IrishTimer's Good, Bad, and Ugly
IrishTimer's Good, Bad, and Ugly
South Florida
The Good
-Michael Floyd. Absolutely took over the game in the second half. It helped that Tommy Rees actually started to target him and made a concerted effort to get him the ball. Floyd caught everything that was thrown his way and on his way to breaking a few Notre Dame records in the game showed everyone why he is an All-American type of player. He did have a holding call that took away a touchdown but it wasn't for a lack of effort. I'm willing to overlook sins of commission here as it was at least an effort penalty, especially in relative terms to what he did the rest of the ball game.
-The Defense. While the defense didn't force any turnovers, given the situations and field positions they were put in due to turnovers and poor special teams play, they played a fantastic game. Harrison Smith and Ethan Johnson had a couple of bad penalties but in the end the defense only gave up 16 points, which should have been much more than enough to defeat South Florida had Notre Dame not turned the ball over an uncharacteristic five times. Manti Te'o of course stood out, especially in the second half, but the entire defensive line should be commended as well as they generated nice pressure and held up very well at the point of attack in the run game. Louis Nix was a big part of that and in his first college action definitely proved he belongs.
-Tommy Rees. Rees came in and gave the team a much needed spark. The offense looked much more fluid with him behind center and he really impressed me with what seemed to be some increased arm strength. He missed a few reads and threw one bad ball that was picked off but hard to ignore almost 300 yards passing in one half and bringing a team back to within three points when they had been lifeless prior to the second half. For whatever reason this teams responds to Rees. His formula isn't complicated: Target Floyd a ton and then mix in others. But it works and works well. The offense also has much better tempo and pacing with him on the field. He's still a young player and needs to clean up a few aspects of his game, but it's nearly impossible to ignore what he's done with this team each time he has gotten game action.
-Cierre Wood. With many people questioning whether Wood could shoulder the load for this team his performance on Saturday was an emphatic "yes". Wood was the best thing the Irish had going in the first half and while he wasn't as much of a factor in the second half, with the Irish throwing the ball 34 times, he can hardly be blamed for that. Woods looked quick, decisive, and agile on his way to over 100 yards, caught the ball well out of the back field and blocked well too. A great all around performance. If Woods can stay healthy he looks to be Notre Dame's first 1,000 yard rusher since Darius Walker in 2006.
The Bad
-Dayne Crist. After a brilliantly engineered first drive that ended in a 96 yard fumble return for a TD the wheels fell off. Crist, for as much of a leader as he is, wasn't able to rally the troops and put it together. He did suffer from a few badly dropped passes but his accuracy was terribly off, and he threw an atrocious interception inside the 5 yard line. Crist may be a fantastic leader but it didn't show Saturday and while there is plenty of blame to go around for the loss on Saturday Crist has to be at the forefront. His non-targeting of Floyd is incredibly confusing to me as well. Ress was able to come in and basically get the ball to Floyd whenever he wanted to, even when Floyd was doubled, Crist seemed to barely target him. For what reason I have no idea, but it's just one of the many puzzling aspects of Saturday's loss.
-Theo Riddick. A terrible game by a player that numerous people, myself included, expected big things from. He seemed completely inept at catching punts, dropped at least two passes and was a complete non-factor. Riddick, is one player the team needs to grow up fast because as the season goes on more and more teams will scheme to take Floyd out of ballgames and Riddick needs to be able to take advantage of lack of attention that will come his way as a result.
-Turnovers. Three trips inside the five yard line and three turnovers. Just an awful stat. A muffed punt return attempt and an interception late in the 4th quarter when trying to mount a comeback. Poor form all the way around in this area of the game. Not much more needs to be said than this.
-Special Teams. I will absolve Kyle Brindza and kick off coverage units from this, however including Riddick's aformentioned adventures catching punts, Ruffer missing a 30 yard field goal, and Ben Turk looking like he was punting a medicine ball, the Special Teams were awful in Saturday's loss. Turk has to be on his last chance as punter, and the punt return situation needs to get fixed as well. Ruffer I'm not as worried about because even if he does go catatonic Brindza is ready to fill in.
The Ugly
-NBC. Someone might want to tell NBC that it would be a good idea to run a crawl on the screen when the game restarted telling everyone that it was on Versus. Many Notre Dame fans almost missed an amazing comeback because NBC was either too lazy or inept to let them know what channel the conclusion of the game had moved to.
-Brian Kelly No Everett Golson? Are you kidding me? You have possibly the best quarterback in the history of football on the sideline, Crist fails, and you go with Rees? Maybe this is some odd motivational ploy to get Golson really angry before the Michigan game so he can go full on beast mode on everyone but I find it odd Kelly would sacrifice a game just to motivate Golson. Has there ever been a freshman Heisman winner?
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This was a terribly disappointing way to start out the 2011 season. The offense came out and laid an absolute egg after the first drive of the game until Rees came in to rally the troops in the second half. While the defense was a bright spot the questions are once again swirling around the quarterback position. That's not a great thing to have at any point in time for a team with BCS aspirations, let alone going into a road game at Michigan.
Crist, barring injury or Rees turning into Pat Dillingham, may have taken his last snaps as an Irish quarterback. For whatever reason Crist just seemed to have taken steps back from last year while Rees has progressed and seems to have the entire team pulling for him. TJ Jones, Floyd, Eifert, Riddick, even the back up QB's on the sideline seemed to be pumped to have him coming into the game.
One thing that was puzzling me after re-watching both halves of the game was how in the first half the offense with Crist seemed to be running more of a huddled/pro style look in relative terms to what Kelly's spread should look like. Contrast that with the pace, tempo, no huddle , truer spread look you saw from the offense with Rees on the field and it has to make one wonder if Crist was ever really able to digest Kelly's true offense enough to run it the way it needs to be run. Maybe I'm trying to read tealeaves a bit too much here but I just can't get over how different the offense looked from one half to the other. Not just in production but in something as simple as the way plays were called in and how the team was lining up.
Rees makes me nervous as a starter for a lot of reason. The main one being that he doesn't seem to have any real standout physical attribute as a player. In my opinion to win at this level of football the way Notre Dame wants to or expects to win you need some sort of difference maker at the quarterback position. The Irish running game and defense isn't good enough right now to compensate for a decently gifted quarterback. I really hope Rees proves me wrong, but when I think of Rees as the starter of this team I'm not really left with a comfortable feeling despite everything he has done so far.
In the end it's one loss. All Irish fans need to keep that in perspective. Everything that could go wrong in a football game seemingly went wrong and we lost by three points. This wasn't a Notre Dame team that got just flat out beat by a more talented or better coached team. This was a Notre Dame team that got beat by helping hand the game to USF. Is this team still capable of making a BCS bowl? Yes. What gives me confidence in this team still being capable of winning at least 9 games this season with the schedule in front of them is that the things that killed Notre Dame yesterday were so out of character for a Brian Kelly coached team that I can't see the team having another game like this as the season rolls on. Everything that went wrong on Saturday was correctable. Notre Dame wasn't out gunned, out manned, or "out" anything else that had caused them to lose games in the past. We shot ourselves in the foot way too many times and paid the price for it. If Irish fans should have learned anything from last year it's that you need to evaluate the team at the end of the season, not after one game.
Did Notre Dame fail to live up to expectations yesterday? Yes.
Can they still live up to expectations for the season as a whole? Yes.
That's what needs to be kept in mind.
Go Irish. Beat Michigan.
