It’s the home opener for the 2016 football season and the last opener before the official unveiling of the Crossroads project. On Saturday we’ll finally see the (nearly) finished bones of the $400 million project, complete with video board space without a video board.
The Irish come off a deflating loss on the road in Austin plunging many a fan into depression thinking about the remaining 11 regular season games. However, the national outlook isn’t nearly as gloomy. That’s a product of playing a wildly entertaining game (people love those!) and carrying an offense that is led by media-favorite DeShone Kizer–now trending as a possible No. 1 overall pick in the NFL Draft. What a 12 months for that guy.
Nevada (+28.5) at Notre Dame
Notre Dame Stadium
South Bend, Indiana
Date: Saturday, September 10, 2016
Kickoff: 3:30 PM ET
Television: NBC
Series: 1-0-0 Notre Dame
Nevada makes the 2,000 mile trek back East for their second-ever meeting with Notre Dame. Led by former Irish special teams coach Brian Polian, the Wolf Pack are licking their wounds following a near-loss in the opener to California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo aka Cal-Poly. They did pull out the victory in overtime which has brought Polian to 19-20 in his career in Reno.
3 Matchups to Watch
Irish Defense vs. Nevada’s Rush Attack
Nevada definitely lives off of their rushing attack. They lost 1,000-yard rusher Don Jackson but bring back another 1,000-yard rusher in junior James Butler. At 5-9, 210 he’s a well-built back with shiftiness but a short-strider who shouldn’t run away from most players at the Power 5 level.
Penn State transfer Akeel Lynch will also get in the mix but it’s difficult to know how productive he’ll be with only 4 carries in the opener. Quarterback Tyler Stewart is also used a weapon in the spread read option attack averaging just under 8 carries per game since becoming starter.
The Wolf Pack were pretty good at creating some long runs–finishing 32nd nationally with 24 carries of 20+ yards–but only mustered one such run in the opener on Butler’s 50-yard touchdown run. The addition of Lynch (220 pounds) probably won’t help the explosiveness all that much.
VanGorder vs. Tyler Stewart
Shut down the Wolf Pack running attack and this game should be over quickly. Stewart, the 5th-year senior making his 15th straight start, has led a very lean passing attack since 2015. He’s only completed 20+ passes twice in his career and combines a pretty pedestrian YPA with accuracy under 60% in 8 out of his last 14 appearances.
Does the defense pack the box in combination with soft coverage to play it safe through the air and dare Stewart to string together a bunch of passes? Or do they creep tight and challenge an offense whose 46-yard pass last week against Cal-Poly was just the 3rd snap through the air of 40+yards since the beginning of 2015?
Notre Dame Running for All the Yards
If you thought the Irish running attack disappointed last Sunday now is the time for them to get back into your good graces. Nevada came into the season really swimming upstream having to replace 6 of their front 7 starters, and oh boy, did things not go well in their opener: 383 rushing yards surrendered with 3 scores given up on the ground AND no sacks nor quarterback hurries.
Last year’s 457 rushing yards against UMass was the high-water mark for the Kelly era and that total could be in danger this weekend.
2 Sides of the Line
Nevada had a veteran offensive line coming into the season that went through a small shakeup as left guard Ziad Damanhoury (9 starts in 2015) was dismissed from the team after a July DUI arrest. In his place, they put JUCO sophomore Jake Krepsz (6-5, 320) as the starter in the opener. Filling out the interior is senior center Nathan Goltry (6-1, 300) and 5th-year right guard Jeremy Macauley (6-1, 300) who started 13 and 11 games respectively last year.
On the left edge will be redshirt junior Austin Corbett (6-4, 300) and on the right 5th-year senior Jacob Henry (6-4, 295) both who started every game last year. Besides the new starter Krepsz this is an under-sized line which is to be expected from a Mountain West team. Last year they had some quality traditional stats (2,738 rushing yards, 24 rushing TD’s, 22 sacks surrendered) although S&P liked their rushing attack a lot less (81st nationally).
The Wolf Pack are breaking in two new defensive ends in redshirt sophomore Malik Reed (6-1, 245) and junior Patrick Choudja (6-3, 250) who combined for 12 tackles and 1 tackle for loss in their opener.
On the interior returning starter and 5th-year senior Salesa Faraimo (6-2, 290) is back but was limited to just 4 assisted tackles last week. He’ll start next to redshirt sophomore Korey Rush (6-1, 280) who got some experience last year and made 2 tackles in the opener. Redshirt freshman Hausia Sekona (6-1, 275) will also see some action and totaled 6 tackles and 1 TFL in their first game.
1 Prediction
Nevada had a weird opening game against Cal-Poly. They burst out to a 21-7 lead on 97 rushing yards and 178 total yards in the 1st quarter. From there they managed just a field goal, no points in the second half, and only 185 yards through the end of the game which went into a single overtime session. What happened?
The Wolf Pack fell asleep and Cal-Poly did a great job keeping the ball away from the Nevada offense. The Mustangs picked up 23 first downs which enabled them to keep running the ball for an absurd 71 carries. In the second half, Cal-Poly had the ball for nearly 22 out of the 30 minutes of game time! Nevada still averaged 6.3 yards per play overall but only had 6 offensive snaps in the 3rd quarter and 12 in the 4th quarter.
Nevada should be frisky on offense against Notre Dame. They really lost only one impact player from a year ago and you know Brian Polian is going to be really aggressive throwing out some trick plays and thinking good and hard about any 4th down attempts. Without some turnovers this game has annoying written all over it when Nevada has the ball. With the shape and morale the Irish defense comes into this game with who’s to say the Wolf Pack won’t do some positive things on offense?
This game will not be fun. The offense has a really good chance of lighting up the scoreboard but anything short of 60 points is unlikely to move the needle for most folks. Putting up a 50-spot is expected. Additionally, the weather forecast is calling for 74, cloudy, with the chance of some showers. Notre Dame Stadium is known to get awfully sleepy when a game isn’t competitive and I can see a really dull afternoon all things considered.
I just sent my brother a prediction on 48-24 while this article was loaded but not yet read, so 51-24 sounds just about right to me. I’m looking forward to the home opener and will be in the stadium, slightly damp or otherwise.
Pessimistic Prediction:
49-38 ND – VanGorder is lost versus Nevada’s spread attack, keeping the game close until ND pulls away in the 4th. ND fails to blowout an overmatched opponent and fails to get the backups any snaps for what feels like the billionth time.
Optimitic Prediction:
We party like its 2009. 35-0 Irish
Do we know if this iteration of Nevada QB will be standing for the national anthem?
Looking at the preview 35 points would be disappointing against this defense, although 0 points allowed would more than make up for that.
I hate making predictions as I feel the gods ensure that it will be the opposite of whatever I predict (it is all about me, after all). But, didn’t Lou Holtz say the best improvement a team makes is from week one to week two? Therefore, it feels like we should blow this team out. But I suspect that won’t happen.
I’m thinking that the first quarter is a bit slow as the atmosphere (even though it’s at home) won’t be as juiced as it was on Sunday night. But the talent gap will show in the second quarter as someone on ND will make a spectacular play and ignite things for the remainder of the 1st half. Then, in the third quarter, we let them come back in the game a little but we put things away in the 4th.
In other words, I don’t think we will cover the spread, because that’s how we roll. However, we’ll win by 13-20 points.
And by the way, the music on those Nevada highlights is awful.
You don’t like that jam?
Das’ right mah man!
My excitement level for this game will match my concern level, which is proportional to the extent of my remarks here.
ND to cover, and comfortably.
On to MSU.
51-24 would be pretty fun for me, if there’s no major injuries. They can and should win comfortably, so let’s see it and get back on track for MSU.
I want to see the pass catchers dominate in this one. They were very good against Texas, but they slowed down once Hunter went out. This is a young unit full of potential stars; if they can keep up the production game after game, that will make for some fun viewing, even if the defense lets us down over the course of the season.
You can pretty much book it that the crowd will be anemic no matter what, that is our MO for these games, as Eric alluded to.
We have still never since about 1990 fixed the various methods of actually getting the crowd to make more productive noise. But that is my hobby horse.
OT but being in France I miss the good moments in most of the threads – Eric, you and a few other guys really really trashed the 3rd and 12 run call in the 4Q in Austin. Did I miss something or did BK throw Kizer under the boss a bit by alluding to him having audibled into a run call?
Someone asked Kelly about Kizer being his own harshest critic and “nitpicking” (the reporter’s word) his performance after the game. Kelly said (paraphrasing), “Well, there’s some stuff he has to work on, like he missed a couple of reads and a couple of protections, and there was a play where he checked into a run based on something he thought he saw, so we’ll help him continue to work on those things.”
It wasn’t that bad. He didn’t mention the specific play but I knew exactly which one he meant, because at the time I wondered what the heck Kizer was doing. The down and distance were totally inappropriate for a run check. I think he just got a little over-exuberant.
Sorry, just re-read your question and caught what you’re really asking. The run check Kelly was talking about was a different play – the 3rd and 12 draw was a called play. Kelly went super conservative there, and got bailed out by a 15 yard penalty and a bad snap on Texas’s last regulation drive.
whoops, under the bus…
Under the boss is probably a better spot to be. Depends on the boss I guess. Unless you work for Jerome Bettis, then you could be under both at once.
Or your boss is Bobby Petrino, if you find yourself under him, a motorcycle accident is likely in your imminent future.
Let me complain about a minor problem, relative to BVG. I was at Texas, and they payed the most appalling ads on the video board. And I realized then that as much as NdNation is nuts, a jumbotron will inevitably be used for evil. Conclusion: BVG is pre-emptive punishment for the jumbotron.
That might be the nicest thing anybody has said about VanGorder all week.
I didn’t notice any outright ads on the jumbotron. They had a bunch of things sponsored by Hyundai and always mentioned it, but that wasn’t directly related to the video board. Overall I was super thankful for it, since they had tons of media timeouts like ND, and watching things on the jumbotron was way better than just sitting in silence.
I watched most of the Nevada-Cal Poly game. I will be disappointed (but not shocked) if we give up 24 points.