Sweet, sweet bowl victory!
Irish held Iowa State to only 9 points aka the fewest points @NDFootball‘s given up in a bowl game since the 1993 Cotton Bowl! #GoIrish pic.twitter.com/VHAnrA9Fm0
— The Fighting Irish (@FightingIrish) December 28, 2019
The mood around the Notre Dame program wasn’t great this week. As the Camping World Bowl approached, rumblings of poor practices and unmotivated players were hard to avoid.
Guess they shrugged it off.
The Irish dominated the Camping World Bowl from start to finish, beating a better-than-their-record Iowa State team 33-9 and handing it the worst loss it’s had since the end of the 2016 season.
Things didn’t look super promising to start, as the Irish had a pretty listless 3-and-out to start the game on offense. But then Alohi Gilman forced a fumble on the punt return, the Irish recovered, and things were pretty comfortable the rest of the way.
Some of the big subplots I noticed:
Rees’ audition went well
Coach Brian Kelly confirmed this week that Tom Rees would call the plays in the absence of ousted OC Chip Long. Things were more than a little uneven on the first series or two (why exactly would you ever run east-west on 3rd-and-1?), but Rees was rewarded in a big way for sticking with the running game with big gains on the play action and a few huge runs. Who knew Tony Jones had an extra gear?
Who knows how autonomous Rees’ work as the play-caller really was, but if the Irish make the decision to promote Rees to OC, as the rumors indicate they’d like to do, it would be hard to argue too vociferously against it based on today’s performance. He showed a level of comfort with Ian Book and with the offensive line that you want to see from a play-caller.
Just another great day for Clark Lea
What more is there to say about DC Clark Lea? This Iowa State team had been effective on offense most of the year and the Cyclones certainly hadn’t come close to getting it handed to them the way they did today. And it all started with the defense, which made play after play in big spots. The Irish made Brock Purdy’s life very difficult with an effective pass rush, and the secondary was remarkable. TaRiq Bracy is making a habit of breaking up touchdowns in the last second, which is a nice habit to have.
All told, the Cyclones managed under 300 yards of offense today to go with two turnovers. Clark Lea didn’t need an audition to remain DC. But year 2 of his reign over the defense proved to be (mostly – there was that one day) a worthy follow-up to year 1.
A fine farewell for Chase Claypool
Chase Claypool didn’t need to play in this game. NFL-bound players skipping minor bowls (even sometimes major ones) has quickly become just part of the college football landscape, and no one would’ve begrudged Claypool for following suit. (A hat tip also to Khalid Kareem, who also suited up and had a solid game.
Instead, Claypool dominated, making seven catches for 146 yards and what should have been two touchdowns. Only four receivers in ND history (Golden Tate, Will Fuller, Rhema McKnight and Jeff Samardzija) have caught more TDs in a season than Claypool’s 13 this year. He was named Camping World Bowl MVP, and whoever picks him in the draft will get the best hands to come out of South Bend since at least Michael Floyd.
The stage is set for a good 2020
Notre Dame will lose Claypool and Kareem, probably Gilman and Jones, and injured Julian Okwara from this squad. That being said, the Irish have a promising group of talented players coming back. Ade Ogundeji showed this year he has the chops to be an elite pass rusher. Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah is a big-time talent. Jonathan Doerer is, dare I say, the best kicker in Notre Dame history? (I’d love to have a time machine so I could tell someone the week of last year’s Navy game, when this entire fan base was petrified of Doerer’s visage, that he would be better than Justin Yoon and it wouldn’t really be that close.)
The Irish will also, we presume, have Ian Book, who had a terrific game today, has had a terrific last 5 games plus a quarter, and has proven he can give ND a chance to win huge games. Another off-season of work won’t make his arm any stronger or his legs any faster, but if he can become even sharper mentally, he can be a great QB next year. He’ll have a couple of new freshman toys to play with and a proven defense. And he’ll also have a schedule that shapes up a bit like this one did – two big-time challenges (Wisconsin and Clemson) and a whole bunch of winnable games. Only this time, instead of going on the road for the two biggest challenges, the Irish will have a neutral-site game and a home game for those two battles.
It’s 8 months almost to the day until Dublin. May your dreams keep you going until then. Go Irish.
(Photo credit: Getty Images)
This was a fun win. But can we drop the whole “Iowa State was better than their record” storyline? This talking point made no sense leading up to the game, and today just emphasized it. We had more talent than them at literally every position on the field today. This team beat one team with a .500 record this year and took 3 OTs to beat an FCS school. Really nice win. Really fun win. But not against a particularly impressive opponent.
Clark Lea will be a head coach somewhere come this time next season. What an incredible job he’s done.
It didn’t have to do with their talent level. It had to do with their performance, losing a bunch of games by less than a TD if not a FG. They could have easily been a 9-win team and today’s result doesn’t really override 12 games of data. ND is a better team, certainly, but then again we probably would have been either 1 or 2 in a top-heavy Big XII.
They could have easily been a 5 win team! Everybody saying they lost some close games while ignoring they beat Northern Iowa by 3 (in 3 OT) and Texas by 2. Texas is their best win.
Coming into the game today, we were 15th in SP+ and I think they were 18th or so. SP+ had the spread at ND -3.6. And while it’s true that they squeaked past Texas and North Texas, it’s also true that we squeaked past USC and Virginia Tech.
I get what you’re saying. But the fact remains that Iowa and Baylor needed field goals at the gun to beat them, and Oklahoma needed a swallow-the-whistle 2 point conversion stop with seconds remaining to beat them. They were capable of putting up very good performances, and we weren’t having any of it today.
There’s a slight difference in quality between USC and Northern Iowa. Also, if we lost those 2 games, we would have been a 9 win team, not a 5 win team.
I very much enjoyed the game. It went even better than my prediction! But let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that was some sort of very good team we played against today.
It is possible that the Big 12 was systematically overrated by SP+ this year. Off the top of my head, I don’t recall any particularly big out-of-conference wins by Big 12 teams (feel free to check me on that), and after today I’m starting to think the level of play in that conference might have just been low with basically a handful of teams in the 15-40 range but nothing above that. If that’s the case, maybe Iowa State is really like the 35th-40th best team in the country, which is fine, but also not the top-25 level we thought we might be getting.
UGA fans have to be feeling pretty good about the Sugar Bowl.
Half of Georgia’s roster is either suspended, injured or has left the team for the NFL, so they can’t be feeling too great.
My first thought, watching Tony Jones break that long touchdown, was this team has nowhere near the talent to beat ND. I love me some TJ, but there is plenty of footage out there of him getting brought down from behind.
I enjoyed the game. I’m still a little disgruntled with the way the season went. That loss to the meat chickens was so horrible. I’m convinced they’re still being punished for it rankings wise. I can’t say that I disagree with the punishment. I do think this team is a top ten team team this year, and when it all shakes out, they should be somewhere around number ten.
Great article Andy, thanks for the good work.
Interesting take on Rees/the playcalling. I thought the first-half offensive playcalling was affirmatively bad. I guess you could say the constant 2-yard runs paid off later, but that assumes that the plan was for TJJ to bust off an 85-yard run; that seems unlikely. Otherwise, the big plays were just “throw it up to Claypool,” which is not particularly sophisticated (though, to be fair, might have been the strategy we should have been pursuing all along). Things improved in the second half, but I would say that was a below-average offensive gameplan.
Conversely, that was a defensive beauty. Give Clark Lea all the moneys. I’m really excited about the defense next year, particularly after JOK and Bracy’s performances today.
Good article, thanks.
I was under the impression Jones is expected back next yr.
You indicate that’s unlikely. Are you hearing that from inside the program?
I’ve heard nothing, I always just assume RBs are leaving. If he comes back it’s because he really wants to, and I’d love that.
From an article on UND.com “And, although Jones Jr.’s time as No. 6 for the Irish has come to an end, he shared the satisfaction in what was left behind by the senior class.”……you would think the school’s site would know.
Well… what a GREAT way for TJ to go out.