Notre Dame faced a tough NC State team Saturday afternoon and found itself in a game into halftime. As per recent tradition the game did not end as close as the score indicates. It’s another 21-point easy victory for the Irish! Here’s 3 quick takeaways from Notre Dame’s 7th win of the season:
1 Adams Carried the Offense for a Heisman Moment
A career-high 27 carries for Adams led to 202 yards and a back-breaking 77-yard touchdown that effectively sealed the game late in the 3rd quarter. The offense as a whole did a good staying on schedule (no turnovers!) but it was Adams making another statement that carried the Irish to victory.
2 Mike Elko is the Broyles Award Leader Right Now
Today’s defensive performance was so very money. Only 7 point allowed. Limited NC State to 14 first downs. Finley completed just 17 of 37 passes. The Wolfpack run game was entirely nonexistent–although they did lose speedy Nyheim Hines very early in the game.
We’re 8 games through the season and the Irish are allowing 16.1 points per game.
3 Let’s Hope Wimbush is 100% Healthy
Late in the game, Brandon Wimbush was dragged down on third down and limped off the field. The good news is that he came back into the game to throw a couple more passes, but mostly just hand off to Deon McIntosh. It wasn’t a memorable game for Wimbush (125 total yards, 3 TD) but it’s pretty amazing that he wasn’t needed to be a huge playmaker and the Irish still won easily.
7-1 and Wake Forest is coming to town!
Never seen an Irish team just look this solid week in and out. Wimbush just did what was needed for the second week in a row, Josh Adams is a legit top-3 Heisman guy, and the defense only gave up one score. It all feels kind of normal right now… unreal.
Legit playoff contenders…feels good man.
We have had success before under BK but this just feels different. This team is very very talented. The physicality that we are playing with is what has been missing from this program. We are going out and flat whipping teams. Not just any teams but ranked teams. To go out and hang 300+ rushing yards on NC State should show the many ND haters out there that we are for real. I bet when the rankings come out the committee gives this Irish team the respect and recognition it deserves. I said during the game day thread and I will repeat it here. How do you keep this Irish team out the top 4? We will have to jump teams like Miami and Clemson but the way in which we are winning will give us the advantage in my opinion. In my eyes we are the best one lost team in the country but Ohio State will be ranked in front of us because of their defeat of Penn State today.
1. Alabama
2. Georgia
3. Ohio State
4. Notre Dame
Also was very impressed with how Wimbush was throwing the ball today. He missed that deep throw to Stepherson in the 4th quarter but for the most part he put the ball where it needed to be today.
I think you could flip ND and tOSU but in the end, we still get what we want. Outside of PSU, tOSU really hasn’t faced anyone of consequence and really who has PSU beaten too? Michigan is garbage and is THEIR best win. MSU showed it’s better than scUM and we beat MSU so those two would appear to be on par. Everything else PSU has done has been against some dregs.
Bama and GA are locks for 1 and 2 respectively.
It gets really interesting after that depending on how the committee members value things. Undefeated vs. 1 loss with better resume; Margin of victory vs. talent beaten; best win vs. number of quality wins; etc.
I think the “pool” for the next spots are (by category):
UNDEFEATED
Miami
Wisc.
1 LOSS, W/SINGLE BIG WIN
tOSU
OU
Penn St. (maybe)
1 LOSS, W/MULTIPLE QUALITY WINS
TCU
Clemson
ND
In my opinion Penn St. and TCU would fall to the bottom of that group, and Miami & Wisc would be down there too. That leaves tOSU, OU, Clemson and ND for spots 3-6. I have little inclination what the order will be, though I’m not really worried about it because there’s still so much football left I think it’ll work itself out. But if I’m putting forth a prediction (not my opinion, but what I think it might be) it’d probably be:
3. Clemson
4. ND
5. OU* (I’m tempted to put tOSU here, but h2h)
6. tOSU
7. Wisc
8. Miami
9. TCU
10. Penn St.
*OU v. TT still playing atm
I had to remind myself after the game to not take this victory for granted. It’s becoming easier and easier to expect this type of win this year, but damn, this was another Top 15 team that we just owned for four straight quarters. This was a premier run-stopping defense and we hung 318 rushing yards on them. For a second week in a row, Wimbush didn’t put up impressive passing numbers, but he looks night and day different back there from the beginning of the season.
This game doesn’t feel as big of a deal because of the residual feels from the USC bloodbath, but independently, what a freaking win.
I felt very good about this game. I was confident we would put up run yards. I felt good about the defense, but I wasn’t expecting us to hold them to 2 touchdowns. It was a great game! It was exciting just long enough to raise my blood pressure, but not long enough to be dangerous to me.
These guy just play hard. The defense never let up, even when it didn’t matter, they were stuffing them at the line. The offensive line kept pushing NCSU around right up until the last second. It was great to watch those guys just dominate the other team.
I feel the same way. Small nit… One touchdown was special teams.
Good point.
Uhhh isn’t Wake 5-3, Murtz?
Defense did not come to F around. Anothet long distance house call by young Joshua. Call that boy Mr. Collect, he be makin so many long distance calls at other people’s expense. Coney looking like our best backer. Defense deflected at least 37 passes. Wimbush, on limited attempts, was sharper than I’ve ever seen him. He was incredibly money on that second quarter TD drive, then didn’t throw anothet pass for like 3 hours.
Looking for a blemish on that win and… all I got is that NC State lost Hines and 2 DTs, sooo maybe they can say we didn’t get their best shot. Was that their 2 starting DTs and dis they miss the whole second half?
F’in great win Irish. Live this D and OK and running backs and qb and receivers and special teams.
Yes, they are. We’re 7-1.
7-1 AND. Not 7-1 Wake.
Ok good job guys. You passed the test. Barely.
Way to use the old edit function after the fact there Murry.
I’m gonna call you the Pretentious Illiterate.
I wear your scorn like a badge of honor and will see you in hell you bastard.
🙂
I want to post a gif of Major Kong riding the bomb from Dr. Strangelove but I totally forget how that works here
Like this: (Just post the link)
If you’re looking for a blemish… my non-expert eyes said that Wimbush should have pulled the ball on a number of those zone reads where he gave it the running back. Anyone else have a thought on that?
That said, AWESOME GAME!
He runs enough. I’d like to see him still in the lineup on Thanksgiving.
My sense was the coaches told him not to run. Just glancing at the box score he ran only 7 times versus 14 last week. I would guess the message was, “Their secondary is weak. Show us you can throw. Also, don’t get hit by Chubb.”
This is a good reason. There were clear cases where the “right” call was to pull the ball and run himself. I wonder if there’s also now some “Hey, Adams is getting some hype, so give him the ball if in doubt.” It’s clear NBC is on the #33Trucking bandwagon as well with the puff piece on his mom and showing his speech at practice.
If they’re giving him the ball because of “hype” (they’re not) then expect a disappointment in the next 4 games.
You saying Adams can’t get hype???
Are you trying to say Jesus Christ can’t hit a curveball?
Call Adams Morgan Stanley cuz he gets mad good ROI on his Hype Capital.
Make the defense stop the first option before keeping it. Their defense got worse at stopping the first option as the game wore on. #33TRUCKING
Really liked Dexter’s first series of carries. Surprised they took so long to go back to him. Quick-hitting for our zone scheme. Really north-south, barreling through creases, picking up first downs. Fast tempo too. When he finally got stuffed after what seemed like half a dozen consecutive carries they slowed down and subbed for him. I don’t have a problem with featuring Josh of course and maybe they figured better to use Deon in garbage time.
I’m going to enjoy the beatdown we’re going to put on Miami. They are so garbage.
I get the argument as to why we should be in the Top 4. I also see Clemson is destroying GT and is the defending national champs; Penn State’s loss by one isn’t that different than ours by one; Okie’s loss doesn’t look so bad now, and they’ve got a great win. We’ll see how it goes. But before we get all angry or excited, depending on what happens, we should remember that in three years of the playoff, the first poll has never matched the last one. Lots to play, lots of surprises. Win our games, we’ll be in good shape, I think. Let’s enjoy the ride, because this season has been special so far. This is a darn good team, no matter where they are ranked, and even if you predicted we’d be 7-1 at this point, no one saw it happening quite like this.
Yeah we fin to put one on the U. Wake first though KG. Focus.
How many teams typically finish with one loss or less. Seems like everyones always freaking out about it, but the playoff/bcs/natty teams usually select themselves on the field.
I’m going to enjoy each game as it comes. I know many of you will be sweating out the various playoff scenarios each week. So much can happen in the wacky world of CFB. I don’t need to put myself through that angst. This team is too much fun to watch to be worrying about the committee porking us with a month and a half to go.
Best game I’ve seen from an ND secondary in a long time. Game ball Todd Lyght.
I think we’re seeing how truly bad BVG was. I certainly didn’t expect anything out of this secondary. Or the D line, really. And they’re playing great.
Agreed, the defenses transformation is hard to believe. Thing is, I do believe and that’s silly after what transpired the last 3 years.
It didn’t matter, because the record was garbage, but the defense got infinitely better the minute BVG was fired. They were still bad on fundamentals due to not practicing them, but the scheme was cleaned up immensely. Every game now I watch and I ask myself “How freaking bas was BVG?”. Answer: Terribad.
I thought I was dreaming when I saw our secondary break up pass after pass. Unbelievable.
Flawless deployment.
Just finished watching the game on delay. 3 things I noticed later on in the game:
1) the o-line (deservedly so) looked like they were having fun. Smiles on their faces and everything
2) The o-line was helping up NC State guys after plays. I will always appreciate when someone helps up the other team.
3) That last drive was impressive. Everyone knew ND would be running and McIntosh was still ripping off 7-8 yards at a time.
2) Yep, totally agree. Not only is it the sportsmanlike way to do it, but it shows total domination. ND didn’t need to worry about spending the extra energy helping the opponent up because NC St were already broken.
This might be the 2nd or 3rd best ND team in my lifetime. ’88 and ’93 were the two other contenders with ’88 being unequivocally the best, but the way this team operates and the fact that we FINALLY seem to have an identity and a killer instinct to go with it. I havent seen that swagger since Lou. I’d love to see us finish this and have Cheerios pt. 2 against UGA or Bama in the championship game.
Agreed. 92 team was also really good. Bill Walsh just parlayed his years of watching from the booth to pull a stunning upset.
Question: do you think the non-calls on the pick 6 were correct? I do, just curious what you think. It’s an interesting wrinkle in that rule that if the guard or center flinched, they could call that it was caused by Tillery twitching. But by the time the center snapped the ball, Tillery was back on our side of the neutral zone (I think).
It’s hard to tell because the TV camera angle was off but I did pause the TV the instant the ball was snapped. It appeared Tiller was just a hair behind the line so I thought good non call.
If that had caused their C to flick, you’d have to determine was Tiller in the NZ. If not, then it’s a false start. Its not considered drawing him unless he’s in the NZ
DEREK. EFFING. BROWN.
The bottom line on that play is coaching. Sure, try to draw the defense off…but you have to recognize if it works. You don’t stop playing. Reading the comments made by NC State on that, it was ludicrous. They didn’t have a play called–they literally called “draw them offsides” play with no actual play call. That’s why the O-line didn’t move–they didn’t expect an actual play. So once they didn’t get the offsides, they were screwed. That’s just nuts.
These Instant Reactions are so much more enjoyable this year!
I was glad to hear Mustipher get some love after last year’s muddy debacle. He is an underrated piece of the O-line.
Best game of the year by our secondary. For the first time in a long time I actually have confidence in our pass coverage.
Having Stepherson back improves the entire receiving corps.
I really don’t care where we land Tuesday. If we end up 11-1, I don’t see any way they keep us out of the top 4.
How we’re out of the top 4:
13-0 Georgia/Alabama
12-1 Ohio State (beat 11-1 Penn State and 12-1 Wisconsin)
12-1 Oklahoma (beat 12-1 Ohio State and a handful of 10-2/9-3 Big 12 teams; their schedule will likely trump ours in CFP terms, particularly if Miami doesn’t go 12-1)
12-1 Georgia/Alabama or 12-1 Clemson
Point being: we could go 11-1 and finish 6th in the CFP rankings, depending on how our schedule shakes out. Ohio State coming back today could end up being a killer for our shot, at least if Oklahoma wins the Big 12. We definitely need to be Oklahoma State fans next week. And, ugh, USC and Stanford and Miami fans going forward.
FiveThirtyEight, however, says today was a good day from the ND perspective: our odds of making the playoff, contingent on us winning the rest of our games, went up from 48% to 51%. EDIT: well, maybe not. If you plug in Clemson and Oklahoma winning their games tonight, it goes back down to 49%. That TCU L wasn’t as big a deal as it felt at the time.
A 12-1 Alabama falls below a 11-1 ND. Their strength of schedule isn’t good enough.
They might get special magic “they look awesome and are Bama” points, though. But it’ll help, probably a lot, if they lose the SECCG instead of, say, losing to Auburn and then winning the SEC.
If they lose to Auburn, they need Auburn to also lose to UGA or Auburn would be in the SECCG. Auburn only has one SEC loss, their other loss is to Clemson out of conference.
If Bama loses in week 9+ and dont make the SECCG do they have enough time to rebuild their resume? Texas A&M in 2012, they had like 6-7 weeks but this year they wouldnt have that
I agree unfortunately. I see lots of relatively likely scenarios that result in our being left out, even if we make it to 11-1. I feel that we really have to root for chaos, which didn’t help us today, even with TCU losing.
I agree that right now it’s
1. Bama
2. Georgia
3. Ohio St
4. Notre Dame
I love this team! Great defense, very good offense and Wimbush is on the brink of a huge passing game and I have a feeling he’ll get it when we need it most!
Great win. Bradley Chubb is a beast, but they did a pretty good job containing him and then running by and through the other guys on the line. Stat line notwithstanding, I think this might have been Wimbush’s best passing day too. He looks more confident throwing the ball, which is great.
Also: shout out to MTA, who stepped up after Bonner got hurt. When he was in, he was at a minimum holding the point of attack and at points was disruptive. He blew up that 4th down run where we got the stop near the goal line.
He’s also not helped by his receivers sometimes. Smythe earned his playing time, Mack did not. EQ was meh. Brandon has work to do, but he needs his receivers to step up and make plays.
I really liked seeing Wimbush convert third downs with his arm. There will be a time before he graduates that we need to run a 2 minute drill or play from behind.
However, I’m ready to give up on screens for the year. Let’s just retire that play for now. I can’t think of one that worked all season.
USC doing us some favors so far, up 21-3 and moving on ASU.
Uh, until Darnold’s own lineman tried to sack him. What. Was. That.
Comedy gold
And their kicker who couldn’t hit from 20 last week hits a 51-yarder. LOL.
Haha, entire $C had to come back to defend PA after bogus TD call.
This game is nuts.
$C D looked like crap that drive.
I went to bad at half, but see they finished the job.
Do good things and good things happen
I love this team so much. It’s so much fun to watch a squad that just bashes their opponents to pieces as the game wears on. The offensive line blocks people into oblivion; Chase Claypool is out there just burying DBs on run plays; and the defense is out there with ill intent on every play. It’s a joy to see them break opposing teams and impose their will.
Seems like ND’s rooting interest next week, in order of importance:
(1) Beat Wake
(2) NC State over Clemson
(3) Miami over VaTech
(4) Oklahoma State over Oklahoma
(5) South Carolina over Georgia (a boy can dream… but, okay, probably not)
(6) LSU over Bama
(7) Stanford over Wazzou (ugh)
(8) USC over ‘Zona (ugh ugh)
(9) Michigan State over Penn State (half an ugh, I guess? Not sure who I dislike more)
(10) Indiana over Wisconsin (this could happen)
(11) Oregon over UW (could also happen, if Justin Herbert is back and healthy. Otherwise, nah)
(12) Syracuse over Florida State (because F Florida State)
Edited because I just went to FiveThirtyEight to test it. They seem to think South Carolina over UGA would be a very big deal from our perspective (and, interestingly, the Oklahoma-Oklahoma State game barely matters), but NC State over Clemson is indeed the biggest non-ND game for us next week. Go Wolfpack!
I wouldn’t give FiveThirtyEight too much credit. They also say if Washington and ND both win out, Wash is twice as likely to make the playoff. Maybe I’d grant an even chance (maybe), but no way it’s 2:1 with Washington’s schedule. Frankly I think all their ND projections are low… probably because they are overvaluing conference champs.
We definitely got a sneaky good bit of help last night with Arizona beating Wazzou – the Apple Cup is likely not going to be much, if any, of a bigger deal than the ND-Stanford game.
I actually think we want UW to beat Oregon, and have a 1-loss UW lose to USC in the Pac12CG. That, or Stanford win out other than our game, and play USC and we get credit no matter who wins. But I’m not at ALL worried about a 1-loss UW. They’ve literally played no one outside of conference, and their best two wins would also be wins we’d have. We need more chaos in the Big12 to eliminate the Okies.
A couple side notes. Nothing new but NBC game times are brutal. Because of the sheer volume of good 1230 games yesterday (west coast guy here), it was really evident how long first halves take. Every other game was at least 5 minutes of game action into the second half when this game was teasing their return. It’s just brutal.
Josh Adams is awesome, I love watching him run, I love watching him run behind this line. But, I don’t think he is great in short yardage, between the tackles. Maybe the advanced stats supersede my eye test. But there was a first and goal blocked for a touchdown and he didnt pick it up and then a 3rd and 2 blocked for a first he didn’t pick up. Guessing it’s cuz he’s just so long but I think I would prefer dexter or tjj in those spots
I wish I had the time and could pull the data quickly enough but I think he’s about as good as it gets in short-yardage.
His goal line carry was a simple mis-read and his missed 3rd down he was just barely tripped up and fell inches short. I do know since the beginning of 2016 he’s converted on 32 of his 45 carries on either 3rd or 4th down. I’d imagine 71% success rate is nationally elite.
#33trucking
Not good in short yardage ???? Watch harder.
To be fair, there were 13 accepted penalties in the first half. That’ll slow any game down.
I also loved seeing in-game adjustments. Wimbush was sacked twice in the first drive and then never again.