I’ve always said losses are easier to write game reviews for because there’s more to unpack. Not this time. I went to bed immediately after the booth review on Ohio State’s game-winning touchdown wondering if I’d just skip article and move on with life.
This one really hurt. I’ll just be typing random thoughts and getting back to my regularly scheduled Sunday.
Stats Package
| STAT | IRISH | OSU |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 14 | 17 |
| Plays | 64 | 65 |
| Total Yards | 351 | 366 |
| Yards Per Play | 5.5 | 5.6 |
| Conversions | 5/12 | 11/20 |
| Completions | 17 | 21 |
| Yards/Attempt | 7.0 | 6.3 |
| Rushes | 39 | 27 |
| Rushing Success | 50.0% | 44.0% |
| 10+ Yds Rushes | 7 | 1 |
| 20+ Yds Passes | 3 | 6 |
| Defense Stuff Rate | 23.0% | 19.0% |
Offense
QB: B-
RB: B
TE: A
OL: A+
WR: C
Hartman made some tough and beautiful throws in this game. I wouldn’t have thought the game would be close if he was under 200 yards passing though. His 0 for 4 on runs (they scored the failed 1st down play on the last drive as a QB run) in this game were so crucial and a tough pill to swallow. It goes to show how a mobile quarterback can really be a huge difference in these tight and close games.
Hartman getting stuffed on 4th down, followed up by Henderson scoring from 61 yards on the next snap, only to see Harrison’s ankle look broken but for him to come back and keep playing is a really dark series of events for the Irish.
The offensive line had to feel pretty good about their performance last night. If there’s a silver lining, they more than held their own against a really good defense. Notre Dame out-rushed Ohio State (without a really long carry like OSU), won the success rate battle, didn’t give up a sack, and only surrendered 2 tackles for loss.
Estime started 0 for 4 on successful carries and never really got going into a good rhythm until much later in the game.
I am super impressed with Jeremiyah Love and his maturity in this game. He only had 13 fewer yards than Estime but with 6 fewer carries.
Rushing Success
Estime – 6 of 14 (42.8%)
Payne – 4 of 6 (66.6%)
Hartman – 0 of 4 (0%)
Love – 6 of 8 (75%)
Ford 2 of 2 (100%)
Price – 1 of 3 (33.3%)
Greathouse – 0 of 1 (0%)
Mitchell Evans’ NFL stock went up about 2 rounds after this incredible game. He caught all 7 targets for 75 yards, including a wonderful circus catch with 1 hand that will be played on highlights for years to come.
Jayden Thomas with only 1 catch for 7 yards and then getting hurt really stinks. I still haven’t seen any news on his prognosis.
I could be wrong but I believe there were only 2 targets to non-freshmen receivers in this game.
Defense
DL: B
LB: C
DB: C+
Giving up a long touchdown run in such a low-scoring game is brutal but damn it Notre Dame bottled up Ohio State’s run game. Henderson gained 43 yards on his other 13 carries and outside of his long touchdown the Buckeyes didn’t have a single rushing attempt for 10+ yards.
I think we can put to bed the notion that Notre Dame was just “containing the quarterback” prior to Ohio State. This is a poor pass-rushing team. Botelho was credited with the lone sack of the game on the play that McCord got called for grounding.
Only 4 tackles for loss (2 apiece) from both teams in this game is nuts. We really do have very similar defenses that have strengths at all 3 levels but struggle to create havoc in the backfield.
Bertrand was very up and down throughout this game. We finally saw Jaylen Sneed come in and make a couple plays so that was nice to see. We put so much on the linebackers to help with the pass rush and it didn’t go very well. They need more out of Kiser and incredibly Liufau finished with 0 tackles, yikes.
Setting aside the whole pass rush and havoc thing, the defensive line really played well and were strong as hell throughout the game. We really don’t seem to get much out of NaNa these days but JJB played the game of his life against his former program.
Stuffs vs. Ohio State
JJB – 3.5
Bertrand – 2
Botelho – 2
Cross – 2
Mills – 2
Rubio – 1
Burnham – 2
Morrison – 1
Kiser – 0.5
I really struggled judging the defensive backs in this game. A few massive plays were there for the taking (the DJ Brown late dropped interception christ why) and they couldn’t come through. Credit the Ohio State receivers for making some really tough plays. It was a tough assignment but I thought Harper really got worked over too many times.
This was the fewest points Ohio State scored in nearly 6 full years. We’ll see how McCord develops, I’ll be curious to see if the Buckeyes offense can remain in the elite of college football or if we’ll look back at this loss and think Notre Dame should’ve done a little better preventing McCord from making a few plays. I bet it’ll be a combination of both.
Final Thoughts
I don’t get the harsh criticism of Parker on the final offensive series, to be honest. They ran a play on 1st down that worked wonderfully early in the game, the screen was set up perfectly (it very well might’ve been a touchdown), and the defender just made a great play to stop it. This all feels like very normal circumstances where things don’t work out. How much would 3 runs up the middle have been criticized if it didn’t work? Ohio State had 2 timeouts, I don’t think the win expectancy is really going up a ton if you’re just concerned with killing the clock. But i get the disappointment of not making a 1st down to ice the game.
Ohio State’s secondary was very impressive and very physical. For a lot of this game, it felt like Notre Dame’s lack of big time playmakers at receiver was going to be the talking point in comparison to the Buckeyes. Given that, I came away thinking Parker called a really good game.
On the other side, I can’t argue this was a terrible game from Al Golden (there were some brilliant moments in this game, remember the 4th down stops!?) but the 10-men on the field and several chances missed to put the final nail in the coffin for the win will loom large for years. The defense had advantages (McCord inexperienced, Harrison injured) that the offense didn’t have and still coughed up the win in the end.
I don’t see the upside in keeping Golden beyond this year, and I’ve felt that way for a long time. He’s solid but whatever he’s trying to do to get this defense to the next level isn’t working. He’s said he never really wanted to come back to college anyway. Surely next year they will go in a different direction?
There were so many 50/50 plays that didn’t go Notre Dame’s way, it’s ridiculous.
Notre Dame missed their only field goal in a 3-point loss, so that’s cool.
No one better be criticizing the green uniforms after this loss. If you do, it’s off to the Wheel of Pain for you. The Irish looked phenomenal under the lights, although I think the all-green was too much and maybe hard to see the players set against the field.
My gut reaction after this loss was to hit the eject button on the season. Maybe even longer if I’m honest. This season was set up to do something special if you believed Hartman could help rise the tide and now all of a sudden it’s difficult to handle a loss already (in such soul crushing fashion!) with a lot of the country watching same old Notre Dame falling on its face.
If I can claw back some optimism the season still looks completely wide open and the Irish have the opportunity to get back up and stay in the race. If they win their next 3 games, which would conclude with a win over USC, it’s quite possible Notre Dame is ranked in the top 4 of the playoff poll (they’d probably need some help over the next month but still) or at least be considered the best 1-loss team with a clear shot to make the playoffs.
Still, I get it. When Notre Dame can’t win these games the urge to say “what’s the point?” creeps in and it’s really hard to buy into the rest of the season. If they can’t win this game what is to think they can go on and beat USC or a playoff game? I don’t think anyone has that much faith in this program now and that is sad. GameDay is coming to Durham for next week’s game and right now I don’t even feel like watching.
Marist Liufau stinks and I have no idea why he’s playing. Zero tackles. Unreal. And multiple of his trademark “run into the center” blitzes. I know he mostly hasn’t been good either but I can’t believe Jaylen Sneed can’t do better. Or Jaiden Ausberry.
The Liufau hype for the past few years is making me feel insane. What in the hell is he doing in training camp/practice to make everyone think he’s on the verge of legendary status? Has he made more than 1 or 2 great plays in his entire career? We have to move on.
Hopefully Parker and Golden get opportunities elsewhere this season. They both seem fine; neither seems “elite.”
We’ll probably get some wacky “Liufau was the 4th best rated linebacker of the weekend in FBS according to PFF” that will make my head explode.
I heard the Riley Mills was our highest rated DL.(not sure if it was PFF) Evidently you get big points for getting near the QB.
Almost Liufau needs to find the bench. Play Kiser, he at least makes plays. Give Sneed snaps, Bowen and Ausberry. To play MLB in a game that features runs up the middle by both teams and have no tackles basically means he had to affirmatively run himself out of position.
Yeah I gave credit to him I think in the NC state game but he was back to his useless “blitzing” last night.
Golden I think you can get to lateral elsewhere, Parker I’d guarantee we have another year barring a collapse
The problem is Jaylen Sneed is pretty bad too.
He seems to be, but his 4th down deflection was better than the sum total of Liufau’s contributions last night. Hell, given the situation it was probably better than everything Liufau has done all season.
FWIW, this is from ISD’s defense rewatch notes from Jamie:
I don’t think he was great. I don’t think he was bad. Ultimately the D held an offense with multiple first-round picks to 17 points despite some horrific coaching mistakes on the final drive (I’m still raging about drop 8 on 3rd and 19). I can’t beat up on any of the players too badly – even DJ Brown, who I’m sure has been much harder on himself than any of the fans have been on him.
I’m in a really bad place right now (the Indianapolis Airport with a bunch of people wearing red).
Appreciate the write up Eric. My gut reaction last night was actually much more optimistic than it is this morning. Immediately after the game I thought, ok well that stinks but just keep rolling through the season and it’ll all work out. But, I’ve read too much this morning and I am decidedly more pessimistic about the season. Maybe it’s because I live in Ohio and this was really THE (ugh) game I wanted them to win this year or maybe because I see no path to the playoff for them. I know, just win out and whatever happens, happens. Im struggling to see how they win out though if I’m being honest.
Couple random things: I just can’t get over the ending. Just inexcusable on multiple levels. I’m not going to go back and watch it (too much pain) but were any players signaling that there was a gaping hole on the DLine??
Finally, Ryan Day – calm down dude. I’ve lived in Ohio my whole life and there is no “Ohio against the world” mentality. Super corny. And yelling at an 86 year-old like that is just embarrassing.
I’m an Ohio native too, it all really sucks.
Ryan Day is the most Ohio Ohio to ever Ohio. Endless grievance.
Oh my. Such a sad review. And Lord knows I feel the same. After lo these many years since 88, with 89 Miami, 90 Stanford, and 93 BC starting us off in such a long trail of blood. sweat, and tears, I myself have been mutttering crap crap crap since 0530 (when the game finished my time and I luckily avoided massive repair expenses when the remote control I flung savagely away just missed the TV screen….) But please, let’s not give up.
Disorganized thoughts:
-Fuck.
-I don’t know what to think of that offensive gameplan. I thought the whole point of this season was that we finally had a good QB, but we spent most of the game in tight, under center, run-heavy stuff. But it kind of worked, except when it didn’t? I dunno. Getting blanked in the first half is unacceptable. Either of the field goals we passed up would, obviously, have changed the outcome.
-This team is good but it’s not a team of destiny. We are unlucky and should not expect any bounces to go our way. ND has to be perfect this year; speaking of…..
-What’s fun is that we have a much bigger game coming up in three weeks. If we beat Southern Cal, this game will not hurt nearly as much. If.
-I am absolutely begging this program to stop it with the green jerseys. If people want to buy them for $130 in the bookstore, fine, I don’t care, it’s your money. Please stop foisting these cursed abominations upon this team.
I especially agree with your first point.
Wheel of Pain for ya.
I accept it gladly. The green jerseys are trash. It’s not even a school color.
Green is awesome GTFO.
The ones last night were hideous, wear gold pants and they’d be good. And on top of that they’re cursed
“I enjoy seeing reminders of the most painful nutpunch losses in a generation” said ND fans.
Insanity. Burn the stupid things and bury them in the desert.
Tbf since the tradition is to use them for BIG GAMES I’d expect a lower winning percentage in them than the blue / white. But even still, they feel more like sure fight nut shots
The whole program is cursed carries a lot more water for me than ‘we sometimes lose in green and count that and never anything else in another color or uniform combination’ talking point.
There are green jerseys and then there are Green Jerseys.
These green jerseys were awesome. Don’t know what you’re talking about.
I too enjoy our 0-57 record in them.
6 game win streak in green prior to last night, although I know it doesn’t really matter to you.
It does not. Pounding on terrible Florida State and Cal teams while wearing green, fine. If people need St. Patrick’s Day in the fall that badly, have at it. Just stop this stupid gimmick for games that matter.
It’s not fine! The Cal game was too close due to the green jerseys.
I think the problem was more the administration pulling them out as gimmicks during the Davie-Ty-Weis run of absolute incompetence as something to get interested about instead of badly run teams.
I get the frustration with Golden, but from an objective standpoint, holding OSU to 17 points was very good.
You would think that the ND offense led by super-Hartman would score more than 14. I thought that the B- rating for QB was a bit generous – I thought more like C or C-
Agreed. I don’t know where the hateboner for Golden originated, but my God, we scored 0 points in the first half and 14 total.
There were 3 offensive series in the 1st half, 7 in total. That was a really condensed and tight game.
5.5 YPP is really good especially when we didn’t get anything super explosive.
I get the 14 points and that’s that, but not sure I see a ton of play-calling screw ups. Seemed like a majority of the screw ups came on defense.
You could argue the defense made those huge 4th down stops while the offense failed in those spots. But man, a 96-yard touchdown drive to take the lead late…that was awesome.
Seems like a lot of the criticism for Parker came after that drive was done–and a lot of that feels MMQB to me–while the defense face planted on about 7 snaps to finish the game.
Notre Dame as a whole played very good. I get the tendency to blame one side of the ball over the other but not sure I see that swinging too much towards Parker.
Both Parker and Golden did good overall but we need one of them to do very good. Or they did very good but we needed great, whichever semantics makes you happier. I’m frustrated that both could have done better yet I’m not sure how we’ll improve on them
I think they both did well. Good enough to win.
For Golden two criticisms. The no pressure on 3rd and 19. Second, it was obvious that Harper couldn’t run with Ebuka. WE probably could have given up whatever run support he provided and put Gray or Mickey, with some speed on him.
As for Parker, I think the bad calls were the Hartman sneak (second one, first one was someting else) and the two back play at the end. Should have kept it simple. On the screen, someone needed to chip the end a little to slow him down.
I think the complete lack of a playmaker out wide is the big takeaway. The passing was pretty much to tight ends or slots, the gift of Del Alexander keeps on giving.
Guy has been an almost bvg level albatross
Related to this: they need to move on from O’Leary this offseason. The Lyght/Denson/Alexander thing shows that it doesn’t matter how good of a developer you are, at an elite program if you are a bad recruiter you are a bad assistant coach.
It’s getting harder and harder to defend O’Leary.
Freshman WRs (Greathouse, Flores): 5 catches, 60 yards, 1 TD
Non-freshman WRs: (Thomas, Merriweather): 2 catches, 13 yards
This isn’t a dig at either JT or Merriweather, to be clear. I love JT, but he shouldn’t have to be a WR1. He should be in a Daniel Smith type role, which he would excel at. Merriweather is of course only a sophomore and could well have great things ahead of you still, but when you’re the only WR in a cycle it becomes a pass/fail grade.
That Greathouse and Flores are both this good this soon has been a tremendous boost to the offense. Unfortunately I think we needed Braylon James to also hit immediately, which isn’t fair to him, to really take the offense to the next level – he has the best physical tools of the three frosh but he also comes in with far less polish because of the high school program he played in.
Anyway, going 3/3 on immediate freshman WR hits is basically unheard of, so hardly a knock on him. JT and Colzie being the only upperclassman WRs in the depth chart really are a Tybation-level gift from Alexander.
I was a freshman in 2005, so “opponent converts long pass play and sets up goal to go with 7 seconds left, barely pushes through the goalline to win” makes it feel like nothing has changed in 18 years. Fucking sucks.
I still can’t get over only having 10 players on the field coming out of your timeout, making a stop, and then not correcting when OSU made an offensive substitution. My middle school coach would have been suspended for that sort of fuck-up. Absolutely baffling.
If they don’t beat the absolute crap out of Duke next week, I might need to tap out for the season. Work is kicking my ass and I have an infant, and if Notre Dame football isn’t being a positive to my mental health I dunno that I have the capacity to follow it right now. That would be a huge bummer for me, but that’s where I’m at right now. Please, ND, show some heart and bounce back.
Freeman pulling out of last year’s 0-2 tailspin gives me hope for next week, but this team has every reason to play angry and rip Duke limb from limb.
I was watching the game from 4 sections over from where I watched the Bush push as a freshman. It super sucks.
yep
I’m in a super similar place including having a new born (congratulations!) and after last night and as of right now I really don’t want to watch this team again. We’ll see how I feel come the Duke game but while I had some good vibes coming into OSU, for some reason I just think USC is going to run us off the field
Empirical evidence accumulated over the past 30 years suggests that ND will not be a positive to your mental or physical health and well being.
I think this was hurts so much because I genuinely believed we were going to pull it off. Once we scored our first TD, I felt we had it. Our O was consistently moving, their O was struggling, and their D was tired. To then rally, stop their (at the time) last drive, only to suddenly implode is just pain.
I know next to nothing about defensive coverage, but letting their two play makers run free is just crazy. I can’t recall a team ever winning after a late intentional grounding.
I 100% thought we would win when we went up 14-10. Full confidence. They looked like they believed they were going to win. I’m just so bummed still about this one.
The ill-fated Hartman sneak (?) followed immediately by Henderson’s 61-yard run felt back breaking. To see the offense respond with a touchdown drive, the defense force a punt, the offense go 96 FREAKING YARDS to take the lead, the defense get a fourth-down stop in the red zone, and our final offensive drive open with a 12-yard pass and an 11-yard run…
Man, at that point I thought we had it. I didn’t feel comfortable at all leading up to the game. I felt probably 55/45 that OSU would win, and that a big OSU win was definitely on the table. The stretch from the response to Henderson’s TD to Estime’s 11 yarder had me believing though.
Sucker.
On that final drive was when I finally let myself start believing. “Holy shit. They’re actually going to pull this off! Another first down! They’re going to do it!” I think the game actually turned on Hartman screwing up the exchange on that first down play and taking a sack. That error was compounded by the failed screen, which had the worst possible result. TD or at least huge gain was a high probability. Once JTT got loose, pick six was also a high probability. Instead, it fell harmlessly incomplete and stopped the clock. If he’d scored on that, Hartman would’ve had a chance for last second heroics instead of McCord. alas…
On the last ND possession on 2nd and 15, I thought a nice safe pass to a RB or TE would be a good call. You might get some YAC but you HAVE to complete it to keep the clock running. The OSU DE made a great play. Others have said the RB would have had a big gain. So, I won’t 2nd guess it.
ND keeps the ball or DJ Brown picks off that pass and no one is complaining about Golden’s D holding OSU to 10 points. The players have to make plays when they get the chance.
Marist Zero tackles ? How many plays did he play?
ND needs to find some guys that can get to the QB.
I guess every generation gets its own Bush Push game.
I’ve had about 5. Started with the Anthony Davis game.
Two 2025 commits yesterday.
CJ May 4star DE/ath.
Daniel Anderson 3star RB
See my post, last night ain’t flipping a guy like Justin Scott. So the beat goes on…
Yeah the pitch is supposedly “see we’re one piece away from getting over the hump!” except woops why not just go to Ohio State and be over the hump already?
I get your broader point – not entirely sure I agree with it, you’d be surprised at how these things work sometimes – but Justin Scott isn’t a loss imo. I wouldn’t be remotely surprised to see him have a Darnell Ewell-type impact at the next level.
how’s he doing so far? I’d expect a player like that to basically dominate the Chicago Catholic League at this point.
Normally we’d be all excited about this, but that just got buried in the results of the game. Horrible time to announce a commitment (unless their goal was to avoid attention)
ND must see something most don’t in Anderson, to take that pledge so early.
We were his first FBS offer. It’s safe to say we see something. Given the results at hand for Deland McCullough, I’ll buy in.
TBH, I was more impressed watching his film for a 2nd time.
And that right there, tlndma, is why we are a top 20 team and not a top 5. tOSU has 10 five stars on the roster, we…don’t. So if things don’t bounce our way or we make dumb mistakes, we can’t “Jimmies and Joes” our way out of them.
Thought experiment: replace our 2-3 most physically limited players on offense and defense with 5*/NFL draft picks from the last 5 or so years.
Defense:
replace DJ Brown with Kyle Hamilton. Think Kyle makes one or two of those picks, or somehow breaks up the last pass to the goal line?
replace JD Bertrand with JOK. Think JOK takes the right angle and closes the hole on Henderson’s long TD run, and doesn’t commit PI on the long pass to Henderson because he’s running stride for stride with him? Heck, that was underthrown and a guy like JOK could have picked that off.
Bonus: replace Botelho with Foskey. Yikes, that’s an upgrade.
Offense:
replace Chris Tyree with Will Fuller and Merriweather with Chase Claypool. Which, by the way, is about the talent level of OSU’s two WRs…
Bonus: replace Jayden Thomas (and the ghost of Deion Colzie) with Miles Boykin.
That’s the kind of talent gap we’re dealing with.
What happened to Colzie? Did he miss the flight to the game?
Was standing on the sideline without his helmet everytime we found him.
Colzie is having his knee scoped this week and is out for at least a couple weeks. Thomas is questionable for Duke.
As I’ve said elsewhere, I don’t think a lot of the criticism of the overarching offensive game plan is valid.
ND came out throwing, passing on 57% and 67% of its plays on its first two drives. They adjusted in the second half and it’s pretty hard to dispute the results of their 13-play, ten-rush TD drive and their 11-play, six-rush TD drive.
I’m not a RTDB guy and I don’t think it’s the game Parker started the game wanting to call, but it is what was working in the second half of this game. If anything, they could have done with running the RBs two more times on the two failed fourth down.
Yes NDone those stats kind of squash the argument that ND should have thrown more. Even if you disagree, please tell me to who ? We are just not that good(yet?) at WR.
Evans, apparently. Kid balled out
Throwing more to the TE? I don’t think that’s what people are arguing.
I’m kidding, as with numerous years past we’ve seen having a great TE is nice but doesn’t really get you Ws. But I do want to give him credit for a great game
Their TE hurt us greatly.
Okay?
We need more TEs that can catch freak tipped passes in the middle of the field on third down.
That’s all fair.
That’s fair. My issue is more that we took very few shots at big plays and tried to dink and dunk our way to a win over Ohio State. That doesn’t make much sense. Plenty of big failures by the defense, but asking them to protect a 14-point scoreboard against a top 10 team isn’t really reasonable.
Do we have anyone who can get loose downfield against a great defense? I don’t know if the lack of pushing the ball was a strategy decision or just because we didn’t have guys to beat the coverage.
Hartman was 2/4 for 53 yards for passes that went at least 15 yards past the LOS. That was 16% of all throws…considering how many times Hartman worked through his progression i think the intent was to take even more deep shots but WRs just weren’t open.
Our WRs don’t get open. Give some credit to OSU, they have good DBs and play that 3-3-5 that is designed to stop deep passes.
I am not sure Hartman has confidence in Merriweather.
Failed 4th and 1 first drive.
Failed 4th and 1 to start the second half
Dropped int that allowed OSU field goal at halftime.
Dropped int on last drive of game
Missed FG.
These arent coaching errors, they’re on-field mistakes. And they’re not talent differential mistakes, execution flat out didnt occur, right place, right situation, outcome not ideal. Couple these WITH the coaching gaffes, and the result speaks for itself.
I don’t place a lightning rod on any one play, player, or coach, because in the end, in a game this tight, these errors add up.
Convert the first 4th down, expect a FG or TD, +3-7points
Make the makeable FG, +3 points
Intercept the pass in the end zone before halftime, -3 OSU points.
Intercept the last drive pass, might not even matter to that point, but -7points OSU.
In game in house personnel execution corrections add up to +6-10 more points to ND, -10 points to OSU. That’s not 5* elite talent shit, or ryan days gross ass beard, or any of the myriad of other crap, that’s just plain “do your fucking job” in the moment stuff. Now you’re looking at a 20-7 24-7 win.
This hurts, it hurts bad. But this team, these players, these coaches will move on. They have the ability to put themselves in position to win, which for DECADES wasn’t event a possibility. Get home. Find a way, finish the damn thing. Onward our loyal sons
Honest but dumb question to you all – was the call on the field for the first drive’s game ending 4th down run initially short? I watch games mostly on mute, especially big ones, and I didn’t have subtitles on. I thought they ruled it a first but if so they then overturned it on that video evidence?
Yeah, it was ruled a 1st and then overturned after review.
That’s what I thought. Seemed indefensible to change that given the standard they’re suppose to apply. When they reviewed but kept a Notre Dame first down later in the game I was going to blow a gasket if they changed the call.
Was it a b1g crew last night or acc?
On first look live I thought, OMG he didn’t get it. Then OMG they gave it to him. I wasn’t all that surprised. Though you can argue it wasn’t clearly short and therefore shouldn’t have been overturned.
Yeah it looked like a call that should stand whichever way you make it, though obviously I’m biased
I think they said B1G crew on the broadcast.
My increasing galaxy brain take is we need to join a conference for the sake of referee protection. ACC seems more than happy to screw us in favor of full members, I expect no less of full out of conference opponents
ACC refs have been bad across the board all season. The real appeal of a breakaway super conference that leaves the NCAA behind will be during the current pool, doubling referee salaries, and hiring professionals.
Overall quality improvement is important too but based on the ACC bye week scheduling for years – even if it didn’t work – I am convinced the ACC wants to strong arm us as much as they can
A preview of the garbage officiating from last night. I can’t fathom how you could reverse that on field call, but then again they’d go on to review a call, reverse the completed pass, then call a completely different penalty than was called on the field.
The rules are made up and the points don’t matter.
Eh, Ohio State can play that game too.
They should have had at least one pick, maybe two.
They could have taken +6 points, because if they take the first FG then they can afford to take the second instead of going on fourth again because it’s a go ahead.
Egbuka had a drop in the end zone on a freakin’ perfect throw, a guy his level should execute that. It was a lot easier than DJ’s drop. Was that the FG drive? +4 points.
The only thing keeping me sane is thinking that Kelly would have lost the game 17-6.
Sadly, same. Completely convinced Kelly turtles up way harder
I’m with you Eric. As soon as the game was over I dumped my full beer in the sink and went to bed. I live in Cbus and my brother-in-law is part of the radio team for OSU. I desperately wants to win this game. Not been a fun day.
I didn’t have a problem with the game plan. As many people have said, players have to make plays and when we needed too and had the opportunity too, we didn’t.
Two nitpicks…..obviously only 10 on the field is inexcusable and cannot happen.
Second, there were a handful they left the DB covering merriweather on an island with no safety help over the top. Would’ve been nice to check to a fade once or twice. If nothing else you may draw a PI penalty.
This one cuts deep and is going to take a long time to get over. Hopefully the team can rally because if not we’re staring down another loss next week.
Mother of all gut punches…..
Can we talk about how bad NBC was? I mean it was an improvement from Garret and Jac but announcing was pretty uninspired and generally pointless, and the production team couldn’t figure out how to get the right down and distance displayed between plays.
mentioned above that I watch with the sound off which normally really isn’t a big deal but there were several times where they flashed the yellow penalty chyron, showed the refs talking, then never showed the refs make the call or put it on screen. I’m sure the announcers said it anyway or they had the ref’s audio, but very weird from a presentation standpoint
The announcers were very bad. Shockingly bad, honestly. When there was the review over he deep ball to Harrison that Morrison was flagged for, they were babbling about them looking to see if his foot was down before his hand landed out of bounds… while the replay zooms in on the ball moving. They didn’t even get it right until the next series!! Stuff like that happened all night, where they just were wrong about what was happening.
As bad as they were, they were still better than Collingsworth and Garrett. Garrett is still talking about the advice Deion Sanders gave Eddie George
Also, Sampson’s piece in the Athletic is embarrassing. Dude was Tommy Rees’s biggest cheerleader for about seven years and he’s already ready to shovel dirt on Freeman’s tenure five weeks into his second season.
Sampson is an embarrassing hack. I quit taking him seriously after the 21 season, where he kept hammering the “BK and the administration are totally aligned” line, only to flip when Kelly left and suggest that insiders noticed tension all season.
In another positive thing to discuss – is Joe Alt the best of our exemplary tackles of late? How about comparing him to Q as an overall player? He’s a beast out there
is Ohio state’s coach a close relative of Steven Seagal?
also, I’ve been watching most of the games with no sound. what is the reason for all of the penalty flags being waived off? I assume there’s not a conspiracy or something, so maybe a change in the way the refs are doing business. just curious
We are taking some serious WTF commits this weekend too.
are we talking 2025 recruits?
Yes. Took the 30th ranked composite RB and a DE who doesn’t have a composite score but 247 ranks as the 9th best player in Illinois. Seems way too early for taking guys like that – hopefully they’re just diamonds in the rough, but, also, you don’t need to take diamonds in the rough 15 days before signing day.
Anderson is racking up offers at a dizzying pace, so I would expect his ranking to improve. I can’t speak to the other player, but this staff has for the most part been remarkably good at identifying guys before they blast up the rankings and start getting attention from other big programs. (As one for instance, you might recall that when Keon Keeley committed, he was not even the best DL recruit we had at the time; by the time he peaced out he was top 10 in the country.) I’m going to trust them on this.
Some pretty long winded thoughts on recruiting (in particular accepting early commits from 3 stars).
In general, but especially this early, it makes no sense to criticize individual commitments. It is the staff’s job to evaluate these kids and at this point the staff has way more info than the sites, which are largely based on soph film and maybe 1-2 large camps. When we take a lowly ranked kid 16 months before signing day, it’s because the staff legitimately thinks they are that good.
By most accounts, majority of the potential NFL talent on this roster is in the fr/so classes, even given the mediocre national ranking from the ’23 class. So seems like the evaluations are going well.
But even with kids like Rezac, Mullins, Kahoun, Urlacher (mid-level 3 stars, plenty of tape, taken 6 months before NSD, unlikely to rise all that much) there is no problem with their commitments. There would be a problem if we then didn’t land KVA. The lack of KVAs across the board is still a problem, just a different problem.
So the real complaint should be that we don’t land 5 stars. It isn’t like this staff is taking these guys so they don’t have to recruit 5 stars (something we may have seen in the past…), and Reiff and the ’24 LBs aren’t scaring off real difference makers.
Once the class is finalized and we sit ranked at 12-15 … again, or when we lose out on the next Scott/Rushing/Keeley/etc, it is very reasonable to criticize the coaches and Freeman for not getting us closer to UGA/Bama/OSU talent levels. But that didn’t happen this weekend.
Obviously there is correlation between taking 3 stars and not being in the top 5 classes, but the 3 stars aren’t the cause of the rankings, they are a result of the same underlying causes.
Interior DL recruiting, in particular, has yet to improve, so I get why lowly rated DL commits could be a trigger. Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately), Reiff seems destined to be an edge player. But that doesn’t mean the current commits qualify as WTF.
TL;DR
Also to your 2nd point, sometime they do even get recruited over and leave the class later if maybe their initial eval was not as good as they thought or they find someone better.
Yeah, if they’re getting even more aggressive about recruiting over committed folks, that’s fine by me. I just haven’t seen any rumors that is the case, and it doesn’t seem to have happened much with the 2024 class.
sure, I was just thinking of Irvin in the last class as a possibility. I’m not saying it’s a regular thing; just simply that taking early commitments doesn’t preclude letting them go later if they really aren’t that great/they get someone significantly better.
Tom Loy has already said – contrary to his typical approach for the last decade, where his typical mantra is “next year is the year, I promise” – that the 2025 class is on track to be lower-ranked than the 2024 class. It does not look like we’re in on very much potential 5-star talent for 2025 at the moment.
Any word on top 100 players rather than just 5 stars?
Also, CJ May 4 star edge from Alabama. Has offers from plenty of top schools. 6’4″ 225 lbs.
He means Reiff who committed today
Ryan Day – is this guy an idiot? In his post game interview ranting and raving about how it’s Ohio St against the world and nobody believes in them. I expect this kind of rant from the coach of a scrappy underdog group of 5 team. If your ranked in the top 10, people believe in you, really makes me wonder if he believes.
A little irritated with the irrationality of the coaches poll.
Alabama ranked 11, lost to Texas ranked 5 by 10 points
LSU ranked 12, lost to Florida St ranked 4, by 21 points
ND ranked 13, lost to Ohio St ranked 3, by 3 points in a game that went to the wire. SEC bias is still alive and well, especially when you look at ‘Bama’s other games.
What was Golden thinking with the prevent defense at the end of the game? I don’t care how good the ND secondary is, you give an accurate QB time to throw with receivers like Harrison and Egbuka, something is going to break down. Of all the playcalls that I was iffy on, I could see the reason/logic of them, except that one. Prevent defense is like using lace as a black out curtain, it works ok at night, but when it matters, everything gets through.
The coaches poll is stupid. Don’t ever pay attention to it. They put in even less thought than the AP (which just simply moved you up or down depending what happened that weekend).
Hopefully NBC can find their checkbook during these upcoming discussions:
Good reminder that football is absolute king in this country (as is right)
Haiku time
A scarlet woman
a gray Day flush with promise
Set without honor