Marcus Freeman has gotten pretty good at the ‘crush teams you’re supposed to crush’ thing, hasn’t he?
No offense to Oregon State, which wasn’t remotely the same team today in a 40-8 beating at the hands of the Irish than it was during the season. Due to opt-outs, transfers, etc. the Beavers’ offense was effectively beaten before it took the field against a ND defense that was hampered far less by that issue. And the defense played like it, locking the Beavers out of ND territory until the game was long decided.
Some cool stuff to see in Notre Dame’s 10th win of the season:
Jordan Faison is a dude
As one member of our writers’ room put it, Jordan Faison isn’t just ‘good because ND has no other wide receivers’ good. He is just good, no qualifiers needed.
Faison got in on the fun very quickly with a long reception on ND’s first drive and ended up with 115 yards through the air, nearly half of Steve Angeli’s passing total. The effort was good for Sun Bowl MVP honors, and Faison showed all the qualities that will make him a dangerous weapon for the Irish offense in 2024 and beyond. Hard to believe no other big programs were in on this guy as a wide receiver, but now Faison will join Tyler Buchner on the ND lacrosse team this spring.
Gino Guidugli makes a perfectly nice play-caller
Angeli’s first start created questions of what ND’s offense would look like. As it turned out, it was pretty much exactly what you would hope it would look like given Angeli’s skill set. The ND QB coach played to his sophomore’s strengths throughout, creating on-the-run throws and even getting Angeli involved in the run game, which, apart from an overly enthusiastic effort that resulted in a fumble, Angeli proved up to the task.
The slower-developing run plays weren’t wonderful early on, but beyond that it’s very hard to find much fault with anything the offense did, which is a credit to both Angeli and his interim coordinator. ND will look much different next year with a different coordinator and likely a different QB, but Guidugli showed Friday that there is at least one other play-caller capable of the job on staff.
Also, how lucky are we that Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price will be in our backfield next year? Love didn’t do as much today, but we know what he can do, and Price seems to flash at some point every game he plays. Even Devyn Ford was ripping off chunks of yardage at the end of the game; we don’t know yet if he’ll be back, but I’d be willing to wager he’d be about as good a #3 RB as there is in the country next year if he is.
The defense did what the defense has done
It was another banner day for the ND defense. Again, given the Beavers’ shorthandedness, the effort was expected, but it was hardly any less impressive for it.
The Irish allowed two (not a typo) rushing yards, scored a safety, made Ben Gulbranson’s life miserable, and recorded one pick on a Hail Mary just for fun. Four sacks and eight tackles for a loss will play against any opponent.
Props to all the players – and in particular Javontae Jean-Baptiste and JD Bertrand – who stuck around for the bowl when opting out was a sensible option. Both ended their ND careers with fine efforts.
There have been rumblings of an Al Golden contract extension coming, and that would be a welcome development for Irish fans. Golden has proven to be an excellent game-planner and very good at utilizing his talent to make ND defenders dangerous.
The win keeps up momentum
When a transfer portal exodus and a WR coaching change quickly followed the end of the regular season, you’d be forgiven for not thinking we’d be ending December talking about this program’s momentum. But here we are. ND was maybe the biggest winner of transfer portal season. They ponied up to lure the 2023 Heisman Trophy winner’s offensive coordinator back home (and what does it say about our head coach that high-quality assistants keep turning up in South Bend and – so far – staying there?). They brought in another solid recruiting class with no drama whatsoever. And they finished the season with a point differential north of 300, a mark generally seen from elite teams.
We know this year’s version of the Irish was not elite – and not what anyone wanted when the season kicked off. However, there are plenty of indicators, on the field and off, that things are on a sharp uptick.
After his first catch I said in the plebe Slack that Faison might be the best player on the team by the time he’s a senior, but after the rest of the game I’ll revise that to say that it might not take that long.
Well that was fun. At long last, Bob Davie is avenged!
Not sure what to make of the fact that the second string offense looked at least as good as the starters, if not a bit better. Probably just that Oregon State is very depleted, but it’s certainly encouraging for next year. A brand new OL having just a few hiccups is particularly impressive.
Gino called a great game and I would say it was better than almost anything we saw from Parker this year. The playbook was wide open today — a lot more pre-snap motion than usual and some nice fakes.
Really looking forward to hosting a playoff game next year. The offensive line with 4 new starters was mammoth and on average very good the whole game. The Faison TD they picked up a 7 man blitz and gave Steve a clean pocket with only 4 in coverage.
Watts won the Nagurski award, but Howard Cross was the best player on the defense all year and with him an Mills back we are going to bully some teams next year on defense, and good luck throwing over them with Morrison and Gray at corner.
And Mickey!
If Jordan Clark ends up being all he’s promised to be at nickel, our pass defense is going to be unbelievable.
Not to underplay oregon states opt outs, but notre dame was essentially running their 2’s on offense, which seems to be lost from the post game discussion.
Missing: QB, RB, LT, RT, C, RG, TE, WR1, WR2, WR3(?) From regular season, and the boys went out and scored 40 points in pure dominance. It really showcases the work HCMF and staff have done to improve the aggregate talent of the team. Every RB on the field today for the Irish ran like an RB1, looking at you ketterer.
While the entirety of the roster wasnt even alive during the first meeting in 2001, this was juicy retribution.
Well done lads
It’s hard not to think what could have been this past year if Geno were calling the plays all year long. It seems like Denbrock will be a huge upgrade at OC and if the defense plays lights out like it did this past year we could be looking at a legit shot to go toe-toe with the elite next year.
I can’t remember if it was pregame or in game but was really funny hearing the announcers try to pronounce his name. Hammond-esque.
They were awful in terms of basic knowledge at times. At first they didn’t even know who was calling the plays. Though later they had mentioned it was Geno.
Yeah. Clearly not prepared at all. I would say that’s reasonable considering all the staff and player changes. But this is their job and they always get updates the week of for all the games they do. Not like they follow ND all year so are confused by differences.
The commentary was so poor that it was almost as bad as the best NBC Jac/Garrett game.
I see what you did there.
The defense played exactly like I thought they would against a depleted OSU team. (ok maybe a little better). There are very few questions to be answered going into next season on D. (one safety spot & nickel) Please come back AG.
With four new faces, kudos to Joe Rudolph for the Oline play yesterday. OSU’s Dline was probably their strength coming into the game. The Oline played a clean, if not great game. I think they can be a good unit next year.
Any QB that beats out Angeli next year, is pretty good. ND can with him. It will be interesting to see what happens at QB before fall camp. With two WR from the portal and the 24 class coming in, the WR position looks like it will be good. Certainly improved. The RBs are very good . TE check.
What’s not to like looking to next year ?
I was really only concerned about one thing: why is Tony the Tiger the bowl sponsor? Shouldn’t it be Kellogg’s or Frosted Flakes?
Let Faison eat the mascot
I thought Jagusah looked pretty good. Not perfect but I’m officially not worried about him taking over LT as a soph.
Baker wasn’t bad per se, but I’d be happy to see someone beat him out to start next year.
I was hoping to notice Sneed a bit more. But the D played so well he probably didn’t screw up at least. As far as D goes, not being noticed isn’t always the worst thing.
For example, just saw ND post something that Botelho was the lineman of the game. Barely noticed him at all. That man certainly dominates mediocre bowl games! Hope he stays healthy and can turn that into a whole season.
As for me, I must admit, I liked it. It was genuinely fun to see everyone give a s__t and do well. I do remember that Sun Bowl from 2010, and hope we’ll all remember this one as fondly.
Quick thoughts:
More skill position players enter the Portal, especially players on offense, than defensive players. Weighing Portal losses vs additions the staff has improved the team for all our primary needs. A possible need at Offensive Tackle has vanished. Only Baker in the entire first team offense (for the bowl) has been at ND for four years. (Depth chart)
Over the past two years, there really has been few – if any – transfers out that have had impacted this team. Do we miss Diggs, Styles, Staes, Flores, Merriweather, etc?
Oregon State deserved their ranking as a top twenty team, losing three games by three points or less, including one against Washington, a CFP team, by two points in arguably the best conference this year. This was a very good defensive line that ranked ninth nationally in sacks and only one of the four opted out. Our O-Line won the this battle with their D-line.
Bowl participation matter as far as extra practice and developing game plans over weeks for an opponent in addition to a reward for hard work over the entire year. Without those practices and the game, one could have only speculated as far as 2024. Kudos to all the coaching staff at every position group.
There is a brotherhood and real connections that MF and staff have developed with an appreciation for the special place that ND is.