Some thoughts after Notre Dame ensured a USC Heisman Trophy for the 4th time in the last 20 years:
One thing matters the next 8 months
All that matters from here to August is getting a QB. Any QB. It has to be done. ND can’t win like this, not at the level it needs to. Obviously a team can’t win consistently with 2 turnovers from their QB to begin with, but being in a situation where you know going in that if your QB turns it over twice you’re gonna lose is an even bigger problem. If Caleb Williams had turned the ball over twice, USC would absolutely not have been out of this game. ND needs someone who gives them a margin of error. Right now they have zero.
And in a way it’s unfair to Drew Pyne to lead with that. Pyne shouldn’t have had to be so important to ND’s efforts tonight. He was a huge part of the offense when ND ought to have been able to run the ball consistently and control the clock. But ND needs someone it can lean on when it needs to. It doesn’t have anyone like that. Really, it hasn’t had anyone like that in a long time. It needs to change.
Shorthanded secondary
The secondary actually was not awful all things considered. ND was down two of its top three corners when Cam Hart couldn’t go and TaRiq Bracy left injured very early. Again, it’s not really fair to task Jaden Mickey with guarding high-powered USC receivers when he’s not ready for it.
That being said, someone needs to teach the kid he can be a little closer to the line of scrimmage. Williams barely had to work for several of his third-down conversions because Mickey might as well have gently placed the receiver on the couch for all the cushion he was giving them.
ND has more talent coming. That talent needs to hit and get on the field quickly. And speaking of that
Linebackers
I will be clear up front, I am not comparing Al Golden to Brian VanGorder as a defensive coordinator. But it’s time to get the talented players on the field. I don’t need to see JD Bertrand, Marist Liufau and the like get pushed around all over the field and do absolutely nothing of significance. ND has like a hundred high school Butkus finalists on its roster. If the guys in front of them were doing something productive, I would feel differently. They are not, not against the teams they need to be able to do them against. I want more Prince Kollie, I want more Jaylen Sneed and I want more Junior Tuihalamaka.
The guys that are playing are fine if you want to handily defeat Boston College or even if you want to lock down a talented-but-disconnected offense like Clemson’s. To beat a Heisman favorite you need talent out there.
Win a bowl
Well, 10 wins is gone. NY6 hopes are gone. Michael Mayer is gone, a sure bet to opt out of the bowl after displaying one last kickass performance in blue and gold. I don’t care enough to go over what today’s results did to the field or which of the Gator or the Holiday or the Cheez-It (not the Cheez-It Citrus) is the most likely destination. But I would like to win it, whatever it is. ND will need the boost. (OK, maybe I’m the one that needs the boost.)
Can somebody link me to an article explaining how/why the holding penalty got thrown out this week? I must have missed that news.
Refs were as enamored with watching Williams run around back there as the announcers were. Usually like Fowler but my God what an embarrassing performance by him. Thinking they converted on 3rd down and screaming about how great it was only to be eight yards short is an all-time shameful announcer moment. I doubt even the USC radio homer feed was as orgasmically excited.
It was interesting to hear him talk about the Anthony Davis game and hear him say he was not much of an ND fan at that time. What an admission for an announcer to make! Don’t announce any preference for crying out loud!
I thought the above was way too negative on Drew Pyne. He actually had a very good game, just made 2 mistakes. That’s two too many against the best QB in the game, but overall Pyne was pretty good.
The defense and LB play was fairly disappointing, but again, the quality of the guy with the ball in his hands makes a difference too. It kinda reminded me of trying to compete with Lawrence in the ACC CG. Just not much you can do against that caliber of opponent. (Playing young and inexperienced linebackers doesn’t improve the output either, prob only makes it worse but frustrations are frustrating).
I was disappointed ND couldn’t run the ball better and establish more on the ground. Saw a rumor Estime is banged up which would be the only saving grace for why he barely touched the ball. Sure looked OK when he got it, though.
Oh well, sad thing is the better team won. Hopefully Riley wants to go coach the Chargers or something in a few years. Overall not too mad about this one. Would have gladly taken 8-4 after Marshall or even scraping by Cal. Got a long way to go, but some positives to take away from it too.
Hooks, I am in synch with you on all. Drew actually played well enough to win the game if… we run the ball better (it was Prister afterwards who mentioned Estime was banged up and only available for spot action or words to that effect); benefitted from having a healthy secondary so that our run fits could be better; and third, agreeance above, had the refs called even half of the holding calls.
Yes, Prister mentioned Estime pre game too. Seems he didn’t didn’t practice fully this week.
I think Rees might have come into this game with a different game plan if he trusted his QB more. SC’s pass defense is not good.
Catch Williams on a couple of those scrambles and we might be talking about how much he hurt SC with huge losses. So ya, where were our younger more athletic LBs? I guess Bertrand and Liafau gave us a better chance to stop the run? oh wait.
Pyne played about as well as he can possibly play and Notre Dame was never once in a position to win the game. To beat Heisman contenders you need a better QB than Drew Pyne. That’s the biggest thing I took from this game.
Fair enough, but that’s an odd takeaway for a fact that was already known prior to this game. Pyne actually played really well and the reaction even admitted is was unfairly harsh to him, and it was is all.
To beat a Heisman QB you also need more than 2 players of any value on defense (Foskey, Morrison). You need the safety to catch the ball at least once when it comes right to him twice. You need to not call a TE sneak when needing a full yard on fourth down and you’ve already burned that play six times before. You need to run the ball better and stop the run. There’s plenty that Notre Dame needed to do to have a chance to win that had nothing to do with Pyne.
Hooks gets it.
I agree. Getting a better QB is necessary but not sufficient.
Guy set a school record for consecutive completed passes. Run game needed to do better and defense needed to do better. QB play wasn’t the reason ND lost this game.
Not trusting the QB until we went down two scores, plus two awful turnovers from him that led to big point swings really blew the game.
The QB position absolutely was the difference in this game. ND could not play defense the way SC could due to Williams talent.
Not once did I say QB play lost ND the game. The point of the statement I made was that to beat someone like Caleb Williams, QB play needs to WIN you the game. Drew Pyne cannot do that, not against teams as good as USC.
Pyne did what he needed to do to win. This is on the defense.
It’s not a terribly long walk from those two comments to blaming the actual QB play with losing the game.
Exactly. Putting the ball on the ground and throwing an int when you had a receiver wide open is bad…but this one is on the defense. They only stopped USC once when it still mattered…Pyne had the best game of his career and it would have been more than good enough even with the turnovers if the defense had done their job.
Could not have been more wrong about what I thought about this game (other than Caleb Williams being really good, which, duh). I thought if we lost by two scores it would be because of their WRs going over the top of our backup CBs. Nope. They just manhandled us, and then Williams was not tackle-able when he decided to run.
Better team, with the best player in the country, with the better coach, won the game. It happens. The takeaway from me is we need to be the kind of program that bids against USC for transfer portal players like Caleb Williams and Jordan Addison, or we might as well give up on championship aspirations.
This write-up is spot-on about the LBs. I even have started to come around a bit on Bertrand, but, man, Liufau is not adding any value out there as he crashes directly into an offensive lineman every play.
All 3 linebackers have another year of eligibility. They will all start if they come back. I’d be tempted to see if Marist could bulk up another 20 pounds and move to Vyper. Bertrand played better in the second half of the season but he often looks overrated. I’m not sure Junior or Kollie is that much better though. If Marist moved to vyper I’d be tempted to move Kiser inside and go with Sneed at Rover.
Overmatched not overrated.
Just a huge bummer. USC scored 5 TDs and 1 FG, and punted once, on their 7 scoring opportunities. ND scored 4 TDs, fumbled once and turned it over on downs once on 6 scoring opportunities (and set USC up for ultimately spread-covering TD with an INT). Winnable game, just not enough execution, especially on defense
I said going in caleb williams was awesome and would be too much, and marcus freeman would leave with that lesson that you have to have a different maker at qb. I was right about the first part, I pray i’m right about the second part. Pyne was really good tonight but williams impact on the run game is huge and pyne has none. Easy for austen jones to break out when you’re constantly worried about caleb killing you.
Also USC defense stinks, and please no one tell me how they create turnovers and it’s their incredible skill. There was one unforced fumble they recovered and they got their hands on 1 ball tonight and it was a pick. Would have loved to see how the game plays out with nd getting a score to start the 3rd. Hell pyne had a guy open in the flat for a big play too.
And saw someone mention it but tim and tim reported estime had turf toe and had been linit s all week. mentioned it in their pregame instant analysis
ND at almost 8 YPP
That was really good. 3rd down defense was atrocious and if Xavier Watts had ball skills, Williams should have had 1 int and watched another on the Philly Special attempt.
The fumble over-turn was bad luck too (super slow mo made it look like Addison gathered it back in well, but Liufau re-dispossessed it very easily soon after, so how much control did Addison really have?). That’s one where IMO the call on the field should have stood, in either direction.
Kinda rotten that all the calls/luck/bounces just happened to break the wrong way but so it goes sometimes. Seems to be the theme for USC in general this year (especially in defense) where they’re getting maybe better results than they deserve and some luck/fluke to help. I’m sure that will come crashing down against Georgia real quickly.
Worst write-up I’ve seen in a long time. Or am I being overly critical and insensitive to someone who’s made valuable contributions throughout the seasons after an emotional loss.
Pyne looked as devastated after his turnovers tonight as he was overjoyed with the Clemson win. You come to Notre Dame for the spotlight no matter how bright or any magnification.
Drew Pyne played one of his best games all season, if not the best. Also, if Drew Pyne played like this every game next year our ceiling might be 9-3 and is no better than 10-2. It’s a little harsh to start a game writeup that way when there were other things that went way worse in this particular game, but big picture he is right that by far the most important thing for the ND program between now and September is getting the best possible QB transfer for next year. Let’s drop that NIL bag.
(fwiw I’m not the downvoter)
Reminder that Tommy Rees has been in charge of ND’s QB room for six seasons.
Reality hurts.
Drew Pyne is by all accounts a really great kid. He’s a tough son of a bitch too – how many licks did he take last night? And he kept getting up.
But as I said above, he played as well as he can possibly play and ND still never had a chance to win. He can’t start at QB for a CFP aspirant, and I’m pretty sure we still are that.
For sure QB was the biggest difference between the two teams.
We got peak Pyne last night. He can’t play any better than that. He is still indecisive, but he did take all the checkdowns we were screaming about all year. Still a little too locked in on Mayer. Should have thrown deeper to Colzie on the play with the INT, might have been a TD.
Ian Book might have won that game.
Unless the opening game starter next season is Angeli, that person is not on our roster yet. Perhaps he commits in December.
What would be fair and accurate would be to ask where the offense would have been without Pyne against USC. The game plan based on what we do best, rushing, was effectively counteracted and needed to be abandoned. He accounted for 77% of our offensive yards, completed 23 of 26 passes (88.5%), looked for secondary receivers and passed to seven different ones, launched a few that were things of beauty, and ended up with a QBR of 221.59. Only two sacks allowed with one coming unblocked up the middle.
Drew Pyne passing stats
The fumble probably took points off the board. Pyne’s fault? He should not have thrown the interception that led to seven for USC. Behind by ten after the first quarter, we lost by eleven that included the results of those.
To answer my own question, USC neutralized our running game anticipating the Drew Pyne in five of our last six games where he averaged about 50% completions and 143 yds.
I’d love to have a generational talent at QB, a budding Heisman candidate or consider a transfer, but against USC Pyne’s performance was quite admirable without which the game would have been a complete disaster.
Liufau has to be the most frustrating player I’ve seen in a while, even factoring in the Lenzy/Tyree speed means production trope. Just runs straight into centers and guards that have wait, fifty, seventy pounds on him? Over and over again.
Agreed strongly about the QB take. Fumble aside – what an aside – Pyne played as good as we could have asked and it was clearly not going to be good enough. Still a good stat line yet felt utterly empty as USC seemed intent to show we weren’t going to run on them at will
I dont understand our defense. Why does Golden like to play with 9 defenders? He just blitzes Liufau and Bertrand into the line. They never get through, they just take themselves out. Mercifully, USC never just threw it to the TE into the vacated space, but if we are going to play with 9 anyway, play with Kollie and, in this game Sneed. Sneed could have been used as a spy, he is big enough to deal with Williams and probably fast enough.
This is college, it is not about the system, it is about the players. Liufau and Bertrand are what they are. As even Fowler/Herbie admitted when they weren’t fellating Williams that Bertrand was/is an overachiever. The better athletes should play. It wasn’t like Liufau and Bertrand were stopping Jones either.
Sometimes I wonder how fundamentally sound our defense really is, but Golden was in a tough spot last night. Seems to me he decided to protect his secondary by forcing SC to make plays immediately after the snap. They did, obviously, but I can’t really fault Golden for choosing one of several bad options.
Particularly when his defense has to play opposite this offense.
Weird and frustrating game.
SC is better than we are, but not by much.
It is time for Notre Dame to get serious about offensive football.
Not doing anything on the first two offensive possessions against an opponent with a near unstoppable offense isn’t a good game plan.
We were just about doomed on the opening possession by starting at our own 10
Particularly when the plan was just to hammer into a loaded box and keep the ball out of Pyne’s hands
Tough on an OC when he has little faith in his QB. Though Rees may be justified thinking that of Rees, it seems he gave the SC defense too much credit early. He would have been skewered if ND came out throwing and it didn’t work but, it may have been the way to go.
“Though Rees may be justified thinking that of Rees,”
Freudian slip?
We are going to play this team every year from now until I don’t know when. We had better get serious about offense. Starting with quarterback,
Good point, ACS, very very sad to say. I hate the feeling that we are about to run into the USC turn on this streaky rivalry. So we do need to up our shtick. Year 3 is when all ND coaches have shown their true colors (as Ara famously insisted). So M Freeman will conclude his third year right back in LA with that g__d___ horse and the funky band. Let’s get game…
The LBs also didn’t get subbed out much so must’ve been gassed. The DL seems to sub too much with the 1s coming out at odd times, while the LBs are left in. Agree with all the comments about Marist and Bertrand just being sent to run into a prepared center/guard. Doesn’t help when they’re too tired to disengage.
Appreciate Pyne for the work but hope Buchner can come in and play the bowl game to get some reps before the QB battle next spring with Minchey, Buchner, and QB transfer.
An example of the difference a QB makes:
On the fumble, Pyne made a late pull as he saw Thomas coming open in the flat. He mishandled the ball and fumbled. Williams made a late pull as his RB was being blown up, and walked in for a TD.
This wasn’t bad breaks or a lucky bounce. It was one example of the difference, in a very similar game situation, of having a game changing QB vs an ok QB
I don’t understand why he pulled it, because even if he hadn’t fumbled he would have been crushed by the two SC players crashing down on him.
I’m guessing he thought he had time for the quick pass to the flat. May well have been batted down, or pick-sixed. Or maybe it would’ve been a first down. We’ll never know
Speaking of “batted down” did we see USC deflect one pass last night? I don’t think so. That is such a difference from the last several games. Why?
Pyne was 3 for 26! Actually outstanding…and he did thread a couple of them into tight spots. He is really quite good in the pocket. The one time he did get out of the pocket he threw the interception.
First downs and total yards were close. The game did not feel close. The 2 turnovers each resulted in touchdowns. Ouch. That helps explain the difference in the game.
Pyne was 23 for 26!
The two turnovers each resulted in TDs, but also, we spotted them 10 points before we figured out how to move the ball ourselves. The turnovers were what prevented our managing a comeback in spite of the slow start.
Pretty Classy Caleb.
https://images.rivals.com/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto,t_large/qhtdjn3tntadfaozcbw8
He apparently paints his nails with a vulgar message for every opponent. Might be the true definition of a weird flex.
Yeah but he does it humbly
In other news, David Shaw has resigned.
Farewell to college football’s whiniest gassy baby.
Congratulations on Pat Narduzzi on gaining that vacant title
In other, other news, Fickell to Wisconsin