&M front and he schemed things up to get it out of there quickly. I cannot both praise the OL for giving up no sacks and also bemoan the lack of deep passes. The OL did its job (mostly – Pendleton whiffed badly on at least one run when a blitz came, penalties, etc.) but Denbrock knew he didn’t have all day. The lack of run efficiency isn’t always fun but I’ll take it if we’re hitting some more home runs instead. Both Price and Love have the speed for that. WRs are going to be a weak point deep sigh AGAIN but it’s also one game in and a game where the ball was going out fast.
Defense – Al Golden was an A+ hire. Yes I’d like more sacks, who wouldn’t, but the pressure was good enough and I didn’t see any Liufau-style blitzes straight into the guards from the back seven. CBs, oh boy, what a change from 4+ years ago. Feels good, man.
Special teams – Jeter’s a nice addition. Punter looked like he was also trying to pooch it out of there ASAP. That said, if you look at his punts, A&M started with the ball on the:
A&M 37 (punting from our 16)A&M 18 (after a 10 yard return)A&M 11A&M 35 (after an 8 yard return, punting from our 27)A&M 15That’s three inside the 20, no touch backs, and the two with returns were ~47 yard punts. No complaints on the second look.
Also the refs were out to get us and it was a miracle Collins didn’t get a flag after his great catch.
Can’t remember if I read it here but somebody posited that since Collins and the DB were really going at it, maybe the DB said something so awful that the ref let the shove go rather than throw offsetting flags.
Yeah, that was my guess…i ended up seeing a video with sound that appeared to be the players, so 1) it didn’t support my view, but 2) i have no idea if it was the legit field microphone audio…leaving us back at headscratching lol.
Fun stat I saw from Sampson on getting the ball out quickly: time from snap to pass averaged 2.18 seconds, the lowest for Notre Dame since they began tracking it in 2019.
Hah, just read that article too and he made the same point about there being no real deep passes by design.
Couldn’t be happier that Big Game Brian is someone else’s problem now
Hmmm on Riley’s throwing motion. I actually thought he looked pretty comfortable back there and that his throwing motion was decent. Remember, he won a qb competition over the summer with 40 other qbs there
I’ll grant that the first test was a tough one but, the Oline grade IMO opinion must be based on expectations before the game. No sacks is unexpected for sure but, the game plan and the QB escaping has more to do with that stat than great Oline play. Also with the talent at RB, I’d put more of the run game struggles on the Oline than Love and Price. The Oline needs to grow up fast.
Leonard missed seeing Mitchell and Raridon open for TDs in the A&M end zone and looked to have some throws where he expected the WR to do something else. I don’t think many were accuracy issues. I think that can improve.
I can’t remember the last time I had this much confidence in our defense. Take away some confounding penalties and A&M doesn’t get to double digits.
Love and Price both made some poor decisions at times and missed holes. They share blame in a few of the stuffs and missed opportunities on the ground.
Faison is OUT this week, KK Smith moving up the depth chart.
Seems like it’s a minor injury and he won’t be out long.
I wonder if K.K. Smith will get many/any snaps. If it was a tough opponent one would think not since there has been a lot of guys playing across positions but given that it’s an easier opponent that maybe he will get some legit snaps (along with other young guys buried on the depth chart).
Took your advice and got a portable electric pump. Maybe .5 lb heavier than my hand pump, CO2 device and cartridges. Seems it’ll be way easier if/when I get a flat.
Nice! I just put on Continental Grand Prix 5000 tires this weekend. But, must’ve moved my rear derailleur in the process. Shifting problems up the cassette…
I bought some 5000s a couple years ago on Amazon and didn’t like how the contacted the road. I think they might have been knock offs.
Can you do the repairs or is it headed to the shop ? Hopefully you didn’t bend it bad.
I’m going to try to do it myself. Some brief barrel adjustment didn’t fix it but I think it could be the L-Limit screw. I’m going to go through the whole rear derailleur process from Park Tool’s helpful videos.
Don’t wanna hijack the main topic here but the park tool rear derailleur vid is great. Used it multiple times!
It worked for me, I’m pumped.
Way to go…..victory!
FSU… your quarterback. Woof.
USC could end up being the only other ranked team on our schedule.
Louisville and/or GT might get in there but who knows.
You mean DJU? The record holder for most passing yards in a single game against Notre Dame?
Football is a weird game.
My last in-person ND game was the 2022 beatdown of Clemson that DJU started. Since then, he:
Was benched by Clemson
Transferred to Oregon State
Had a very good season!
Transferred to Florida State
Has looked terrible!
I’m conclusion, college football is a land of contrasts.
I become more convinced every year that being a consistently good QB is a rare thing. It’s a hard job.
UF- FSU which coach goes first ?
$26 million buyout in the SEC (50.7% of prior year distribution) vs $63 million buyout in the ACC (145.5% of prior year distribution). I don’t think Florida State is coming up with that money anytime soon.
The offensive line played well down the stretch, but an A seems a bit generous given the number of free rushers in the backfield. HCMF did say that at least once they specifically slid protection away from a guy who went free, but it still seemed like a B performance. They did as much as we needed them to to win and we expect them to improve going forward.
As an always overly-optimistic fan it’s fun riding this wave really really high right now. Tough to see losses on the schedule, and funny things happening to FSU and LSU is a great way to top it all off.