Oct 29 | Syracuse

MacIrish75

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Refs were horrible. Didn’t mind the color guy but the play by play guy sucked. Even the wife mentioned he sounded like he was rooting for Syracuse.
Greg McElroy is awful, always.

I generally like Tess—but he’s from upper New York and went to BC. We’re not gonna get any love from him.
 

Irish2155

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You can’t just not pass in a game. Especially the week before a game you will 100% need to pass to have a chance m. Whatever shred of confidence would be shot
Good point but who say that we need that next week? If we need to pass, then we’re fucked. 100% is very tall.
 

Dale

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Good point but who say that we need that next week? If we need to pass, then we’re fucked. 100% is very tall.

NDs run game in almost every big game in the last 5 years. Trenton Simpson, Breese, Henry, Murphy etc
 

Old Man Mike

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Two cents FWIW (not much admittedly.)
A. "My" Big Boys are REAL good. (To the few on IE who were ignoramuses, politely, up yours. To the Harry Hiestand haters, a pathetic few that you are, a double dose of digitus profanus.)
B. Passing game still stinks, but not their (the OLines) fault.
C. Estime+Diggs could be AA if they had passing game support.
D. Rees HAS to call some passes to keep things at least a little confusing for D's. (unfortunately)
E. To that: Mayer needs several looks regardless --- now he's almost like a soccer striker --- most occasions not too productive, but he will still put one or two "in the net/endzone".
F. I think that Rees is doing a reasonable job 90% of the time. His getting away from the run is not uniformly in error. Sometimes it's a reasonable attempt at balance/unpredictability and trying like He!l to get Pyne's head in the game. Other times he's overthinking this and should just pound the opponents' brains out.
G. Drew Pyne .... sigh. Good kid. Pretty good if he's a backup QB not thinking that he's the Pressured Starter. I was surprised at this personality weakness. He is shook. There's is nothing I have seen which explains his continual short arming and poor (indecisive) wobble passing on short throws. Tommy is going to need psychiatric treatment on this. Look at him in the booth. He calls a great "successful" pattern --- receiver is wide open for a gimme. Drew shortarms the thing --- often just badly enough that we can rationalize that it wasn't all his fault. I've been REALLY supportive of Pyne. But he's shook. I thought he could handle it (it's not talent; it's psyche --- we can move the damm ball through the air now with the vast majority of Tommy's calls/designs); but Drew (right now anyway) can not handle it. Maybe the weight will go away. I've seen that from one year to a next, but not this late in a season. More pain coming I think.
H. The defense was good --- faster all over than some previous games (especially Stanford.) If we get a little healthier, then more fun. Foskey has turned on the light. Linebackers have adjusted to injuries.
I. Special teams. Pretty damm good. Not sure that I believe I am watching Notre Dame.
 

Dizzyphil

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Two cents FWIW (not much admittedly.)
A. "My" Big Boys are REAL good. (To the few on IE who were ignoramuses, politely, up yours. To the Harry Hiestand haters, a pathetic few that you are, a double dose of digitus profanus.)
B. Passing game still stinks, but not their (the OLines) fault.
C. Estime+Diggs could be AA if they had passing game support.
D. Rees HAS to call some passes to keep things at least a little confusing for D's. (unfortunately)
E. To that: Mayer needs several looks regardless --- now he's almost like a soccer striker --- most occasions not too productive, but he will still put one or two "in the net/endzone".
F. I think that Rees is doing a reasonable job 90% of the time. His getting away from the run is not uniformly in error. Sometimes it's a reasonable attempt at balance/unpredictability and trying like He!l to get Pyne's head in the game. Other times he's overthinking this and should just pound the opponents' brains out.
G. Drew Pyne .... sigh. Good kid. Pretty good if he's a backup QB not thinking that he's the Pressured Starter. I was surprised at this personality weakness. He is shook. There's is nothing I have seen which explains his continual short arming and poor (indecisive) wobble passing on short throws. Tommy is going to need psychiatric treatment on this. Look at him in the booth. He calls a great "successful" pattern --- receiver is wide open for a gimme. Drew shortarms the thing --- often just badly enough that we can rationalize that it wasn't all his fault. I've been REALLY supportive of Pyne. But he's shook. I thought he could handle it (it's not talent; it's psyche --- we can move the damm ball through the air now with the vast majority of Tommy's calls/designs); but Drew (right now anyway) can not handle it. Maybe the weight will go away. I've seen that from one year to a next, but not this late in a season. More pain coming I think.
H. The defense was good --- faster all over than some previous games (especially Stanford.) If we get a little healthier, then more fun. Foskey has turned on the light. Linebackers have adjusted to injuries.
I. Special teams. Pretty damm good. Not sure that I believe I am watching Notre Dame.
I agree with everything except the Rees percentage - drop that to about 70% (maybe less) and this is spot on.
 

Old Man Mike

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To clarify "90%" (not that anybody cares):

An OC playcaller assesses what's happening & thinks of an immediate play and perhaps what the next several (chess game) plays he'd like to set up. The current play is primary of course, but the future-looking set-up plays are not trivial. There are times when a certain play is call to check coverage and defensive game planning too. Hopefully these are not wasted plays, but, to my information, every OC calls some of these.

I have closely listened to NDs several game announcers' comments on the play calls. The total times that they complain about a Rees playcall on fundamental-gameplan-error grounds are very small. This last game, those "philosophical" objections were confined to two Tyree calls running laterally (one of which might have been the RBs wrong read rather than play design,) and the two series where we did not pound the run as much as we should --- the announcers even there admitted that Rees needed to call SOME passes.

So, calling plays which are "theoretically" understandable is different from plays that turn out to actually be productive. Hopefully that's obvious, but just in case: This is true because there are two teams on the field. Both teams are composed of talented trained players. Both teams will make plays and make them about half/50% of the time --- for sure the defense has to be successful CLOSE to 50% of the time, or football would be no game (just a heavily armored track meet.)

It's still debatable of course, but having listened to football people both in game and out speak of Rees' playcalling, I, along with my own eyes, believe that he usually calls a play that is understandable from a football perspective. Some of those plays fail due to lousy execution; some fail due to really excellent defensive athlete execution; and some fail due to the DC calling something wherein his defense shifts late into just the worst pattern for the play called. In those latter problem situations, the offense needs the QB to have such a calm and superb grasp that he gets the team into some other play, or improvises. Stop and think for a moment how often you believe Drew does that, in contrast to say, Ian.

I honestly believe that most "fans" understand football so shallowly that they don't think about any of this. (But they should before making really strong statements about where the failures arise.)
 
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bkess8

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Can someone make a gif of the Estime stuff arm so I can change my profile picture?
 

T-Boone

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Tommy thinks too much. We literally would have won that game yesterday with a QB that had no arms. Just straight/down hill. It wasn’t going to be stopped.

But we stalled when Tommy put the ball in the hands of the QB.

It’s really wasn’t hard yesterday but Tommy made it difficult. North/South to Diggs or Estime. ‘Cuse had no answer. Our only stops were self inflicted dumb play calling
That is what cost the Stanford game as well.
 

Rudy89

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Two cents FWIW (not much admittedly.)
A. "My" Big Boys are REAL good. (To the few on IE who were ignoramuses, politely, up yours. To the Harry Hiestand haters, a pathetic few that you are, a double dose of digitus profanus.)
B. Passing game still stinks, but not their (the OLines) fault.
C. Estime+Diggs could be AA if they had passing game support.
D. Rees HAS to call some passes to keep things at least a little confusing for D's. (unfortunately)
E. To that: Mayer needs several looks regardless --- now he's almost like a soccer striker --- most occasions not too productive, but he will still put one or two "in the net/endzone".
F. I think that Rees is doing a reasonable job 90% of the time. His getting away from the run is not uniformly in error. Sometimes it's a reasonable attempt at balance/unpredictability and trying like He!l to get Pyne's head in the game. Other times he's overthinking this and should just pound the opponents' brains out.
G. Drew Pyne .... sigh. Good kid. Pretty good if he's a backup QB not thinking that he's the Pressured Starter. I was surprised at this personality weakness. He is shook. There's is nothing I have seen which explains his continual short arming and poor (indecisive) wobble passing on short throws. Tommy is going to need psychiatric treatment on this. Look at him in the booth. He calls a great "successful" pattern --- receiver is wide open for a gimme. Drew shortarms the thing --- often just badly enough that we can rationalize that it wasn't all his fault. I've been REALLY supportive of Pyne. But he's shook. I thought he could handle it (it's not talent; it's psyche --- we can move the damm ball through the air now with the vast majority of Tommy's calls/designs); but Drew (right now anyway) can not handle it. Maybe the weight will go away. I've seen that from one year to a next, but not this late in a season. More pain coming I think.
H. The defense was good --- faster all over than some previous games (especially Stanford.) If we get a little healthier, then more fun. Foskey has turned on the light. Linebackers have adjusted to injuries.
I. Special teams. Pretty damm good. Not sure that I believe I am watching Notre Dame.
Your opinion is one I like to hear the most on these boards!
 

irishtrain

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QB play has of course been up and down-Pyne can do this but he needs to keep growing into confidence-I doubt if he feels like this is his team-probably feels like he's filling in until they take him out-with that said he can throw the ball-my take is because of the up and down game to game profile of this team its not very well coached and lacks discipline and attention to detail. That goes right to the top-college guys need to be taught this.
 

rtrn2glory

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QB play has of course been up and down-Pyne can do this but he needs to keep growing into confidence-I doubt if he feels like this is his team-probably feels like he's filling in until they take him out-with that said he can throw the ball-my take is because of the up and down game to game profile of this team its not very well coached and lacks discipline and attention to detail. That goes right to the top-college guys need to be taught this.

Ian Book was in a similar situation and garnered different results. If he wants the job he's going to have to take it, which he hasn't done anything so far to do so. Just goes to show you how good Ian Book actually was. Was he elite, no, but he was a darn good college QB and I don't think he gets the credit he deserves.
 

CoachB

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To clarify "90%" (not that anybody cares):

An OC playcaller assesses what's happening & thinks of an immediate play and perhaps what the next several (chess game) plays he'd like to set up. The current play is primary of course, but the future-looking set-up plays are not trivial. There are times when a certain play is call to check coverage and defensive game planning too. Hopefully these are not wasted plays, but, to my information, every OC calls some of these.

I have closely listened to NDs several game announcers' comments on the play calls. The total times that they complain about a Rees playcall on fundamental-gameplan-error grounds are very small. This last game, those "philosophical" objections were confined to two Tyree calls running laterally (one of which might have been the RBs wrong read rather than play design,) and the two series where we did not pound the run as much as we should --- the announcers even there admitted that Rees needed to call SOME passes.

So, calling plays which are "theoretically" understandable is different from plays that turn out to actually be productive. Hopefully that's obvious, but just in case: This is true because there are two teams on the field. Both teams are composed of talented trained players. Both teams will make plays and make them about half/50% of the time --- for sure the defense has to be successful CLOSE to 50% of the time, or football would be no game (just a heavily armored track meet.)

It's still debatable of course, but having listened to football people both in game and out speak of Rees' playcalling, I, along with my own eyes, believe that he usually calls a play that is understandable from a football perspective. Some of those plays fail due to lousy execution; some fail due to really excellent defensive athlete execution; and some fail due to the DC calling something wherein his defense shifts late into just the worst pattern for the play called. In those latter problem situations, the offense needs the QB to have such a calm and superb grasp that he gets the team into some other play, or improvises. Stop and think for a moment how often you believe Drew does that, in contrast to say, Ian.

I honestly believe that most "fans" understand football so shallowly that they don't think about any of this. (But they should before making really strong statements about where the failures arise.)
1000% spot on!
 

Jiggafini19Deux

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FgZp-ZTX0AIQWVk


My new screen saver is lit.
 

IrishLion

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Gonna have that framed side-by-side with the once from UNC '20.
 

RDU Irish

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A few people called it pre-game. This was a matchup made in heaven for ND. We should/could have had 41 at halftime instead taking two full halves to get there. Pick six and punt block put up 14 of those point so the offense really only scored 27 in a game of raw dominance in the trenches. After the Orange TD on the second possession we gave up 35 yards on 19 plays in five possessions while our offense gained 214 yards on 40 plays in six possessions starting on the ND37 on average. We still stop ourselves on offense as much or more than the other team's defense. Penalties, busted plays - day like this is about staying ahead of the sticks and grinding it out on the ground. The minute we are forced to a passing situation it's like playing Russian Roulette (except there is only one empty chamber and five bullets).

Chris Tyree ugh. Don't think I have ever seen him break a tackle - give me Estime and Diggs all day.

Five punt blocks on the season - whatever cheat code we unlocked needs to be under lock and key.

Extra insult to injury (literally) when the Syracuse QB goes down the backup freshman comes in firing away and having fun. Yeah he fell apart but that was annoying seeing a young back-up come in with something other than an afraid to mess up attitude.
 

irish4ever

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IF the officiating wasn't so one-sided towards Syracuse, this could have easily been a 30+ point win for the Irish! It was simply atrocious!
 

Jiggafini19Deux

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I am in no way the sports fun police, but there has to be some mindset where when you are behind you're not the team jawing and yapping the most. Syracuse mounts a mini surge with their back up QB and their players were talking mad shit until that INT. Then it got quiet real fast.

For me, that's a little bit of humility coaching. You don't tease an aligator until you're safely across the bridge.
 

IRISHDODGER

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I'm shocked we didn't even have a postgame thread for this big W.
My opinion is that every post about the game once the game is over is, by default; a postgame post so I don’t see a need for creating an entirely new thread. Especially when we continue to see new posts in the game day post well after the game. JMO.
 

IRISHDODGER

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If BK or MF had went for it on 4th down at midfield like Babers did right before the half, ND Nation would’ve lost their collective minds.

Same goes for the end around call on 3rd & 1 by their OC Anae who has been getting a lot of love this season (deservedly so).
 
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