Sometimes you just have no explanation for anything.
Notre Dame pulled off a seemingly miraculous 32-29 win over Virginia Tech Saturday night in a game they frankly had no business winning for a million reasons. But somehow, someway, ND survived and will enter a much-needed off week at 5-1 with a chance to reset before a second-half schedule that looks less taxing than the last couple of games were (but who knows?).
Here are the big takeaways:
The QB shuffle
First of all, good on Jack Coan, who every Notre Dame fan on earth including myself must have been cursing left and right when he started the game and had the start literally everybody predicted, getting sacked, making mistakes and not scoring any points. When circumstance and a Tyler Buchner injury conspired to force him back onto the field with the Irish down by eight points in the fourth quarter, he delivered the most clutch drive of the season for 75 yards and eight points, making all the throws he needed to make.
What this also does is open up the discussion again. Buchner’s brutal interceptions aside, it seemed like he was going to be the only choice to move forward as the starting QB. But Coan delivering as he did – and Buchner’s uncertain injury status- means, if I had a guess, Coan gets the ball again when the Irish face USC. But we’ll see.
What I will say for Buchner is that at no point did he remotely look like the road atmosphere, which he was playing in for the first time, got to him one iota. He made clear mistakes, but they were mistakes of believing in himself too much, not of panic. He’s clearly not even close to a finished product, but we saw more from him tonight to recommend him as the QB of the future than he has in any game to date.
Can you just not, injury gods? (But hey, the line was…not awful?)
I’m about done with the injuries on this team. Between the season-ending injuries already suffered to date, Buchner’s injury tonight, Chris Tyree’s injury, Mayer being unavailable, and 17 more I’m forgetting, Notre Dame is being blasted with ailments. You’d think after Blake Fisher, who clearly was among the most indispensable players on the team given the line’s performance since, went out on like the third series of the year, we could just be done. Evidently not.
That being said, the offensive line has looked steadily less awful as this season has gone along, and tonight was another step forward. Against a pretty good Virginia Tech defense, ND managed an OK four yards per carry and didn’t embarrass itself up front. For the most part, when Buchner in particular was out there, the line looked downright functional. Probably a good sign with less-imposing defenses coming up on the schedule.
Questions resurface on defense
It was…not the finest night on Marcus Freeman’s side of the ball. The Irish seemed to have no luck at all stopping Braxton Burmeister, even when he could barely remain upright. (That last TD run luckily didn’t change the outcome, but…Ouch.)
First of all, penalties. Way too many penalties. There were only seven, but it felt like 142. ND also did very poorly in key spots – VT was 8/17 on third down – and just couldn’t seem to make either the big plays they needed nor do the little things. Tackling, anecdotally, seemed poor.
Again, thank God for the off week. Hopefully we see things improve in a big way going forward. The defense has shown some major things at times, but it’s very much a work in progress. I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise, but Irish fans have gotten used to defenses that are basically ready to go out of the box. It would be nice if this one got to that point soon.
Survived to the bye
I think it was Pete Sampson who said something to the effect of Notre Dame just hopes to survive this game and get to the bye with a chance to reset things. Somehow, someway, they did. (I’m still not sure how.) Now they’ll have two weeks to collect themselves and figure out what team they are before USC comes calling. At 5-1 and with, frankly, no one who should beat even this lesser ND team left on the schedule, a New Year’s 6 bid is available for this group if they can take care of business. That would be something to celebrate.
As is this insane win.
This probably is not a very good football team
but man they can be fucking fun lol
great fight by the whole team to gut that miraculous win out in a tough environment
so proud and excited
INJECT THIS INTO MY VEINNNNSSSSSSS
I really wish Bill C.’s data was all still publicly available, because I’d love to know this team’s second-order wins number right now.
But, hey: better to win close than lose close!
Anyways, Buchner should have actually thrown (at least) two more INTs. I’m guessing he doesn’t start against USC.
yea his PPF passing grade was an awful 28.8. It was a passible mid-50’s when throwing longer than 20 yards or behind the LOS. They had him at 3 turnover worthy plays which is 23% of his passing plays! He is not ready to run even a basic passing offense. Though I really think, when he is in the game, he should just be throwing it downfield or things like screens/passes in the flat where he doesn’t really have to make any reads on those plays. And those things would fit well with his running game.
Kyren Williams. God bless the man. That run! He deserves better. Like just a bit of space sometimes.
Pyne must have some kind of silver bullet weakness that causes Notre Dame Ragnorak, right?
Happy for Doerer. And Austin, cause that 2pt pass from Coan was to no one and he made sure he got it
Man you are right. Williams is one of the most amazing running backs I’ve seen in terms of making guys miss in tight windows.
Man, I don’t fucking know.
5-1. An outstanding day of college football.
I may be the only one who wasn’t particularly bothered by Buchner’s picks and almost-picks. I haven’t rewatched any of them but on first impression I thought they were all fine decisions that he just didn’t execute, and I think bad decisions are harder to fix than sailing a few balls high. Especially when it’s wet and sloppy.
I thought the pick-six was mostly on Colzie’s lazy route. It seemed like an on-target timing throw and, if Colzie gets out of his break it’s an incompletion at worst. He was high on the other pick but I think he had an open receiver. Not a good decision to throw over the middle late like that, but if he just brings the ball down it’s a great play. I feel like those throws will come as he settles in.
I also thought Hasselbeck was way too hard on Buchner most of the night and colored a lot of people’s perception of the game in an unfavorable light.
Also two very late night thoughts:
1. Does this team have some cojones or what? There are many, many, many ND teams that would have folded in this situation, and against Florida State, and against Toledo, and so on. We’ve all seen it. These guys are some tough motherfuckers. I’m sorry we injured the entire commonwealth of Virginia in the second half.
2. Words cannot express how tired I am with the ACC. Oh no, without them, we might only schedule BC and Syracuse and Pitt in November! You know, how it was in 2008 and long before that. If I want to listen to Iron Maiden or whatever it is VT plays before home games, I have Spotify for that.
Re: team having cajones, I agree 100%
Crap are these wins ugly, BUT they are wins. This squad finds ways to win, and yes, they got outplayed against Cincy, but still kept it close. Its like reverse 2016, they just keep finding ways to get the w late.
Heart attack inducing? Oh you bet. 5-1? Hey, 5-1 I’ll take. And doing it whilst playing like half the school due to injury… yo, I will credit this staff for that big time.
I might love this team more than some of the much better teams of recent memory
They’re far from perfect but they are some fucking warriors
Hell yeah! It’s hard to quantify, but they just figure it out, find ways to win!
Freeman certainly did not look like a DC savant tonight. That multi player blitz on 3rd and long late, with a QB with an obviously wounded arm, when the blitz hadn’t gotten there all night, was plain dumb. It was an easy throw and catch for VT. (C’mon man, adjust in game)
Kyren Williams is so good and so tough and so clutch.
Has drew Pyne entered the portal yet ?
Did I see ND’s Oline actually get some push last night? Will the two new faces on the left side stay in the line up?
Bracy’s INT was a great play.
It’s pretty obvious that Buchner missing two entire HS seasons has slowed his development. If ND could ever flip Walker Howard , he starts day one.
I was at the game, pretty crazy one to witness. Don’t know if they showed it on TV or had already cut away but after post-game mingling both teams almost got into a huge fight as Notre Dame was slowly making their way off the field. Kyle Hamilton was right at the head of it, couldn’t tell if he was trash talking or they were getting in his face and he wasn’t backing down but emotions were very high. There was seriously like 40+ on each team clashing together and not just like a “oh stand in your face to be tough guy” there was a lot of bad blood, but luckily they separated after the coaches and security got in the middle.
Kyle and the Tech sideline were going pretty good on the Bracy INT too and his roughing the passer. The Notre Dame defense was definitely wearing the black hat last night and didn’t look ashamed to be the bad guy on the road.
I had a pithy nickname to unveil in Sack Coan, since he just stands there and takes sacks but the late game heroics will put that on hold. Hopefully he can play with some urgency like he does when his back is to the wall.
Mayer did the whole warmup, I tried to pay attention to him and actually thought he looked pretty good. He didn’t look like he was moving 100% free but he wasn’t noticeably gimpy. Didn’t have cell service in the stadium but it was pretty helpless when the game started and Mayer is just standing on the sideline, the only player not wearing a helmet. Scoring 32 without him is pretty darn admirable.
I’m not a big fan of Hamilton’s act. There’s no need for it. Not very classy. IMO. Act like your the best player on the field. Which he most usually is.
TV showed the end of the dust up. Yes, it looked like it was close to getting very bad.
There’s always a fine line between having that swagger, and being a jabbering idiot who costs your team with PF penalties. I think in general if you can back it up with stellar play, you get a little leeway. Golden Tate is an example I can think of of a player who’s had a decent career in the league but has always been a little too chirpy relative to production. Hopefully Kyle will keep backing it up
Tate is a good comparison. Kyle doesn’t back down from anything and talks a lot of trash. He’s said on his podcast that Kelly has told him during games something like “hey you got a C on your chest, you gotta be more composed and don’t do anything to hurt the team” and it seemed that snapped him back into realizing that. But it’s def not in his nature to be passive or take any crap, he gets too turned up at times.
To be fair, after seeing more video- no one was more involved with the fiasco than Hinish and Williams was right in the middle of it going crazy too. It might have been wrong for me to just single out Kyle, pretty much the whole team (and plenty of guys with letters on their chest) were all going crazy
What a game to be at!
Yeah, Hooks, proud of you for going!
Thanks, it was fun. One touching moment was there was an older gentleman in front of me who asked if I was having a good time and enjoying Blacksburg. He said he hoped I was because when he went to the Notre Dame campus for the 2016 Tech game everyone was so welcoming and it was such a wonderful experience. That was pretty cool, it was easy to see ND left such a great impression on him.
Boy. This reminded me so much of 2006 @ michigan state. Road game at night, rainy, hostile environment, a chippy opponent, and coming off a bad top 10 loss at home that felt like we were. And then somehow winning. Even down to the sideline skirmishes.
We were dead in the water*
Btw, when do the playoff rankings come out? Is that this week or next week?
CFP rankings don’t start until November 2.
thanks!