Miami Postgame Thread

[50milesSE ND]

Can we change Ash to ASS!

 

[FDNYIrish1]

I said all spring Knapp shouldn’t be our LT and yet most of you on here thought I was crazy because he played decent last year. He got bailed out by Leonard a lot being a running threat.

This is not at all why we think you’re crazy

 

[NDFAN2008]

I’ll be honest I saw us coming out for the game by the tunnel I didn’t see a fire speech from Freeman we honestly had a scared look on our face. This is where we miss Coogan. I would take Coogan at center in a heartbeat he coulda made the difference last night.

 

[FWIrish4]

I distinctly remember playing zone on the first drive and right before half (common). Can anyone that keeps saying we were in soft zones all night point to a specific play or sequence outside of those that we were clearly in zone? It seems to be a convenient “Ash did this that Golden doesn’t” thing that frankly, is made up.

I think the perception exists because of complete lack of havoc from the defensive side of the ball. It seemed conservative / soft zone-ish even if it wasn’t always a zone call.

Here’s notes from Jamie’s Instant Reaction:

“4.7 yards per play allowed to a Miami offense that is projected top-3 in the country isn’t a bad by any means, but he didn’t find a way to create havoc and a 7.3% havoc rate compared to an 18.9% havoc rate for Miami is yet another reason why Notre Dame lost the game.”

 

[NDFAN2008]

One more thing I’ll add I thought this years team coulda had quite a few guys declare early no one has any business leaving early for the NFL after last nights performance. Besides Love

 

[IrishLax]

• Denbrock: Ditching the run game was awful. Not going to put the lack of downfield passing on him entirely though as Knapp and Wagner were on skates much of the night and you can’t throw a deep ball in 1 second. Definitely have to find a solution still and mix something in. Another thing is if we don’t have TEs to run heavy, spread it out then, not having Fields and Faison blocking in a tight formation. Was not always pretty, but RZ offense was still effective.
• Ash: Thought he was fine. Dawson is a fantastic OC and had some things ready to beat us, lot of man beaters. This is not an Ash thing and more a Freeman thing but rotation was heavy and some guys I don’t necessarily want always on the field were beat for big plays. This was the case versus OSU as well in years past. This was basically admitted by Freeman post game as a long term decision. I think you really have to change your diaper if you’ve made some huge takeaway of Ash here. Do people realize we forced FIVE 3 and outs? That Miami started twice in ND territory and scored 3 points? Frankly some of the takeaways seem completely made up and not based in reality. Of course it’s a lot of the same exact posters on the first few pages of the Golden thread….
• Carr: Poise. Arm talent. Check. Check. Assuming the INT was an RPO. That’s on him. Pressed man corner is a clear run read there. This was admitted in post game. But tough to poke many other holes given what was asked/available.
• WRs: Slot WR was literally AWOL. Nothing from Pauling or Greathouse at all. Faison be slippery.
• OL: Woof. Was Knapp hurt or benched? Probably bit of both. Wagner is not a NFL OT and I don’t know why anyone keeps pretending he is. Against NFL prospects he’s not strong enough. Will be intriguing how the coaches viewed Lambert/Absher. Can’t run a full offense when you can’t block.
• DL: Probably the main reason we lost. Basically nothing from the pass rush besides Traore. Beck all day to throw. Can’t play man with all day to throw. DTs caved in too often in the run game. No show from Bryce Young is disappointing. Hinish, don’t even have to elaborate. Why not get hands up more often like Dawson in 1Q if you can’t get home and most passes were short?
• LB: Bowen was underwhelming but that is also on the DTs. Ausberry seemed to play a lot? Not a good or bad just surprising. They cleaned up a lot and contained with the safeties which is why the run stats aren’t as bad as they seemed but more swallowing tackles rather than attacking.
• DBs: Moore was not his best in the 1H, maybe it was the surface. Hobbs is not good. Like was really not good. First TD Hobbs is beat and Talich is 8 yards into the end zone guarding no one. Second TD is on Moore if anything but amazing catch. Moore got beat off line. People blaming Shuler are idiots, the All-22 view also clearly showed he traveled distance, ball in air to get there. He was not simply standing there waiting as many implied from a slow mo 0.5 seconds. Beck made zero other costly mistakes which is closer to 2023 him when he has a NFL OL and all day to throw.

• In the end you lost the TO battle and Middle Eight, which included a miracle TD catch. Breakeven or win either as we usually do and you beat a Top 10 team on the road with a first time QB. Both teams are OL/DL driven programs, theirs is better and might be the best in the country.

Elite post. Could not agree more, especially with the Shuler comment. I saw one angle today where it is abundantly clear how he is playing the ball and moving to the interception point. If the pass is an inch higher it's probably a pick 6.

 

[IRISHDODGER]

Some of y’all need to learn how to deal w/ trolls. Those performances were as bad as y’all claim ND played/coached.

 

[BabyIrish]

Everyone is ok with easing him in and that first drive was perfect for that. And I assumed all the screens were setting up something downfield. But they just set up more screens and it was eventually catastrophic.

The training wheels came off way too late. He didn’t give the offense a chance.

Honestly this looked like a Brian Kelly play not to lose because I’m scared gameplan.

It wasn’t just basic wr screens. All of them were RPO reads by the QB. Everyone knows Love is gonna be the focal point. So what do you do? You stretch the defense to open up running lanes. The coaching staff decided to do this with RPO’s. So if we were running screens up through the 3rd quarter, it was Carr deciding to throw it out and not run it. Clearly the INT was a bad read by Carr. It is what it is. Again, the idea to stretch the defense side to side to open the running lanes game seems like a good way to go about it.

For me the main problem was the lines. We were dominated. If we weren’t, we probably win the game by two scores.

 

[DomeFieldAdvantage]

I distinctly remember playing zone on the first drive and right before half (common). Can anyone that keeps saying we were in soft zones all night point to a specific play or sequence outside of those that we were clearly in zone? It seems to be a convenient “Ash did this that Golden doesn’t” thing that frankly, is made up.

I think one problem was that when we would go man, Miami often had a man beater or good hot route to go to relatively quickly. That meant the pressure never had time to get home. One thing I think Golden was good at was being complementary in the rush and the coverage.

 

[NumbersGuy0520]

Pardon my rant. If too long please just scroll ahead.

I assume all of this has already been said, but I'm absolutely livid that we lost a game with a roster whose supposed only "weakness" or question mark was a young QB, and it wasn't the young QB making any sort of mistake that cost us. It was ultimately the experienced coordinators.

Chris Ash was getting ZERO pressure all day and just insisted on soft zone that let Beck drive right down the field time and time again. He didnt take advantage of his elite corners enough, going man and generating pressure, which was his predecessor's bread and butter. Cleaned it up after the opening drive in 2nd half but holy shit we shouldn't be giving up 27 to anybody with the talent and depth on all 3 levels. Shuler looked lost on that late first half TD and should be ball hawking not playing center field. Pathetic effort on that play from our veteran in that group. Tae Johnson needs more burn, the safety group was dreadfully quiet.

Denbrock went from ultra conservative to letting Carr cook, with some of the worst playcalls in between. Screens to the boundary, on several occasions? On 2nd and 2 after an 8 yard run? We have the best RB room in the nation and our QB, not named Leonard, had more carries than both of them?! Wtf is wrong with you. Faison looked like an absolute weapon early and then just disappeared for a long, long stretch. Pauling? Greathouse? You're telling me we can't find a way to feed our best WR the football.

There is no reason to panic as they showed a lot of fight on the road against a quality opponent, even though it was too little too late. But this game was 100% on our coordinators. We got absolutely owned at the LOS on both sides. That cannot happen, ever. Freeman needs to clean this shit up and hold guys accountable. Lost opportunity.

This is the stuff that makes me the most worried about this season. The margin of error is now slim - we need to win out, or win all but one.

I think the team is capable. But with what the coordinators showed us last night, I’m not confident in them - very real shot they don’t put out a product that achieves that.

 

[BilboBaggins]

Chris Ash was getting ZERO pressure all day and just insisted on soft zone that let Beck drive right down the field time and time again. He didnt take advantage of his elite corners enough, going man and generating pressure, which was his predecessor's bread and butter. Cleaned it up after the opening drive in 2nd half but holy shit we shouldn't be giving up 27 to anybody with the talent and depth on all 3 levels.

Wat. Did we watch the same game?

ND ran man the vast majority of the time. Beck was very good and the routes they had #10 run (and everyone else, but #10 was the star) were predominantly man coverage beaters.

Turns out, the Miami OL is fantastic. Their strength against ND's weakness (DTs). Notre Dame would send blitzes, and they would get picked up. Clearly, Ash and Freeman decided not to send six and seven because if it gets picked up, Beck is going to make the defense pay.

Chris Ash and the defense are not why Notre Dame lost. But the lack of elite DT play is what is going to hold Notre Dame back against elite teams IMO. Miami exposed that fact for everyone to see. Not everyone has the OL that Miami has, but you can bet the farm that Texas A&M will be running A and B gap and doubling the DT and forcing the LBs to win the game. It's not the end of the world because ND has the DB talent to play more guys in the box.

 

[GowerND11]

I fucking hate losing to Miami and their piece of shit fans.

FUCK

Ok, now that’s out of the way…

Denbrock called this game to not lose by a lot. Almost like he was content with a loss like this.

I don’t think Ash was as bad as everyone else says. Beck threw two ducks for TDs. Both with pressure like we said we needed to get. The second one, in particular, is picked or dropped more than that catch.

I thought Moore had a mehhh game.

Bryce Young wasn’t in on passing downs as much as I’d like, personally. Traore being healthy though is massive.

Coming out of halftime coaches said they want to get Love involved… proceed to throw the ball three times for incompletions…

Downright fluke of an INT, but shouldn’t have been thrown.

Get the ball in Faison’s hands. He just does good things.

I can handle a loss to a good team, and maybe Miami is a good team we will see. But to see a Notre Dame offensive line look like that…. I’m angry.

 

[IrishLax]

I think one problem was that when we would go man, Miami often had a man beater or good hot route to go to relatively quickly. That meant the pressure never had time to get home. One thing I think Golden was good at was being complementary in the rush and the coverage.

Golden did a great job of being aggressive while not being Tenuta / BVG level predictable or vulnerable. There were rarely big busts and he created tons of negative plays, turnovers, and havoc.

Last night just get very reactive versus aggressive. We stopped the run, kept everything in front of us for the most part, made them execute methodical drives. Gave up 2 TDs to unfortunate circumstances. But the "vibe" was more Diaco like than anything else and that was a large departure from what we saw last year when we had a top defense.

And to be clear -- we are really only replacing one guy (Watts) from what we had on the playoff run. Could throw Kiser in that boat too. But I just don't really know if we played to our strengths.

 

[Dale]

Last night just get very reactive versus aggressive. We stopped the run, kept everything in front of us for the most part, made them execute methodical drives. Gave up 2 TDs to unfortunate circumstances. But the "vibe" was more Diaco like than anything else and that was a large departure from what we saw last year when we had a top defense.

All this you could also say about Golden in the OSU game, could you not?

Think people are seeing an opponent related change, not a coach related change.

 

[IrishLax]

Last thing I'll say is that the game played out a lot like the PSU game from last year.

OL gets dominated by a good DL. Dreadful first half on offense, finally start saying "fuck it we gotta take some chances" and then we get some points. Tie it up late. Difference is that against PSU we created a negative play on defense to win the game and in this one we gave up just enough ground for them to kick a long field goal.

But at some point you gotta have some self-reflection and say "we have to be willing to throw the ball down the field to score points on good teams." And that's doubly true without a dual threat QB or an OL that can run block worth a damn.

 

[Kingbish01]

Just watched it back...we win this game easily without the acrobatic TD catch to end the half and the ridiculous kicked ball INT. Ya Ya Ya ..I know....that's part of the game. But it's not like they got spanked. ND has a lot of work to do, but I have a feeling this loss will be good for them.

 

[IrishLax]

All this you could also say about Golden in the OSU game, could you not?

Think people are seeing an opponent related change, not a coach related change.

Agreed, but I understood it against Ohio State because they were torching everyone and there was film from Michigan of how to play conservative defense and stifle their explosive plays. And the proof was in the pudding with how they hit the shot to Smith against the blitz at the end.

With respect to Miami, the book on Beck is that if you get pressure he implodes. I don't know why we thought we could get pressure against this OL rushing 3 or 4 guys.

 

[Kingbish01]

Also I can't remember who said it...but the best comment on this thread went along the lines of "How could they let Coogan and Spindler walk" I couldn't agree more with that.

 

[HouseofPain]

Offensive line getting no push. Hope Jagusah enjoys his next skydiving trip or whatever. Knapp is MAC level. Wagner was disappointing. Scrauth was always overhyped.

Problem is one of those guys would be dream team for 99% of the teams out there. I don’t know what’s happening with the development. Year after year indeed gets the best. Oh well recruits there are and they just never seem to really produce at elite levels.

 

[stlnd01]

Just watched it back...we win this game easily without the acrobatic TD catch to end the half and the ridiculous kicked ball INT. Ya Ya Ya ..I know....that's part of the game. But it's not like they got spanked. ND has a lot of work to do, but I have a feeling this loss will be good for them.

True, and those sort of plays happen. But also they made those plays and we did not.

 

[GowerND11]

Also I can't remember who said it...but the best comment on this thread went along the lines of "How could they let Coogan and Spindler walk" I couldn't agree more with that.

I feel as though the coaching staff, and I could be way off base here, were looking at the OL for the next two years AFTER this year with that decision to let them transfer. Get the young guys playing and experienced for when Carr is also experienced.

That can certainly work out for us then, but right now, with JD and Love in the backfield… it would be nice to have experience in front of them.

 

[DomeFieldAdvantage]

Last thing I'll say is that the game played out a lot like the PSU game from last year.

OL gets dominated by a good DL. Dreadful first half on offense, finally start saying "fuck it we gotta take some chances" and then we get some points. Tie it up late. Difference is that against PSU we created a negative play on defense to win the game and in this one we gave up just enough ground for them to kick a long field goal.

But at some point you gotta have some self-reflection and say "we have to be willing to throw the ball down the field to score points on good teams." And that's doubly true without a dual threat QB or an OL that can run block worth a damn.

Frankly, I think going with Carr shows that is the long term plan. It just might not have been something we wanted to do unless forced to in his first game on the road against a good team.

 

[Dale]

Agreed, but I understood it against Ohio State because they were torching everyone and there was film from Michigan of how to play conservative defense and stifle their explosive plays. And the proof was in the pudding with how they hit the shot to Smith against the blitz at the end.

With respect to Miami, the book on Beck is that if you get pressure he implodes. I don't know why we thought we could get pressure against this OL rushing 3 or 4 guys.

We didn’t get pressure bringing more than 4 either.

 

[GowerND11]

But the "vibe" was more Diaco like than anything else and that was a large departure from what we saw last year when we had a top defense.

It was very Diaco. And to be clear… that CAN work. It did work for us before. But it only works if our offense is pushing the ball and scoring. Because that puts pressure on the opposing team to score against a bend but don’t break defense, and that’s when a defense like that gets turnovers.

But we all definitely loved the Golden style the last few years.

 

[FDNYIrish1]

Stat line between both teams is almost identical. The turnovers and the Time of possession really hurt the defense in south Florida.

 

[NDPhilly]

Everything else feels pretty fixable outside of Knapp and Wagner. They just aren’t going to hold up against high end DEs, and we obviously aren’t going to make changes at tackle considering their level of experience mid-season.

 

[KMac151993]

I feel as though the coaching staff, and I could be way off base here, were looking at the OL for the next two years AFTER this year with that decision to let them transfer. Get the young guys playing and experienced for when Carr is also experienced.

That can certainly work out for us then, but right now, with JD and Love in the backfield… it would be nice to have experience in front of them.

If that is true then the coaching staff is not good.

 

[arrowryan]

Everything else feels pretty fixable outside of Knapp and Wagner. They just aren’t going to hold up against high end DEs, and we obviously aren’t going to make changes at tackle considering their level of experience mid-season.

They held up just fine, for the most part, against very good DEs last year. It was a bad game, and that happens sometimes. But I’m not gonna completely write them off after one bad performance. Especially when I’ve seen them do it before.

 

[IrishWayDomer]

Im more worried about the interior DL than the OL. Jagusaw is coming and Rudolph I trust. But we are starting Rudy and an unproven Onye inside and it did not look good.

 

[ThePiombino]

Lots of blame to go around for the loss, but mostly I just want to offer a genuine FUCK YOU to whomever scheduled us away against Miami in week 1.