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Thoughts on the Notre Dame game

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We straight bullied them in the trenches, and it was against a great OL and DL. Also Beck was dealing on the short and intermediate throws against great coverage. Just based on that, you have to be insanely optimistic about the team but the mope in me still saw things that were of major concern. Again, we outclassed them in the trenches and yet barely won the game, not because ND clawed back, but because when we had the opportunity to give them a curbie, and we hesitated.

Giant win in terms of what it meant from a national perspective on the field and in recruiting plus based on how last year ended, we needed it bad but we need to take it one week at a time. We saw similar exuberance after we beat 8-4 in 23 and then we had people on here starting threads about extending Guidry before he got HC offers last year... I believe the team is much better than both of those and we have the horses to finally win the ACC. When we do that come December, Ill be ready to say bring on Taint or Texas.
 
If it’s not real this year, it probably never will be.

Best I’ve felt about the team in my 13+ years of fandom.

National Championship is still crazy talk to me, but you simply have to get to Charlotte and into the playoff.
 
DMoney said:
- Our offensive line is the best in America. I’d buy an argument for Utah or Penn State, but I’m taking our guys. Notre Dame only had four hurries, which was their lowest total since they played Navy in 2017.
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Navy threw the ball NINE TIMES in that game. Think about that...


Ferris Buellers Day Off Nine Times GIF

Ferris Buellers Day Off Nine Times GIF
 
DMoney said:
My personal sense is they just didn’t trust our passing offense yet. This is Game 1 against an elite secondary and a team that finished Top 10 in takeaways. On our end, Beck just started throwing in mid-summer and we were playing two true freshmen. I think if this game was in Week 5, we would’ve put the ball in Beck’s hands more often.
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This. Over and over, this.

And it was absolutely the right call under the circumstances.
 
Wow @ @DMoney talking about 1/19/26!

I was looking at the schedule earlier. We have 5 games in November. It feels like we finally have the depth to overcome the end of the season and crummy finishes. I'm not making any predictions but it feels like we'll be in a spot to play meaningful football games late in the year and that's a blessing given how few of those we've been able to play the last 2 decades.
 
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DMoney said:
I think it’s more about the receivers than Beck. What happens when one of Notre Dame’s veteran corners gets away with pulling one of our teenage WRs jerseys, tips the ball up and it gets picked? Or if they are just off on their timing with Beck due to lack of reps?

I’m not saying I agree. But I can understand the rationale in this particular game.
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Especially with how the game was officiated. 1 DPI when their DBs were clutching and grabbing all game. You think they weren't going to keep getting away with it if one of them resulted in a game changing INT?
 
When we play lesser teams during that 7 game stretch we need to put them away fast. Then unload the bench. What we did in the second half better not be the norm cause if so we will be grinding it out against everyone
 
9oh4Cane said:
We almost lost the game because of a blown coverage.

Let’s not forget if Marion doesn’t get tackled on that route down the sideline he probably runs under that and scores, and the conversation we’re having is completely different.

If we don’t run fletcher on 3rd and 4, and beck happens to throw a pick or is sacked and taken out of field goal range, we’re probably calling for Mario’s head right now.

It’s week 1 and we’re breaking in Beck with a very young WR core against the best secondary we will face all year. Let’s put things into perspective.

With that said, if we don’t improve from here and open things up more as the season goes on, then we can talk. Enjoy the win, without what Mario has built we don’t win these types of games.
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ok.
 
DMoney said:
We'll find out. He makes them in practice but there's limited track record in games. I wish we had him longer because he seems to be on an upward trajectory.
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Am I understanding correctly that we only have him for this season?
 
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rsa coral gables said:
the conclusion is that because it was Game 1 we were more conservative than what we might be down the road. @DMoney 's hypothesis/opinion makes sense. time will tell. if we continue doing the same ****e, then it wasn't Game 1, the lack of reps between Beck and WRs etc.

time will tell.

Dawson's explanation yesterday, however, makes the most sense as to the final drive. he got conservative on third down because he wanted ND to burn their time outs and knew the defense would get at least one sack.

that was the plan AND IT WORKED. Can you give the guy some f@cking credit?
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Even though I think he should have been more aggressive after the INT, Dawson's reasoning for leaning on the run in second half up to the last couple of plays is fine, but that part of the presser was weird to me.

He spent a lot of time doing mental gymnastics regarding conditionals about what spot the defense would be put in after his unit was off the field. He sounded like a HC who calls plays on one side of the ball (which he probably will be next year) and not an OC. Like after watching Hetherman's presser there's no indication that he's even aware we play offense, which is a good thing I think.

On that 3rd down Dawson should have called a play that he thought was most likely to get us a first down, which wasnt a run to Brown IMO.
 
CanefaninBuckeyeland said:
I'm with @P-Tizzle on this one. Outside of the td passes, Beck was making safe throws and not putting the ball in harm's way. This was a massive over correction from last year's Syracuse game and it almost (I stress, ALMOST) led to the exact same outcome. As has been said already, Mario is really good in these games and has proven that over his career. But he's got to find the right balance between aggressiveness and being conservative.
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IDK man.... Like I get always looking for something to improve on, every game there are mistakes and yes going conservative could have almost lost us the game, but we won, you play to win an we did it so have to give some credit for a plan working.

Also, I recall a few of the scouts saying Beck has a tendency to throw it to the wrong color jersey too often. Some of his INTs in that Bama game werent just great defensive plays, they were flat out bad throws that should have never left his hand.

Let me ask you this, at any point did you feel like ND had a ton of momentum? Even when they tied us I maybe got a lil puckered but that was by far the extent. Outside of that we dominated in the trenches. Giving them an INT or something to give them some juice and suck the life out of the crowd was just a reward/risk analysis. The secondary is their strength, WR is not our strength, couple that with bad weather, ball getting wet every time it touches the turf, week 1, lots of variables. I mean is the argument if we had thrown more we would have won by more and that would be better? Or that the conservative nature could be a problem in the future? On the latter yes it can be but I doubt you have a perfect storm like what we saw two nights ago, top ranked secondary, known ball hawks, new (young) WR core and new QB that just started throwing 4 months ago, wet night, and they ND defense played **** near 2 high safeties the entire night. Reminded me of last years FSU game where FSU sat back and Cam kept trying to bait them into walking up so he could sling it but there were content giving us the 5 yd carries. We legit beat ND at their own game.


Now I do think we could have gotten more creative with some very low risk throws that are essentially a long handoff but Beck didnt seem to accurate on those, he skipped one to Toney, one was behind Marion, his middle of the field accuracy was great, short stuff not so much and long ball we only saw a few and a couple were PI calls or him throwing up a prayer.
 
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