Chuck is coming back. After 4 years as a Notre Dame assistant–the last 2 as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach–Chuck Martin returns to South Bend for the first time as an enemy coach. Now in his 4th season with the RedHawks, he showed some promise late last season and is looking to build upon a recent run where Miami has won 8 out of their last 11 games.
Miami of Ohio (+21) at Notre Dame
Notre Dame Stadium
South Bend, Indiana
Date: Saturday, September 30, 2017
Time: 5:00 PM ET
Television: NBC Sports Network
Series: 1-0-0 Notre Dame
But wait! This isn’t the first game between these schools. The Irish (not yet known as the Irish) met Miami back in 1909 with the the Red & White (not yet known as the Redskins and not yet having changed to the RedHawks) coming off an undefeated season the prior fall. Miami wasn’t very good and lost 46-0 as Notre Dame marched to their 3rd full undefeated season of their own. There’s a quick history lesson for everyone.
***Remember the game is on NBC Sports Network and not NBC this weekend due to the Presidents Cup. Oh yeah, and the kickoff time is unusual too.***
3 Matchups to Watch
CB Heath Harding vs. WR Equanimeous St. Brown
Harding is one of the rare seniors (5th year at that) making an impact for Miami and is coming off a fantastic 2016 that saw him finish as an All-Mac 1st-team corner. He was tied for 3rd on his team in solo tackles and picked off 4 passes in addition to 11 pass break-ups last year. Harding leads a team defense that in raw numbers has been stingy to throw against giving up 768 yards on 130 attempts to just 3 touchdowns with 6 interceptions.
QB Gus Ragland vs. Mike Elko
Ragland came back from a season-ending knee injury in 2015 and didn’t become healthy until the middle of 2016 when he won Miami’s last 6 regular season games with some impressive numbers. This year his numbers are down (completion percentage has fallen off a cliff down to 52.1%) but he remains a very quality quarterback in the MAC. He’s thrown 28 touchdowns and just 3 interceptions on 324 pass attempts.
WR James Gardner vs. CB Nick Watkins
With great size at 6’4″ Gardner will offer an interesting matchup on Saturday. You’d think they will try to move him away from Watkins and his size as much as possible. Gardner missed a couple games last year and still finished with 750 yards and 6 touchdowns. He’ll be a major target down the sideline for jump balls, you can be assured of that.
2 Stats to Consider
4.69 YPP
The RedHawks defense has been quite stingy and remarkably consistent thus far. They haven’t allowed anyone to average 5.0 yards per play in a game this year. It might be a minor miracle if Miami holds the Irish under 6 YPP, though. That’s only happened twice by a non-Power 5 team under Kelly in back-to-back games in 2010 versus Navy and Tulsa.
One Run of 20+ Yards
Miami’s ground game isn’t very strong and definitely lacks explosiveness. They’ve been rotating a pair of juniors in Kenny Young and Alonzo Smith at running back and their stats are pretty meager. Miami has only scored 5 touchdowns on the ground (only given up 2 though to be fair) and Young’s 31-yard scamper is the only long run on the season. They are tied for second-to-last nationally in 20+ yard runs, yikes. Also tied for dead last is Mike Sanford’s Western Kentucky, by the way.
1 Prediction
There isn’t a whole lot going on with this game except for two simple issues:
1) Are the RedHawks an average MAC team?
Miami is currently the No. 86 team according to FEI (with last year still baked into the rankings) down 9 spots from their 2016 rankings of 77th overall. And it’s certainly not some golden era for the MAC conference, the RedHawks are the 5th best team in the conference according to FEI with Toledo the highest at No. 52.
On the other hand, Miami has won 7 straight league games stretching back to last year. Then again, they’ve only beat one team ranked ahead of them this year in FEI over that stretch–a 21-20 win over No. 75 Ball State last season.
Chuck Martin has done a nice job rebuilding their program from the ground up. The final verdict from me is that this is a slightly above average MAC team. Miami is in the weaker division which masks some of their deficiencies and while Martin seems to have things looking up they aren’t very close to becoming one of the best G5 teams in the country.
2) How crazy and aggressive will Martin get Saturday night?
This should be an interesting affair for Martin. Although I was never one of his admirers that thought he was on track to come back and become Notre Dame’s coach he did have his fair share of believers. That dream is probably dead at this point as he’s currently the same age as Brian Kelly was when hired at Notre Dame and Chuck Martin would still need at least another job in a Power 5 conference to even enter the discussion.
Realistically speaking, this game is meaningless for Miami and their coach. As the potential giant killers there could be room for onside kicks, fake punts, and trick plays. I have to think Martin will play things much more conservatively, hope his team plays well straight up, and get back to conference play next week.
We do have some let down possibilities for the Irish coming off a super emotional win against Michigan State. As such, it’s probably likely we see a sleepy and quiet first half.
Close at half, less close at the end.
- WINNER: Notre Dame 34 Miami 17
- VS. SPREAD (-21): Miami
- OVER/UNDER (53.5): Under
- SPECIAL, STEPHERSON CATCHES (2.5): Over
So the prediction that Martin will play predictable, totally uninspired offense? Glad to see nothing has changed there.
Heh, I see you. In his defense I think he’s a solid offensive coach.
I’m still scarred from watching Tommy Rees continuing to throw out of empty sets in 2013.
Sorry, Chuck, afraid we’ll have to kerb stomp you. Wouldn’t want you to feel left out.
I’ll be disappointed if we don’t put up 40+ points. The Oline should be able to dominate from the beginning. My one concern (too strong) are our banged up RBs. (The top 3 having ankles.)
I want to see Book for most of the 4th qtr. and if Miami covers, I want it to be with a late score or two. ND 44-16
“The top 3 having ankles.”
^This is a very valid point. I wish, when 18S does their Big Boards, they’d include a column for “Ankles?” Y/N. I think it’s an oft under-rated specialty of the recruiters at ND to consistently pick up RBs (hell, WR/TEs, too) that ALWAYS have ankles. Some of the other blue-blood programs you go to, you’ll see guys walking around campus, just heel straight into calves. Times are changing, I guess.
That’s my primary concern too. They say Adams is 100%, but I’m always nervous about an ankle. Kelly’s comments about Williams lack of practice/reps this week wasn’t good at all, I’d just as soon give him the week off, and it sounds like it’s going that way. Jones is apparently good to go, and McIntosh showed last week he can scoot through those holes just fine enough for a 4th stringer to keep it moving.
Ideally they blow this one open and it’s not too taxing for Adams and then Jones/McIntosh can play the second half on.
“I’m always nervous about an ankle.”
Me too. Right now, I’m just sitting at my desk staring at my left ankle, worrying.
How Victorian of you.
I don’t think a Victoria would countenance your use of the vulgar “ankle.” “Appendage” or “limb,” please.
This just in: Deon McIntosh scored a TD last week despite not having any ankles. When asked after the game if he’d consider corrective surgery to add ankles he said, “Who needs ankles? I have grit and attention to detail.”
You kinda predicted the same score I did. I had 33-17 and of course, I hope I’m lowballing it. This is a bit of a trap game, but not one we should have any trouble with…which of course means we will. I could see us come out on fire but underestimate or play a bit frazzled on D and let them put up a few points to keep it close early. Then we start pulling away, get comfortable and rest starters and end up with just a comfortable win instead of a blowout.
Prediction: ND 45 M(oh): 17
Ian Book throws his first touchdown of the year early in the 4th quarter on a 3rd and long after handing off the ball the previous 10 plays.
The Stepherson prediction. HOT TAKE.
I bet he gets like 10 snaps. 1 Catch, 60 yards, 1 TD.
That is if he can (allegedly)
I definitely expect Stepherson to be brought back in slowly. (Was he even practicing the last 4 weeks?) I think it’s an optimistic best case scenario that he’s starting by the USC game. Not that I don’t think he’s the best 2nd option, it’s just that history seems to indicate it’s a slow process to get fully out of the BK doghouse and back to fully playing time.
I’d unhesitatingly take the under for Stepherson this week (though would be ecstatic if I was wrong).
Too funny^^^
Hes going to finish the season with 420 yards.
I find that to be preposterous, allegedly, and things of that nature.
This 5 PM start time is BS. Way to screw both late afternoon plans and evening plans, ND. @Now I’ve got to make my reservation for Alinea at what, 1130?!?@
But seriously, I’ve got a friend coming in to town and we were going to go out in the evening, and I assumed with a normal 3:30 start I’d be fine. I guess I’ll catch the 2nd half on the NBC Sports App.
But seriously, why is the game starting at 5? Thats the worst timeslot in the history of timeslots.
I agree, I mean who starts at 5? Seems so random. Maybe the TV network didn’t want this game on during the 12/height of the 3:30 window because it’s on the cable channel and still to finish before primetime? Makes no sense to me though why not to play this game at noon. 3:30 at latest.
Maybe they’re trying to get people who were watching golf? But if that’s the case I don’t understand why it wouldn’t just be on NBC after golf. You would think that moving it to NBCSN would pretty much guarantee a normal start time.
Weird.
I think NBC is trying to push NBCSN, so they scheduled it at an odd time so it wouldn’t be competing with any other games since it’s got so little national interest.
So no, it’s just competing with 2 sets of games, the 3:30 and the 7-7:30 games. Dumb.
Apparently it has something to do with NASCAR, whatever that is.
https://twitter.com/b17anderson/status/913855603340058624
We should make USC play us in November every year.
Amen! I think I am the only person on the board to remember this, but when I was a little kid back in the 50s we played USC the last game of the season, every year. One year the game had to be played in an Arctic cold front after a blizzard, and the stands were mostly empty with a foot of snow shoveled into heaps in the aisles,, and the field green but frozen. I will never ever forget the Trojan receivers dropping balls thrown right on their numbers, and the whipped puppy look and attitudes of the USC players and coaches. We won by a ton, and it was after that they totally wimped out and said they would only come to play us here in October.
Bring ’em back to the snow and ice and cold!
But we get to play in SoCal instead of Nebraska.
While logically I should want all of our opponents to win as much as possible before we play them, there’s always such a sweet feeling when I wake up and find out that USC lost. It’s already starting as a good day!
In some years, yes. This year, let’s get real here, we’re not making the playoff (not even sure we’d want to if in a hypothetically awesome 2017 we went 11-1, for fear of being the team that gets beat 31-0 as seems to happen each year), so might as well just enjoy the USC schadenfreude.