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 [...]
The good vibes continue when Notre Dame plays Navy in Ireland. On Saturday evening in Dublin, the Fighting Irish cruised to an easy 42-3 victory over the Midshipmen in a game that was never in doubt. Notre Dame scored touchdowns on their first 5 offensive drives, never punted or turned the ball over, and immediately [...]
Why settle into a new football season at home against a tricky but familiar opponent when you can fly all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, earn less money, and make it more difficult on all the student-athletes? For the 96th time it's Notre Dame vs. Navy. Debt status = not repaid and we lace [...]
When I remember to do it, I like to rate the potential trap games on the Notre Dame schedule for our fair site on a scale of 1 to 10 Ackbars in honor of the greatest admiral in the history of the Rebel Alliance/Resistance. I failed to do it last year. Suffice it to say [...]
As we pass the hours and minutes until the 2023 season kicks off, it's time for a spin through the Notre Dame schedule of opponents for the upcoming year. Which opponents inspire the most fear for a loss this fall, what are the biggest question marks or swing factors, and what rationale has a chance [...]
I've done the math and on average just over 4 teams per season in college football start out in the AP pre-season Top 10 and do not finish inside the Top 10 over the last 5 seasons. I'm going to use these teams as my guide to figure out who will be the overrated teams [...]
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