It took nearly 5.5 hours but we finally got there. On Saturday, Notre Dame moved to 3-0 with a somewhat sluggish and messy yet convincing win over NC State in Raleigh. After the 1st quarter thunderstorms rolled in causing a 90-minute delay, Notre Dame returned to action with a long touchdown run and would go on to seal a comfortable win with a late burst of dominance.
Let’s recap another wet return to NC State.
Stats Package
| STAT | IRISH | NCST |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 45 | 24 |
| Plays | 61 | 78 |
| Total Yards | 456 | 344 |
| Yards Per Play | 7.5 | 4.4 |
| Conversions | 5/14 | 8/20 |
| Completions | 15 | 22 |
| Yards/Attempt | 11.9 | 5.4 |
| Rushes | 37 | 30 |
| Rushing Success | 51.5% | 42.3% |
| 10+ Yds Rushes | 3 | 1 |
| 20+ Yds Passes | 5 | 4 |
| Defense Stuff Rate | 17.9% | 24.5% |
Offense
QB: B+
RB: B
TE: A
OL: C+
WR: C
If you like starting off hot, being prepared, and all of those clichés this game was not for you. On the first 2 drives the Irish could get nothing going, in fact even worse they went backwards running 6 plays for -11 yards. They eventually cobbled together something and then settled for a field goal on the 3rd drive. After a 3-0 score to end the 1st quarter it definitely didn’t seem like a game where Notre Dame was going to find a lot of success.
I was frustrated by Hartman’s play early in the game but also realize at this stage of his Irish career I have set the bar incredibly high. The offense really couldn’t find much production with the receivers (only 6 receptions) and Hartman held on to the ball far too long on a few snaps, even losing a fumble in the process. At times, it looked like a wake up call for this offense and in the end Hartman finishes with nearly 300 yards passing, 4 touchdowns, and still no interceptions.
This might be a wake up call for the rest of the country.
Rushing Success
Estime – 8 of 14 (57.1%)
Hartman – 1 of 1 (100%)
Price – 3 of 7 (42.8%)
Love – 3 of 6 (50%)
Evans – 1 of 1 (100%)
Payne – 1 of 4 (25%)
For sure, explosive plays were the difference for the Irish. A full 107 of the rushing yards came on 3 snaps (including Estime’s 80-yard touchdown run of course) and Hartman fired 5 passes for 213 yards.
Packing in 320 total yards on 8 snaps (70.1% of the offense!) is pretty wild. Much more humbling was running 53 plays for 136 yards (2.5 yards per play yuck) as NC State did a good job bottling up the Irish for most of the afternoon.
Estime settled in eventually, however, as I thought he looked hesitant with heavy feet early on and he was unable to navigate through a lot of stacked boxes and NC State tacklers. In general, the Irish running backs were okay. Both Love and Price continue to show flashes of athleticism and quickness but couldn’t make a big play when needed. I do think this was a game where Payne showed he’s going to need to be better if he doesn’t want to be 4th in the pecking order (absent Ford being in concussion protocol).
This was officially the Holden Staes Breakout Game™ wasn’t it? We finally saw what the beat media were mentioning during off-season practices–this looks like the next playmaking NFL tight end to come out of South Bend. Besides a big drop from Evans, we saw some good blocking, and even an excellent Davis Sherwood touchdown play. All in all, a big day for the tight end group.
We knew this was potentially a tough matchup for the Irish receivers and that came to fruition. Hartman tried to force the ball to Jayden Thomas early with 3 targets (and 4 targets overall) but was unable to connect at all to the Irish no. 1 wideout. For the first time since the California game last year, Thomas did not make a catch. In total, the wideouts were only targeted 11 times and Hartman finished the game targeting non-receivers with his final 8 attempts (including 1 throw away in that stat).
Merriweather picking up a big 45-yard reception and Tyree adding a 65-yarder definitely helped the cause.
I don’t think the offensive line will be happy with this performance. They gave up 4 sacks, struggled with some exotic pressure from NC State, and went long stretches of the game unable to open up much in the running game.
Defense
DL: B-
LB: B+
DB: A
In my game preview I tried to be nice but wasn’t too impressed by this NC State offense. After watching a full game against Notre Dame they might be in for a long season if they think their offense can help them win 8, 9, or 10 games in 2023.
They added a 9-play 65-yard garbage time touchdown right before the game ended which made their performance look a little more competent in the box score. However, the Irish completely shut down their running game and made sure Brennan Armstrong needed to beat them with his arm.
The longest run (and only 10+ run) for the Wolfpack on the day was 13 yards. That’s a great job by Notre Dame’s defense.
Armstrong did find some success in the air with 169 yards on 8 completions for some decent explosiveness. And to be fair, they weren’t too dissimilar from Notre Dame with 70 other plays for just 175 yards, or 2.5 yards per play.
Stuffs vs. NC State
Liufau – 2
JJB – 1.5
Harper – 1.5
Hinish – 1.5
Tuihalamaka – 1.5
Morrison – 1
Bertrand – 1
Onye – 1
Brown – 1
Kiser – 0.5
Mills – 0.5
It’s just this NC State offense was too reliant on Armstrong making some pin point deep throws and hoping his legs would be a difference maker. With 33 rushing yards (sack removed) Armstrong wasn’t much of a factor running the ball.
The Wolfpack were also on the friendlier side of several penalties against the Irish. Of course, any team could play the ‘what if’ game but in this one it felt like NC State was far closer to a really poor offensive performance than something much more successful.
If there’s cold water to be splashed on this Irish defense it’s the poor stuff rate, with only 3 tackles for loss, and just 1 sack. The amount of pressure on Armstrong was good-to-very-good at times it’s just a lack of finishing and making big plays in the backfield feels like something that will haunt this defense unless things start to improve.
On the bright side, this seemed like a real step forward for the entire secondary where numerous players put together strong performances. Any time you intercept 3 passes it’s a great day. Maybe there will be people who feel like Armstrong throwing for 260 yards isn’t super awesome for Notre Dame’s defense, yet that number was padded by 51 yards on that last drive and it took Armstrong 47 attempts to not even sniff 300 yards passing.
Finishing with 5.4 yards per attempt through the air is pretty trash.
Final Thoughts
Spencer Shrader’s 54-yard field evidently was the longest in school history. Am I alone in thinking that is a little short for being a school record in 2023? Shrader nearly had his 56-yarder go through but it hit the left upright, doink.
For the second straight game, Deion Colzie wasn’t targeted in the passing game.
Jack Kiser (of all players!) jumping offsides on that early punt was a possible sliding doors moment in this game. That came on the series right after Estime’s 80-yard rumbling touchdown and could’ve re-shaped the game if the Irish didn’t force another punt.
Estime’s long touchdown featured awesome blocking from Joe Alt (lined up at tight end!) and a pulling Pat Coogan.
NC State did have a few really bad drops, in their defense. However, it felt like their whole offense was either quick slants or low percentage sideline fade routes.
Notre Dame debuted plain gold captain’s patches on Saturday. They are pretty different looking. At first I liked them but the more I see them the less I like the way they fit in with the uniform. Last week in the home opener, Joe Alt’s top white patch tore off revealing the bare gold beneath it–maybe they like the way it looks?
Benjamin Morrison had a roller coaster game featuring a bad dropped interception, then a great caught interception, followed up later by a frustrating personal foul penalty. In general, I saw a ton of trash talking between both teams. More than usual for this type of matchup.
Something cool that happened on the final full offensive series for Notre Dame–they gave carries right in a row to Estime, Price, Love, and Payne followed up by Staes’ 35-yard touchdown catch. I wonder how many times in Irish history there have been 4 consecutive carries from 4 different running backs?
Explosiveness truly is the difference maker in so many games in this day and age. This did not look or feel like a 7.5 YPP day for Notre Dame’s offense and yet the number stands. I took a quick look and on average I’d say the Irish get about 1.5 games per year against Power 5 opponents where they average over 7 yards per play on offense. Again, I think the country is going to take notice that Notre Dame didn’t really come close to bringing its A-game and put up that number against a good NC State defense.
Notre Dame is 6th nationally (4th among Power 5) in defensive YPP through 3 games and 8th nationally (7th among Power 5) in offensive YPP in 2023. The schedule hasn’t been great but this is a really good sign so far.
Hat tip to Thomas Harper for leading the team in tackles and breaking up 2 passes.
Donovan Hinish not only gets his first extended action but he also got his first career sack. Who had Hinish as the only sack of the game on their betting card!?
Jaden Greathouse is the team’s co-leader in catches and touchdown receptions.
Holden Staes now has 3 touchdowns catches from 5 receptions this season. His 115 yards is tied for the 3rd most for an Irish tight end since as far back as 2006 when I stopped checking further. It might be a top 5 to 8 single-game yardage performance for a Notre Dame tight end. Basically, only Michael Mayer had more yards in a game than Staes for maybe 20 years, that’s it.
Chris Tyree is leading the team in receiving yardage.
JD Bertrand suffered a head injury and left the game after Notre Dame’s first defensive series of the 2nd half. The defense shifted Jack Kiser to Mike linebacker and then rotated Jaylen Sneed with Marist Liufau at Will linebacker.
This was a sneaky great game from punter Bryce McFerson who bombed 6 balls for an average of 50.7 yards and kept the Irish afloat early especially when the team was saddled with poor field position.
Hartman would need 28 touchdown passes over the next 10 games to break the single-season mark set by Brady Quinn back in 2006. So far, he’s thrown 10 touchdowns on just 64 pass attempts in 2023.
The true freshmen to see the field against NC State include: RB Jeremiyah Love, WR Rico Flores, WR Jaden Greathouse, CB Christian Gray, LB Drayk Bowen, and TE Cooper Flanagan.
For the first half, really most of three quarters, this was a undoubtedly a frustrating game to watch. In particular, the inopportune (and I’d say dubious) penalties keeping NC State closer than they should have been, but that’s football for you. Thrilled with how it turned out and even with a garbage time TD for NC State, it’s worth noting that we absolutely smashed the line on this one.
I want to point out Liufau’s blitzing seems roughly a billion times better. Didn’t find his way home yesterday but he’s easy to spot and I didn’t see him running straight into guards over and over again like last year.
Liufau playing with more poise is one of my favorite developments on the team. Seeing him make some really good plays that rely on his athleticism but not being out of control is huge; I’ve been pretty critical of him and our LB crew as a whole so it gives me a lot of hope.
Regarding the pass rush, I think it’s worth noting that Ryan Day seems to have settled on Kyle McCord as his QB1 for now. And he’s much more of a traditional pocket guy than, say, Armstrong. I would expect ND’s rush to be more effective against him.
Also re: pass rush, it was evident a major emphasis point was keeping Armstrong in the pocket. He did NOT look comfortable making pocket progression pass reads and I think the passing stat line shows that, his game seems much more get out and make it happen a la johnny Manziel or Denard Robinson. There were multiple plays I saw the front4 all doing bull rush bench press moves to collapse back, while keeping him from scrambling out. Overall, it was definitely effective enough, but absolutely, you’ll need more against USC. A great starting lesson though.
Rocco spindler definitely took some tough L’s on the day, I dont know how good #1 was for NCST but hes a captain on a tough defense and looked thick as hell. Nonetheless, I hope old #50 for ND gets some good learning this week because there were some brutal reps out there – see the first sack on the first drive.
To the point of explosive plays, isnt that kind of the way college ball goes with other schools though? If that game is played with a previous ND offense, I dont think they get much more than 21 points, so I’m thankful we had different receivers who can go for 50+ yards and a RB go 80 yards. I don’t think that NCST defense was ever going to facilitate multiple sustained drives early, and they came out FIRED up. I’m going rose colored glasses and say this is a testament to ND upgrading talent across the board we have enough bodies in places to spring big gainers, be it a play action TE pass, or an in route to WR or a power sweep to our human bowling ball.
Agree on the last part. Everyone seemed to acknowledge that we needed more explosive plays from the offense, and now that they’re here, we’re kind of stripping them out and saying “Well what about the rest?” I mean, that’s what makes them explosive. You can’t just brush that under the rug if we’re doing it with regularity. Particularly against a defense which has been pretty stingy over the past several years.
The mush rush was super prevalent. I watched Botelho a lot and he was consistently rushing only about 5 yds upfield and not even trying to disengage his OL unless it looked like Armstrong was going to break contain. I’ve watched the Patriots do this so many times over the years and it’s boring AF but really effective against a good scrambler who completes ~50%. I think the lack of sacks was very intentional. It was going to be DTs, ILBs, or no one.
The decision may have already been made, but this week (and CMU game) starts finalize it…which freshmen are burning the redshirt?
PFF says that, in addition to the listed freshmen, Schrauth played snaps.
Who among Love, Flores, Greathouse, Gray, Bowen, Flanagan, and Schrauth keep playing? I think we should reserve Flanagan and Schrauth’s redshirts unless you really think they are stating this year. Feel like Braylon James should also take the RS along with all the other DL/OL.
Looks like Drayk will burn it on ST…any others?
Schrauth redshirted last year.
Greathouse, Flores, and Love are all true parts of the offense so they’ll burn theirs.
I thought the Kiser offside was actually a false start and they missed it. i don’t believe they showed the replay but in real time that was my guess. Then later their punt unit false started again which was called this time, which confirmed it in my mind.
Great write-up as usual Eric.
Morrison is young and was baited into the personal foul call. He’ll grow out of that. Isn’t he still the youngest player on the starting defense even though he’s regarded as one of the best backs in the nation?
How do you rate/compare Gerad Parker vs. Tommy Rees in offensive scheme with what has been shown so far?
NC State has a well respected defense. They seemed to wear down at the end of the game (even if they had dry uniforms). ND’s depth is showing.
It warms this 80 year old heart to see number 41, Hinish making exceptional plays on defense!
Do you mean parker as ND OC vs Rees as Bama OC? Or parker vs Rees when he was the ND OC?
havent watched any alabama football this year, but my 3 game take is parker adjusts faster in game to the opponent. 1st quarter yesterday looked pretty similar to some of the “kelly clunker” games, but parker adjusted and found some killer play action shots later.
It’s a tough comparison too with different personnel year to year and school to school, and It seems like Texas is much better than NCST.
Also, during my 2 hour debriefing with my dad this morning, we discussed “players make plays”: what could Rees have done in 2021 or 2022 with sam hartman calling the shots on the field? Any play call looks amazing when your people execute.
All that being a convoluted was of not really answering, but I’ve been super happy with parker’s adaptability and preparation, see early game responses to navys big blitzes. So as of now, I give parker > rees.
Think the tide fans are already calling for TFR’s head?
It’s hard to compare Parker and Rees because Parker has ND’s best QB in a generation. Of course, Tommy was the QB coach for six seasons, so he has no one to blame but himself on that front.
That said, I think the main difference is that Parker calls straightforward, logical plays. With the exception of the flea flicker yesterday, there have been zero calls where I go, “What the fuck was he thinking?” That was a once a drive occurrence with Rees.
As far as logical play calls, as much as the up the middle runs killed me early in the game, when Hartman finally started rolling out and hitting tight ends, NC State was caught completely off guard.
For instance two of the TE touchdowns came out of the same formation where the TE was lined up as a halfback right and he just released at a 45 degree angle to the sideline, and the LB had no chance. I haven’t watched the film but I bet we ran several times early out of that formation with the TE blocking.
So it was a logical set up early to get the big play late.
Yep, those TDs were beautiful playcalls that torched NC State for overcommitting to stopping Estime inside.
Tommy Rees is the kid who keeps raising his hand and blurting out random facts in class because the teacher told him he was smart that one time.
the first failed wishbone formation run thing was a bit of a wtf for me, but probably because of the blocking going so poorly and it being such an obvious run. Then again, he brought it back later on the Sherwood TD I think, or something similarly heavy looking, so that evens out
The Power Hour guys touched on this in their Tennessee State review – they gave Parker credit for not getting too cute but then also pointed out that with Pyne and Buchner under center last year Rees pretty much had to get cute to make something happen. Nothing happens in isolation, of course, and as you note the QB situation was (partly) of Rees’s own doing. But worth noting nonetheless, and also Tommy was still the OC when Hartman decided to transfer to ND so he deserves a little credit for that.
It looks schematically almost the exact same imvho
just is being ran different with a lot better personnel lol
the only minor gripe I have with Parker so far is the penchant to run it on second and long, but I’m an emotionally abused Bears fan in that way. But he also got better about it as the game wore on, though I saw it in weeks past too
Nice to see our Red Zone conversion rate and TD% RZ conversion is one of the tops nationally – 90.91% on 10 TDs out of 11 attempts (no FG attempts). With a kicker that can hit 50 yarders we have the potential to reliably put points on the board and pin an opponent inside their twenty regularly as a result. McPherson booming punts can flip the field. Hartman threading that pass to Greathouse for the TD was a thing of beauty.
What was the 1/11 with no FG or TD?
In the third quarter against Navy at 4:52 we got to their 19 yard line, lost five yards, and after an incomplete pass, Schrader missed the 42 yd FG.
Fire Kelly!
Random thoughts:
For the last time we had four different backs have 4 carries in a row, would guess that happened a few times in ’88. Five running backs from that option heavy team made the NFL (including young Brooks and Watters IIRC), and there were quite a few blowouts for second stringers to get a chance, along with MOAR FULLBACKS getting carries.
Good point on the pass rush more focusing on containing than getting home. And as much as the up the middle blitzes still kill me, are they sometimes run blitzes where Bertrand (or whoever is the captain out there) makes the wrong call and it ends up a pass? Because that might help explain how good of a job the run defense did today.
Speaking of blitzing, Marist seemed to do pretty well in the spy role. He would hesitate to make sure it wasn’t a designed run. If Armstrong got out of the pocket he did a good job on contain, and if he had a straight shot to Armstrong it was like a delayed blitz where he got some good pressures.
McPherson and Schrader both have legit cannons for legs. Were those Polian gets? McPherson seems like he may have (good) problem of outkicking the coverage, which could be a problem with teams with more athletic returners. If he can give up 5 yards of distance for a few fractions of second of hang time, that would be pretty elite.
Believe both are Mason guys? Schrader might be a Biagi guy, I don’t quite remember the timing. But definitely not Polian guys.\
Liufau got sucked in once and it was on NC State’s first TD. He overplayed Armstrong sliding to one side and then got caught up in traffic when Armstrong scrambled the other way and had a clear throwing lane for the TD. And even at that Morrison almost broke it up. Otherwise he did a really good job all around.
Got some dudes on this D.
Haiku time
Gold in a sea of red
Lightning illuminates Irish
Electric response
Well looks like MSU found a way to get out of the Mel Tucker contract
Big10 = big problems, big yucky.
USC will fit right in!
Dios mio. That was not on my bingo card.
And I think he’s had the least amount of snaps among the WRs who have played.
The ball goes to open receviers and if they are tied up, it goes to the receivers Hartman trusts to catch the ball in a tight spot. He clearly feels that with Greathouse and Thomas. To a lesser extent Flores. Not so much Tyree and Merriweather.
Updating a comment – and link – in the Mid-Majors article, the judge has ruled in Washington State’s and Oregon State’s favor and are now the only members of the Pac 12 Board making decisions on the conference’s assets including the $42 mill in the bank and the Pac network. (USC, UCLA and Colorado were excluded from the Board right after they announced their departures per the bylaws.)
Court rules in favor of Oregon State, Washington State, grants temporary restraining order against Pac-12
It would be reasonable to assume the champion of a reconstituted PAC with new members would qualify for the CFP.
notre dame being this good to elicit this kind of reaction just warms my heart