If the Marshall loss was a bellwether of potential imminent disaster for the Marcus Freeman era, there were a lot of signs in Saturday’s 28-20 win over BYU that things are, as the great Lou Brown said, “startin’ to come together”.
It wasn’t perfect, but especially in the 22-0 scoring run that briefly gave ND control of the game and at times afterward, the Irish looked like the team coach Freeman has been talking about.
Our culture took over#GoIrish pic.twitter.com/vTbWP2tDe5
— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) October 9, 2022
Michael Mayer: GDM status
When I worked at a restaurant, the highest possible compliment was “GDM status”. It stood for a certain expletive followed by the word ‘man’.
Michael Mayer is a GDM.
Every time ND needed something in the first half, there he was. It got to the point where my wife, not a football strategist, said on one third down, “Just tell Mayer to get open and haul ass”; that play ended up being Mayer’s second touchdown, on which he pretty much did just that.
Mayer went over the century mark and scored twice in the first half, breaking the school records for receptions in a career and in a game by a tight end in the process.
I’m sure Eli Raridon and Holden Staes are going to be fine football players. If they’re half the guy Mayer is, ND will be fine.
The Hiestand O-line is back
We spent the first couple of weeks wondering where the heck the Harry Hiestand offensive line we were promised was. The Irish couldn’t even block Marshall a few weeks ago.
We all forgot that the 2017 line, the Joe Moore Award winners, struggled early too before coalescing later in the season. That process might be happening again.
ND was able to move the Cougars around pretty consistently up front, averaging an impressive 5.2 yards per rush and not letting Drew Pyne be sacked once. It wasn’t a spotless effort – the turnover on downs near the goal line and the tipped interception weren’t great – but it was a really really good one, and now the Irish are starting to stack them up. A good offensive line makes this program when it’s at its best, and ND now looks to have one.
Timely defense
It was a game that seemed like the Irish defense was dominating, with some help from Jaren Hall’s potentially balky shoulder. Then Al Golden called another safety blitz and sent Brandon Joseph to the QB from almost 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage. Predictably, it did nothing whatsoever.
(Can we get rid of those?)
Anyway, the stats don’t look super great – the Cougars actually averaged more yards per carry than Notre Dame thanks to a couple of very annoying big plays – but the dangerous Hall was essentially shut down apart from that safety blitz, and one of the bigger plays of the game was the safety that came after the fourth-down failure near the goal line. Jayson Ademilola was a monster at a couple of key moments. Anytime you hold BYU to 20 points, that’s pretty good.
When he’s protected, Drew Pyne is pretty darn good
It was easy to shrug off the North Carolina game as the result of a terrible Tar Heels defense. And granted, the BYU defense isn’t exactly Alabama. But at certain points of tonight’s game, Drew Pyne showed off some of the swagger ND fans enjoyed about him when he made a cameo appearance in the 2021 season.
The young quarterback fired bullets to Jayden Thomas (and how about the freshman with a semi-breakout performance?), looked for Mayer constantly as anyone with a functional brain should, and even busted out a little big-man energy with his underhand flip to Audric Estime while being taken down.
Notre Dame doesn’t have to win because of Drew Pyne, but when they get this version of him, there’s good reason to believe they can win a lot of games.
Suddenly, with a train-wreck Stanford and a solid but (theoretically) out-talented UNLV squad ahead of them, the path is there for the Irish to turn this season into, if not a success, at least a first step.
–It might be Stockholm Syndrome setting in, but I’m starting to be a believer in #PyneTime. He’s mostly accurate, hangs in the pocket and has a ceiling but he will get the job done. Not going to transform the program but it’s Book-ian (no pun) for finding a way. Almost glad Pyne doesn’t have Book’s legs so he has to make a play with his arm most of the time.
–Why is the defense like elite 90% of the time and then a sieve 10% of the time? Also, not sure if there’s correlation/causation in play, maybe the line gets worn down- but it do they perform better without Bertrand and with Kollie/Kiser instead?
–It might go unnoticed since it was early, but Bo Bauer making goal line stands with one arm (maybe the only defense snaps he played tonight?) is pretty dammed heroic. Feel rotten for him that his final year is going to be a wash after spending all this time waiting for this.
–Jayden Thomas, hello. Needed a WR to step up eventually, glad he finally did.
–Clemson and USC are still winning, but unconvincingly. So who knows. It’s impossible to look past anyone after losing to Marshall, but I feel like 10 wins — unbelievably — still isn’t impossible either if Pyne keeps growing and they can button up the defense a bit more.
–Andy, I wouldn’t sell your wife short, she sounds like a great football strategist! Just get it to 87 and all will be well!
I’m a big fan of Pyne’s decisions the past two weeks to just throw the ball up high to your big guys. We should pretty much be throwing to Mayer or Thomas 100% of the time if a short CB is going to try to cover them one on one. That little nickel DB for BYU (I think #0) just got abused by Pyne last night.
Little-Big play: on the 3rd & 2 before the fourth down stop, the ND defense wasn’t set (shocking) and the DBs were not even close to the WRs. BYU ran it but looks like they had the option for a WR screen the QB didn’t throw. Would’ve been an easy first down.
Yep, I thought the screen was there for an easy 20+ yards there.
Good to see Logan Diggs must be healthier now. He’s a different back than weeks 1&2.
I want to see younger guys incorporated into the lineup more. Some of the veteran guys have peaked (Bertrand, Lenzy, etc) or have not taken advantage of their opportunities. Time to see if the younger guys can make some plays.
Random blather as I prepare for the most important game of the year.
Back home for some to beat up on the color red, again.
Not just you. If my math is right, they only had 67 yards of offense in the first half, so the 200+ in the second half is what stands out and makes it feel like it should be more.
And BYU had that 42 yard punt return in the first half too, which gifted their early TD. That was the only impressive play for them with the ball for quite a while. Shockingly bad start for a vet QB like Hall, really.
I was kind of worried he might be a kind of Desmond Ridder-type of very good QB leading the non-P5 but scrappy team…But BYU isn’t nearly as good as Cincy last year, and frankly, Hall didn’t impress me all that much. Certainly not compared to Ridder who basically took the game over and pulled his team to the win against ND.
He was definitely short, imo… But none of the video angles could show it conclusively, so play stands!
It didn’t attach but here is David Shaw, preparing his defense. His 121st Ranked Rush Defense, his 109th ranked Total Defense, and his 114th ranked scoring Defense.
They are separate defensive schemes, and his plan is coming together like that time Lex Luthor hit Batman with a Kryptonite club.
Tree Hater,
This is all too good. I honestly hadn’t focused on your posts in a while. These ones (aside from the 2nd bullet point in the first for which my significant other, world champion triathlete and USMA grad, would be concerned about so I won’t show her) are magnificent. Thanks in fact to her, who grew up in Palo Alto’s Professorville, literally a mile from their silly stadium, I’ve been at all the games vs the Trees since the series renewed under Lou Holtz. And granddad made the Rose Bowl in 1925! So I have a heightened sense of the rivalry. Sadly I cannot make it in from Paris this Saturday, though I will be in town for UNLV. So I am counting on you for More Noise to drive the nails of haplessness further into DS’s pine box.
All best to all!