Welcome back to the 18 Stripes Film Room! In his press conference on September 14 following the opening win against Duke, Brian Kelly dropped this tidbit about the offense: "We had a running back who was seeing things for the first time. We went to a different offensive blocking scheme. We weren’t a pin and [...]
The dominant win over USF featured an efficiency massacre, defensive disruption from unlikely sources, and a nearly 30-yard per possession field position advantage for Notre Dame. This game reached garbage time at the half, and the Bulls failed to convert a single successful play through the air or on a passing down. Confused? Check out [...]
This series will look at past Notre Dame football National Championship seasons and imagine how things would have finished if a college football playoff system was in place at the time. Remember when we used to live in a time when people believed there as no way a playoff would ever happen? Let's jump back [...]
Fast start, check. Improved play across the board, check. Dominate a much weaker opponent, check. Under a cloud-less South Bend sky in the beaming sun, the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame quickly dispatched a ragged and rebuilding South Florida Bulls team unable to cope with the home team's skill, size, and depth. With their 20th [...]
The 2011 demons were exorcised Saturday as Notre Dame didn't let South Florida become a meme again this time around, blasting the Bulls 52-0. There's essentially nothing to dislike from today's performance, so let's talk about some of the best stuff we saw. A stable of running backs Standard "this opponent is bad" caveat applies; [...]
It's been 9 years since South Florida's insane first-ever game against Notre Dame. A lot has changed since that 5 hour and 59-minute debacle brought us perhaps the weirdest game in school history. Brian Kelly has remained in South Bend but USF has since fired Skip Holtz, Willie Taggart, and Charlie Strong. They return to [...]
A lot of rust was to be expected for Notre Dame football as they took the field for the first time this Saturday in a tighter-than-expected 14-point win over the visiting Duke Blue Devils. The Irish sputtered to zero yards on their first 3 drives and only led 10-6 at halftime before showing a lot [...]
(Weird disclaimer: Photographers weren't allowed in the stadium today, so we're rolling with a photo of last year's game.) ND's off-season lasted just over eight months. It was only two weeks longer than it would've been in a normal world. It felt a lot longer. But the wait ended Saturday, and Notre Dame dispatched Duke [...]
The past several seasons have provided Irish fans with exposure to every ACC team, but for 2020 that gets to be taken to an entirely new level. Advanced stat projections agree with the ironic storyline that Notre Dame joining a conference for a season has actually eased their strength of schedule. Would that have been [...]
Welcome back to college football. Following a cancelled spring, in addition to an interrupted off-season and fall camp, the Fighting Irish take the field this Saturday to begin the 2020 campaign. It'll be our first glimpse of organized Notre Dame football in 259 days. Brian Kelly heads into his 11th season with about as much [...]
The ranking of the top 25 players on the Notre Dame roster is an annual tradition that means football is almost here. Like everything in 2020, this year's exercise was stranger and more confusing than usual. Our friend Douglas Farmer from Inside the Irish, who coordinates this activity across ND platforms with folks like us [...]
Editor's Note: This article was written in the past long before several college football conferences decided to postpone or cancel their seasons. It's been sitting in the draft section of the site for a while and we might as well push it out to the masses before Saturday's opener. *** Once upon a time there [...]
Five Wide Fullbacks returns with a discussion about Tommy Rees, Notre Dame in the ACC, picking players to return in 2021, the Heisman Trophy, and the weirdness to come with college football in a pandemic. 1) The decision to part ways with Chip Long and install Tommy Rees as Offensive Coordinator was one of the [...]
Welcome back to the 18Stripes Hall of Fame Series. A reminder that you can easily see every entry of the series here. Today we finish our first half of the decade (and final entry until next offseason) and the Charlie Weis era. Our potential entrant to the HOF, who could easily be praised as one [...]
Earlier this week we looked at Notre Dame's offense where a veteran quarterback and offensive line anchors that side of the ball. Now, we turn our focus to the defense where Clark Lea heads into his 3rd season as defensive coordinator and has a couple of blue-chip NFL prospects to build around for 2020. [players [...]
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