When it comes down to it, Saturday’s 34-10 loss to Clemson will mark a missed opportunity for Notre Dame.
A missed opportunity to shove it in the face of anyone who talked about conference affiliation like it actually matters. A missed opportunity to put to bed any talk of an asterisk from the Nov. 7 victory in South Bend. A missed opportunity to secure a second CFP bid in three years.
I suppose it’s fitting that the biggest reason Saturday’s game got out of hand when it did was also missed opportunities.
The Irish went up 3-0 after Jonathan Doerer drilled a 51-yard field goal, then moved the ball down the field rather easily again and had first and goal at the 7-yard line. Then they sputtered, Doerer doinked a chip shot field goal, and Lawrence tossed one of his trademark long-bomb TDs, and that was pretty much a wrap. (Just for fun, ND screwed up another scoring chance when Avery Davis dropped a 4th-down pass from Ian Book later.)
The easy narrative will be that Lawrence playing tonight instead of DJ Uiagalelei was the difference. And no doubt that helped. Lawrence is an elite talent, and despite what Dabo Swinney apparently thinks, no one has ever said otherwise. You can’t win the title in college football without a super-elite quarterback anymore, and as wonderful and terrific as Book is – and he earned the benefit of the doubt forever this year – no one will ever confuse him with a Lawrence, a Tua, or a Burrow. So that’s ND’s task going forward – find one of those guys and get them to South Bend and develop them.
But Lawrence does not explain why ND’s offensive line got mauled all night. He doesn’t explain why the imaginative play calls Tommy Rees used to eat Brent Venables’ lunch in the first meeting either disappeared or were blown up this time. And he doesn’t explain why the ND defense seemed out of position or unprepared time after time, especially in the ground game. (I’m going to choose to ignore any narrative about Clark Lea’s recent change of employment being a factor, and you should too.)
There’s not much more to say, so the question: Who’s in?
What happens now? Conventional wisdom said Notre Dame had to get absolutely destroyed tonight to get dropped from the top 4. Well, guess what, that happened – so now it’s a discussion.
So, are we going resumes or last impressions? B/c resumes aren’t particularly close.
Notre Dame
Record: 10-1
Top 25: 2-1
Above .500: 4-1
Opp win %: .478Texas A&M
Record: 8-1
Top 25: 1-1
Above .500: 2-1
Opp win % .443*LSU-Ole Miss, Bama-UF results pending.
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) December 19, 2020
The problem is, as you see in the Tweet above, by about any objective measure, if this is between Notre Dame and Texas A&M, it really ought to be ND unless it’s super important to you that one team faced their elite team today and the other did in September.
The defeated part of me would just as soon fall out of the top 4, play in the Orange Bowl against a team of mortals rather than face an inevitable destruction by Alabama, and hope to end the season on a high note. The goofy college football fan in me says this is the perfect chance to put Cincinnati in – since there doesn’t seem to be a good choice for #4 anyway and Alabama is clearly going to clobber anyone in the semifinal, why not have some fun with it?
I’d be lying if I said I had any clue what the committee is going to do. No conference title game loser has ever made the playoff, but all of those years featured a clear alternative to said runners-up. This one doesn’t, really. If you made me pick I’d say A&M gets the spot, but a rematch of a blowout? I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.
Honestly, why go to the playoffs only to draw #1 Bama and live this nightmare all over again? Besides just having the feather in the cap of “making the playoffs” there’s not much else waiting, besides another humiliating loss with this secondary just ready to be picked apart by elite QBs and WRs (especially if Hamilton is unable to play).
I’d much rather go to the Orange Bowl (shudder) against Florida and at least have the chance at a quality bowl win.
Also, to the article’s point, I don’t think this was a missed opportunity. Lawrence showed Notre Dame really had no chance against him. He deserves a lot of credit and completely changed the game from last time with his legs, vision and touch and the respect he has to be shown, which opened up more for Etienne. It sucks, but I’m not even mad, he’s just really, really good.
ND missed some chances to hang around a bit longer, but this one wasn’t destined to be close.
I think you nailed it in every respect Hooks.
And Andy, very clear headed review. Well done.
The biggest factor in this game was that our OL got destroyed on so many plays and Lugg was a large reason for that. THE strength of our team turned into a huge weakness.
I’d love to see film but I think they attacked Lugg relentlessly and it blew up a lot of plays.
I’ll be interested to see more and what comes out. Lugg didn’t acquit himself well, but center is his 3rd best position, so what can we really expect? Both of Clemson’s DE’s set the edge consistently and didn’t let Book get outside the pocket on drop backs, which isn’t Lugg’s fault. Venables coached rings around Rees today as well. Plenty more problems than the 3rd string center.
Tyree didn’t touch the ball until the 4th quarter. I don’t think Lenzy played a snap all night. Was Rees so locked into his past that he couldn’t adjust to do anything else when they needed the spark? Maybe Lenzy was hurt, but Notre Dame left what little speed they had on the sideline all night. To say nothing of the 5 star freshman receiver. Very disappointing when no one could get open.
I still think the biggest factor was Lawrence against the defense though. Pass rush didn’t get home and the secondary isn’t championship caliber. Trevor and Rodgers are. That was the ballgame right there.
If the Committee weren’t a P5 invitational, Cincy would be justly in the 4th spot (assuming they win tonight). We don’t deserve a shot after that, and personally I’d rather have a chance of winning the Orange Bowl than showing up to get murdered by Nick Saban et al.
Really, it should just go directly to Bama v. Clemson.
Upon further reflection, yesterday really could not have gone worse for ND. We got annihilated and everyone knows it, but not so bad that we’re going to be left out of the playoff. Meanwhile, Alabama played a close game (by final score anyways), so when we play them and get killed everyone will say “ND’s a joke; should have put in another SEC team”.
It’s basically the perfect setup to completely remove any program-level benefits from the November Clemson win.
I think it would be much, much better for the program to play a competitive Orange Bowl and maybe even win it (and have the ability to complain about us being left out).
Out of the frying pan into the fire. Facing Bama in the playoffs.
Disheartening game guys. It helps to know you guys are feeling the same way but it’s pretty awful. Especially after the good start and the interception and all.
Well, we didn’t lose by 50, so not my fault! Hooray.
I’m genuinely surprised by how outclassed we looked. This was every bit Cotton Bowl Part II, and all of the major bowl games we’ve played in the last 20 years. We are still very far away, and that hurts. A lot.
Playoffs, meh. This year is yet another example of why four teams is too many. There are two national title-caliber teams this year: Clemson and Bama. That’s it.
On the bright side, we can probably get a manageable opponent in the Orange Bowl. I’d be fine with letting the players just go home too.
My hot take is that we have no business in the playoffs after that performance.
I am really perplexed by how flat we seemed after the field goal was missed.
Texas A&M over Notre Dame is absurd by any measure. Notre Dame is better and has a much better resume. Saying you don’t want to play in the playoff for fear of getting blown out is um,not something I agree with. I want in the playoffs and they deserve it easy over A&M and Cincinnati. C’mon, it’s not fun to give them a participation trophy that they don’t deserve
I don’t think it’s absurd to put in A&M…I think it’s a coin toss as to which will get slaughtered in the semis.
im with Andy. Put Cinci in. I don’t want another embarrassment in the CFP.
Yall are so…in the moment. This is a great team. They’ve been a great team all year. They just sucked during this game. They sucked bad, but it was only this game.
I would love to see them in a playoff game. So what if they lose badly. You definitely can’t win of you don’t pay.
Buck up boys. College football is a rough sport.
I’ve tried to talk myself into the idea that yesterday was just a bad day, but here’s the problem: Yesterday followed the script of the 2018 Cotton Bowl almost exactly.
2018 halftime score: 23-3 Clemson. 2020 halftime score: 24-3 Clemson.
2018 final score: 30-3 Clemson. 2020 final score: 34-10 Clemson.
2018 total yards: 538/248. 2020 total yards: 541/263.
2018 rushing yards: 211/88. 2020 rushing yards: 219/44.
I could go on, but you can look up the box scores. The games were identical. That’s a pretty strong indication we are no closer to competing with top-flight teams than we were two years ago.
That doesn’t mean this team secretly sucked all along. But it could mean they’re not going to get the benefit of the doubt from the committee, just like last year, and it will be hard to argue against that.
This game went about like I expected. I know as much as we love ND here they just are not at elite status. Back to the first game and the guys missing from Clemson and still it took OT to win. What if Book, Hamilton, JOK and MTA were out for ND? ND has lots of very good college players. The elite teams( Clemson, Bama , osu most years) have elite talent all over the field and some waiting to come in off the bench. Really who from ND would start at Clemson? JOK. Hamilton. Perhaps Mayer would see extensive time. Games like this shows the difference in depth. Patterson is out and the line is very ordinary. Bama and Clemson are just playing at totally different levels with a different quality and quantities of that talent than the other teams right now.