How can ND beat Bama?

[Bishop2b5]

STFU! Are you serious?? Holy shit that's hilarious lol

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Absolutely! They still laugh about it in Auburn. They greased 400 yds of track and the train didn't stop until almost a mile west of town.

 

[philipm31]

I was stunned when I heard Saban mention that. There is no way all of these guys are gonna act responsibly.



Would be fun to see. Run it super fast tempo too. Book has the smarts to call the game from the pocket and move fast, fast, fast...Won't happen...

That would only work if we caught every single pass.

 

[Irishize]

Football is easy when you break it down.

Run the ball.
Stop the run.
Win a lot of games.

The difference in this game was Etienne and Lawrence both had or nearly had 100 yards rushing. Not only did we not shut down Etienne we let Lawrence roam freely.

I am not saying we could have won but just looking at that box score without seeing the score you could easily tell who won.
On the flip side we had 44 yards.

Mac Jones doesn't run like Lawrence does.

For us to have a shot means power running with PA TE passes, quick slants etc. Grind the clock and eat possessions.

Didn’t UF lead the nation in sacks? How many times did they get to Jones? Whatever that # was it didn’t slow down the offense

 

[NDFAN420]

But we also need a ton more Zoriches and Jerome Buses to ever bring a chip home again.

Wrote the same thing the other day. We are closer than I thought we'd be after Kelly's 4 win year. A couple of guys every year to make up for needing to be perfect in recruiting and injuries. Hitting on Ogundeji was such great work, but imagine one more dude on this line... imagine a Will Fuller on offense... just one more guy or two would make a difference.

 

[Polish Leppy 22]

Bring in Navy's staff to install triple option with Aver Davis at QB. Kelly and staff aren't going to insert Lenzy, Keys, and Johnson. Skowronek and McKinley won't get open.

So play keep away and keep the score as low as possible, or keep going as you have been and lose 49-3.

I'm half kidding.

 

[philipm31]

Some good points. My kids are very much into sports and my daughter just signed to play college soccer. I also know that neither have faced much adversity in their lives. Sometimes I think that shows when they play. A lot of ND kids seem to come from a two parent, loving household and are really good kids. I’d say they’ve never been the “underdog” much and ND doesn’t seem like a place that will bring the “dog” out in a lot of these players. Who knows.

Bama was an underdog for a good twenty years, on the regular. There is a reason that you really never heard of Bama outside of the early 90s teams under Stallings until the arrival of Saban in 2007.

Sure they played in a load of SEC title games but they were almost never the favorite, Florida was. It was always an upset when Bama won in the Nineties. Football has always been cyclical. But yes, there is definitely a nostalgia factor that gets exploited by the ND administration, and frankly any administration worth their salt.

 

[philipm31]

ND fields very good teams, enough to put us in the conversation of top 5-10.

2 things that keep ND from being elite and/or upsetting elite programs (w frequency):

1. The fans are deeply loyal and the admin. exploits this loyalty. They slow play the progress in terms of more flexible recruiting practices and speed-track superficials well enough to promote the brand. The money has to be affected for systemic changes to occur. (ND fans would never boycott, even though we need better and more elite recruits..)

2. We don’t have a true underdog mentality. Case in point was this game versus Clemson. The smoke was blowing everywhere including Kelly listing demands of the playoff committee and Book addressing Heisman talk. That ain’t Rocky. ND entitlement is difficult to avoid when everything seems gold.

Bama addresses the first one easily so the second never arises. When was the last time you thought Alabama was an underdog? It’s almost disturbingly laughable how dominant Alabama has been when we keep rehashing the theme that we are back.

This isn’t pessimism. I like this team and I respect that we recruit players who are real student athletes. But we also need a ton more Zoriches and Jerome Buses to ever bring a chip home again.

Bama was an underdog for a good twenty years, on the regular. There is a reason that you really never heard of Bama outside of the early 90s teams under Stallings until the arrival of Saban in 2007. Hell, I would venture to say it was closer to 30 years because the early 80s teams were not all that great under Bear. His last game was at the Liberty Bowl, which I attended when Bama won, maybe seven games?

Sure they played in several SEC title games but they were never the favorite, Florida was. It was always an upset when Bama won in the Nineties. Football has always been cyclical. But yes, there is definitely a nostalgia factor that gets exploited by the ND administration, and frankly any administration worth their salt.

I think that the fans certainly feel like the underdog more than the players might, but I do not subscribe to the idea that there is absolutely no underdog mentality on the team.

However I do think it needs to be permeating the team and the student body, not to be pessimistic level, but on a level of we need to prove something each and every time we play.

 

[NDRock]

Absolutely! They still laugh about it in Auburn. They greased 400 yds of track and the train didn't stop until almost a mile west of town.

Thats great. It’s also the kind of thing if you did today they would charge you with domestic terrorism. We don’t have much of a sense of humor as a nation anymore.

 

[Valpodoc85]

"If you put off everything until your sure of it, you will never accomplish anything..."

 

[Sea Turtle]

Bama was an underdog for a good twenty years, on the regular. There is a reason that you really never heard of Bama outside of the early 90s teams under Stallings until the arrival of Saban in 2007.

Sure they played in a load of SEC title games but they were almost never the favorite, Florida was. It was always an upset when Bama won in the Nineties. Football has always been cyclical. But yes, there is definitely a nostalgia factor that gets exploited by the ND administration, and frankly any administration worth their salt.

That's why I admire and respect what Alabama did. They were behind the times and we're a has been program.
So they went out and went big game hunting and got the best head coach that was out there. And they didn't take no for an answer. They understood how important that football is to the identity of the university and how much money it brings in.
This coach is also Catholic and would have crawled on broken glass to coach Notre Dame but ND was too busy hiring coaching legends like Bod Davie, George O'Leary, Tyrone Willingham and Charlie Weis.
Not pursuing Nick Saban, coming back from meeting with Urban Meyer with 'nothing but our dicks in hands', as one ND official put it, are quarter of a century mistakes that you just can't make. The university at least cares somewhat about the football program now but it will never be what it should be and can be.

How do we beat Alabama? By the University treating the football program like the entity that made the university world famous and not like some necessary evil that the university has to put up with.

 

[AllGoldEverything]

DONT MAKE IAN BOOK WIN THE GAME. Have a variety of run plays...gap scheme, zone, counters... and have multiple play action pass plays to go off them. Any pass play has to have Book getting the ball out within a few seconds.

Defensively- Find a way to make Mac uncomfortable. He does not have the legs that Trevor does. Play a bend but dont break defense on the back end. We can't give up the big play.

All together... We have to have a fast start for confidence purposes. Additionally, our guys cant look at these guys like they are invincible. Play with the swagger that Kyren brings allll game long.

If a few things fall our way, we can be in this game in the 4th.

 

[Irishize]

That's why I admire and respect what Alabama did. They were behind the times and we're a has been program.
So they went out and went big game hunting and got the best head coach that was out there. And they didn't take no for an answer. They understood how important that football is to the identity of the university and how much money it brings in.
This coach is also Catholic and would have crawled on broken glass to coach Notre Dame but ND was too busy hiring coaching legends like Bod Davie, George O'Leary, Tyrone Willingham and Charlie Weis.
Not pursuing Nick Saban, coming back from meeting with Urban Meyer with 'nothing but our dicks in hands', as one ND official put it, are quarter of a century mistakes that you just can't make. The university at least cares somewhat about the football program now but it will never be what it should be and can be.

How do we beat Alabama? By the University treating the football program like the entity that made the university world famous and not like some necessary evil that the university has to put up with.

The way I heard it told is that Saban realized where the talent was when he took his first MSU team down to the Independence Bowl to play LSU. This was Gerry DiNardo’s first year at the helm of LSU & they crushed Sparty. Saban saw the type of athlete that LSU had in abundance and realized most of them were homegrown or from neighboring states.

Four years later, he was named the HC at LSU. I’ve never heard him have any true interest in coaching ND. He knows...just like Meyer, Stoops & others...that he couldn’t recruit the number of studs he needs to compete for the NC.

You truly have to be at a football factory to pull that off & ND (while far from perfect) will never allow their standards to sink to that level. Therefore, they will likely never regain the top tier of CFP but will always be in the conversation under BK & hopefully his successor.

 

[Bishop2b5]

The university at least cares somewhat about the football program now but it will never be what it should be and can be.

How do we beat Alabama? By the University treating the football program like the entity that made the university world famous and not like some necessary evil that the university has to put up with.

I've been beating this drum for years here. Yes, I'm primarily a Bama guy and I hope we win, but over the past several years ND's become my #2 or #3 team and I'm enough of a fan to care what happens. For all of ND's vaunted (and deserved) chest thumping over being an elite academic school, football is what put you on the map with most of the country's population. It's what most people from coast to coast think of first when they hear the words Notre Dame. The majority of people in this country can't spell Mensa, don't know the difference between geology and geography, and don't know the difference between a Notre Dame and a state college... and they don't care.

They know ND because of The Four Horsemen, Rockne, Joe Montana, Ara, Lou, Rocket and Touchdown Jesus. Football is your calling card. It's what gets you in the door, in their minds, wins their hearts and souls. For the administration to not capitalize on that is criminal. I don't see any reason ND can't have a top tier, dominant, Bama-type program AND stay faithful to the rest of your mission. Football is the difference between you being just another small, academically elite, but relatively unknown to anyone but Catholics school in the middle of nowhere, and being a household name that can go get the best & brightest anywhere in the country.

 

[DONALDIII]

I sure hope BK is installing the Triple Option before Bama.

*Only kind of italics

 

[phork]

1) wrong - need passing, bigly - Source, Saban
2) wrong - need to just score more points via shootouts - source, Saban
3) wrong - need to win "all the games" (apparently people only care about NCs)

Can't tell if serious.

We have none of that. Sooooo....

 

[Rogue219]

Ryan Harris had an interesting Tweet last night.

I don't know, I still think it's going to take a different offensive game plan and it would have to be executed as close to flawless as possible. No negative plays, turnovers, no field goals.

 

[Free Manera]

Ryan Harris had an interesting Tweet last night.

I don't know, I still think it's going to take a different offensive game plan and it would have to be executed as close to flawless as possible. No negative plays, turnovers, no field goals.

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[NDRock]

Ryan Harris had an interesting Tweet last night.

I don't know, I still think it's going to take a different offensive game plan and it would have to be executed as close to flawless as possible. No negative plays, turnovers, no field goals.

Truth is, Book needs to play the game of his life and the receivers have to make plays. Hopefully Book can be effective in the run game as well.

 

[Rogue219]

Truth is, Book needs to play the game of his life and the receivers have to make plays. Hopefully Book can be effective in the run game as well.

It is going to take a tremendous amount of work defensively too. I think everyone will wind up being happy that Clark Lea is going to Vanderbilt as opposed to paying him Venables money when this is all over with.

 

[InKellyWeTrust]

It is going to take a tremendous amount of work defensively too. I think everyone will wind up being happy that Clark Lea is going to Vanderbilt as opposed to paying him Venables money when this is all over with.

What? Maybe us fickle fans will be "happy" for a couple weeks until we realize how difficult it will be finding a replacement on par with Lea, much less an upgrade.

 

[ab2cmiller]

[TWEET]https://twitter.com/salaams_from_68/status/1341187243298308097[/TWEET]

 

[ThePiombino]

Hey, maybe we'll see a screen pass this game. That would certainly qualify as breaking tendencies...

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[Pops Freshenmeyer]

It is going to take a tremendous amount of work defensively too. I think everyone will wind up being happy that Clark Lea is going to Vanderbilt as opposed to paying him Venables money when this is all over with.

I agree that Clark Lea is likely take a lot of blame for points allowed when the offense repeatedly puts the defense in bad positions.

 

[IrishRazor82]

The first 2 drives will be so important to build confidence and loosen team up. If we get off to a terrible start it could be like Miami but worse.

Hit a crosser for a big gain, get a pass interference by taking a shot, connect on a screen, etc. Even if we don't score we have to flip the field. We cannot be giving them the ball at the 38 yard line.

 

[Rogue219]

What? Maybe us fickle fans will be "happy" for a couple weeks until we realize how difficult it will be finding a replacement on par with Lea, much less an upgrade.

It's going to be okay.

He's very good, they'll find the next guy, but he doesn't deserve to get Venables money.

 

[Irish#1]

You can't change your offensive identity in two weeks to win against Alabama or Clemson. That's a recipe for disaster. You stay true to your identity, but add some wrinkles to complement what you are already doing. Change your looks each possession so Saban doesn't have a chance to figure things out and make adjustments early. I know the thought is ball control to stay in the game, but I think we need to go hurry up at least once to keep them off balance and to force them to play their base defense.

Need to win the TO battle and not give up any fumbles or INT's. I think our defense will fair better against Bama than they did against Clemson because of the QB play. Jones is really good, but the fact he isn't a real run threat makes attacking a lot easier.

 

[Free Manera]

I think/hope Kelly's comments about "ball control" were just interference. In no world is Bama scoring less than 35. Play this game 100 times, they're scoring 35 every time.

ND needs to score in the 30's to give themselves any chance at all. You aren't doing that with ball control. Now, if the goal is don't get embarrassed, which it might be, then ball control seems to make sense. It will lead to getting embarrassed anyways though because ND will score 13 and Bama will still score 35-56.

 

[NDRock]

We already held Clemson to their lowest point total. 33 in regulation the first game and 34 last game.

Bama’s lowest point total was 38, in the first game. I think keeping them in the 30’s will be a good showing for the D.

 

[Free Manera]

We already held Clemson to their lowest point total. 33 in regulation the first game and 34 last game.

Bama’s lowest point total was 38, in the first game. I think keeping them in the 30’s will be a good showing for the D.

Agree. Therefore ND has to assume they need 7 touchdowns, at a minimum, and plan accordingly.

 

[Rogue219]

Hey, maybe we'll see a screen pass this game. That would certainly qualify as breaking tendencies...

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To be fair, screen passes have become like fullbacks. I don't really see anyone using them all that much anymore.

HS, college and pro. Just seems like it isn't in the modern day arsenal anymore. When you do see one, and it works, it's an "Ooooh" kind of moment. For those of us old enough to remember screen passes, anyway.