So in the end, much of the hemming and hawing in our writers' room during Notre Dame's 41-17 win over Central Michigan didn't amount to much. The Irish won by a large margin, as expected, and moved to 4-0 in advance of the game against Ohio State. And yet, so much today felt like a [...]
The combination of stormy weather plus an aggressive NC State defense created Notre Dame's first significant adversity of 2023, but a a strong defensive performance and explosive plays from the offense allowed the Irish to finally pull away in the 4th quarter. The Wolfpack's pressure forced Sam Hartman and the Irish offense into early punts [...]
Another week of college football is complete and it was a relatively quiet one in terms of upsets. Well, except for Alabama losing at home as 7-point favorites to the Texas Longhorns. Can we say that Texas is now officially back? Are we seeing an end of an era at Alabama with Tommy Rees along [...]
After a Week 1 quick break due to sickness and holidays, the Mid Major Top Ten has returned! We had some weird results over the past two Saturdays and we are going to dive into the most important ones below. Before we do that, let’s take a look at the updated Top Ten. Also Considered: [...]
It took nearly 5.5 hours but we finally got there. On Saturday, Notre Dame moved to 3-0 with a somewhat sluggish and messy yet convincing win over NC State in Raleigh. After the 1st quarter thunderstorms rolled in causing a 90-minute delay, Notre Dame returned to action with a long touchdown run and would go [...]
Notre Dame fans spent 3 quarters mostly fretting, complaining, maybe even doubting as the Irish slopped to a 7-point lead against NC State. ND won by three touchdowns, 45-24. It's a choose-your-own-adventure type of day in the Irish fan base! Secondary is primary Remember barely a year ago, when ND was entering the Ohio State [...]
With all due respect to Navy and Tennessee State, the Notre Dame season begins in earnest on Saturday afternoon as the Irish travel to Raleigh, North Carolina to face the NC State Wolfpack. Seven years ago, Notre Dame played at Noon eastern in Carter-Finley Stadium in a game to be forgotten and never re-visited. We'll [...]
Notre Dame dominated Tennessee State as expected, with a a huge second quarter propelling Notre Dame to a game that reached garbage time by halftime. The Irish continued the early trend started in Dublin - crisp execution, nothing too flashy, but methodical drives for touchdowns on offense and clamping down defensively at the first signs [...]
A long Labor Day weekend stretched the first full week of games out and gave us plenty to talk about now that college football is officially back. Crazy how we are just days away from Notre Dame's third game and we are now finally getting a new-look to the 18S Top 20 Poll. And, we [...]
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 [...]
You obviously learn nothing of significance out of games like Saturday's 56-3 win over Tennessee State. The opponent is simply not good enough to make major qualitative judgments about your own team in such contests. Knowing that, I was looking for little things. Here are a few that stood out. Sam Hartman again We don't [...]
As of 3:30 PM Eastern Time this Saturday there will be one remaining FBS program that has never played an FCS program, and it won't be Notre Dame.* Joe Montana's Notre Dame will host Too Tall Jones's Tennessee State this weekend in the Irish's first matchup with a lower division team since the NCAA created [...]
Professional. Efficient. Clean. The opening test of the season wasn't an especially tough one, but Notre Dame still studied and passed with flying colors in a dominant win over Navy in Dublin. Sam Hartman led an near-perfect offensive attack that operated with extreme efficiency and distributed touches fairly evenly among the veteran and new faces [...]
The most prominent running play against the Midshipmen was, in my opinion, the Counter play. Counter is a gap blocking scheme play that utilizes misdirection and masses of humanity to create often devastating holes in the defensive structure. Many of Gerad Parker’s other runs seek to create cutback lanes for the running back by maintaining [...]
So, that was an interesting offseason huh? Even before the seeming dissolution of the Pac-Whatever as a power conference, I was thinking during this spring and summer about how to approach this column going into 2023. Based on seeing the title, you can see I decided to change the title from Group of 5 to [...]
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