Late in Notre Dame’s 44-34 win over North Carolina, the NBC broadcast team discussed that the Irish aren’t winning pretty or in dominating fashion – they’re just winning.
It’s something of an 18 Stripes motto that, well, winning is hard. Week after week, doing enough to fight off your opponents, especially on nights you don’t have your best – it’s freakin’ hard. Save for the 2 or 3 most talent-stacked teams in the country, everyone struggles to do it at times, which is why Notre Dame’s streak of 38 consecutive wins against unranked opponents ranks numero uno in the country right now.
The Irish are now 7-1, with four more of those unranked opponents standing between them and a likely spot in a New Year’s 6 game. Barring some unlikely turns of events, none of those 2 or 3 most talent-stacked teams in the nation would be on the other side of such a matchup. Winning one of those games is priority #1, #2 and #3.
King Kyren
I haven’t made a hard-and-fast list of my most favorite players to watch in my 25-odd years of being an invested Notre Dame fan. I definitely would not need more than one hand to get to Kyren Williams on such a list. That was my position before tonight. But holy freaking hell, guys.
Kyren Williams stiff-armed a dude into Halloween before his 91yd TD run đŸ¤pic.twitter.com/YVh06EtNnv
— PFF College (@PFF_College) October 31, 2021
I saw Kyren go down with that turned ankle earlier in the game and my heart went in my throat. With Hamilton unavailable, Kyren was and is probably the single most irreplaceable player left on the roster, and the thought of losing him sucked. Luckily, he was back soon enough and blowtorched North Carolina the rest of the game. He ended up with a career-high 202 yards rushing.
(Kyren’s spin move in the backfield in the 4th quarter on another would-be stuff, which ended with a 15-yard facemask on Carolina, was every bit as awesome in my opinion, if less statistically daunting.)
Defense was (and will continue to be) in survival mode
I’m not sure what to do with most of ND’s performance tonight on defense. Carolina, mediocre as it is, does have quite an explosive offense, and the Irish again were without Hamilton.
Still, Hamilton doesn’t have much to do with the seemingly 3 dozen missed sacks and truck-sized running lanes Carolina was able to open up much of the game. And heck, replacement DJ Brown actually was able to make a pretty important play by picking off Sam Howell in the fourth quarter to set up a pivotal field goal.
But still…564 yards! 223 rushing, nearly 8 per play…definitely a ‘back to the office’ type of week awaits Marcus Freeman. By the way, as I write this, Brennan Armstrong and Virginia, who ND faces in two weeks, have 35 first-half points at BYU. So, yeah.
It’s been our position pretty much from day one that ND’s defense really isn’t all that talented by top-10 standards. Take away that unit’s top player by far, and I guess these are the results.
(Isaiah Foskey said he was OK after the game. If we can take his word for it, thank God.)
Is it too early to say Jack Coan is fixed?
Week two of the Jack Coan reboot went just as well as the first, maybe better. 16/24, 213 yards, a touchdown pass, a touchdown run (!), no turnovers, I think just one sack. It turns out the secret to making Jack Coan a good fit for this offense might have been to just stick with the same ball-control attack ND has had the past few years.
However, it’s safe to say this transformation was only possible because ND’s offensive line (with an assist from the simple reality that the best defenses the Irish have played are now all behind them) has undergone its own transformation. The front five are now, if not a legitimate weapon, certainly good enough for ND’s purposes. Jeff Quinn, who might not have been sleeping super great earlier this season, is probably doing alright at the moment.
Freshmen!
None of the Notre Dame freshmen, by themselves, did anything super overwhelming tonight. However, taken together, it was pretty cool.
Lorenzo Styles was ND’s leading receiver, with 74 yards on only three catches. Tyler Buchner completed both his attempts and continued to look generally competent. Logan Diggs scored his first career TD and was ND’s second-leading rusher.
We’re seeing flashes of what could be a really fun and potentially special team in a couple years, if Buchner hits and the recruiting classes in progress continue to trend the way they are. Not really relevant to this game or even necessarily this season, but an exciting thing to track.
Next week: Navy. Keep winning. It’s hard.
RIGHT? Kyren Williams! Again, God bless the man. What else can you say. Selfishly, I wish there was an arguement to be made so he would stay next year, but…
No disrespect to Cincy and with the knowledge that all seasons develop as they go, but, dont try to argue that the ND team that played with the setup and gameplan since the off week loses to the Bearcats. That’s not to say that this year’s team belongs in the playoff, but the team that played the last two weeks does not lose to Cincy.
I am glad they implemented an offense that Coan can thrive in, but if he could just hit a WR in stride on a deep shot he has five more TDs this season and certainly no down to the wire games after FSU. Styles was in the endzone if he doesn’t have to slow down for the deep shot he got.
Seeing his play in his bits and pieces appearances, Buchner fully at the helm cannot get here soon enough. I remember a piece years ago by Mandel when he was still at SI where he said BK was positively giddy just after he signed Golson because he felt like he had found his/the guy to make it all work. For what it’s worth I feel like Golson got a bad rap and literally fumbled away games later on because they pushed him to carry the team in 2014 because they knew BVG’s defense was trash and couldn’t be counted on . But I think Buchner is like Golson. He is a guy/the guy, a legit dual threat, that Kelly knows can unlock the offense that wins almost every game. Its why they tried so long with Wimbush. The II podcast guys talked about it the last couple weeks when discussing VT’s QB and UNC’s Howell, that a QB who can also run and improvise busts most defensive gameplans.
Beyond Buchner, who has been mostly great, I too am immensely impressed with the freshman class this year. Styles, Diggs, Colzie, Alt, etc.. all stepping up BIG. Excited for the rest of this year’s games and for next year’s.
Lastly, I grew up in Michigan so I am required to inform all, even those who have already heard the good word, that MSU beating UM is just a *chef’s kiss* cherry on top of today’s win. They HATE, HATE losing to “little brother” (man, the entitlement, right?) because it busts their fantasy of being better than, so it’s just oh so sweet.
You wrote what I am thinking, well said!
My favorite Tweet I’ve ever made was on a sports talk account I share with a friend, going over in detail how MSU is 9-4 (now 10-4) against Michigan since ‘little brother’ was invoked, and holds advantages of 2.5 to 0 in B1G titles, 3 to 0 in B1G division titles, 1 to 0 in Rose Bowl appearances (and wins) and 1 to 0 in CFP appearances (good chance one of those last two goes to 2 to 0 this year).
There’s a little brother in that rivalry, all right. It’s just not MSU.
Agree. ND is good enough to win every game w/ buchner, right now, w/ coan sprinkled in. It would be nice to see Kelly kind of let him “fly” similar to Golson in 2012 where they used game-plans built around golson’s strengths, as beautifully seen in 2012 oklahoma. I have to see more from Buchner’s accuracy, however. Golson, as far as I can tell, had the best arm talent of any Kelly QB in terms of accuracy and arm strength. Not sure if Buchner is that level
Yep, until he went off the rails, Golson was the best qb we’ve had in many years.
I still dislike Robinson for letting the ball bounce off his numbers for a pick 6 vs ASU in ‘14 killing a great comeback
Golson was leading.
After that game Everret was never the same.
Great post, and I agree with every point timson
Kyren Williams just has such a force of will, it’s unbelievable. I’ll be interested to see what his 40 is because it doesn’t even look like he’s *that* fast (even though, he does have decent speed obviously). But he’s got the vision, burst and sheer emotion to be a gamer and overcome the challenges in front of him. Feels like it would be tough to actually measure what makes him so special in that very rare way. Amazing performance.
I guess Coan’s ankle/leg that got jacked up (no pun intended) is all healed up. Good for him. He still ducks into pressure and left a few throws out there but has some veteran moxie too.
It’ll be interesting to see breakdowns of the defensive scheme and calls when the dust settles. LB is looking like more of a problem every week with White now banged up and Bertrand being exposed more and more out of position each week, and no Kyle to clean it up. The back 7 is pretty scary at this point.
Howell gave us a taste of what it was like to play against Book, he was so great with his legs, as advertised but still made a big difference.
Agreed on everything.
In a recap last week there was a photo of the screen play USC where Kyren juked three guys and somehow got a first down, showing 4 or 5 guys around him and captioned something like “And he would get 10 more yards.” There could be a similar one of him around the 20 before Mayer delivers his monster block saying “80 more yards.”
Fuller and Jaylon are in my top 5 to most likely do something exciting freakish at any point. And Quentin Nelson. Who else am I missing? Good offseason list, mods. I’ll take my cut of the immense profits of the site for that suggestion đŸ™‚
I think Kyle did clean up a lot, didn’t he?. The fake WR screen for a touchdown? Why is the single high safety in the middle of the field, and why does he stay there when Howell never looks right? I told my son “No way the safety can do anything on that play with where he starts”, then I said, “Well, there is one safety in America who could make that play on instinct and speed, but he’s got a clipboard on the sideline.”
Mobile quarterbacks are just a bear to deal with in college unless you have a jaylon, Hamilton, or a JOK to out-athlete them. And our two best weapons against that are out with no Marist.
And Howell’s arm? Seemed like a lot of guys were wide open with bad coverage, but look at WR screen-fake TD, Howell just hit him dead in stride. Howell would have beaten pretty good coverage on a lot of those throws. Dude’s good.
Golden Tate. He was absolutely incredible in 2009, a threat to score literally every time he touched the ball.
If Howell had played like he did against ND more often, he’d be getting a lot more run as a potential top-10 draft pick.
If we’d won a few more games in 09, I think Tate would’ve won the Heisman, or at least been in NYC. He was that good.
Kyren Williams is a monster
the irish winning segued into the absolutely batshit ending of the braves game
i’m riding a very very strong sports high atm
The mums were really yellow tonight.
Although he wasn’t a disaster, am I the only one that thinks that Buchner’s insertion at points seemed 1) arbitrary (meaning having no point other than to do it), and 2) destructive of any rhythm that the offense had in that particular drive? The one drive where they scored on the Buchner pass into the flat was the only one I thought looked good. The rest, not so much. But maybe someone can tell me different.
As for the defense, I know they played without Kyle Hamilton, but my God, the tackling! Why isn’t BK telling his DC to change it up? Woof!
Actually he should have been inserted when it was first and goal at the 5 (series after the interception). If ND intended to run the ball on all 3 plays, he should have been the QB. IMO they score a TD there and the game is over. Instead they settled for a FG to go up 14.
Agreed, I don’t want less Buchner, I want more.
Yeah that’s a good point. Would love to see Buchner more in the red zone. And he probably should be the exclusive QB inside about the 10 yard line. It would be nice if Kelly and Rees kinda set rules like that and followed it instead of going off feel, but overall the rotation is working pretty well.
It wouldn’t be so bad if they gave him options to throw to force the defense to respect his arm. It’s a borderline wild-cat formation basically, which I hate
I would have to see the snap splits, but I’m not sure I agree. Buchner is primarily there to augment the running game, but he’s got 33 rush attempts vs 24 pass attempts. Even with the carries he gives to the RB, there’s still no Wildcat that throws it that much.
And they have concepts in place to do what the defensive numbers tell them. If that means throw it to Davis for the easy TD, Buchner is going to check to that seamlessly and on his own and throw it. If that means run it, he’s going to run it. I was also encouraged by that play, because while simple, that was seemingly the type of concepts that Wimbush would struggle mightily with his accuracy and consistency. Buchner has looked pretty good in his command and also his passing.
I get that inherently there’s going to be the desire to just see more of Buchner do everything more, but I’m pleased with what they’ve put on his plate and are allowing him to do. He still had to take a pre-snap timeout where he didn’t know what was going on (it seemed Kyren did and was trying to help). Buchner still has some natural progress to make, and we’re watching him get there.
I was really surprised to see Kyren is only 199 lbs. I always knew he was shorter, but he looks jacked and is so hard to bring down, I always figured he was closer to 215.