We can all agree turning the ball over in the end zone on the 1st possession of the game and eventually falling behind 17-0 are not good recipes for success. Notre Dame moved the ball well on that fateful first drive–and had a few more chances to make a comeback–but they were beaten soundly by Cincinnati on Saturday to snap the Fighting Irish 26-game home winning streak.
This very flawed team had been battered at times this season and has now suffered their first defeat.
Stats Package
| STAT | IRISH | CINCY |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 13 | 24 |
| Plays | 74 | 62 |
| Total Yards | 341 | 386 |
| Yards Per Play | 4.60 | 6.22 |
| Conversions | 8/21 | 3/12 |
| Completions | 23 | 19 |
| Yards/Pass Attempt | 5.58 | 9.28 |
| Rushes | 28 | 30 |
| Rushing Success | 30.7% | 46.1% |
| 10+ Yds Rushes | 2 | 3 |
| 20+ Yds Passes | 4 | 6 |
| Defense Stuff Rate | 21.6% | 18.9% |
Yes, there were plenty of mistakes that hurt Notre Dame and without them this is a very tight game perhaps. However, I think the numbers and the matchups with our eyes paint a damning portrait for Notre Dame who struggled mightily on offense for nearly the entire game and had problems in big moments containing Cincinnati quarterback Desmond Ridder.
Offense
QB: D
RB: D+
TE: B+
OL: C+
WR: D-
The offensive line gets the 2nd highest grade (only 2 sacks given up, progress!) out of all the units in this game, playing maybe their steadiest performance of the season, and the Irish crapped it away for less than 5 yards per play. These past 2 weeks have witnessed Notre Dame facing perhaps the 2 toughest defenses of the regular season and the 4.07 YPP totaled is a major red flag for the rest of the season.
On the quarterbacks, sooner or later the juggling of 3 signal callers was going to cause big problems for the offense. If I’m going to be critical it seemed like a big mistake to not go to Pyne at all in the 1st half while the use of Buchner throughout (at the exclusion of Pyne) seems like banging one’s head on the wall at the price of getting the young quarterback experience for the sake of experience.
It feels like the days of Jack Coan could be behind us, but we’ll see. His completion percentage against Cincinnati (63.6%) was fine but taking 22 attempts to get just 114 yards, including a heinous interception, when you’re not bringing anything else to the table isn’t something I’d continue to build upon for the future as a grad transfer.
Normally, I hate to psychoanalyze the situation for quarterbacks through the television feed. However, Coan has been showing that concentrating puzzled gaze that can come off as worried and tight while Drew Pyne has a more positive vibe to him and it really does seem like the rest of the team plays with a little extra juice for Pyne.
I’ll touch on this more below in the final thoughts section–Pyne seems like the smarter and better option moving forward from a strict winning perspective but he also seems like a homerun more fun and entertaining option so to me the decision moving forward would be easy.
Rushing Success
Williams – 5 of 13 (38.4%)
Tyree – 0 of 5 (0.0%)
Buchner – 1 of 4 (25.0%)
Pyne – 1 of 3 (33.3%)
Davis – 1 of 1 (100%)
One week after being a hero with his kickoff return touchdown, Chris Tyree doesn’t get a single successful carry and fumbles a kickoff return leading directly to a Cincinnati touchdown. Obviously, the ground game has been virtually a non-factor yet I’m sure Tyree never expected just 98 rushing yards at 3 yards per carry through 5 games this season.
Last year, Williams averaged just under 120 total yards per game and while they got him going in the passing game again against the Bearcats his average for 2021 has dropped to 92.6 yards from scrimmage per game. That includes nearly 10 more yards per game through the air so you can see how little Kyren’s rushing is impacting the offense.
Cincinnati was known to have an excellent secondary and they won this matchup with authority. The Lenzy 32-yard touchdown was the highlight of the day through the air, of course. Outside of that, the wideouts were targeted 24 times for 9 catches and 105 yards. That’s pretty gross, and so was Kevin Austin being dominated all game by Ahmad “Sauce” Gardner with a crippling 4th quarter drop included.
Michael Mayer was out there playing practically on 1 leg and put up a team-leading 93 receiving yards. Let’s pray he’s okay for the future, you could easily see him missing a couple games with that type of muscle injury in his leg.
Defense
DL: B+
LB: C-
DB: D
Things started out so promising! The early deficit faced by Notre Dame certainly wasn’t indicative of the effort from the Irish defense, that’s for sure. Despite falling behind 10-0, Notre Dame had only surrendered 71 yards across 6 series at 2.84 yards per play. I believe at this point in the game through the late 2nd quarter the Bearcats had only managed 1 successful rushing play and looked largely disinterested in testing Notre Dame on the ground.
As time wore on however the playmaking ability of Desmond Ridder proved too much for Notre Dame. The Cincinnati quarterback tied for the game-lead with 6 successful carries and threw several dimes, including some back-breaking chunk plays through the air, to make a big difference between the teams.
Boil this loss down to its essence–Notre Dame shot itself in the foot with some bad turnovers and Cincinnati was far more explosive and efficient throwing the ball.
Stuffs vs. Cincinnati
Ademilola, Justin – 2.5
White – 2
Foskey – 1.5
Ademilola, Jayson – 1
Brown – 1
Cross – 1
Pryor – 1
Bauer – 1
MTA – 0.5
Mills – 0.5
Kiser – 0.5
Hart – 0.5
Notre Dame’s defensive line was stout once again yet Cincinnati never really ran the ball enough for this unit to be super effective and Cincinnati did a pretty decent job either protecting Ridder and/or getting the ball out of the quarterback’s hands quickly enough to neuter any front 7 advantage for the Irish.
The Bearcats definitely exploited some soft spots in the middle of the field while also making plays on the perimeter, too. Clarence Lewis largely covered Cincinnati wide receiver Alec Pierce and gave up a career-day of 6 catches for 144 yards. The Irish offense would kill for that type of explosiveness!
Final Thoughts
Notre Dame is now -0.22 in yards per play differential on the season. It doesn’t really seem like there’s room for things to get a ton better on defense with the soft spots in the secondary so it’s largely going to be up to the offense to boost things over the rest of the season.
In the series to open the 2nd half the Irish averaged 9 yards per play on Drew Pyne’s first 6 snaps only to insert Tyler Buchner on 1st down to get no gain on a run. You know they knew this was a mistake as Buchner didn’t see the field again.
This was one of those games where Notre Dame came dangerously close to ruining the confidence of all 3 quarterbacks. I don’t think they quite got there with Pyne who seems awfully resilient but if I were him I’d be pretty upset about not starting and not even playing in the 1st half. If the fans were booing Buchner I’d imagine things could get a lot worse for Coan.
Count me among those who continues to enjoy the amount of visiting fans in the stands. It adds to the atmosphere and makes the games more entertaining. Also, when opposing fans make that big of an effort they’re usually rowdy folks which is nice for the college aura. Notre Dame remains a destination game for so many fan bases, it is what it is and it’s fine.
Through 5 games, Notre Dame has only entered the red zone 11 times.
When it comes to starting Pyne as mentioned above or doing something like moving on from certain assistants in the off-season I’m kind of that the point where I want something new just to change things up. I know that’s not the way it works from inside the Gug but from a fan consumption standpoint if you don’t absolutely believe your assistants need to stay without foundational cracks appearing let’s try something else. We need to argue about new things.
This off-season was weird because many seemed to get caught up in the need for an upgrade at quarterback (totally fine!) while surmising Jack Coan could be just that over Ian Book, despite little evidence. It was like magical deep balls were going to save the offense even though we didn’t really ever see this during practices leading up to the season.
How weird was it to see Kyle Hamilton get turned around on Cincinnati’s 27-yard touchdown pass?
Kevin Austin is going to come back next year, right? I’m sure he’ll end up with 6oo or 700 yards by season’s end but he’s probably more likely to go undrafted for 2022. There are a lot of good receivers who never get picked and Austin hasn’t proven he’s consistently good yet.
Do you ever wonder what an offense would look like if it ran screens to the running back on 80% of its plays?
The Irish defense continues to be dynamite on 3rd down, although in a losing effort against Cincinnati.
The Bearcats missed 2 very makeable field goals, Doerer missed an extra point, and with Tyree’s fumble it wasn’t a great day for the old special teams.
The AAC is not very good this year. UCF just lost to Navy. Cincinnati misses Houston. Their toughest remaining game might be at Tulane later this month.
I said before the game that this team was primed to get their ass kicked one week and l guess I hope this is it. But with all the three and outs on offense if you combine it with some turnovers it could get rough. I mean the defense isn’t Georgia and can only hold up so long.
I have thought this at a couple different points this year, but are we sure tyree is a good rubbing back. I mean he’s fast and in space he’ll burn ya, but he never makes guys miss and seems to always go down in first contact as a running back.
Agree on offensive staff, they need an overhaul. Not sure if it comes but they are not fun to watch. Like at all.
I was thinking the same thing about tyree. He gets a crease, but its ALWAYS some shoestring miraculous tackle that brings him down, like you have to give that extra bit of “athlete” to stay upright.
I guess he was a big Armando Allen fan growing up.
Fire Del.
I had a whole thing typed up but I just miss Ian Book and Clark Lea very much.
So I’ll ask again in this thread. Did Jordan Botelho play ? No tackles and I don’t remember seeing him. If not do we know why?
4 snaps apparently.
Hurt ? I thought he’d been playing well.
Playing well? He missed the first two games and then the third game I thought coaches said he wasn’t in game shape from the missed time. So he’s only had two games where he’s been available. Though against Wisc he did play 29 snaps (and was decent). Maybe a scheme thing against Cinci? Not ready to do all that he needed to do mentally? I have no idea.
Seems like he’s going to be consistently inconsistent both in playing time and production.
Notre Dame yards/play:
3.7 in first half
5.5 in second
Coan is too immobile to operate this offense behind that o-line. Jamie U had a tweet that after a blistering start in the first 11 drives of the season Coan has just about completely sputtered out (57 points in last 43 drives, 37% 3-and-out rate).
And despite starting the wrong QB, making a litany of mistakes and all, ND was only down 4 points at one point in crunch time, so uhh, that’s maybe that’s a backhanded compliment?
Frustrating but not inexplicable. This was likely the best team we face all year. Looks like Stanford and Kentucky may be sneaky good, but if you’re Oregon or Florida you can’t be feeling great about losing to worse teams.
And Clemson barely eking out a win over BC? Going to be an interesting year for parity. Outside of Alabama, anyone else getting in that has multiple playoff appearances? Georgia’s only been once. Oklahoma looks vulnerable every week, Clemson’s out, Penn State and Iowa look tough. Alabama/Georgia/PSU/Cincinnati would be pretty wild.
I’m with the crowd who’s half glad we got this loss out of the way early enough to start getting guys reps for next year, even if we lose one or two (or Stanford!) three more times. Outside of the QB, we know what Austin and Lenzy are, let’s see Colzie and Styles.
What the heck happened to Cain Madden, btw?
Madden seems like a big evaluation miss, I guess. Maybe that his 2 finalists for transfer were some of the most needy teams in terms of depth was a red flag 🙂
Yea apparently good play against Marshall’s schedule doesn’t easily transfer to playing against the talent that we play against. Probably matters more with linemen than other positions.
Yeah, I wonder if he doesn’t get PFF hype and pushed to “All American” status if that’s even a thing. ND far from the only ones to push Madden as some hidden gem.
But what was the other choice, practice/play Gibbons as a starter at guard so he doesn’t transfer out? Not like that would have been a success either.
To be fair, it seems many hoped that Coan wouldn’t so much be an upgrade over book but rather than more deep balls would offset the lack of mobility. And most of us don’t have any idea what is happening really in practices leading up to the season. The thing few of us saw coming would be just how bad the OL is. Behind this OL, such a hope would be a fantasy. You need someone like Book with mobility rather than a statue back there.
True, but deep passes just aren’t that big of any offense to off-set a mobile QB.
I was watching OSU this weekend and they finished with 333 passing yards and 5 touchdowns with really no deep passes. But, there was lots of YAC and their receivers did a lot of damage on short and intermediate routes.
Well in theory why couldn’t deep passes off-set a mobile QB?
Because deep passes are difficult to consistently connect on and therefore are far more rare. You need a QB with a strong, accurate arm and receivers to beat the secondary deep. A good line to protect and savvy play-calling. And, a defense can pretty safely protect itself against deep passes.
Plus, if you have really good receivers you’re going to rely much more heavily on short passes anyway. For example, Bama vs. ND last year.
Bama the last few years would beg to differ.
Do they, though?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQhkbY14Q54
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNxuD-69XWQ
Ok, so it can make up for the lack of mobility – you are just saying it is hard to do. Which I agree with. Though sometimes it seems that there are some QBs who are more accurate throwing deep than they are at the intermediate routes.
Yup, I view it as one of the last pieces to a dominant offense not something to really build upon as a foundation.
I didn’t really think that completions on deep balls would offset QB rushing. The issue with Book was more that he rarely took those shots, which allowed opponents to focus on defending less territory. So it wasn’t really the passes themselves but the realistic threat of completing them which would theoretically open more space for short and intermediate stuff. Of course, (1) Coan hasn’t been particularly adept with the deep balls, and (2) our OL isn’t often giving the quarterback enough time to execute something that requires that amount of time to develop.
You also need our coaching staff to be better at diagnosing what they’re seeing in practice. Picking a slow, immobile pocket passer out of the transfer portal was a terrible decision with this OL. Yeah, hindsight is 20/20, but these guys get paid a hell of a lot of money to foresee shit like this.
O I was talking about the fandom not the coaches.
Though it’s not always easy to see perfectly ahead to what your weaknesses will be exactly. Look at the NFL who gets a choice of different players and scout them, etc. and they still mess it up more than not.
One thing not mentioned: Bertrand was exposed.
Eh, exposed is a bit harsh for someone who has played well this season.
He certainly stood out in the wrong way on Cincy’s last TD drive but, he has been playing well.
Pretty telling we are all “pyneing” for a QB who completed only 45% of his passes.
On the bright side Cam Hart is turning into a really good CB.
It was definitely not lost on me in the stadium that Cincinnati was repeatedly and unmercifully targeting Clarence Lewis and not so much the other side of the field.
As I said in the instant reaction comments C Lewis had a rough go of it and that was being kind. He seems much bigger/thicker this year which is not good from a moving your hips standpoint for DB’s.
Also on the QB’s for next year:
Let’s hope Walker Howard was blown away by the ineptness of the QBs and thinks he has a shot to start next year. (Not sure if he has that opportunity at LSU.)
Coan will be gone. Pyne seems to have a low ceiling (though is perhaps the best we have right now). And Buchner has not looked comfortable throwing the ball. It’s one thing for a freshmen to not have the mental side of the game down but for someone who might start next year you should at least have the physical side down (super small sample size alert however). He’s also not that agile. Sure if you get him in open space he has some speed but agility is typically a little more important for a QB in the pocket. Look he might turn into the next great QB at ND. But next year? That’s ALOT to ask.
One thing is for certain (looking around college football this year): finding and developing a good QB is not certain and not easy. So many factors come in to play. Who thought DJ at Clemson would be so bad? (PFF has graded him worse than Coan this year!)
Buchner’s limited experience even in high school (one season) may be showing. The game must seem incredibly fast to him.
Howard didn’t make it to ND and the game. I believe he broke his fibula in his last game Friday night. It remains to be seen if he’ll reschedule.
Good point about missed experience. Which would lend support to thinking he may not be ready next year either.
Bummer about Howard. Yea one doubts he’ll re-schedule.
Well he won’t be playing so maybe ??
mots self-reply
Interesting tidbit about QB play and parity this year. Last year the top 17 QBs (those who had a PFF passing grade of 80 or higher) – roughly half were from what I’d consider the usual top blue blood teams. This year out of 18 with that grade – only 2 (Bama and Oklahama)!
And Rattler has been pretty unimpressive outside of Western Carolina
yea he was near the bottom of that 18. Apparently he was also good in Sat’s game against K. St. But you are right the other 3 games were less than stellar.
That is just more evidence for how hard good QB play is to find.
He did set the record for OU completion % (88%), but had 243 yds, 2 TDs and 1 INT. His completion % is way up this year, but every other metric is down, especially yards/completion (dropped 4 yards). I’ve watched a couple games and he looks…fine. Kind of like Drew Pyne on a way better offense.
His PFF grades are worse this year than they were last year by a decent margin. His grades last year would put in the top 2 this year. Instead he’s around 17 (part of that is the running grade though).
WHAT IS HAPPENING THIS YEAR???? There just isn’t much great football being played anywhere
I’ve always loved watching OU under Riley, because you know the game is going to end 40-39, but they are sooo boring this year.
One thing I wondered is whether Covid is actually having an effect THIS YEAR. The guys affected last year were actually the inexperienced, younger players who missed a whole spring and maybe some summer so they didn’t develop as they normally would. But those guys were not the ones who would have been playing a lot last year. But they are now this year.
Not sure, just a shot in the dark about it.
Makes sense to me.
I hope Buchner realizes that people were booing the coaching decision to insert him for that one play rather than booing him. I guess that’s a fine line, but that was my impression, anyway.
For sure, but you never know how a player will react to that type of embarrassment. I know it might bum me out!
That was a head scratcher. Just as things seemed to be turning, it put Pyne in a tough spot….If that bothers Buchner to any extent, he’s going to have a tough time at ND.
Head scratcher is being kind, putting Buchner back in at that moment was a terrible coaching decision. It was easy to predict that would have a very high probability of derailing the drive, and that’s what happened.
I agree. I’d just like to hear the true reasoning behind it.
In real time I was so confused by the decision I thought it had to be an equipment issue of some sort. I didn’t go back to rewatch because I just can’t bring myself to watch any of that again 🙁
I found the play calling really poor. Last week we accepted the difficulty of running and basically didn’t try.
This week we wasted the 1st half. It seemed like we didn’t take Cincinnati seriously and felt this was the time to try to establish the run game and give Buchner a few series. Whoops.
There was discussion pre game that Cincy was weak up the middle.
Also, you have to hope this Oline might improve some week to week. It looks like a couple other guys might get a shot to do better.
Maybe. But down 17 you may need to stop hoping.
Also I can’t fathom why Buchner played before Pyne. Letting his first passes come on 3rd and long against a good D is a weird choice.
The personnel usage remains deeply frustrating. Why not bring Coan back in on 3rd and long rather than trying to get Buchner to complete his first pass?
Why do the 2 freshmen WRs only come in as a package deal? Why not let one of them come in with Austin and Lenzy to take some of the pressure off?
Why do we continue to use our best pass rusher (Foskey) as a drop LB when we go to our dumb prevent defense?
Why not try Kyle Hamilton out on offense when inside the 10 yard line? We’re miserable down there.
Why have we completely given up on getting Lenzy the ball moving laterally? No screens, no jet sweeps, no shallow drag routes. He was so good on those jet sweeps 2 years ago.
Ditto on the jet sweep thing. We could use some misdirection to slow opposing D lines down. I feel like we should fake a jet sweep to Lenzy or Tyree nearly every play, kinda like Navy uses halfback motion to keep other teams off balance.
If I’m an opposing defense and see a fake to Lenzy on a jet sweep, then a fake pitch to Tyree the other way, then release Meyer into the second level, I’ve got a lot of things to worry about within one second of the snap. You can still get Davis or Austin on a pass, or go two backs and have Kyren in the backfield for a draw or shovel pass…
Do you think that was a Kelly call or did Rees do it?
I have no idea but, Kelly surely could have stopped it.
I don’t see how you can say this was a better effort by the oline. They stunk. Whoever 76 is in particular looked terrible.
They are the reason Coan is ineffective and the run game sucks. Williams is a bonafide top tier rb and he’s got no room to run. Tyree is also stymied. I worry that Williams will transfer. Staying behind this line is not giving him the opportunity to showcase his skills and earn his way to the NFL.
IMO your comments liking the presence of so many opposing team fans being in the stands rather than ND fans is a loser mentality. There is a reason home field should be an advantage, because the crowd effects the game. Florida almost beat Bama due to crowd support, Penn State has its white outs, Saban implored Bama fans to show up and be vocal this week vs Ole Miss etc.
If you’re happy that a significant portion of the crowd at home is anti ND I don’t think you understand that aspect of the sport.
Blaming anything on yesterday’s result due to the big, bad Cincinnati fans is about as much of a loser mentality as you can find.
Kiwi’s absolutely right. That’s the reason Alabama has such a poor record on the road and in neutral site games. (By my count, of Saban’s 21 losses, only 7 road games – 2 in his first season, 3 others were top 10 teams. He’s also 15-1 in games in Atlanta.)
You missed my point. Are you being obtuse, which you are want to do?? I never said they cost us the game, but they didn’t help. A raucous, full home crowd makes a difference that helps the home team. It may not result in a win (see FLA vs Bama this year), but it makes it tough on the visitors and encourages the home team.
Vegas thinks its worth about 3 points, but not if the fans don’t show up.
I did not miss your point, it was just terrible a point.
Maybe we have a crappy, frustrating team with tickets that cost twice as much as they should.
I imagine it doesn’t look great to recruits either…
Admittedly, I haven’t been recruited to play ND football in the past 20+ years, so things might have changed, but isn’t the ND recruiting pitch what happens the other 164 hours of the week outside of Notre Dame Stadium? In addition to the 40 years after graduating?
Any recruit who visits ND, gets the tour, sees the facilities, meets with the team & coaches, gets ready to commit and then notices there’s opposing fans in the stadium and then calls Saban to head down to Tuscaloosa was never going to go to ND in the first place.
True, I’m sure seeing a lot of true freshmen get into the games (especially one of their brothers) means a lot more than the crowd splits of fans. A lot of those guys will be back for USC or other games too, this won’t be their only experience. I doubt it’s a big deal to the average recruit about who the people in the stands were, plenty of more important factors to consider.
Nobody cares about who bought tickets to this shitshow. If Cincy fans want to spend $150 per ticket or whatever, fine. It’s their money.
if our fans were more committed the offense would magically work.
I think you know that’s a facile and sophist reaction to what I actually said.
What’s your point? We have no homefield advantage? You may have heard this, but Cincy snapped a four-plus year home winning streak.
I still have eligibility, put me in at LT.
I’m presuming this is getting downvoted for the fan comments, because the offensive line comment is exactly right. The QBs look terrible because our offensive line is terrible, and the defenses can account for that. Our offensive line grade for this game should be a D-.
Coan is not a bad QB if you give him time. He has no time. They shouldn’t play him because Pyne can evade pressure better, but that’s ultimately an offensive line problem more than a QB problem.
My downvote was for the fan comment. Thought it was a facile and sophist reaction.
I agree, the qb play is directly related to the poor O line play this year. I worry that just trying new players will make things worse. I’m not sure if the O line changes were due to poor play or injuries. Either way, it’s diacouraging. Hopefully, we can make it through this week and get things somewhat fixed during the bye week.
The line has been more or less average in pass pro the whole year. It feels a lot worse than it actually is because we’ve gotten used to watching dominant ND lines, but I think the reality is that Coan has made the line look much worse than it actually is. He may just not be a good QB, because most QBs do get pressured and have to make plays anyway!
this is an important correction to its ALL on the OL. Coan seems to be historically bad at having some kind of pocket awareness.
Coan is not a particularly good QB, though. His arm has not proven to be either strong or accurate enough to justify the high level of maintenance required to keep him from walking into sacks. Dude looks like current-day Ben Roethlisberger back there.
I might buy this “it’s Coan’s fault” theory, if the Oline could run block at all. Are you going to blame that crap storm on our running backs ?
Why can’t we blame the OL AND Coan?
Makes sense to me. It’s very obvious the line can’t get a push or block for run well given how RB yards before contact I believe is still negative, which almost defies logic.
But the advanced stats are very clear that Coan has 21 sacks against and based on pressures allowed should have probably 1/3 or 1/4 of that. I suspect if Pyne does start, the sacks will be way down.
They both should share blame.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a QB have so little pocket awareness or ability to move out of the way of the rush. I mean a QB doesn’t have to be Michael Vick to take a few steps one way or the other to avoid the rush sometimes. We used to call some QBs statues but Coan is the most statue like I’ve ever seen I think.
Did you go to the game? The Cincy contingent wasn’t nearly as large as it looks in the highlights. They filled up their ticket allotment and had maybe 5 percent of the remaining seats. Red just stands out soooooo much better than green on TV. I think if we want to actually do a color-out we have to pick something other than green and we have to commit to advertising it.
Navy is probably worse than green. Would have to be some type of bright, vomit inducing, yellow.
I think we should just bite the bullet and do white. It’s not unique but at least it would look good.
My ND gameday gear is actually white, so I support this.
It’s an away jersey from about 20 years ago, with the hideous gold down the sides (well used to have gold, now it’s basically a faded white jersey).
“When it comes to starting Pyne as mentioned above or doing something like moving on from certain assistants in the off-season”
whynotboth.gif
I’ve been as Pyne-skeptical as anybody, and I anticipate some backbreaking interceptions from him given the floaters he throws… but we’re getting backbreaking interceptions from Coan too.
It’s an indictment of the Rees QB coaching era and the offensive line situation (however you want to ascribe this between Heistand apparently given up recruiting in 2017 combined with recruiting misevaluations and/or bad development from Quinn; I lean towards the latter but YMMV) that Pyne is the best option for this team right now. But it is what it is.
Put Pyne in, show Quinn and Alexander the door, get a separate QB coach who is not Tommy Rees (or, if they’re really bold, show Tommy the door; I’m in the process of being persuaded by the ND Analytics Twitter feed that he’s not good at this), and have hope for next year with a more experienced QB and having recruited the Ademilola bros to come back.
I’m ready to move on from Tommy. He wasn’t qualified when he was hired, but the selling point was that he had a good relationship with Kelly and was pragmatic — he’d play to his players’ strengths and wouldn’t cook up the Certified Brain Genius Chip Long gameplans.
And that worked until it didn’t. He’s been irrational and stubborn this season and I do not see how we’re going to get to his desired offense.
Depends who is out there. If they could have gotten a Morehead caliber OC, then sure. But idk what may or may not be feasible options. I think Tommy’s having to call games with major limitations and weaknesses right now. I don’t really have much a problem with his job one way or the other.
I do kinda wonder what Rees’ five year career plan is, though. Where does he see himself down the line? Does he go back to the NFL at some point? In his mind is he the potential successor to Kelly in 3-4 years? (Which sounds far-fetched, but, in his mind..) Or a HC at a smaller school to build up?
I’m sort of willing to give Rees a pass because it’s not his fault the offensive line is a train wreck. It’s amazing how hopeless it feels rooting for a team with a terrible line – it’s been a long time since we had to do it.
It’s likely more than a little his fault that our QB picture isn’t better right now, though.
I’m with you on the QB. Pyne is best now (not saying much) but I’m skeptical as a long-term solution. And I’m very pessimistic what the next two years of QB play will look like.
I don’t see a reason Alexander should stay since he’s had a few years of little production – though he has picked up the WR recruiting last year and this year.
It’s a little tougher for me to see the same about Quinn considering it is one bad year. Though maybe on closer inspection his recruiting hasn’t been that great? I’d have to look to be sure. And again lack of production, it’s been just one year (esp. with perhaps not being set up well with previous coach recruiting). I’m sure someone on the ground could determine whether Quinn is not coaching well enough and that he should go but I don’t think we – not on the ground – have enough to go on.
The reason our offensive line is bad right now is the 2018 class was bad (mostly HH’s fault), the 2019 class is bad (Quinn’s fault), the 2020 class is at least half-bad and did not have much depth (Quinn’s fault), and the 2021 class are true freshmen. He has had some serious talent identification and/or developmental problems, and the trajectory is quite bad.
The Irish Illustrated guys, who are pretty hesitant to jump on the “fire X” train, all but say he is a bad coach with some regularity on their podcast. The last person they did that with was BVG. I think that’s instructive.
Jeez, that last part is alarming.
As a fellow 09 alum I think you can imagine the heartburn the thought of going back to annual poor OL play gives me.
I’ve never thought they’ve talked this way, in fact a bit of the opposite.
I don’t think I fully understand Eric’s response here but I agree with the original post. The II guys are always very reserved in outright criticism of coaches or ever indicating they should be replaced but 2-3 weeks ago they said Quinn shouldn’t have been hired in the first place and he should be replaced this off season. I feel like I never hear them talk like that so it really jumped out at me.
Upon re reading Eric, pretty sure he and I are saying the exact same thing that the II guys actively avoid that level of criticism
They’ll say guys are bad *recruiters* (Lyght, Denson), but to my recollection in the last seven years or so the only guys they’ve said are bad *coaches* are BVG, very very light hints about Scott Booker as a TE coach, and Quinn.
Well that is instructive if true. If Quinn is fired I certainly won’t be upset about it. I’m just saying from what I can see it’s clear he should leave. Though others our obviously in a better position to judge. If he really is that bad. I hope he does get fired.
They said Quinn shouldn’t have been hired and that he should be replaced? I’ve missed a couple pods but I haven’t heard that. I definitely can’t see Prister saying that. I do recall them talking about the veterans liking Heistand and therefore Quinn may not have been a super popular choice for the players.
Yep think it was post Toledo or maybe post Purdue. I was genuinely surprised by it. In my 5 years of listening to podcasts it was pretty out of character. Mostly him and Sampson driving the convo if I remember correctly
Prister and O’Malley also said quite forcefully that Quinn shouldn’t be hired back at the time when it happened, which was a treatment that I don’t think any of the position coaches or coordinators (including BVG) got in real time.
That’s pretty surprising. I wonder how they knew at that time he was such a bad coach. Hasn’t he worked with Kelly for years at various places?
I dunno what they thought, but Quinn was exactly the kind of hire that’s gotten Kelly in trouble in the past — old GVSU buddy.
Well it happened once anyway with BVG. But not sure why that necessarily means it happens again with some old coaching “buddy.”
One would think we could grab whoever the elite up and coming OL coach is.
And BVG was a complete disaster and Kelly had to be forced to fire him.
One would think we could do exactly that — but Kelly didn’t, and that’s why the hire was a red flag, at least in my view.
I see what you mean. That makes sense.
IIRC when Quinn was hired the II guys just thought Kelly should have found a OL coach from outside his coaching tree. They thought it a typical Kelly hire and were worried it would get typical results. (BVG, Molnar)
We interviewed some other candidates at the time Quinn was hired, and none of the outsiders was at all impressive from what I remember. Others here may remember more of the particulars.
Also, Mike Elston was also a “GVSU buddy” and is not only one of our best assistants but also probably one of the best in the business. And it’s not like all of the outside hires have been winners, either.
I have no idea about this podcast, but appreciate the subtlety of this comment.
I guess I’m not ready to pass judgment on the 2020 OL class because they are only in their 2nd year (a lost spring to covid too) and we typically don’t expect OL to play until their 3rd year for a reason.
Fair enough, but at this point it feels pretty safe to say that Tosh Baker is not going to be a good player given how not-good he is right now. If you’re feeling generous and squint real hard, you can hope that he might be a couple years from being an average starter… but that he has gotten passed up by a true freshman (maybe multiple true freshmen) and his classmate makes rendering judgment seem fairly reasonable to me. And he’s half the 2020 OL class.
Next year is still a little scary on the OL if these young guys don’t improve a lot over the offseason.
Patterson can technically come back right for a 5th year? But will he? We need him badly to come back to have at least 5 guys who seem like they could at least develop into an average starter.
Fisher-Spindler-Correll-????- Carmody
With Alt and Baker as backup tackles. But who else will play in the interior? Maybe that’s why they are trying to get Kristofic snaps this year. But that is VERY thin at best.
Could certainly use a Zach Rice to plug in at right tackle next year.
Considering how much he’s playing as a true freshman, I’d be willing to be Alt will be starting next year at some position on the line, perhaps RT. I don’t see why Carmody couldn’t kick in and be a pretty decent guard, so I’d probably at your idea and squeeze Carmody in an have Alt at tackle.
Well that would be great. I have a hard time knowing who *could* play guard or not. Those guys are pretty tall. But if Carmody could play guard (which is probably easier for him too) with Alt playing tackle, that might solidify two spots then.
That would be the youngest line we’ve probably ever had no?
Fisher (So.) – Spindler (So.) – Correll (Sr.) – Carmody (Jr.) – Alt (So.)
Starting 3 soph???? But it could work out given our current situation. It also means the line could be pretty good with this crew for a good 2-3 years.
What coach do you get rid of if you bring in a qb coach? TE would be the only option.
We do not need a cornerbacks coach and a safeties coach. Or, alternatively, yes, we could to TE/special teams as one coach.
I seriously doubt we’ll be kicking either Mickens or O’Leary to the curb just to bring in a specialized QB coach.
And how many voices and coaches does the QB need? As long as Kelly’s in charge, he’s the QB coach in many ways. He’s adapted the CEO mentality a bit more, but just by nature there’s a HC who is very invested in the position. Don’t need but so many cooks in the kitchen.
Rewatched this game a few times this weekend and I realized what the key to ND’s loss was. I took my dog’s Notre Dame collar off on Friday evening to wash her tags off and didn’t put it back on until Sunday night.
“Rewatched this game a few times this weekend”
Found the masochist
I didn’t rewatch the game even once (Actually only saw the first half). But I do voluntarily coach my 4-year-old daughter’s soccer team, so your findings are still correct.
I expect this to get lost at the bottom, but a few thoughts:
I like your points here. Then o-line performance is weird. Like do we really have a bottom 10% oline? I mean even if you weren’t trying to coach that hard, with this talent, you could luck yourself into a top 50 oline production right?
Jeff quinn is maybe at fault? Though I will say even Harry H had bad games with great oline e.g. uga and Miami 2017.
The opposing crowd opinion by the writer- I get his angle but I think I would still prefer a louder, home crowd environment. Its like saying having a smaller weiner is actually a good thing….maybe, but i think I’d prefer a bigger one
Hard to argue with that analogy.
Disagree that we *only* have next year to play for – which is what is implied by playing Buchner the rest of the year. It seems he is FAR from ready and that would turn a potential 10-2 season into 8-4/7-5 season. That kind of thing affects recruiting. I’m fine with trying to develop Buchner if he’s able to run the whole offense or only putting him in select situations (like not on 3rd and longs). But we can’t do that if it significantly affects the wins/losses this year.
Yeah, I def agree. Doesn’t look like Buchner has a command of the offense or the entire playbook yet. Maybe they just haven’t put enough on his plate because there’s only so many practice reps to go around. I don’t think it’s Buchner time just yet. Could be a different story if they’re like 6-3 going into the last three games, maybe at that point you switch gears, but we’re not there yet.
It’s a bad message to the vets and the whole team right now to make a clear “look to the future” move for a 3rd string QB who isn’t going to give the best chance to win right now at 4-1. Team still has (reasonably) attainable goals on the table for another double digit winning year, NY6 bowl, gotta play the best players for now.
That’s not only the best for the players now but I think best for the program too long-term.
Besides, there is no guarantee that Buchner is the one who takes the starting reins next year or even the year after. Sadly the best QB still could be Pyne.
Less heralded QB recruit proving to be best option but also setting cap on just how far the team can go? Feels like we’ve been trapped in this timeline since Rees himself, so you’re probably right, why would we escape it now?
Who knows? Even Angeli could come in and be better next year. Or maybe there is some crazy talented transfer coming from a small program that excels at ND. (Not that I’m holding my breath). QB stuff is just a crapshoot.
Why is it so hard to just stick a highly recruited qb in place here, and let them flourish? Pete Sampson said in his podcast that buchner is not comfortable throwing the ball yet. How are you “not comfortable” to throw a football? You’re a qb at THE division 1 college football program, it is literally the only thing that you should be comfortable with….
Even the highest QB recruits have a pretty decent fail rate at the collegiate level. If it were so easy as to just plug young QB in and have him flourish, that would take care of itself..A bit more complicated than that.
haha yea it is surprising but Hooks is right. It happens EVERYWHERE. And most of the QBs who are good in college football have been playing for a few years – so they are mostly seniors/grad students.
Maybe because he only played one season of high school football?
I guess I think this is the difference between the championship coaches (Saban, Meyer, Dabo, Belichick) they overall are very good at cutting bait and moving on.
I’m not sure it has that big of an impact on recruiting especially if there’s a clear direction of where you’re going as a program. Let’s face it the 2022 class is mostly buttoned up at this point sans a few people who will likely drop (Walker) and may not sign. I don’t think 8-4 with Buchner makes a difference over 10-2 with Pyne as far as recruiting goes. Hell look at the winning we’ve done with Book and we haven’t moved the needle a ton for recruiting.
I fully admit and that I’m probably wrong and that Buchner isn’t probably ready. I also fully believe that Pyne is a fine QB, but he’s not beating OSU, Clemson, and winning 2 playoff games next year. I think that should be the goal starting today. I also think if the schedule were tougher this year and we had an opportunity to get back into the playoff picture I would love if they went with Pyne.
Belichick never plays anyone who isn’t the absolute best option to win that game. He is notorious for not playing rookies and people with more upside who aren’t ready.
Belichick was more of a response to Hooks comment regarding the vets “It’s a bad message to the vets and the whole team right now to make a clear “look to the future” move for a 3rd string QB who isn’t going to give the best chance to win right now at 4-1.”
He’s also 1-3 so far this year with a rookie QB who he believes is going to give him the best chance to win more super bowls.
Look I’m not saying I’m infallible. It’s my opinion that Tyler Buchner needs to play with a full game plan if ND & Brian Kelly are serious about winning a NC in the next 4 to 6 years. I’d be very fine with being wrong and Pyne getting in there and we put up 500 yards of total offense and I’ll come back here and tell you I was wrong.
You mean like Kelly cut bait on Wimbush at 4-0 and went with Book who he figured/knew would make the offense better?
That aside, I don’t have a problem with your rationale in theoretical form, it’s just more the application of this situation. There’s just nothing worth “moving on” to yet. Buchner has played very little football in the last 3 falls, it sure doesn’t look like he’s in a position to succeed as the full time starter.
IMO, it’s pretty clear Buchner isn’t Tua or Trevor where he’s clearly ready to play as a true freshman, given how far behind Buchner came into the program. If anything, he’s more (hopefully) like a Bryce Young where he mostly sits for a year, learns the offense and can hit the ground running for 2022.
If you start Buchner now and he struggles mightily, that doesn’t make Notre Dame more likely to beat Clemson, tOSU et al, next year simply because Buchner has played more games. Getting bad experience and struggling isn’t a wise path for developing a young QB.
Good point Juicebox.
Plus the recruiting issue isn’t so much for 2022 but 2023 and beyond. Though even in 2022 the guys that commit towards the end are some elite prospects. Even having one extra of those guys (every year) makes a big difference.
Totally agree. As soon as we hit loss number 4/a 10-win season is out of play, that’s when you pack it in and play for next year. But if that doesn’t happen, you have to do what gives you the best chance to win this year, and only use future eligibility as a tiebreaker.
Yeah, funny how people are cool with “playing for next season” until we lose 3 in a row. Drop one to GT or Navy and watch that chatter dry up in a hurry.
This is an absolutely insane thing to think an 18-21 year old would think about/notice minutes before playing a huge game.
Is it that insane? Do you think penn state players don’t notice their fans during a white out and the unequivocal advantage it provides?
Didn’t PSU lose edit (a bunch) white out games in a row at one point? It provides a cool backdrop and great energy, but the recruits aren’t living and dying based on game atmosphere and neither is the outcome of the game. (At the same time, yeah it would be cooler and better if Notre Dame had a better game atmosphere then what they currently have)
https://www.sportingnews.com/us/ncaa-football/news/penn-states-white-out-game-explained/3xa0osdcv0tw1ptayro5o1un6
Table didn’t paste correctly, but they’re 9-8 (including this year’s with Wisconsin) in White Out games. Who gives a crap.
“No we don’t want a white out at happy valley. We actually just want a fun atmosphere for a family get away destination game”
Don’t know if Happy Valley is a great spot to take the kids
And thats fine and true And it is cool ND is a bucket list destination
I see what you did there and I liked it
I would upvote this 10x if I could.
Haha I don’t mean five minutes before the game and it’s not like it was a surprise that Cincinnati was going to have a ton of fans there. I don’t think it’s the difference between a win and a loss. But you can’t tell me as an athlete you’re that pumped up looking up and seeing 20K red shirts in your stadium when it was supposed to be a “green out”. How can you not just roll your eyes at it all?
I don’t think it was the difference between a win and a loss on Saturday. But I do think it is a situation that needs to be looked at. Hell, Brian Kelly is frustrated with it (his comments on not a sold out game against Toledo) so I’m sure his feelings are felt throughout the team.
Brian Kelly can go eat a butt if he’s not thrilled there are fewer people willing to venture into a large, unmasked, vaccination-status unknown crowd to watch a football game.
The main comments that I saw really were (paraphrased) “selling tickets is someone else’s responsibility, I got enough shit to worry about as it is” so I’m not really sure he said what the original poster apparently thinks he said.
There were NOT 20, 000 red shirts at the stadium on Saturday. Yes, there were a fair amount, but nowhere close to over 25% of the fans. Maybe 8-10, 000. They stand out because they all were wearing red and red stands out more than a mix of green, blue, white, and whatever other colors ND fans were wearing.
I guarantee OSU will be the same next year. Why? Because ND is a great game for any visiting fan to go to, Ohio is close by, and….. They wear red, too.
Heh, I would just like to point out that 15-20K opposing fans (there weren’t that many anyway) makes the players not able to play their hearts out but starting a true freshman quarterback and likely guaranteeing 3-4 more losses, well that’s A-OK.
Forgot to hit “reply” – comment deleted
Kelly’s comments on the QB situation for this weekend are very Kelly-like. After a couple days I’m not sure what I would do if I were the staff. I get the transition to Pyne gives you more of a 2-dimensional threat back there but is starting him on the road, at night, in Blacksburg the best idea following a loss? I dunno, I guess that’s why they make a lot more money than I do.
If Pyne is the best option for this team right now then he’s the best option. Doesn’t matter where ND is playing. Besides, the guy seems to carry himself with a lot of confidence. If anything he might relish playing in a road environment.
Good points Andy. Gotta do what’s best for the team right now.