Comments on: Notre Dame’s “Red Letter Day” Against Southern Cal

By: TERRY

TERRY — Mon, 08 Dec 2014 22:03:00 +0000

I’m back Tex – let’s try to make this short and keep it civil, as we have so far.

This team was embarrassed and humiliated in one of the worst defeats in the history of the 86 game rivalry, the oldest intersectional rivalry in the country, initiated in 1926 by Knute Rockne. To make the humiliation ‘official’ the Notre Dame coach thanked the Southern California coach for not making the score worse. To quote John Vannie in his postgame report “the game was essentially no contest from the start.”

But because they have won 7 games, this Notre Dame team is ‘entitled’ to play in a bowl game. This will undoubtedly bring much lucre into the Irish coffers, and this is always a consideration, given how much the stadium expansion will cost, etc. It has been a given since they beat Navy that this team will go to a bowl, Arguments for their going to to a bowl seem to center around 15 extra practices, more exposure, help in recruiting in new areas, etc.

In all of the arguments I have seen for this team to be playing in a Bowl game, I do not recall one person actually arguing that they have earned it.

If LSU fails to score 50+ points I will be extremely surprised,.

By: Ryan Ritter

Ryan Ritter — Mon, 01 Dec 2014 15:00:00 +0000

In reply to LaughingTulkas. He did play on Saturday, despite the sprained knee.

By: LaughingTulkas

LaughingTulkas — Mon, 01 Dec 2014 12:31:00 +0000

Wasn’t Daniel Cage injured last week? I don’t think I saw him play, shouldn’t he be crossed out too?

By: jdthom1

jdthom1 — Sun, 30 Nov 2014 21:07:00 +0000

Good thoughtful post. I honestly stopped watching before Zaire went in but I don’t doubt that Golson clearly gave us a better chance to win. I am not sure what happened to Golson, or Brindza or the offense for that matter.
On one hand, I give Kelly a ton of credit for having this team in the playoff discussion in mid-October when I think everyone wondered how we could keep it up with the injuries and depth issues looming.
On the other hand, Kelly’s teams have seemed to suffer injuries disproportionately to the rest of college football. There seem to always be discussions about blaming Navy for injuries, of the poor field conditions in ND stadium. I wonder if there is a cross training problem.
My final thought is more of a leap but Kelly seems to have a grounding bias in playcalling that some people think is to run a pass oriented offense. I think it is to put inordinate amount of pressure on himself and his players. So yes, when ND gets down 21 or 14 even if it’s the first quarter, he starts chucking it all over the field. But I don’t think that’s because he is pro-pass and anti-run. I think he is inpatient and wants to control the game. When ND is in a close game, he is a very good coach and has proven again and again to out coach opponents in the fourth quarter (this year isn’t an exception as much as other problems prevented those moments to convert to victories – DPI against FSU and missed FGs (and a blocked extra point) against Northwestern and Louisville – hell he should even get credit for being down 3 with 4 minutes to go in the ASU game – but Golson threw it 41 times in that game and after USC took a 7-0 lead it took ND 3 possessions to run the ball again. But I don’t think the solution is “run the ball.” I think it’s to take some of that pressure off himself and his team and just play football It’s hard to say if he can do that since he seems to change the game plan a lot based on the opponent and is less of a “we’re going to do what we do and you have to stop it” coach.
This is rambling but I told my wife this was the last game of the year and I have to unload this before moving on.

By: The Subway Domer

The Subway Domer — Sun, 30 Nov 2014 20:15:00 +0000

I’ll add this about Golson’s performance as i agree with 99% of your assessment… The offensive line played, as it has for most of the season, like absolute shit. If Golson looked “lost” against SC, the line looked like they from planet Druidia after the oxygen got sucked out (and that’s been the case most of the season). The line has received some praise for some of Folston’s big games, but really, it was because Folston is just that damn good.

Had Zaire started the game, I very much doubt the outcome would have been much different.