Natty Postgame

[russianirish]

One factor in the missed tackles were our injuries. The team was so hurt and tired they probably weren't tackling in practice anymore. To go weeks between games without hitting, leads to rust.

It could be the reason Ohio State always got 2-3 yards after initial contact. It's cumulated at the end.

 

[IrishSteelhead]

The worst part was this morning my 9 year old daughter woke up all excited and asked “Did they win?” with her ND shirt laid out for school.

I had to look her in the eye and say “no,” but also “you wear that shirt with pride today regardless, and if I get a call that you punched a kid wearing an OSU shirt, I’ll let it slide.”

*the last part obviously didn’t happen, but the rest did


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[irishandy]

I am proud of the players, I am proud of the coaches, and we experienced a special season.

Going into these playoff games there were no gimme games. ND wasn't supposed to be here after the NIU loss.

This team continued to believe in themselves and embraced the culture of this team.

I am excited for what the future holds for this program.

Go Irish, Love Thee Notre Dame!

 

[KPENN]

Must be nice to get fucking Washington in the title game

 

[Irish Knuckles]

i'm proud of this team. can't wait to see what the 2025 team looks like. it's fun to watch high character football, and that's what this team is.

GO IRISH!

 

[IrishSteelhead]

Must be nice to get fucking Washington in the title game

Ohio State in the end was a juggernaut after struggling before the playoffs.

They were 100% an “all in for this season”Death Star type roster with their portal purchases, paired with stellar recruiting classes.

Winning it all sadly validates said purchases, and I fully expect them to ramp it up even further with the spending.


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[Jiggafini19Deux]

I'm disappointed for a variety of reasons on a variety of levels. I can't imagine how those kids must feel. Football is really a test of the human condition. How much can a group of people take and for how long can they take it before they fold? These guys really found their footing after that NIU game and kept their foot on the gas for four months. Some programs ended their season two months ago. Our guys were still going last night.

That second quarter will be one that will stick with me until this program eventually wins another title. Not being able to get a win over Ohio State, again, is also a bitter pill. They were clearly out to win this after last season and unfortunately for Notre Dame Ohio State's NIU came at the end of November. They got a fresh reset later in the game than Notre Dame did.

Beating IU was about as amped as I've been for a game in years. To beat UGA and Penn State just made it all seem like a dream season. Ohio State has a bunch of guys who are going to the NFL. ND has some of those too, but less at the moment.

I'm excited about football again. I have this coach and this team to thank for that.

 

[NDRock]

Ohio State in the end was a juggernaut after struggling before the playoffs.

They were 100% an “all in for this season”Death Star type roster with their portal purchases, paired with stellar recruiting classes.

Winning it all sadly validates said purchases, and I fully expect them to ramp it up even further with the spending.


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Hate to say it but most of their purchases were keeping the studs they already recruited and developed. Saw where half the number of underclassmen declared for the draft than did so a few years ago. That’s actually pretty cool but means ND still needs to close the gap somewhat in our high school recruiting.

 

[IrishTusker]

Must be nice to get fucking Washington in the title game

I don't agree with this. They still had to beat a Saban-coached Bama team, even if it wasn't his best team. And Michigan was in the CFP the two years before winning. They had to play Georgia in 21, and lost. And they would have had to play Georgia again if they had won the semifinal in 2022. If you keep getting there, you eventually get an easier path. (And to get there, they had to beat stacked OSU teams, including including several OSU teams that beat us.)

 

[PLACforever]

1) Take a breath

2) Hold

3) Release

+ These dudes didn’t fold. They didn’t quit. That’s a reflection of our coach. We obviously didn’t reach the pinnacle tonight. Okay. But we’re closer.

+ If you want to blame Al? Fine. If you want to blame Christian Gray, fuck you.

+ It’s not Jeter’s fault either.

+ This season was awesome. I love you guys. Let’s tailgate for the spring game.

Hope springs eternal. WE ARE ND! ☘️

Can I blame the Bengals for distracting Al Golden? From what I saw, a lot of the missed tackles were because players were out of position.

Tough way to end, but damn I don't think many people expected this team to go this far, especially after NIU and the slew of injuries.

Wearing ND gear today with PRIDE.

 

[Irish du Nord]

I don't think people realize how bad both our DEs were. Junior I'd a 3rd stringer and Josh Burnam isn't a real SDE and hasn't done anything. We beat Georgia by 2 scores and PSU. This was an incredible year.

That said, the next 3 star who's worshiped as the next big thing, I don't want to hear it. We need high 4 start players filling the class and MF now has the clout to do it.

I disagree with your assessment on the DEs. They are solid second stringers that were forced to play way too many snaps & play injured through the playoffs. Burnham will be solid next year. Bryce Young could be special but he was especially green this year, only seeing the field due to his elite athleticism. We have some legit talent returning at the position next year, but this season should go to show how important depth is on the DLine. I think the media perspective that 1 more quality transfer at any DLine spot would be the best move we can make this spring.

 

[DomeFieldAdvantage]

So after freaking out some last night and saying we'd never win a title, I have some more reasonable thoughts.

Our depth and our culture were our strengths and we should be able to maintain those. Even one of the national recruiting types said high academic schools like us will see less turnover, more depth, and won't have to pay as much to keep people around because they all chose a place like this for a reason.

With the relative dispersal of talent due to the portal and NIL, this OSU team could be one of the better teams in this era. They not only brought in a couple elite transfers, but a lot of the money went towards keeping the very good players they had from entering the draft. Not only will future teams probably not have the same amount of talent eligible to come back, some of those players will also likely be transfers who probably feel less connection to a school to be willing to come back even with a good NIL offer, or maybe hit the portal for another NIL payday. So the era of the super team might be over and this Ohio State team might be the last of the dying breed. Now, let's just hope we don't run into a generational QB again!

Hopefully this game and playoff runs helps in recruiting and we can raise the talent of the depth to another level. Then we might really be in a position to finally win the big one.

 

[Irish du Nord]

I'm disappointed for a variety of reasons on a variety of levels. I can't imagine how those kids must feel. Football is really a test of the human condition. How much can a group of people take and for how long can they take it before they fold? These guys really found their footing after that NIU game and kept their foot on the gas for four months. Some programs ended their season two months ago. Our guys were still going last night.

That second quarter will be one that will stick with me until this program eventually wins another title. Not being able to get a win over Ohio State, again, is also a bitter pill. They were clearly out to win this after last season and unfortunately for Notre Dame Ohio State's NIU came at the end of November. They got a fresh reset later in the game than Notre Dame did.

Beating IU was about as amped as I've been for a game in years. To beat UGA and Penn State just made it all seem like a dream season. Ohio State has a bunch of guys who are going to the NFL. ND has some of those too, but less at the moment.

I'm excited about football again. I have this coach and this team to thank for that.

The silver lining I’m seeing is that we’re going to have more and more of these sorts of guys each year. We have so much young talent already contributing with more sure to come soon. And our staff has filled holes with transfers pretty well, I’m confident that can continue.

 

[phork]

Any take that says we were over matched by a highly superior team is a joke.

We totally could have won this game. Our later play in the game showed that pretty clear.

The problem was poor pass play by Riley early on. He had all day and couldn’t seem to find anyone open when OSU’s DB’s are not great. Which showed late in the game when we actually threw the ball downfield and tested them.

Poor game plan for our coaches as well, especially Golden and Freeman (apparently, buck stops with the HC). Way too conservative

The most frustrating part of this game was that we could have won, but showed up poorly and were poorly coached on the whole.

The good news is we could have won the title game after running the gamut in the playoffs. Great season, disappointing ending, with a very positive outlook moving forward.

As Lax said, over matched isn't the word. But when you have talent oozing at every position its hard to overcome, especially when you have the injuries and talent drop off from 1st to 2nd to 3rd string that a team like ND has.

Its funny, though, reading these comments and seeing things like "we dominated" and stuff like that. Its amazing to me how people see the same thing and come to a different conclusion. Freeman said it at the start, we have to run the ball and stop the run. ND did neither.

 

[Katzenboyer]

So damn proud of this team. What a season.

Wish we could've gotten it done, but think we'll win one under Freeman.

 

[Irish#1]

Is there any chance we don’t finish #2?

I can see Oregon somehow getting it “because they beat the champs” or some crap.


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No way considering what we just did, beating #9 IU, #2 UGA and #3 PSU. Then down big against OSU we made them sweat some because this team didn't quit.

 

[Dale]

That was the closest national championship since 2018

Man that 2Q is tough to swallow

 

[NDohio]

What a fantastic season. It feels good to be a Notre Dame fan. That said, last night really sucks for a guy that has to work with all these Buckeye fans...

I really disagree with the takes that Golden was outcoached last night. Chip Kelly is a great offensive mind but I think that if the ND defensive talent was equal to the OSU offensive talent, Golden could absolutely hold his own against Chip. The talent on that OSU offense is fantastic. Trying to scheme against that many high level skill guys is a huge task - add in that the OSU O-Line is playing their best of the season and Al was just outgunned. Even at that, I thought ND had a couple of chances to get off the field on third down that would have changed the game if the execution would have been better. We will miss Al as heads to the Bengals.

That second quarter was tough to overcome but ND put up a fight and almost did overcome it.

The blitz pick-up by Henderson on the 3-11 play was Kyren W like. If not for that, that pass was not going to be completed that easily.

Riley Leonard - it was a joy to watch you grow as a football player this season. Gino did a great job with him. Sure he never became the passer we all wanted him to become, but he sure was fun to watch.

We will be back...

 

[Irish#1]

Idk man, I'm not gonna argue. After the opening TD and before that 3rd and 11 bomb to Smith, ND outgained OSU 225-73. I think that is pretty dominant. Just re-watched and OSU still had their starting DL in there. OSU didn't take their foot off the gas, Howard just started missing some of his 3rd down passes. You kind of sound like an OSU fan in here trying to negate the comeback by our boys. But its all good.

Freeman seems to agree with me also...

Freeman rues Notre Dame's mistakes in CFP loss to Ohio State

Following a 34-23 loss to Ohio State in Monday's College Football Playoff title game, Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman told reporters, "We can't make mistakes. It falls on my shoulders. And as the head coach, we have to be better prepared for this moment."

www.espn.com

Pretty amazing statement from MF.

I'm just sitting here listening like this is one of the greatest gifts in life is to be able to be the leader of this program because you have great young people like this that share the blame -- share the success when you win and own the blame when you lose. But I'm better because of them," he said.

 

[FightingIrishLover7]

That was the closest national championship since 2018

Man that 2Q is tough to swallow

2Q and 2nd play of 2nd half....

 

[WildMan1]

Also just got home from the game. Not much to say about the play or big takeaways regarding our team, but the one thing I will say is this - OSU fans are lame AF. Not even rude or cocky or anything. Just lame. They were all just walking around after the game looking for their rides home, like nothing had happened. Y’all just won a championship, and you’re acting like you’re commuting home from work. It was so bizarre.

Yea I was amazed by that.. it was such a lame reaction to winning the natty..

But even leading up to the game they all expected to win so when they took a 31-7 lead it probably felt over & in the bag.. which it essentially was.

There were so many little things that could have changed the trajectory of this game.

But we lost what we were always winning. The end of the first & the start of the second half.

And even with that & all the injuries we were one possession away from tying it up.

I’ve been hard on Mills this season at times but he was playing great in the post season & we clearly missed him.

The only time we touched Howard was a penalized late hit.. Not gonna stop them that way.

Let’s hope our portal players are a big upgrade on the DL.

 

[IrishLax]

Leonard was the right choice if you bring Howard here we don’t make the playoffs he looked as good as he did because of the talent around him

To be fair, he finished the year #1 in QBR and had the 16th best season all time since ESPN has been grading QBs. He was crazy accurate and Ohio State actually let him use his legs in the Championship. Who knows if ND would’ve had the same season with him but it seems like how he played is being under sold.

 

[IrishSteelhead]

That was the closest national championship since 2018

Man that 2Q is tough to swallow

And it was exponentially closer than in 2018. The team is definitely closer now than then.

This Ohio State team was probably on par with that Clemson team, and we drove it right down the field for an opening TD, and created a shred of doubt in the 4th quarter.

It wasn’t as bad of a funeral procession.


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[CANONIZEFATHERSORIN]

J Love had to be hurt yesterday right?

 

[NDRock]

To be fair, he finished the year #1 in QBR and had the 16th best season all time since ESPN has been grading QBs. He was crazy accurate and Ohio State actually let him use his legs in the Championship. Who knows if ND would’ve had the same season with him but it seems like how he played is being under sold.

Not sure it’s being undersold but it’s just harder to be impressed when the degree of difficulty is much lower. What RL did on that opening drive was epic and unsustainable. What Howard did reminded me more of watching Mac Jones at Alabama. Howard seems like a good kid and I wish him the best.

 

[china423]

 

[CANONIZEFATHERSORIN]

Highest AP finish in 30+ years

 

[Huntr]

Ducks fans bitching they're 3 and not 2.

Like, what?

 

[dublinirish]

J Love had to be hurt yesterday right?

i dont think he ever recovered from the USC game, him saying he was 95% and all that was probably BS, wouldnt surprize me if he needed minor surgery in offseason to clean things up

 

[KMac151993]

Best ND team since 1993.