I guess that was a win.
Notre Dame won 35-32. I think. My head exploded at some point during the fourth quarter and I spent the final few minutes of the game picking it up and gluing it back together.
The Irish more or less dominated the first half, although it wasn’t until the final few minutes of the half that it took effect. Notre Dame took advantage of Ken Niumatalolo’s annual horrific attempt at a trick play, intercepted a halfback pass, scored on the next drive, then got a stop and scored again before halftime to turn a 21-13 slugfest into a 35-13 rout.
Or so we thought.
You’d be forgiven for forgetting the entire first half occurred; after all, ND apparently forgot the second half also counted. They gained 2 total offensive yards in that time. No, I did not forget any digits.
The good and the bad of Drew Pyne
Drew Pyne was absolutely outstanding (as was Tommy Rees, by extension) in the first half. Full stop. He drilled several big-time third-and-long conversions, found guys under pressure and kept the offense moving. His TD to Jayden Thomas was one of the best throws he’s ever made, if not the best. He got an assist from Braden Lenzy for one of his touchdowns, but hey, no problem.
ARE YOU KIDDING?
GO OFF @blspeedy21#GoIrish pic.twitter.com/YWv1VXIYtq
â Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) November 12, 2022
Five total touchdowns, counting his one rush, made him the first Irish QB since Ian Book against Bowling Green to do that in one half.
Then the second half happened, and Pyne immediately went back to looking like the clueless guy everyone was screaming at after the Stanford game.
Needless to say, it is very hard to win when you have no idea what you’re getting at the most important position.
It wasn’t all on Pyne – the offensive line was truly horrific in the second half, and the offensive staff acted as if they had never seen a blitz before for all they did to try to scheme around it – but for ND to win two more games, he’ll need to be much better.
The frustrating defense
Notre Dame let a pair of fullback dives tear them up in the first half but seemed to have that locked down from there. That seemed to be all they needed, especially after Clarence Lewis made a really nice interception on that aforementioned awful trick play.
And really, the defense wasn’t the big problem, even as the world was coming down around them in the second half. It’s not really their fault Drew Pyne threw his weekly tipped pass and it was picked off, which gave Navy an easy short field for one of its two touchdowns in the second half. Nor was it their fault that it became a penalty this week to be dragged down by an opposing receiver, a rule change I was unaware of.
But still, you’d like to see the Irish be able to throw the final hammer in at some point. It seemed like after a while they just became content to allow Navy to get what they were going to get and see what happened in the red zone.
It was good to see Junior Tuihalamaka and Jaylen Sneed get on the field a bit for ND, even though it probably came at the expense of JD Bertrand, who missed the game with a groin injury.
Another punt block
Notre Dame broke the modern-day school record for blocked punts with its seventh of the season today. It directly led to another touchdown on the next play. It was the fifth straight week ND blocked a punt. In case you missed it, the Irish won by 3.
Special teams are pretty important.
I hate this series
I’m not saying to dump Navy off the schedule, but allow me to briefly vent about this series, which contains only 3 possible outcomes in a given game. One is a blowout win, which is fun but does not happen nearly often enough (I’m aware this sounds silly after the last three games in the series were blowout wins). Another is basically what this game was, a wholly unsatisfying win in every way. And of course, the third possible outcome is a horrifying loss, which has thankfully only happened once in the past dozen years.
That’s not really any different than the 3 potential outcomes of Cupcake Team X, but the difference is that this one, of course, takes place against an entirely different offense. I’m glad next year’s version of this game will open the season, at least. That worked out alright last time.
Next week: Boston College. The good news is that Notre Dame has mostly played well coming off bad or depressing performances, and the Eagles might be the worst team on the schedule by some metrics. Hopefully it’s a chance to get healthy.
Pyne limits Rees’ options but, not as much as we saw today. If you can’t figure out what to do when the other team is sending 8 players after the QB, you shouldn’t be the one making the decisions. If you scouted this Navy team it should not have been a surprising tactic.
We should be fully prepared for BC to blitz like crazy next week.
Did we attempt a screen pass in the 2nd half?
You know, those things that Aces #1 NFL OCs are known to use when they can predict a jailhouse blitz want to hurt a defense for bringing the house.
Well we could predict the rush – they didn’t even try to hide it. They put their schwantz on the table and said, “What ya gonna do about it?”
Need to remove Navy as an annual opponent. Second half looked like ND just wanted to get the clock to zeros and not get hurt.
As bad as Pyne was, still no excuse for the running game disappearing against a physically overmatched opponent.
Itâs a no win game for ND. Thatâs what happens when you win 45 in a row. Navy could be 11-1 and top 25 and the expectation by the CFB world is that ND should win by 35+.
This felt like Marshall/Stan-spit-ford. Lets pound the ball because we should be able to succeed doing it.
When it doesn’t work for two rives in a row, well its gotta work now, and where are my QB roll-out right for a short passing game? Why have the second shortest guy (to the kicker) stand in the pocket?
Its the calculus of the running game in the 2nd half that confuses me.
Run the ball to keep the clock going but three and out OR play an actual offense that could maybe score while also burning game time.
That was like an NCAA ‘0X game played by two drunk people.
Navy called an onside kick and a reverse HB pass in the first half when their regular offense was working just fine. In the second half, they essentially ran punt block as a defense. Tommy’s counter to that was bombs to the end zone on first down and draws on second and third. My goodness.
Worst offensive half by ND since _________________.
BC 2008? SC 2008?
BC 2008 was way better than this. So was the 2016 NC State game. It was remarkably bad. Worst Iâve seen.
But, hey, we won!
Not sure why Ken N. tried the trick play that Lewis intercepted. They were running at will. They couldâve scored while running the half out. Down one and getting the ball at start of the half. Totally different game, maybe even a loss if he just stays with the running game and plays conservatively. These coaches some games just make it way too complicated. But good for ND that he did. How do you run all over Clemson and not be able to vs Navy. Odd
I’d say it’s the ol’ Lou Holtz saying you need to run a trick play when it’s the only way you can win. Also, they had it wide open, a better throw could have been a TD. Execution was poor, which is a risk for a non-QB to throw the ball, but I can see the intentions behind it.
Ken N runs a stupid trick play every single year against us, and it’s almost always at a very bad time in the game when Navy’s regular stuff is working fine. I’m reminded of the 2013 game when he went to a reverse on 4th-and-short on their final drive (Jaylon Smith dispensed of that) and the 2017 game when he tried a HB pass on the final drive (not even close).
Welp, weâre not as good as when we beat Clemson, and weâre not as bad as the second half.
Weâre a decent team in the 10-20 range with an incredibly inconsistent and not great quarterback. Like Kentucky and Illinois, both ranked teams, who lost to unranked opponents today. Iâll take a win on the road.
Dom knows. I’ll take what I can get. Go irish
I think Tommy is more Toonces the Driving Cat.
Something less aggressive than a cat
Iâm fine with playing Navy every year, but make it the first game of the year in week 0 then have a bye (one of two) in week 1 or something so thatâs itâs not in a weird place in the schedule.
Rees is as inconsistent as Pyne. When they both are clicking (first half), itâs awesome. When they are both not clicking (second half) its abysmal.
I spent the first half imagining a world where Estime is from like CT or RI instead of NJ and goes under-scouted and ends up as a Navy FB. Scary thought…
As a wise man once said, Navy never quits. I believe even in the blowout wins in 2018 and 2019, they were better in the second halves and didn’t go away. All’s well that ends well.
Very poor finish finish for Notre Dame, but if there’s any team to shut down and check out on when up three scores, it’s Navy at least. I guess.
Noon start, sterile road/neutral atmosphere – it’s just a wonder they started out as hot as they did to build enough cushion for the second half to not really matter. Best thing as always about this game is it’s over, the W is in hand, no one seemed to get hurt. Onto the next one.
Upvote for the RI reference. Most people donât even know weâre a state.
When I was in college (Sun Devils), I told someone I was from RI and they actually asked me if RI was the capital of Massachusetts.
I said yes.
On the other hand, (and Iâm not sure what this says about the education system in the US) I was in Dublin once and I met a local who asked me where I was from. I said Boston area. He asked âwhat city?â I told him about 45-60 minutes south. Place called Providence. He says, âProvidence?? Thatâs not in Massachusetts!â
Go figure.
Go Friars.
Go Rams.
Isn’t the only way to get to Rhode Island is by a boat?
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No, you drive on the rhode, idiot.
Ha! Indeed
Yes đ
Yes, I rhode my bhote over there.
That’s about right for most of ASU – some of my son’s friends go there.
If memory serves, to get in, I had to take the mirror test. They put a mirror under your nose and if it gets foggy at all, youâre in.
Another good one: when I was a freshman, a girl said to me âoh youâre from the east coast?! I have family there!â
âOh yeah? What city?â I asked
âChicago!!â
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Kiser got hurt , I believe. How bad? I don’t know.
I know the stats were excellent, but people are overstating how good Pyne was in the first half. Most of our receivers were wide open on almost every play – it felt like they were giving an 8 yard cushion everywhere on the field. So Pyne didnât screw it much more than he played great; the only really good throw was on the Thomas TD. Also itâs really funny to see him wind up as hard as he possibly can on the Lenzy TD and only put it 40 yards in the air, underthrowing him by 5-8 yards. (What a catch though!)
Unfortunately, it seems like the trick to make sure he does screw it up is to blitz 7. Hopefully Tommy figures something out this week.
He doesn’t seem able to throw dump off passes because he’s so small he can’t get the ball over the line of scrimmage without just lobbing it.
I absolutely love Andyâs opening comments. I was at the game sitting next to other Irish fans, one of which grew up in South Bend during the Frank Leahy years. At halftime, I said Drew played the half of a lifetime. He looked poised, made good decisions and yes was aided a bit by the interception and blocked punt to have those opportunities. But he delivered numbers that sometimes takes two full games and he did it in a half and yet we had no running game at all in this game. What was frustrating is that you could see the size and speed we had on Navy. Using the eye test, itâs clear to me that one on one matchups should be won is coaching and play calling. No one on Navy could cover Mayer yet he was constantly in motion and not given outside 1:1 opportunities. And while I like Tommy for his services here, that second half was either on him or Marcus. I donât care that Navy took 10 minutes off the clock. Yes, phantom and questionable penalties didnât help, though Drew getting the hit to head call in the first half was questionable as well. And while the full back dives just were excruciating to watch, we shut those down in the second half. The second half our defense was out of gas. You could see the speed change in favor of Navy. We shut down as an offense and that was disappointing that we couldnât adjust to a Navy defense that was rested and teeing off. We literally were all watching the clock in the stadium and if Navy didnât burn those timeouts or covered the onside kick, that was some serious pain we would all be feeling. At the end, we won, which felt like a relief. That game really summed up the team this year. Polarizing. Exciting. Frustrating. Talented. Promising. And outside of some missed kicks, the best special teams I have seen.