You can’t have a better start than a pick six on the first play from scrimmage. I had been stuck in traffic after a Halloween function leaving myself enough time to make the Noon start but to no avail, walked in my house, and the first thing I witnessed was Brandon Joseph intercepting a pass and running into the end zone. Instant good vibes!
Syracuse stabilized for a calm and cool touchdown drive to even the game at 7-7 but the Fighting Irish would go on to control the rest of the game and pick up a much-needed road victory with Clemson coming to town next.
Notre Dame’s defense dominated in the 1st half while Syracuse quarterback Garrett Shrader didn’t come back for the 2nd half after being injured. The Orange would move to a very aggressive passing game with backup Carlos Del-Rio Wilson who made some plays through the air but also several big mistakes.
The Irish didn’t get much from their passing game but otherwise put in a very well-rounded performance, including another blocked punt. Imagine if this team played in the Big Ten!
Stats Package
| STAT | IRISH | CUSE |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 41 | 24 |
| Plays | 75 | 61 |
| Total Yards | 362 | 286 |
| Yards Per Play | 4.82 | 4.68 |
| Conversions | 7/16 | 4/16 |
| Completions | 9 | 16 |
| Yards/Pass Attempt | 6.10 | 6.25 |
| Rushes | 56 | 25 |
| Rushing Success | 62.2% | 36.8% |
| 10+ Yds Rushes | 6 | 1 |
| 20+ Yds Passes | 2 | 3 |
| Defense Stuff Rate | 18.0% | 15.0% |
Notre Dame’s quality play on the road continues yet again. Can this team believe they can beat undefeated Clemson back home in South Bend? One thing they’ll feel good about is the run game, pass rush, and turnover luck finally coming together as we enter the final month of November.
Offense
QB: D
RB: A
TE: A
OL: A
WR: B
This offense simply cannot find any balance which may doom it next weekend against Clemson. On Saturday afternoon in upstate New York it didn’t really matter. Drew Pyne finished with a season-low 9 completions from games he starts and has now finished 3 straight games where his completion percentage hasn’t been over 50 percent.
The offense did finally get Deion Colzie involved, though! From 3 targets the big receiver completed all 3 catches for 44 yards. One of those completions was a 21-yarder, while Pyne also hit tight end Michael Mayer down the sideline for a big 37-yard gain. Outside of those 2 long passes Pyne was 7 of 17 for 58 yards.
On 3rd down, Pyne was 2 of 8 for 17 yards. It was a really poor performance.
The running game was asked to carry the entire offense and pretty much did just that. Once again, there was just an insane amount of successful carries (25 between Estime and Diggs alone!) with 15 running first downs–compared to just 5 first downs through the air. The offensive line was completely eating Syracuse up in run blocking while also giving Pyne a lot of time to throw, too.
Rushing Success
Estime – 14 of 20 (70.0%)
Diggs – 11 of 20 (55.0%)
Tyree – 4 of 8 (50.0%)
Pyne – 2 of 3 (66.6%)
Mitchell – 2 of 2 (100%)
The Irish did have the cushion of the aforementioned pick six, a blocked punt that started a drive at the Syracuse 2-yard line, and a shanked punt by the Orange punter giving them another short field. All of these helped to keep the score out of reach for a real comeback by Syracuse.
The run game did bog down a little bit in the 2nd half, to be fair. Syracuse ended up doing just enough to get Notre Dame in unfavorable 3rd down passing situations and as a result, the Irish only scored 3 points in the 3rd quarter.
Defense
DL: A
LB: B+
DB: C
The Syracuse offense had a tough time in the first half and didn’t look right. It turns out quarterback Garrett Shrader was banged up and looked nothing like the dual-threat playmaker we were expecting. He’d finish with just 1 carry for 9 yards and 5 of 14 for 35 yards and one of the worst pick sixes you’ll see all season. Following a hard sack, it appeared Shrader’s ankle wasn’t quite right and he ended up not coming back into the game following halftime.
Del-Rio Wilson actually injected some life into the Syracuse offense. After being pinned deep on their opening drive in the 3rd quarter, the Orange followed that up with 2 drives for 10 points before a tipped interception really swung the momentum back in Notre Dame’s favor. That INT was absolutely huge, at that point the score was 24-17 with plenty of Irish fans thinking, “here we go again!” I’d nominate Howard Cross getting a hand on that INT as the play of the game.
Notre Dame scored 8 plays later, forced a 3 & out, blocked the punt, and scored on the next play to effectively put the game away at 38-17 with 7:47 remaining in the 4th quarter.
Stuffs vs. Syracuse
Foskey – 3
Bertrand – 2
Botelho – 2
Smith – 1
Rubio – 1
Kiser – 1
Ademilola, Jay – 0.5
Cross – 0.5
It would’ve been tough sledding either way for Syracuse. Their quarterbacks were under stress on a lot of dropbacks (4 sacks for Notre Dame) while star running back Sean Tucker was entirely neutralized (only 5 successful carries from 16 total). Tucker had a nice 21-yard run on the first full Syracuse drive to move the ball to the Irish 30-yard line. Other than that, he’d finish with 15 carries for 39 yards and 4 receptions for 32 yards. I think every Notre Dame fan would’ve been elated with that lack of production if they were told before the game that’s all the damage Tucker would do.
This was a very good defensive performance, even given the loss/ineffectiveness of Shrader. If there are nits to pick, the Orange scored touchdowns on all 3 red zone opportunities. That’s now 17 touchdowns allowed on 20 attempts this season–Rutgers allowed 4 touchdowns on their 4 chances this weekend so Notre Dame still isn’t last in the nation!
There were also a few too many big pass plays allowed in the second half. All Syracuse could muster in the first half for explosiveness was that Tucker run mentioned above but in the 2nd half Del-Rio Wilson completed 6 big pass plays for a combined 133 yards, or 46.5% of their total offense on the day. That was a big reason why Notre Dame barely ended up sneaking out an advantage in yards per play.
Final Thoughts
Blake Grupe has missed a field goal in each of the last 2 games. Normally, it’s not a huge deal although you’d like to see him hit the 39-yard attempt that he missed way wide right against Syracuse.
I am still at a loss how Notre Dame didn’t recover that muffed punt!?? It squirted out from the Syracuse return man and a pair of Irish players jumped right on it. How!??
Michael Mayer now has 1,870 receiving yards which breaks the all-time Notre Dame record for a tight end.
Syracuse 100% should’ve punted late in the 1st half instead of going for it on 4th & 7 from the Irish 39-yard line. Their offense was doing absolutely nothing and they were only gifted the field position after the Pyne interception. It was only 14-7, Notre Dame isn’t explosive, and there was only 1:26 remaining. Ironically, Notre Dame did have its most explosive play of the game on the next series, opening the door to the 21-7 halftime lead.
These ACC referees were so, so bad. I’ve always said there is nothing appealing about being a ref in pretty much any sport. Everyone hates you and you’re going to be screamed at which might explain why we have so many that are terrible at their jobs.
I couldn’t stop watching Syracuse’s 265-pound nose tackle Kevon Darton in this game. All credit to him, he is tough as nails and can cause problems with his low center of gravity and quickness. Often times, Syracuse would have him run a stunt or twist. But, he also tried these moves where he just jumps out of the way of a Notre Dame blocker–literally jump-cuts to the side–and then attacks the line of scrimmage. It’s like a new defensive line art form.
Sneaky little guy!
I can’t get over how bad that opening interception was from Syracuse. Shrader waited and waited, let Brandon Joseph set up a nice table for dinner inside the route, and then threw the ball right to Notre Dame.
Marcus Freeman said after the game that Braden Lenzy was really sick this week, so he didn’t get reps at wide receiver. He did make a really nice tackle on special teams, though.
Syracuse was officially listed with 3 drops, although it felt more like 7 or 8 drops. If I were a Syracuse fans I’d admit Notre Dame out-played us but those drops were really killer. That’s a tough blow when the backup comes in and their receivers don’t make a play.
Jordan Botelho had 2 sacks and 1 quarterback hurry, let’s hope this is the start of a strong finish to 2022.
If the last few games are any indication, Chris Tyree is a distant 3rd on the running back depth chart. And unlike 6 weeks ago, we’re not mad about that anymore.
It’s possible they don’t care either way but I’d be curious if the plan is to redshirt Peanut Butter Angeli. He’s now played in 2 games and with a bowl game there are 5 more games remaining. Pyne was power slammed to the turf in this game and somehow wasn’t done for the day. I still think he’ll get hurt and miss 1+ games.
Can we discuss the absurd Clarence Lewis TD. He played it perfectly and then literally just stopped. I know he blocked the punt, but it’s getting to the point where he can’t be getting reps at DB anymore. I don’t mean to pile on but sheesh…..
He took his man out of bounds, job done 🙂
You can’t stop period. He could’ve had an easy pic. And unlike most, I think replay showed he didn’t go out. There was a sliver of blue between the white shoes and the white out of bounds.
That was one of the weirdest plays I’ve seen in a while. Cannot fathom what was going through his head there. Watching live, I thought he must have hurt himself or something.
In the plebe Slack I was incredulous they put in Angeli just to hand the ball off. What was the point of that? Burned one of his four games to do nothing – if he’s in, have him throw the ball! Hopefully Pyne stays healthy and they can redshirt him; it’s going to be super frustrating if Pyne gets hurt and Angeli plays 5 games after what they put him in for in this game.
Also props to Foskey for balling out recently. Giving Jon Sot a run for the second-best player on the team!
I agree that Angeli should’ve gotten to throw – would’ve loved to see some sort of bootleg easy read type of play for him on 3rd and goal – but if ND’s QB situation in any way changes because he redshirts or doesn’t then it’s yet another massive failure at that position by Rees and the coaches.
With a good grad transfer next year, ND might be able to smoothly extricate itself from the bad QB situation they find themselves in and you may be right. In an ideal world we could be looking at:
That probably would be swell! Problem with that is it’s too tidy and it seems unlikely things would . Angeli strikes me as a guy who could be a solid backup throughout and maybe start as a 5th year, depending on how things shake out… but he needs to be 5th-year eligible to make that happen. No reason to unnecessarily burn his games this year just to hand the ball off. If you want to “give him reps” in case Pyne gets hurt and that’s worth burning his redshirt over, that’s fair enough, but give him real reps!
That’s true. On the other hand, he could easily red-shirt next year (not that it means that they should burn it this year just to run the ball).
QB1: Transfer
QB2: Buchner (or 2nd transfer)
QB3: Pyne or Angeli (if Pyne leaves)
QB4: (if Pyne stays – Angeli)
If Buchner doesn’t start next year, he’s gotta transfer. Dude has played so little live football in the past 5 years. He can’t sit another entire season if his goal is to eventually make it to the NFL.
That probably is how he will look at it, but the counter to that is a little tough love that he is not on track to make it to the NFL and to have any chance of that he needs all the time he can get in college, and the way to maximize that is as a change of pace guy next year and then two years as the clear starter at ND. Not sure if that’s a compelling argument, but they should try to make it if they get a QB pushing for starting time in 2023!
was a pretty fun game imvho
obviously stuff to work on in the pass game but we go on to clemson
as a south carolina student lifelong ND fan i feel particularly qualified for this week’s buildup
Sure, Tyree as third rb makes sense at this point. I just find myself still wondering why they try to use him the same way they do Estime and Diggs. Get the dude out in space! Let him do the George Atkinson (RIP) style run plays plus his slot role. Obvi not many catches to be had with Pyne looking like Wimbush throwing the ball, but still. This is another gripe for our friend Thomas Rees.
I just don’t think he’s that fast when it comes to in-game speed.
At this point I’m very comfortable saying him and Lenzy aren’t actually that good at football regardless of how fast they are.
Couldn’t agree more, unfortunately. This is where that depth piece comes in big time. It’s ok that not every recruit is going to pan out, that’s why you need to keep recruiting and bring in bodies.
Like the LB situation, crazy how few LB’s they took under Lea.
I’d like to see him get some dump off passes when Pyne can’t find anyone. Or a dump off to anyone else for that matter
Hot damn — thanks for the analysis, Eric, which was more positive than Andy’s instant take.
Above all, thanks for the condensed highlights. I had accepted to play Eddie and Dr Scott for our Paris Rocky Horror shadow cast, on the pre-Marshall/Stanford assumption ABC would make it a night game. And I couldn’t solve the USTVNow record function, so I had to leave matters at 14-7 and the “Cuse intercepts…
(To all/anyone, if there’s some full game recording that will play overseas, I would be very grateful — like Tiger 039 says, it looks like (finally!) a mostly fun game to watch.)
Finally, to our QB. This comes way out of the past, but Ara in his second year had an erratic QB who could not throw super well, and was undersized to boot. But the QB never quit, and with good defense and special teams and some really decent running we squeezed out a 7-2-1 season and a n 9 finish (the losses were to very good teams). Now. Coach Freeman is not Ara and despite our best hopes he may never be. But I do think there’s a formula for 8-4 if, if they can clean up the opponent TDs in the red zone. Is there a better way to help Drew be the 2nd half California Drew? That’s what Ara did in ’65.
i found a full game replay on youtube!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqq7dlw-eYo
ok well for some reason it is missing the last like 5 minutes of the 4th Q but
Hey, Tigers_039,
Many thanks! It works, and I will enjoy. Much appreciated.
Took a peak at bill connelly post game win expectancy and nd above 99%. Also nd pretty much at 80% or above since week 3. Had never looked at marshall was a ghastly 20% PGWE. I hate to say it but losing to stanford was probably not the worst thing big picture. as pretty much everyone has said on here Nd is a very very good to great qb away from being in the top 5. Hell they’d be an easy 6-1 with that right now. Losing to stanford just made it crystal clear picking buchner over pyne did make sense and pyne is not the long term answer. Unfortunately pyne keeps reiterating that point week after week.
Interesting was clemson has outperformed their win expectancy by 1.5 games this year according to SP+. They will be gettable with competent qb play, just not sure nd can offer that.
I revert to my last question above. We have seen some “good” Drew. But clearly he has regressed, and clearly his coaches are aware. The team as well; see Mayer’s comments (supportive, I do think the players like Drew). But there are flashes of goodness. How best to help him get from 50% to 65%?
We’ll he seems to really thrive with the “nobody believes in me” mantra. Well, drew I have something to tell you…
It’s tough, particularly with Clemson up next. Ideally, we’d like to attack their secondary, but focusing on mid-range to deep passing is probably a recipe for picks and 30-second three-and-outs. Pyne is WAY better when we’re not behind the chains.
I don’t know how to make Pyne complete the wide open layup passes. But he seemed comfortable with RBs catching short, easy passes, so I would probably work that back into the gameplan. Haven’t seen much of it since UNC/BYU, which was also the last time we saw good Drew. Using Mayer as a decoy more might help Pyne break his tendency to lock on.
Finally, I’m really starting to doubt that Tommy’s, uh, “tough love” coaching style is actually effective. I know Pyne says it is but the results speak for themselves. Pyne looks like there are alarm bells going off in his head at all times. Tommy might want to consider a kinder, gentler approach.
Thanks, ACS (what is the Secret, btw?) This is actually very helpful.
I had been thinking the same thing about the schedule. Better for Drew’s renaissance if we were up against Navy and BC first. But it is what it is.
On my own hobbyhorse, as displayed by my own moniker, our efforts of the past 6-7 years to boost our home crowd noise and spirit impact have faltered recently have faltered — but nothing to be done, we’ll just have to count on some miracle in the student body.
So you’re saying it’s time to embrace the 2019 LSU offensive approach?
I would just very simply run the good offense instead of the bad one. #analysis
when i am offensive coordinator of notre dame i will call the touchdown play but every play
I don’t think this follows:
At least it’s not crystal clear. ND was 0-2 with a hideous loss to Marshall under Buchner. When ND was forced to play Pyne, we won 3 in a row and 5 out of 6. Pyne is very limited and has had some brutal stretches, but based on actual W/L results, he appears to be the more effective choice for this team.
In any event, I would not use anything from the Stanford game to justify anything about Tommy’s decision-making.
Fair enough, it definitely made it defensible, which looked like it might not be based on a. couple weeks. Either way I am comfortable in saying neither of them are good enough to win at a high level at this point
Thought the play-by-play coverage by Greg McElroy was quite good. His comments were mostly spot on and he seemed to see the field well e.g., at the 2. minute mark in the first half when Pyne threw the interception, Greg noted the best option was to the back out of the backfield. Hope ABC keeps him.
The camera coverage was very poor. They missed plays, had the fuzziest replays we’ve seen (what cameras were they using?), the penalty on Joseph’s end zone interception was not explained. Must have been a rookie crew.
Agree, have to let Angeli throw the ball.
ESPN only outputs at 720p even for their NFL games. I’m not sure if it’s even actual 720p or they just upscale.
It’s ridiculous for 2022 and why their picture and replays always look subpar
feel like camera angles of the carrier dome are to blame for the camera angles but who knows
as we saw in the NFL yesterday celebration penalties are hardly consistent
Every time McElroy does one of our games I find myself nodding along to almost everything he says. He’s an excellent color guy and really seems to do his homework. Much better insights on ND’s team than other guys in that role.
I did get a kick out him knocking tOSU when they fell behind. It seemed he jinxed PSU almost immediately.
Telling us what Pyne should have seen or done was informative and telling.
I loved when he called out Kelly for not caring about ST.
I don’t know if Kelly cared about special teams or not, I do know that he had a ‘yes’ man running them and that they probably didn’t put in the effort to analyze how to beat the other teams blocking schemes. Mason seems do this. Also, understandably, Kelly emphasized ball security on special teams.
Man the DBs were not fun to watch, other than the first play of the game. This could have been a lot more terrifying if Syracuse’s receivers were any good; it felt like they dropped double digit passes, all pretty far downfield.
Deion Colzie is alive! Was he on a Brian Kelly Secret Suspension?
The fact that Salerno was on the field in so many critical situations is still so painful. It cannot be overstated just how atrocious the WR recruiting was the past few years. If Estime and Diggs are going to be this fantastic carrying the ball, I would love to try Tyree in the slot more often.
The Clemson game has the potential to be nearly as ugly as the UVA Miami game this weekend. I’m not sold on their offense at all, but we’re not going to be able to run against that front, especially when they know we can’t pass the ball. Even though he’s bad at it, Pyne needs to take some deep shots early and hope that Mayer/Thomas just outmuscle some DBs for big catches.
My estimate was we could win by 10-14 if we played Heavy. Good scheming for Syracuse. No accounting for special teams and turnovers. Overall the OLine is playing better. Pyne has time. Frustratingly, Pyne is not taking the checkdown and not looking for the secondary receiver and locks in on his primaries.
Discipline. The DEs get caught crashing in resulting in long runs. Hold the edge. Nice to have good chunks of yardage on first down. Five yards on second down when first down is only 1-2 is the same as five yards on first down. We don’t have to go all Navy but pulling guards, blocking fullbacks and going for it on fourth downs can work. Needless penalties like unsportsmanlike conduct, false start, offsides, even holding. These stall drives and put too much on Pyne. Discipline.
This defense has to improve on red zone conversion. Against FBS teams, the Irish are 130th and in TD % in Red Zone conversions – 129th. The Clemson offense is fifth in Red Zone conversions. Too many times the Irish DE is caught slanting in for a TD.
I’d like to see Mayer in motion frequently. There is a role for Tyree. Please not on jet sweeps but quick passes in the flat. Pyne can roll out right probably only if Fisher gets blocking help from a TE, but it’s doable.
We are who we are. Just some thoughts.