Post Game Observations (MSU '16)

[GATTACA!]

MSU does not have better recruits than us.

Can you see Alabama, Clemson, OSU, or current Michigan having a position group as thin as we are at safety? MSU also won't be winning a championship in our lifetime.

 

[NDgradstudent]

Can you see Alabama, Clemson, OSU, or current Michigan having a position group as thin as we are at safety?MSU also won't be winning a championship in our lifetime.

Right, they probably won't, but we just got run over by them.

 

[phgreek]

untimely mistakes are this team's identity.

Kizer is playing some ball.

Receivers are ok...still not very consistent, and get shoved off routes too easily, and don't recover correctly.

Oline...so so so over rated. Great at pass pro...not consistently good at run blocking.

Running backs are proven, but with the oline playing like girls in the run game...not much there.

Tight ends...can we run a route, and not stumble like a fucking drunk man...for christ sakes, puberty over? do we have our coordination back?

Defense...play too slow, tackle so badly it should be a crime, dbacks cover like they think ND gets points when they get torched.

...the tackling is bad in all position groups...and has been ALL Three weeks...the most basic of fundamentals is a giant fail. ...how can you not address it in 3 weeks...seriously, is it worth putting in a specialized defensive scheme if you can't tackle people. The defense is confused, plays slow, fundamentally awful, and now guys like Luke are trying to guess, instead of doing their job...so discipline SUUUUUUCKS.

 

[Sherm Sticky]

Right, they probably won't, but we just got run over by them.

The football players don't have to go to class either and barely do any school work at MSU. This according to Malik McDowell's mother if I remember correctly.


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[TP81989]

Offensive line is very talented, but I give them a pass as they are extremely young and inexperienced.

Three first year starters. And even the veterans don't have many starts. Nelson 13 career starts, McGlinchey 17 starts.


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Even when they've had more experience like last year I still don't think they've run it well enough consistently considering the level of talent.

 

[phork]

Bright side? All my Saturdays just freed up.

 

[Sherm Sticky]

Even when they've had more experience like last year I still don't think they've run it well enough consistently considering the level of talent.

Could that be due to the zone blocking scheming fisB


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[ulukinatme]

We gave up more yards and points to Michigan State than FURMAN.

Michigan State also doesn't have a rivalry with Furman...and they had two weeks to work out the kinks from that game. Meanwhile we came out strong at first, but clearly lost our mental and physical edge in those 2nd and 3rd quarters. We did not treat this like a rivalry game. I'm not sure why we continued to lean on the run game given how well MSU was defending it. Our rushing attack as a whole is not very good right now. We waited way too long to turn the gas back on, and there were some real head scratchers at the end of that game...like the decision not to take the penalty that would have pushed them back to 1st and 15.

I think BVG should be done, and Lyght may need to go too. I think our DL and LBs aren't terrible, I honestly think they would get to the QB more often if our secondary could cover more consistently and maybe jam some receivers at the line instead of always playing off and running with them.

 

[ulukinatme]

It was said in this thread that the WRs played well, but I disagree. They could have been worse, they certainly came up with some big plays at the end, but we really showed our inexperience and youth in the middle of this game. EQ in particular had a lot of drops in 2nd/3rd quarters. Smythe dropped a catchable ball. Sanders had the costly fumble. Lots of lost opportunities there, and it's one of the reasons we went completely stagnant on offense for several possessions. They got it together by the end, but by then it was too late.

We're not run blocking that great right now as a team, and I'm not sure why we haven't tried more 2 TE sets given the fact Luatua stayed with the team. I had hoped we would rely on a strong OL and experienced backs to offset the inexperience and youth at WR, but it looks like we focused more on trying to get these receivers ready and left the run game at home.

 

[tussin]

Lax, my observation was more cumulative then based on this game alone.

Good teams have a certain give and take IMO. When the offense is off, the defense is on (and vice versa). The 2012 team is a perfect example of this. I'm confident in saying that this defense will never win us a close game. I don't see a scenario where ND pulls out a 28-21 win against a good team.

 

[NDPhilly]

Offense in the first 2/3 of the game was way too conservative. You've got a stud at QB and an great group of athletes outside. Let them makes some plays before we are down by 29

 

[Crazy Balki]

Lax, my observation was more cumulative then based on this game alone.

Good teams have a certain give and take IMO. When the offense is off, the defense is on (and vice versa). The 2012 team is a perfect example of this. I'm confident in saying that this defense will never win us a close game. I don't see a scenario where ND pulls out a 28-21 win against a good team.

I don't agree. I wasn't confident that the 2012 offense was going to pick up the slack if the defense faltered. Fortunately, we didn't face any offenses that were good enough that year, so when the defense didn't bring their best (Pittsburgh), they could still bring their C- game and have it be sufficient.

 

[Senoj13]

I will be surprised if this doesn't start to have an immediate impact on recruiting. When Kelly keeps saying "Coaches have to coach better", he's basically telling parents we have good talent but we can't coach them.

 

[Senoj13]

A couple other things:

- Have to question the decision to punt with a little over 3 min left. Banking on a 3 and out. Everyone knows its going to be run, run, and probably pass. So the whole decision comes down to a D with no pass rush and a secondary that can't cover anyone.

- The pre-snap fire drills show the D doesn't seem to know what BVG wants of them. They continually run into each other like a 10 yr old Pop Warner team.

 

[CoachB]

Serious? Our O isn't responsible for Luke looking like trash (well except the turnovers) but they certainly are partly responsible for the huge runs. Did you notice that the D did a good job in the first quarter but started to struggle once our O started turning the ball over and having lots of 3 and outs? Not a coincidence. Shockingly they aren't superhuman and get tired when left on the field for large chunks of time because they offensive play calling sucked.

PKT = BVG? Lol, just kidding. Kinda. Look man, they struggled because their technique was horrible, not because they were tired. Did you see them try to defend all the trapping? Texas trapped the crap out of us and so did state. That trap defense was awful. My teams have better technique than that. And yes, when playerd screw up it is on the coach. That's our job. To make sure they don't mess up.

 

[Crazy Balki]

PKT = BVG? Lol, just kidding. Kinda. Look man, they struggled because their technique was horrible, not because they were tired. Did you see them try to defend all the trapping? Texas trapped the crap out of us and so did state. That trap defense was awful. My teams have better technique than that. And yes, when playerd screw up it is on the coach. That's our job. To make sure they don't mess up.

Not saying the technique wasn't bad, but look at the TOP, it's blatantly obvious that the offense left the defense out to dry. MSU had the ball for nearly 40 minutes of the game. That is utterly ridiculous. You're simply not going to field a consistently good defense by leaving them out there for that long, especially given how young, inexperienced and thin the depth chart is.

It's simple as that. Kelly played right into Dantonio's plan like a putz, and got schooled. I also stated that Urban Meyer called arguably the worst game ever against MSU last year, but Kelly really came close last night.

 

[CoachB]

Not saying the technique wasn't bad, but look at the TOP, it's blatantly obvious that the offense left the defense out to dry. MSU had the ball for nearly 40 minutes of the game. That is utterly ridiculous. You're simply not going to field a consistently good defense by leaving them out there for that long, especially given how young, inexperienced and thin the depth chart is.

It's simple as that. Kelly played right into Dantonio's plan like a putz, and got schooled. I also stated that Urban Meyer called arguably the worst game ever against MSU last year, but Kelly really came close last night.

I agree that the offense didn't do the defense any favors, but if the defense showed any semblance of fundamentals on trapping plays, I would be more inclined to lay it at the feet of the offense. Neither side of the ball played well. I totally agree about the play calling. How many times in a row did we run on first down? However, I don't think you can give either side a free pass. They were both poor in execution and scheme, to be honest.

 

[Irish Insanity]

I will be surprised if this doesn't start to have an immediate impact on recruiting. When Kelly keeps saying "Coaches have to coach better", he's basically telling parents we have good talent but we can't coach them.

Pair that with the 50 recruits we hosted for this game...........

 

[Irish#1]

Lots of blame to go all around, but one thing that was evident to me, is that MSU was much stronger and physical, especially on the lines. Late in the game we were able to overcome some of that with the run blitzes which we should have been using earlier.

 

[NDgradstudent]

The football players don't have to go to class either and barely do any school work at MSU. This according to Malik McDowell's mother if I remember correctly.


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I thought the issue was the quality of talent we bring in, not how much work they have to do? I can tell you from personal experience grading football players' work that they aren't all absolutely killing themselves in class here, either (although they do show up to class).

We have more talent, to a person, than MSU. And yet they destroyed us in our own building. The academic restrictions excuse does not fly for this one.

Throw a ton of money at Herman. If he says no, fine, but at least we can say we tried.

 

[Te'o4Heisman]

Yeah no shit notice the "20% Cole Luke." Read better.



No? The second MSU TD of the first half was an 1 play, 92 yard drive. As D was already gassed and just had back-to-back sudden changes with no rest. What is complicated here? The ND drives preceding that were:

3&out, 0 plays (fumble putting defense immediately back on the field), 1 play (fumble, putting defense immediately back on the field). So the defense defended 4 straight drives with a total 4 offensive plays of rest and 2:17 of TOP. Ta'ts how you get gassed. Before the offensive implosion and turnovers, ND yielded a total of 96 yards on 3 drive with zero points.



lol they actually did fine on the first drive (because they got to catch their breath)... but already being worn down, ND then has a 1 minute TOP drive, then MSU scored on a long 10 play drive wearing out the D... and then we had a 2 play drive, MSU scored, 3 play drive, MSU scored.... because we were gassed.

Basically, MSU had two long grinding drives (one towards the end of the half, where the D was tired from a half of football and being stuck on the field... and then the second drive of the second half) that gassed the defense. If the offense could've possessed the ball, these probably wouldn't have been back breakers, but in the third quarter after the second long grinder we got absolutely blown off the ball and they gashed us for huge runs.

To say "it's their fault for not getting stops" is just insane given that they WERE getting stops before the offense started imploding, and they started getting stops again once ND started moving the ball. ND only ran 24 plays of offense in the first half, which wore down the defense.

Ummm 2nd half started with MSU going 3 and out after half time. ND then had a 6 play drive then punted before the 91 yd MSU drive. They got exhausted on that drive because they couldnt get off the field, not becauee of cole luke, but because they couldnt stop the the run game...not because pf anything the offense did...that was literally 3 minutes into the 2nd half. The sucked because they sucked not because of one player or because of the offense. If we camt expect our team to sustain beyond a half of football if the offense doesnt possess the ball as much or equally as much as the other teams offense and not get gassed against that isnt even running tempo then were in trouble. If they were able to stop the run and get off the field on 3rd down, something they didnt do particularly well in the first half either (MSU had a long 1st half drive end with an INT) then we are in trouble. Heck even theit first possession of the game they picked up 3 first down including comverting on both 3rd and 4th down amd taking over 4 minutes off the clock before punting. Our defense as per usual was their own problem ladt night.

 

[johnnycando]

Can't recall feeling this down about the season in quite sometime.

I feel like all of the early NFL draftees hurt us more than anything.

I guess you can't fault the kids but damn man. We got a handful playing next level that would have been major contributors: Fuller, Procise, okwara... List prolly goes on.

Not to mention Redfield, Coleman, Crawford, and Butler.

I mean that's the difference, in my opinion.

 

[johnnycando]

KVR also could have returned right?

We would have been world beaters I think in a perfect world...

Oh well. Jaylon Smith proves you gotta go I realize.

Just the hard knocks. Part of the college game.

Let's pray for our team and keep hope and faith.

 

[Wild Bill]

Malik McDowell is good.

 

[Kingbish01]

I'll give my buddies post game wrap up since he is an NFL fan and last night was his first ND game he's watched in his life. "Yo, your defense is garbage" and "Why did they run run run punt until they were down 50 with a qb and receivers that can clearly play" His post game is literally spot on...Off to get ready for the Steeler game...Happy Sunday

 

[IrishLax]

I don't agree. I wasn't confident that the 2012 offense was going to pick up the slack if the defense faltered. Fortunately, we didn't face any offenses that were good enough that year, so when the defense didn't bring their best (Pittsburgh), they could still bring their C- game and have it be sufficient.

I kind of agree with you more than Tussin. My optimism for this season was based on the idea that the offense could be SO GOOD that the defense didn't really matter. Lots of team are successful in college football by having an ELITE offense with a very "meh" to bad defense... like Stanford last year. What I saw with Kizer week 1 lead me to believe we'd be able to score 35+ on everyone. So like 2012, where the defense carried the team virtually every week and only gave up 20+ points once the entire season, I thought the offense setting the bar at 35-42 points a game would make it hard for other teams to catch us.

The ugly truth is that our play calling is bad, the entire right of the OL is bad, and we're accordingly one dimensional.

 

[Sherm Sticky]

I kind of agree with you more than Tussin. My optimism for this season was based on the idea that the offense could be SO GOOD that the defense didn't really matter. Lots of team are successful in college football by having an ELITE offense with a very "meh" to bad defense... like Stanford last year. What I saw with Kizer week 1 lead me to believe we'd be able to score 35+ on everyone. So like 2012, where the defense carried the team virtually every week and only gave up 20+ points once the entire season, I thought the offense setting the bar at 35-42 points a game would make it hard for other teams to catch us.



The ugly truth is that our play calling is bad, the entire right of the OL is bad, and we're accordingly one dimensional.

Lax remember the oline is very young and inexperienced. 3 first year starters. Mike has started a total of 17 games and Q a total of 14 games now.


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[texbender]

OL and DL were dominated.
Still no sacks after 3 games.
Secondary is awful, in coverage and tackling.
Way too many mistakes/turnovers...never good, especially vs good teams.
Offense is very predictable.
Team was overhyped.

 

[kmoose]

I didn't get to focus on the game last night, although it was on. I got to watch a few plays here and there, so I obviously could have missed some crucial information. But here are my thoughts:

1. The Defensive Line got manhandled. Every time I looked up when we were on defense, Michigan State's RBs seemed to be 3-4 yards downfield before they had to make a cut.

2. Kizer looked like he had a rough start. I saw a few throws in the 1Q where guys were open and he just missed them.

3. ND did NOT "run the ball until we were down 29 points and then finally decide to throw it". By my calculations, in the first half (minus the :23 "drive" at the end of the half), Kizer was 4-10 for 84 yards. We ran the ran the ball 14 times for 58 yards. So it's not like the passing game was clicking in the first half and Kelly just ignored it. If anything, maybe you should give the coaches credit for turning it around in the second half. Kizer went something along the lines of 16-27, 260 yards, in the second half. Sounds like pretty good coaching adjustments to me.

4. Turnovers will kill you. 3-1, Notre Dame to MSU turnovers. Michigan State scored 15 points off of turnovers. At least one of those turnovers was a fluke play where a punt lands short and bounces into a guy's leg while he is blocking. The other fumble..... was it Adams? He was just moving to secure the ball with both hands when it got punched out. He was using good technique, the defender just got lucky.

5. If VanGorder has any home improvement projects that he wants to get done, to increase the resale value of his house; I think he should probably get on them, and get on them quick.

 

[IrishLax]

Lax remember the oline is very young and inexperienced. 3 first year starters. Mike has started a total of 17 games and Q a total of 14 games now.


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My problem is that they're not that young and inexperienced for how bad they'rep laying. Nelson has been bad, Mustipher has been bad, McGovern has been TERRIBLE (and he has 4 years in the system), and Bars has been a HUGE disappointment on the outside. We only have one OL that is even playing competently right now. The guys on the inside have no power in the run game besides Nelson. We recruit nothing but 4 and 5 star players on the OL and we have 3 out of 5 playing below average football? Despite years of grooming? Not good.