Anyone stupid enough to get sucked in to anything after the Marshall game (I include myself among this group) probably deserved to see what they saw today.
Any prayer of this being a remotely successful season went up in smoke Saturday as Notre Dame lost a pathetic 16-14 game to a Stanford team that hadn’t beaten an FBS team in more than a year.
I can’t emphasize enough, this was a miserable, pathetic, worthless, inexcusable performance by a rudderless team that might be circling the drain. Crappy teams beat Stanford with regularity and with ease. This team played well for two possessions of the game and utterly sucked every other one. The fact that they still came close to winning anyway is a mark of how friggin’ awful Stanford is and underscores how horrific this loss is.
Finding ways to lose
Bad teams find ways to lose. Notre Dame saw Audric Estime fumble just when things started to look normal again. Notre Dame saw the defense miss or just plain ignore about 7,500 tackles in the first half. Notre Dame committed stupid penalties that would be inexcusable in week 1 (hello Chris Tyree lining up wrong to create an ineligible man downfield penalty). Notre Dame let the same stupid one-back shotgun formation result in key gains by Stanford’s Casey Filkins – there’s a Stanford name if there ever was one – over and over again. (His numbers weren’t even good, but they were good enough.)
This crap was inexcusable against Marshall. As one of our writers said, it’s even more inexcusable now because it happened after Marshall.
There are serious, serious questions about Marcus Freeman now. This is the second absolute crapshow of a performance he’s submitted, and frankly I’m being charitable by not lumping Cal in as one too.
(Only because I feel like I should, I will bring up the officiating here, which saw a horrendous fumble overturn that benefited Stanford, a no-call or two that benefited ND and a head-scratching holding call on DL Chris Smith that was never explained because God forbid NBC serve the fans watching its crappy product. None of it makes any of this acceptable, but it’s worth a footnote to say the refs sucked too.)
The offense is a disaster
It turns out anything you thought was going well after North Carolina and BYU were just mirages created by playing North Carolina and BYU. This team still sucks donkey doo on offense and can’t do anything well with consistency except for Michael Mayer on that side of the ball.
They can’t run consistently, especially in short yardage. They obviously can’t pass consistently, as Drew Pyne went right back to the hot mess he was for just about the entire Cal game today. They can’t create big plays unless Tobias Merriweather is on the field. They really just can’t do much of anything.
This Stanford team was getting trucked by every offense it played. Notre Dame had two good drives.
How bad will it get?
The only remaining question is how bad will this get?
This can’t be overstated – Marshall and Stanford are two of the worst football teams that have ever defeated Notre Dame. Ever. Marshall has proven to be a bad Sun Belt team with its results since South Bend. Stanford is a gong show that hasn’t beaten another FBS team in over a year. Notre Dame fans cannot assume a win in any game the rest of this season.
It doesn’t matter that UNLV has not one scintilla of the talent ND does. It doesn’t matter that Boston College is an offensive disaster because ND is too. It doesn’t matter that their lines outweigh Navy’s by however many pounds. Clearly, these Irish can lose to any and all of those teams.
Reiterating: There are serious questions. Freeman is at a crisis point. Whether he can fix it probably determines whether he succeeds at any acceptable level at Notre Dame. That’s not what you want to hear and it’s not what I want to say, but it’s true. We’re at a crossroads.
It really cannot be overstated how badly Tommy Rees has screwed up the QB room. If a solid grad transfer, or JJ McCarthy, or even Drew Allar, is on the roster we probably win that game (and maybe Marshall too). Rees is clearly in the Lyght/Denson/Alexander wing of “coaches who kept their jobs too long in a manner that ultimately comes to hurt the program”, and the only real question is whether he is closer to BVG level than those three.
I strongly suspect he won’t be fired tomorrow, but it should be considered. To the point of this article, Freeman needs to do something differently, and there is no chance Rees can be with the program next year. Might as well make the inevitable immediate, in my view.
He probably won’t be fired tomorrow but your point is correct, and it should be considered for that reason. The QB room is bad and Pyne is one hit away from it probably being an absolute disaster scenario.
I imagine freeman will try not to make any panic type moves here but man, things are not looking good for him.
Probably right after early signing day. Try to keep the class together as much as possible.
I can’t help but think we are playing down to our competition and it is costing us games. ND was fired up and ready to play BYU, same for Ohio St (albeit, rusty). Their losses to the two worse teams they have played is either the coaches or the players, or both not taking the game serious. Something has to change in preparation to instill that passion/ focus/ determination every week. Then we might see the 47 – 17 blowouts we expect. Right now, Freeman, et al aren’t delivering. There is a lack of discipline or something in the program right now.
I can’t imagine it’s actually much of a factor at all, but part of me wants to blame the pre-game mass for exactly the reason some previous players mentioned: it can hinder the team’s ability to get hype/stay focused for the game.
Very silly thing to blame, I know, but the irrational part of my brain isn’t silent.
How to go from “8-10 win season” to “gonna have to claw our way to bowl eligibility” in one miserable evening. I have no idea how to fix this team
One step forward and six steps back.
Ah well. Maybe someday Notre Dame will get serious about offensive football.
I was offended watching it
I think it’s wayyyy to early to start throwing dirt on Freeman’s grave and even insinuating we’re at a crossroads. It’s his 6th game and the defense has played well enough in every single game, including Ohio State, to win. The only crossroads this program is at is if Jack Swarbrick is going to let Freeman part ways with the Rees clan because if he doesn’t then Freeman is coaching with concrete boots on.
I said after the UNC game that Rees was still terrible and was chided for being too pessimistic. He’s not good and he only marginally outperforms the opposing teams defensive averages. Tonight and Marshall he seemingly came in trying to hide things for future games and then scrambled at the end to try and win. Just like as a player, he vastly overestimates his abilities and thinks he’s way better than what he is.
Rees has been a dog crap recruiter as well. Been on the staff since 2017. ND has signed Phil Jurkovec, Brendan Clark, Drew Pyne, Tyler Buchner, and Steve Angeli and have nobody for 2023. ND was losing Dante Moore with NIL or not.
Tonight’s broadcast Collinsworth mentions after the Merriweather TD that Rees has been raving about him and says he’s the best skill guy they’ve had at ND in years. He doesn’t have him on the field for the final drive of the game. That’s inexcusable that we can’t get that guy on the field and plays to him before the 6th game of the year.
Love probably called TAMU after the game and said, hey I’m still available for NIL, I didn’t really mean it today.
Merriweather didn’t see a snap on either drive after the TD. If he didn’t hurt himself, this offensive staff is a complete joke.
It’s inexcusable. I do not give the crap I took this morning how much better Braden Lenzy or Matt Salerno ‘practices’ or ‘knows their assignments’. That is doing precisely jack and shit for Notre Dame right now. Get the talent on the field.
What is Tommy Rees good at as a coach ? 1. Evaluating talent? No. 2. Coaching up the talent he has? No. 3. Play calling ? No. 4. Using the talent he has on offense to their strengths ? No. There are plenty of examples to back up my opinion. How can ND not be ready to deal with Stanford having 8-9 guys in the box?
How can ND not handle 8-9 guys in the box?
I know that there are some schemes that would seem to help this but the biggest part of the answer to me is that we have a serious QB and WR problem. Styles is our best WR and he clearly is not ready for primetime. We simply can’t beat man coverage at the WR position and we can’t elevate the offense at the QB position.
I just cannot figure out how Colzie and Merriweather can’t see the field. I get that they must not be producing in practice at a high level but we had Matt Salerno on the field late in the 4th quarter. He may be a great practice player, and I have no problem with him playing 10-12 snaps a game since we are so thin at WR but how Merriweather is not on the field for the whole 4th quarter I have no clue.
That route that he ran for the TD was high level. He had the DB turned around and the speed and hands to capitalize on it. I also think that we should be rotating Colzie, Thomas, and Merriweather on the boundary and field and allow Styles to play in the slot. He played mainly slot against OK State last year and looked awesome but playing outside he simply has not been able to beat press coverage.