You don’t want to hear what I have to say about this game in particular. Besides, if I did, it would be very NSFW.
What I have after tonight’s game are questions. A lot of questions. A few of them for your perusal, and maybe some attempts to answer them:
Why does this keep happening?
It’s one thing for Notre Dame to lose away from home against ranked teams. Most teams have poor records in such situations. However, the amount of times the team comes out and just gets either punked from the jump or crock-potted (H/T Solid Verbal) is quite disconcerting. This is the third year in a row it’s happened (Miami, Clemson, Michigan) and on two of those occasions, no reasonable person would say ND was at a talent disadvantage. It also happened in 2012 (Alabama) and 2014 (USC). In 2015, Clemson started doing it, but that ND team was too talented to get crushed by anybody, so it ended up as a heartbreaking loss.
Why?
It’s hard to figure. Brian Kelly? A program-wide failing? Underpants gnomes (don’t rule this out)? I don’t know. I’m sick of wondering.
What the heck is going on with Ian Book?
If I watch one more replay of Ian Book seeing a guy break wide the hell open and not even pretending like he’s going to throw it, I’m going to lose my mind. What has happened to this guy?
It would be tempting to blame whatever it is on the Brian Kelly QB Regression, but this isn’t an Everett Golson situation where he’s getting more of the offense dumped onto him. Book is pretty much just as responsible for the offense as he was last season. Last year he was decisive. Last year he was quick to get the ball out. Last year he would get the ball to playmakers. This year…he doesn’t. Claypool single-covered? Nope. Cole Kmet? Not even a factor. Jafar? Nah. The offensive line isn’t amazing or anything, but is it that much worse than last year? I don’t think so.
Whatever it is needs to get fixed. Notre Dame isn’t sweeping November with this version of Book. And they’re sure as heck not beating an SMU or a Boise State in the Cotton Bowl even if they do. (That’s assuming they even got to the Cotton…a 10-2 ND is going to have exactly zero wins of consequence and I could see them getting stuck in the Camping World Bowl or whatever.)
What happened on the bye week?
ND is 11-1 under Brian Kelly after a bye, or was until this game. Now granted, they didn’t go to Ann Arbor for many of those post-bye games. But this ND team didn’t look prepared, not remotely, for this game. Utterly lost.
Michael Young’s transfer leaked out yesterday. I’m starting to wonder if that was an omen.
I really want to know what, if anything, happened on the bye week. This doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t.
How are ND fans supposed to believe in these guys now?
Everyone wanted to tell you the Kelly 2.0 Irish were different; that 2017 Miami was a fluke; that ND put a better game up against Clemson last year than Alabama did; that the gap was closing. The gutsy, if failed, showing against Georgia last month seemed to confirm that. Then, tonight happened. More questions. This program is searching for answers. I don’t have any. Brian Kelly had better have some.
(Photo credit: Detroit Free Press)
Maybe a Book-end might help?
Why wasn’t Michigan penalized for running the ball over and over again, with authority, in the first half, against a talented defense? Isn’t that against the rules?
We all know you’re allowed to do that against Temple or someone, but against reasonably good defenses you’re only allowed to run skittering, off-tackle cutesy run plays and tosses and stuff. That’s how football works, right?
It’s different of course in the second half, when you’re winning. But in the first half?
I don’t understand what I saw Michigan doing there but I’m pretty sure it’s illegal.
Fire Kelly
This loss is absolutely brutal and potentially program-altering:
(1) Brian Kelly is now un-extendable this year. They can’t do it, or they’re turning football into the basketball program where good is good enough.
(2) Michigan has a major chip to point to for recruiting. This limits our upside for the 2020 class closing as well as the 2021 class and potentially beyond, which will have repercussions well into the next decade. In an alternative universe where we beat Michigan, we can clearly say we’re the #1 smart school with Stanford down and Michigan down. We can’t do that any more, which probably by itself precludes us from even possibly building a championship level roster.
(3) Who knows what we’re going to do at quarterback. Book was hot garbage tonight. Jurk cannot throw a spiral.
(4) Should they just kind of bail on the season to the extent possible and play for the future (e.g., shut down Vaughn, play more underclassmen to see if they have talent, etc.)? I legitimately don’t know! Even at 10-2 we’re probably going to the Camping World Bowl at this point. But also I don’t want to lose to Navy or BC or Stanford.
I know we should count our blessings: this program is in a much better place than it was at any point of the last decade (other than a brief period before the Michigan game in 2006, I suppose). But also I would like to think this can’t be as good as it gets. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
We need to plan for the end of BK’s tenure, push Long out to an open job, and figure out a solution at QB, probably involving Book taking a grad transfer.
I’ve been thinking some version of your last paragraph for a few years straight now. Purgatory sucks less than Willingham-land, but it still sucks.
Can we at least get rid of Chip Long and Del Alexander? The wide receivers have drastically underperformed or underdeveloped under Alexander, and Long, by all accounts, sounds like a giant asshole. So an abrasive dick running an offense designed for Conference USA is exactly what we need to keep ND relevant. It’ll be a miracle if we win ten games this year.
an abrasive dick running an offense designed for Conference USA is exactly what we need to keep ND relevant.
Where did you get Swarbricks 2009 diary?
I’m now convinced we’ve seen the best Brian Kelly can do……enough.
I hate football.
Andy, you mention the Young transfer. With the egg this team laid last night, I wonder what might have transpired over the last two weeks?? This team was not ready to play in the slightest. ND being blown out, was the least likely scenario predicted by most. They’ve been in this type of environment before, I don’t think the Big House spooked them. I won’t be surprised if something else was going on.
Agreed. A starting player abruptly deciding to leave the team and the team no showing like this both speak to something we may never know about having happened behind the scenes in the last 2 weeks
I’m worried we’re about to collapse like we did in 2014.
That was like a car crash of worst case scenarios all piled up on each other. Had a very bad feeling seeing the rain and Notre Dame just plain looked like they didn’t want to be there. At all. Doesn’t reflect well on anyone, obviously. Tough to take. As soon as you saw that punt block error and Michigan establishing a run and ND unable to, I guess I accepted very early that it wasn’t going to be pretty.
But, I don’t know, I’m not all worked up or feel terrible about this. Most people thought this was a 9 win team, it still could (should) be a 10 win team. Disappointed to lose to Michigan and no show an important game, bad feeling.
I think it’s going to be hard to rebound from this loss. But, with this team coming out flat vs. Michigan, who’s to say how they’ll respond in the next five games ?
I’m ready to see them work Jurkovec in for a couple series each half from here on. I think it’s time to see what the kid has and if he’s capable of improving as he gets playing time. This team is really playing for nothing important from here on, so why wait?
Important reminder from our pre-season predictions that I mentioned:
“There is a pretty large gap between Vegas and our polling. Last year, Vegas had Notre Dame at 9.5 wins and 62% took at least a 10-2 season if I’m reading that correctly. Vegas dropped ND down to 8.5 this year and readers went up to 83%(!) for at least 10-2. To point back to number one holy cow that is extremely rosy in a way I never would’ve guessed.”
I think what makes this performance different is that there are no excuses and nowhere to hide. Book isn’t injured and he’s in the second year of a system in which he played pretty well last year. This is year three of the Kelly reboot and there’s no Brandon Wimbush to blame this turd on. Kelly was 11-1 before a bye week, and yet they went out there and looked like that. I wonder what UGA fans are thinking right now after we were 40 yards away from beating them in Athens.
I really did think ND would lose the closer we got to the game, but not by 31 where we looked like we didn’t want to be there. Looks like we need to come to grips with handing Jim Harbaugh his biggest win at Michigan! Which speaking of, it seemed like the ND fanbase spent so much time laughing at Harbaugh’s failures that everyone was willing to overlook Kelly’s record in these situations. There was ample evidence to suggest that ND could lose, but I don’t think anyone was willing to entertain that idea because of what Michigan had looked like and what it would portend for the Kelly era. Well, now we have to deal with the worst case scenario.
I don’t think Kelly should be fired and he won’t be fired, but last night was maybe the biggest dose of reality in his tenure at ND. There were always excuses we could fall back on, from “Alabama was a dynasty!” to “We were missing Julian Love for the second quarter!” But there is no silver-lining from last night, absolutely none. It’s hard to say what ND should or can do next, but last night was a black stain that will hang over the program and deservedly so.
I think the thing that faked us all out was that we all felt that ND was on an upward trajectory, and that this game was placed perfectly to help that narrative. We were beating all the teams we should beat, and we hadn’t wilted under the lights the last time we were out. Meatchicken was a team that we’d beaten last year, and which had lost crucial pieces from last year, so it wasn’t an SEC team. Winning at Michigan would have represented the next step up and we all felt we had the ability to take that step. We figured that, after this win, we would be in the conversation for a playoff spot, and if not, a NY6 Bowl.
My confidence was high, and though I didn’t think a win was guaranteed, I thought it was likely. However, there were two warning signs. First was Michael Young’s transfer (why was someone leaving a team that was moving upward). Second, there was the rain.
We laid an enormous turd. 🙁
Mediocre coaches are mediocre
Kelly is Harbaugh (without the goofy sleepovers). A good capable coach. Wins 9-10 games. But like Harbaugh is not elite. Will not win. Championship without help, but won’t destroy your brand. Is that good enough?
I think this whole game can be summed up by one bottom line: Michigan could run so well they didn’t have to pass. Notre Dame couldn’t run at all and HAD to pass. In a torrential downpour. Not a formula for success. Patterson had 1 completion in the first half and a total of 3 through the 3rd quarter. Meanwhile our RBs are averaging 1 yard per carry and we start passing a lot in that weather. No wonder we got crushed.
I have a question. What would Tua have looked like last night, with no run game, throwing to our receivers, behind our line, against the way Michigan played defense last night, and in that rainstorm? Not much more effective, and not enough to win, IMO.
Book looked bad, but so did everybody, including the coaches. A total team fail.
The thing I most don’t get is why so many thought we’d blow them out. I thought the oddsmakers had it about right, but also was prepared for us being blown out, it’s happened so often in recent decades. Never entered my mind that we’d blow them out.
I don’t think the Young departure meant that much. After Claypool and Kmet, our receiver corps is a hodgepodge of part timers plus a Fink who seems to have vanished from an effectiveness standpoint, whether in the slot or wide.