ND Football may not be all the way ‘back’, but during this season the program took a major, major step forward. No, not Crazy Train or Shamrock Helmets, but SHELLACKING OF INFERIOR OPPONENTS. YYeeeeeeeeahhhhhhh!
Blowing out teams you’re supposed to beat seems like a fairly innocuous thing. “Of course that’s supposed to happen, so what?” Well, the ‘so what’ is that it HASN’T been happening.
Syracuse. Tulsa. Navy, Navy, Navy. UCONN.
You know those games and you cringe just reading those words. Why? Because ND should be whipping those teams, and not beating them in close games, let alone losing to them. Program-defining wins for teams that have no right even hanging with ND became commonplace in previous years. No longer.
This year, ND Football has taken steps toward becoming a winning program. This team isn’t playing down to the level of competition. This team isn’t allowing ‘meh’ teams to hang in there for a shot at a W at the end of a game. This team is WHOMPING some small-fries, and it is a BEAUTIFUL THING PEOPLE!
Yes, yes, USF was a disaster of a game to start off the year. This step hadn’t been taken yet. And yes, yes, Michigan was a game we should’ve won, but we let them hang around. And yes, yes, Pitt was an ugly affair. And yes yes, Wake has an ugly record. But none of those teams are cream-puff matchups just begging for a blowout. None of those are games you expect to walk away with an EASY win. USF and UM were also insanely weird, and Pitt had a great defensive game plan that they saved for ND. Wake is an up and down team that beat FSU and took Clemson to the absolute wire. These are not the focus of my post.
I’m talking about the games you’re supposed to win, handily. I’m talking about Purdue, Air Force, Maryland. And this week, I’m talking about BC.
These are teams that ND should dominate year in and year out. Combined scores of these games in 2011? 198 – 78. We absolutely CRUSHED these teams, and it’s something that’s been missing for quite a while. In years past, given the exact same opponents, we’d have seen ND drop at least 1 of these, and another would have been down to the wire. Instead, ND handled each of these games.
This team isn’t ‘there’ yet. I know that we have a lot of things to work on and please refrain from giving me all those small examples of why we haven’t yet arrived. I know we aren’t there yet. If we were, we’d be undefeated and on our way to a MNC. But these types of blowout wins over outmatched opponents are important. It’s a vital step to building a program. It builds confidence, it teaches players/coaches how to put a team away, it allows starters to rest and heal, and gives backups a chance to gain experience critical to their future development.
Winning against overmatched teams in the way we have is a major step forward for this program. I watched every second of that Maryland game it was FREAK-ING BEAUTIFUL.
Now we just need a repeat performance against BC, and my point will be proven. ND will have, officially, taken this step. Beating teams you’re supposed to beat is one step towards beating them all. Let’s take one more step Saturday. BEAT BC!
Don't take me, yourself, or life so seriously. This is supposed to be fun.
Biscuit co-founded HerLoyalSons in partnership with his ND roommate (Dillon Hall baby!), MQ, in 2006 and has been ranting about ND Football and everything Notre Dame since. He strongly believes in the mission of ND and its football program. Biscuit expects logic and data in arguments and will absolutely crush you if you come to a debate missing one or the other. He despises everything Michigan, and his favorite pastime is mocking Purdue.
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Totally totally agree. Not only is it a major ego boost that we can DO it, but from a logistical point we kind of HAVE to do it. If for no other reason than to finally be able to kind of look past some of these teams and focus on the “big game” the week after. I look forward to the day when we have PU sked right before USC and we are able to just kind of coast on through the week and game plan for SC.
POLLYANNA POLLYANNA KELLY LOVER NO PROGRESS RUN THE BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALL
Not only is the score 198-78 in those games but a bunch of that 78 came with our third stringers in the ballgame. A complete dominating performance in all three fazes of the game. Well done Boys, keep it going this weekend. Go Irish, Crush BC!!!
Yes, the md game was beautiful. Yes, ND is taking that step and it’s about damn time we don’t have to get nervous before our boys take the field against a service academy. Looking back usf was the only “bad”loss and it took 5 turnovers for that to happen.
Headed to ND on Saturday and I’m bringing some first timers with me. I hope this game is over before halftime so we can all celebrate the outgoing seniors and the fact that BK has taken us at least one step forward.
Make sure you teach them all that it is an ND tradition to STAND THE ENTIRE BALL GAME!
I wil make that and many other traditions well known. Go Irish!
I agree! It’s been nice to not worry. But I think the most important part of this is that it is allowing us to build depth! You build depth by providing game time to players who otherwise wouldn’t see the field. I will be there for the BC beatdown! Go Irish!!!
What game time to non-starters? This has been one of my complaints of Kelly during the Navy game and now Maryland –I think he has the offensive starters in there too long. Do you realize that Rees had every meaningful snap except two? Hendrix came in for two snaps, Rees came back in for 3rd down, and played the rest of the game until kneel-down time. I don’t remember seeing Atkinson or McDaniel in for the RBs. Don’t remember seeing Goodman out there extensively or more of the other WRs.
Defensively it seems that there’s more people playing, rotating in, so obviously there’s some coaching decision on why they go down to the second string on defense but not offense. I’m just in disagreement with that decision.
I have a feeling that one of these days I’m going to accidentally hit the “accounts” button on Twitter for iPhone and discover that I have an alternate personality @HLS_Biscuit because most of Biscuit’s posts seem to come straight out of my brain. Great post and I totally, 100% agree. The program is learning how to be great one step at a time, and beating the crap out of inferior opponents is an important step.
Yes! This is a great development. It’s also nice to see that the Irish are winning by more and losing by fewer points across the season. Compare 2008-2011: the Irish have won by averages of 11.7 (2008), 13 (2009 – w/o the Nevada blowout, 8.6), 16 (2010), and 21 (2011) points per game. In football, the difference between winning by 11 or 13 and 16 or 21 is HUGE.
There’s a similar upward trend with how much the Irish lose by. The Irish have recently lost by averages of 12.8 (2008), 4.7 (2009), 9.8 (2010), and 6.7 (2011) points per game. The 2009 number is low, but in that weird season, 10 games (83%) were decided by 7 or fewer points and 60% of those were losses. Once again, losing by 13 (2008) in football is a huge difference from losing by 10 or 7 points. (The points per loss are admittedly not that helpful for 2011, since – celebrate! – it’s only factoring in 3 games, 2 of which were lost by a mere 3 points. That in itself is a good sign, though.)
John Walters tweeted an interesting stat on this as well:
In last six games (5-1), nearly 40% of points Notre Dame allowed came in 4th quarter when up by > 30 points.
Very significant points. I always looked enviously at the typical Okla/Texas etc. early season scores. They always seemed to win by 40 when we are relying on a goal line stand to beat SD State.
Also, doesn’t everyone enjoy watching a game without their heart in their mouth?
Without berating our coach, it would be interesting to know why McDaniel and Atkinson didn’t get another couple of series on Sat. Should be an interesting battle next year for playing time at RB
“…it would be interesting to know why McDaniel and Atkinson didn’t get another couple of series on Sat.”
Kelly stated in today’s conference that he felt that even with the MD game in hand, the offense needed to continue to “practice” as they still have the ability to make mistakes. I can live with that argument for this offense has been atrocious with protecting the ball. With Stanford coming up…I don’t mind if he does the same thing against BC.
That’s my guess as well. Our offense has been so amazingly up and down that he isn’t quite ready to start running with the 2’s as much there. Though it does make me think that he’s leaning more towards Rees as the long-term answer than many here would have guessed…
True…there seems to be no indication from Kelly that in his mind…Hendrix should be getting more snaps this year in anticipation of making a switch in 2012.
I think Kelly is sticking with Rees because he publicly stated that Rees was the starter for the rest of the year. He’s the son of a politician. He can’t look like he’s waffling after he was so quick, and decisive, in pulling Crist. It would be foolish to start a qb controversy at this point of the season. He’s gotta deal with Rees’s limitations and get him as many reps as possible before Stanford. Thankfully Rees keeps winning games. Even so, we’ll have a new starter next year.
I agree that it helps Tommy to get as many reps as possible, but I would have thought it was beneficial to see McDaniels and Atkinson. Remember what happened in the movie “Fri Night Lights”? The team was up 30 and the coach called for a sub, who couldn’t find his lid. The star goes back in and tears his acl.
I know injuries happen, but I worry about our front line guys in mop up time.
I will go against the grain and call Tommy as the starter next year.
The great news is that if one of the other two beat him out, they will do so because they are playing fantastic, and not because Tommy sucks.
And either way, I will support the decision.
It appears that Kelly has already created a QB controversy. Its not that TR is a bad QB, he does not seem to have the ability to be a QB of a BCS caliber team. Development comes from playing in games and TR seems to be developing against teams we should beat and blows up against stronger teams. ND has some BCS caliber QBs but they are not developing due to lack of meaningful playing time. One has to wonder if “next man in” is truly Kelly”s philosophy when it comes to QB and what it will mean having a BCS goal that is achievable.
By “BCS Caliber QB” I’m assuming you are also including the likes of:
Craig Krenzel… Brodie Croyle… Eric Crouch…
The problem with a general statement is that it doesn’t stand up to any real scrutiny. “Tommy is not a BCS qb”
Without even having to debate how good Tommy is, it is fair to say that had we won the first two games (which we almost all universally agree were freakish situation losses) Tommy would already be a “BCS qb” And if the stars align and we beat Stanford, he could still be a BCS qb this year
As I stated, if Golson or Hendrix beat Tommy out next year, we will be in for some great qbing, because Tommy will be pretty darn good again next year.
I’m not able to reply to Canuck or Ska, so I’ll reply to myself…..
I agree with both of you for the most part. I would also like to see more out of the backup backs and receivers. Their development is as important as the qb’s, especially with Floyd and Gray leaving. But I still think that’s a separate issue from the quarterback situation.
Yes, Kelly should have given Hendrix more snaps against Maryland after not getting a chance to do so against Wake. But he also knows that he has precious few snaps left until Stanford. Garbage snaps against BC will likely go to Crist and Mulvey. I do think he’ll insert Hendrix here and there to give Stanford more homework, but I can’t imagine it’ll be more than 6 to 8 snaps, barring injury.
I really think Kelly is playing it safe. He knows Tommy is a good, solid qb that gives him a chance to win every game. Not flashy, but solid. He also has a strong backup in Crist, so why stir the pot by giving Hendrix more meaningful snaps? I think Kelly’s priorities right now are getting Tommy ready for Stanford and giving the seniors a proper sendoff. He’s got the entire off-season to continue developing Hendrix and Golson, plus two “warmup” games to start the 2012 season. (We should beat Navy with anybody at qb, as long as the defense shows up.) There were certainly missed opportunities to give Hendrix snaps during the last three games, but anything more than a handful of plays would have created unnecessary controversy.