I’m going to try to make sense of this game, but it’s hard to find new words. Last season I wrote instant reactions over at our old site, and twice I found myself trying to figure out what to say after an absolute heartbreaker of a loss. Today we got another one. Say what you want about Notre Dame fans – much of it is true – but the Irish have suffered three of the all-time scarring losses in the last 11 months, so you can’t say we are spoiled.
For those in Cuba or North Korea that may have missed the game (how are you reading this site right now anyway?), ND lost to Texas 50-47 in two overtimes, with Tyrone Swoopes of all people bulling into the end zone for the winning touchdown. The game only went to overtime because of an improbable blocked PAT return for two points by the Irish late in the game.
Alright, here we go. WatchND highlights first:
So much for the quarterback controversy
You might have heard a word or two about the quarterback derby that played out between DeShone Kizer and Malik Zaire over the course of the last 8 months or so. Recently coach Brian Kelly determined that both should play against Texas. So both did, swapping back and forth for several series. Zaire even started the second half. For some reason.
Here’s the thing, though: Malik Zaire is a really good quarterback. (Regardless of his pathetic results Sunday, which I credit to predictable play calling as much as to anything Zaire did wrong.)
Strong mixes up Kizer and Zaire, then corrects himself. After that: “When Zaire came in, we could just load the box.”
— Andy Staples (@Andy_Staples) September 5, 2016
But DeShone Kizer might well be the best QB west of Clemson. He was unbelievable. Not that my feelings mean anything, but I haven’t felt completely comfortable with an ND quarterback since Clausen – even when Kizer played last year – and I was totally at ease with Kizer. Once it became clear he was going to play, there was never a thought in my mind ND might lose until they had to settle for 3 in the second OT. I just assumed Kizer would pull it off. And he should have. 15/24, 215 yards, 5 TD, plus a rushing score. No turnovers – not even close to one, in fact. His throw to Josh Adams under pressure for a score late in the game was just awe-inspiring.
Coach Kelly said postgame that they haven’t made a QB determination. He couldn’t say anything else there – he hasn’t had a chance to talk it out with the parties involved. But as long as Kizer is healthy, I imagine Zaire is through playing relevant snaps for the time being.
Notre Dame’s defense is awful again
Second verse (or third in this case), same as the first. I understand Brian VanGorder probably got some leeway for the pathetic defenses ND fielded in both 2014 and 2015 because both of them were ravaged by injuries. And I also understand Shane Buechele looks like he’s going to be a great QB for Texas, so he deserves a modicum of credit for what happened today. But the fact of the matter is, you can’t give up 37 points (regulation) to a true freshman QB, especially when one play in particular – the deep bomb to a wide open man – keeps repeating.
ND’s defense is not experienced. But there’s too much talent out there for the Irish to get lit up like this by pretty much anyone. And with all due respect to Texas, which is absolutely not going 5-7 again, especially not a freshman QB whose offense looked inept much of 2015. Texas went for 517 total yards and averaged over 10 yards per pass attempt. That just can’t be. We’re probably stuck with BVG through the season, and no matter how good Kizer is ND can’t win 11 straight with this defense.
About that targeting play
Targeting doesn’t = “helmet to helmet.” Shoulder to neck of WR is targeting, says rulebook https://t.co/ce8HuLnx2S pic.twitter.com/lqjzPc5zr4
— jason (@JasonKirkSBN) September 5, 2016
You always risk looking like a sore loser when you start talking about bad calls that went against you after your team loses a game. But regardless of the result, the no-call of the targeting play against Torii Hunter was reprehensible. (Also, Hunter is out for at least next week, because he definitely got concussed on the play, so it was damaging, too.) Just to use one example: The Irish were called for almost literally a carbon copy of that hit against Temple a year ago, and there was no debate about it. And somehow, no flag here.
The call is even reviewable after the fact now. College replay officials can stop the game to review a play they believe might have been targeting if it wasn’t called on the field. Somehow, it wasn’t. I’m sure the fact that the Big 12, Texas’ conference, employs the replay official had nothing to do with that oversight. (Those who know me will know I point out this sort of conflict of interest every time there’s a sketchy officiating decision in any game.)
ND probably scores a TD there to take the lead if the correct call is made (it was a 3rd-down dropped TD), which could easily have made the difference in the game’s outcome. But even aside from that, you can’t allow those hits to go uncalled, because they will keep happening if you do.
Also, it will get lost in the rest of the game and even in the debate over the call, but holy Moses that throw by Kizer for a should’ve-been TD. Between three defenders!!!
The season isn’t over – technically
Even setting aside the unlikelihood of 11 straight wins for ND with this defense, I’m on record as doubting an 11-1 Notre Dame will ever make the College Football Playoff if there is any remotely justifiable alternative. The playoff system was created and is run by the people who run the Power 5 conferences, and Notre Dame doesn’t play in one in football. Follow the money – it’s just not going to happen. Just my opinion.
Of course, that doesn’t mean ND can’t try to win 11 in a row. Anything can happen. This is college football, after all, and two top 5 teams just lost this weekend. Who’s to say we won’t see a bunch of carnage?
That being said, the Irish still could reach the Cotton or Orange bowls and get a chance to pick up a major bowl win, something that’s eluded this program since 1993. It’s a worthy marker to achieve. With such an inexperienced group, serious thoughts of a title were overly ambitious. It just sucks that any realistic chance went out the window so soon, and in this fashion.
Attempting to end this recap on a positive note
Seriously, this was kind of awesome in the moment.
See you next week, guys.
So here’s the thing: there was not a single person other than Brian Kelly who thought it was a good idea to retain Brian VanGorder after last year. Even the generally homer-iffic embedded ND media were asking somewhat leading questions about whether it makes sense to run a complex defense in CFB and what needs to happen for results to occur (which of course implies, correctly, that there have not been results so far).
So my question is this: is Brian Kelly living in a bubble, or is he so arrogant that he thinks that he has a unique understanding of the game to where literally everyone else watching the situation all is, at best, thinking “well, that seems questionable but who knows maybe he’ll turn it around.” I don’t think I’ve seen a single commenter on any of the ND boards defend the retention of BVG; you can get ND fans to say anything! (There is literally a post on NDNation tonight saying we need to play Zaire more).
I do recall that folks tired a bit of Diaco and the vanilla base defense, but, man, this has been one terrible overcorrection.
No, there’s at least 2 other people who thought it was a good idea to keep BVG. One of them was BVG.
I came into this game skeptical but hopeful regarding BVG, by the end, I was demanding that he go. While the results have been poor the last two years, I think that the injuries have provided an excuse, and last year’s overall success provided a distraction. sufficient that a lot of folks felt that they couldn’t quite judge BVG a failure yet. And BK was probably among them.
I think by the end of this year it will be clear that he is a failure, and he’ll have to go. I hope I’m wrong, and he somehow gets it together and ND has a great defense from here on out…but I rather doubt it.
Not that I want to defend BVG, but I don’t think Kelly is looking at the commentariat to decide whether to keep an assistant coach.
But that’s my point: it’s not that there was just a general, conventional wisdom. It’s that there was *zero* debate about what to do, and BK went the other way. That indicates that either he has no idea what people are saying or he basically has zero regard for outside opinion. In either case, there’s a problem.
The closest BKs ever come to firing a coach at ND was Molnar. It doesn’t seem to be in his DNA. Remember how bad Special Teams were and the call for Booker’s head? I was hoping an NFL asst job would have opened for BVG last off season.
That’s Kelly’s biggest flaw. He seems to only hire people he’s had a long working relationship with, and is incapable of firing anyone. That got us three years of bad offense and now three years of bad defense.
Hiestand, Stanford, Gilmore, Denson, Lyte, and all of the grad assistants beg to differ.
This is simply a ridiculous statement and sounds like it was taken from an ND nation list of talking points.
Plus, ALL coaches hire people they know. They want people who they know have good work habits and are smart. The odds of knowing that for sure are better if you worked with them before. Plus, Kelly worked with bvg what, 20 years ago? It’s not like they were best buds. Bvg is an experienced coach that most people were thrilled about when he was hired.
I agree he’s been shitty, but complaining about Kelly here is stupid.
I’m not criticizing him for *hiring* VanGorder; I’m criticizing him for not getting rid of him at the end of last season, which is what any reasonable person who watched the defense for the last two years would have done. Brian Kelly is *not* blameless for that inaction.
I dunno, up until this game I was fine giving BVG another shot. He showed glimpses of great defense with a (mostly) full roster so I was willing to be patient for one more season. This performance was awful, though.
This performance was basically identical in terms of long drives and giving up big plays to: UNC (’14), Florida State (’14), Navy (’14), Arizona State (’14), Northwestern (’14), Louisville (’14), USC (’14), UVA (’15), USC (’15), Pitt (’15), Stanford (’15), Ohio State (’15). That is, by my count, 12 games in the last two years (where we had the best defensive player in college football, natch) where the defensive performance was somewhere between Quite Bad and Godawful.
On the flipside, the number of games where we’ve seen “glimpses of great defense”: Michigan (’14), Texas (’15). That’s two. If we’re adding in “good defensive games”, I’m willing to throw in Stanford (’14), LSU (’14 – and I’m being charitable here), Georgia Tech (’15 – though that turned out to not be as good as we thought), and Wake (’15).
12 crap games. 6 good games. He should have been fired.
In favor of whom? It’s easy to say “should have fired him” but what is the alternative? And how would it necessarily have been significantly better than what we are seeing now?
Not saying it’s impossible, just that it’s easy to MMQB a decision like this with no specific alternate choice. I don’t really think teams fire a DC coming off a 10 win season all that often. And I don’t think BVG is ideal or deserves a ton of security by any means, but I do see a path for Kelly to believe that BVG would be the best available option to steer the 2016 defense.
There were tons of guys available. Michigan and LSU hired two who would be unambiguous improvements.
Kelly’s the head coach. Ultimately he’s responsible for how the team does. So far his tenure has been one great year, one good year, and four embarrassing ones when the team could never get its collective shit together on both sides of the ball at the same time. I’m absolutely sick of it at this point.
Reprehensible is the right word to describe that no call on the hit on Torii Hunter. Still in disbelief. So blatant. The officials need to be reprimanded when they let stuff like that go.
We need a little humor after that game:
https://twitter.com/bleacherreport/status/772653538853945344
(Not sure if I did that right)
i just don’t get how Tillery didn’t at least get a hand on Swoopes on the final play 🙁
Seriously, where was Tillery going? He ran straight past him, past where he should ever be going on that play. Did he get shoved from behind as he got into the backfield? Or was that just a young guy making a great first move, but then ending up way out of position?
I don’t understand, or can’t, or am willfully blind to the mysteries and/or intricacies of the “so called” BVG defense.
Seriously. There is some stunting and a bit of blitzing but how in the heck can we not put any pressure on the Texas backfield? We have great athletes (I truly believe) and we still can’t put pressure on the backfield. What about the pass rush? Same thing IMHO. If you want to put pressure on a young QB and potential receivers, this is how you do it.
I read, researched and believed that our O-line and D-line were going to dominate and this battle was going to be won in the trenches. Watching the game and with the benefit of hindsight, empirically, this did not happen. Texas outplayed our O and D lines exponentially. Surprised me, I’m sure it surprised CBK and I would bet it even surprised Texas. In what had been a predetermined Notre Dame advantage by almost everyone, including most Texas supporters we were clearly wrong.
Texas not only rose to the challenge… they dominated.
Texas is back and they deserve a Top 20 ranking if Sunday’s game is indicative of the quality of their team… and I bet it is. Awesome running game, a pair of dangerous QB’s and (of course) some lightning fast receivers that have the ability to hunt down balls thrown with pin-point accuracy. Oh, and the running game? That goes without question. Up the middle for what seemed like 6-7 yards a carry. RESPECT. Respect for their backs and respect for their O-line.
For us (Notre Dame)? Kizer appears to be the team leader. Let’s stick with him. Folston and Adams had great games and add to confuse the defense as they have unique running abilities. ESB was and is a stud.Great hands and better instincts. Hunter Jr. showed his skills in finding open seams… hope he is okay. Nyles Morgan (IMHO) showed great leadership and ability on defense.
We came close to putting it all together in the second half but were already in a deep hole. Perhaps BVG isn’t the “best” guy and certainly their were some coaching challenges… but at the end of the game, we need to make the tackles, close the gaps and have confidence in both our team mates and the coaching staff. IMHO, we (the players and supporters) were left scratching our heads for at least the first half.
But seriously, what the heck do I know? Cheers!
We’ve struggled to recruit pass rushers, and I think that’s probably the main reason Kelly stuck with BVG this year; his defenses are supposed to confuse teams and generate a pass rush via the blitz. Unfortunately, that failed miserably last night. Now, with no edge rushers and no safeties, teams are going to be able to throw over the top on us all year unless our corners keep playing 10 yards off the line like we did in the 2nd half last night.
That, and the tempo Texas played with definitely put a stamp on the game. Tough for a defense to be too aggressive when they can’t sub and the offense keeps rolling with positive plays. I think it was surprising that the Texas o-line did so well to win in the trenches, but credit to them.
Throw in a bunch of poor execution (coverage gaffes, poor tackling) and it was a recipe for disaster.
Pretty sure they only had to handle 3 linemen for most of the game. My memory may be clouded with frustration, though.
Yeah, I think particularly in the first half there was only 3 down linemen, but it seemed like there was a 4-man pass rush. I seem to remember Onwalu engaging o-linemen a lot, which was odd since he’s normally a good pass defender in coverage. (Though that could be clouded).
I actually thought some of the personnel adjustments the defense made at halftime was good; benching Tranquil for Studstill needed to happen and they played Love as the nickel and kicking Crawford outside created a pick.
It was just too little too late and too tough to slow down the rushing package and they had no answers for the speed of Texas’s WRs and pace. Running 86 plays in the first game of the year is tough.
People keep saying they’re surprised Texas’ o-line did so well against NDs great D-Line. I just don’t get the love for our D-Line. It wasn’t particularly good last year, and we lost the best player from that group. Hoping for Rochelle to suddenly go from solid to great, hoping Tillery makes some amazing leap from his Freshman year, and hoping Jones comes back from injury better than before seems like doing way too much hoping. Then, throw in the fact that you have 0 pass rushers in that group (not to mention Jay Hayes has never been good enough in his career to see the field, and Trumbetti has never been good enough in his career to make any plays in the backfield) and I think everybody needs to reevaluate the D-Line optimism. Nobody on that line is going to generate a pass rush.
Yeah, it was really novel facing a team that tried to run as many plays as possible. Oh wait, it’s 2016 and that’s been happening for years now and any decent defensive coach has to have a plan for it.
“Supposed to”
Boy, it only took 1 game for me to miss Max Redfield.
I wonder if Kelly makes a move in season, or if he waits until the offseason to fire Tenuta Jr. Has to be careful, don’t want to upset his star holder by firing his dad in season.
Kelly doesn’t fire anyone. BVG is his buddy, and Swarbrick will have to pry him away from Kelly with a crowbar.
Ask Charlie Molnar about that.
You mean Charlie Molnar who was never officially fired but pushed off to a head coaching gig at UMass? Kelly can’t fire anyone because he can never acknowledge making a mistake in the first place.
The takes are spicy tonight!
Remember when ND fans wanted Diaco gone because he would never be able to beat Alabama? Oops!
Hey guys! How things going? A bit down myself but the world continues to spin and life goes on. I sympathize and relate to what everybody is saying, all of it, even the ones that are at odds. It all make sense to me and I just don’t know: fire BVG, not fire, Kelly in a bubble, not a bubble, etc.
What I do know: it was a fun game. (No, watching Swoopes clobber our O-line to a 17 point lead was not fun nor the gut feeling that we won’t be able to stop them in OT) BUT it was an amazing game. The highs were high and the lows were low. The first drive for both teams set the tone for the game. Overcoming a missed targeting call and field goal to force a stop to have Kizer run it in and then follow that up with an interception to the house!? I was exhausted. Then we had the lead and only needed to drive down the field, run out the clock and we would be off to a great year. It was not to be…
In the end, 50-47 on the road to a team that was clearly gonna be better than last year with revenge on their mind? It was a good game. I don’t think we were dominated (See USC) but we definitely have our spots to improve. Oh! And one more thing: Texas made a fan out of me going silent whenever a player is down and then applauding their getting up. (I know in the NFL no such class exists but I wasn’t sure about the NCAAF so it was nice to see!)
Here’s to better results next week. Go Irish! 13-1!
Oh, and fuzzy memory, but Int wasn’t to the house, right? How they scored is hazy but TDs came fast and quick to catch up. Oh well!
No, but it was returned inside the 10 and we scored shortly after. Pretty close.