Post Game: USC

[ThePiombino]

Pyne routinely creates nothing-from-something.

And this right here is our entire 2022 season summary on offense in a single sentence. And to be clear, I don't hold it against him. He is what his parents made. I blame the cock-eyed evaluator (s) at ND who saw a kid with (at best) this current skill set and said, "Yep. That's the one".

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[Grahambo]

And this right here is our entire 2022 season summary on offense in a single sentence. And to be clear, I don't hold it against him. He is what his parents made. I blame the cock-eyed evaluator (s) at ND who saw a kid with (at best) this current skill set and said, "Yep. That's the one".

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ND needs to stop recruiting the Pyne/Bertrand types.

 

[FDNYIrish1]

Pyne did against USC what he couldn’t do against Navy. Tommy had him well prepared. He’s a limited player and fought like hell. His mistakes killed us unfortunately. The inability to stop that arrogant prick Williams is what will haunt me and our defense getting gashed in the run. I can’t wait to mop up Lincoln Riley in the future. I can’t stand him.

 

[NDRock]

And this right here is our entire 2022 season summary on offense in a single sentence. And to be clear, I don't hold it against him. He is what his parents made. I blame the cock-eyed evaluator (s) at ND who saw a kid with (at best) this current skill set and said, "Yep. That's the one".

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Good call, you were getting precariously close to being on Reaper’s hit list.

 

[Grahambo]

Pyne did against USC what he couldn’t do against Navy. Tommy had him well prepared. He’s a limited player and fought like hell. His mistakes killed us unfortunately. The inability to stop that arrogant prick Williams is what will haunt me and our defense getting gashed in the run. I can’t wait to mop up Lincoln Riley in the future. I can’t stand him.

Don’t let a Heisman winner get you down. He’s that talented and has been doing it all year. When he’s going up against UGA, we’ll see.

What I’m still confused about is the defensive game plan because every other play seemed like Bertrand and/or Liafu was slamming themselves against the IOL upon the snap which either forced Caleb to run around eventually making it to the open space and in the event of a run, they made it easy for the IOL to swallow them up and vacated their running lanes, hence all the gashes up the middle.

 

[Huntr]

ND hung with them for 3 quarters, against the greatest QB to ever play the game (...).

They lost the 1st quarter 10-0 and that was basically it.

They aren't where they need to be, but they aren't far off, either. This won't be a USC-dominated, one-sided rivalry for the next 10 years, despite what CFB pundit world is trying to sell.

 

[stlnd01]

This game really wasn’t that complicated.

We had Pyne. They had Williams. That gave us zero margin for error, and then we made more errors than they did. Our guys played hard and didn’t quit, but it wasn’t our night.

Long-term? USC will be better than they have been. But also we will upgrade at QB. And we are equal or better to them everywhere else. It’ll be fine.

 

[IrishSteelhead]

Watching Mayer make his first TD catch, and audibly yell “I TOLD YOU, LETS FUCKING GO!!” was wildly exciting.

Watching Mayer make his second TD catch, and sullenly hand the ball to the ref and trot to the sidelines as a man knowing he just made his last catch ever in an ND uniform in a game that was over was wildly depressing.


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[MacIrish75]

Caleb Williams last night reminded me of playing intramural flag football against the track athletes.

It went about the same as it did for our D last night, in case you’re wondering.

 

[CoachB]

If you had told me that Pyne would have thrown for over 300 yards and 3 TDs and that Williams would have less and only 1 TD pass, I would have thought ND would have smoked them. I didn't get to watch the game, but hard to find fault in Drew's numbers. Holy cow. USC's pass D must be terrible. I am somewhat surprised to come on here and see all the complaints about Drew with those numbers. Sounds like he brought his A game.

 

[IRISHDODGER]

 

[rtrn2glory]

I'm at the point now that if Drew pyne starts a game next year I may retire from college football fandom

 

[thekid33]

I'm at the point now that if Drew pyne starts a game next year I may retire from college football fandom

I can get him a sweet NIL deal for either Yocco's or Potts' hotdogs if he wants to drop down to D3 and resurrect my alma mater.

 

[NDMatt91]

I'm at the point now that if Drew pyne starts a game next year I may retire from college football fandom

It depends. Is Tyler Van Dyke or Hudson Card injured?

 

[ThePiombino]

ND needs to stop recruiting the Pyne/Bertrand types.

I have no problems with recruiting them ... as walk-ons.

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[ThePiombino]

ND hung with them for 3 quarters, against the greatest QB to ever play the game (...)

Relax, Fowler.

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[NDRock]

I have no problems with recruiting them ... as walk-ons.

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I really like Clark Lea as a DC but his recruiting was mediocre. He's the reason we're so unathletic at LB.

 

[ShamrockOnHelmet]

If you had told me that Pyne would have thrown for over 300 yards and 3 TDs and that Williams would have less and only 1 TD pass, I would have thought ND would have smoked them. I didn't get to watch the game, but hard to find fault in Drew's numbers. Holy cow. USC's pass D must be terrible. I am somewhat surprised to come on here and see all the complaints about Drew with those numbers. Sounds like he brought his A game.

The beauty of football is that it’s completely situational, and stats don’t always tell the story. Even the people telling the story don’t always tell the story. SC was absolutely not going to let ND run them over with the three headed monster. They largely let Pyne do what he wanted if it meant the ND running game was mostly neutered, also counting on some mistakes, which they also got from Pyne. That, with a dominant run game of their own made it feel more lopsided than the score and stats showed.

 

[thekid33]

I really like Clark Lea as a DC but his recruiting was mediocre. He's the reason we're so unathletic at LB.

Great at the X's and O's but not very good at attracting athletic Jim's and Joe's.

 

[Irish#1]

Don’t let a Heisman winner get you down. He’s that talented and has been doing it all year. When he’s going up against UGA, we’ll see.

What I’m still confused about is the defensive game plan because every other play seemed like Bertrand and/or Liafu was slamming themselves against the IOL upon the snap which either forced Caleb to run around eventually making it to the open space and in the event of a run, they made it easy for the IOL to swallow them up and vacated their running lanes, hence all the gashes up the middle.

I was hoping they would stop telegraphing the blitzes and maybe try a delayed blitz to get Williams off balance.

 

[Grahambo]

I was hoping they would stop telegraphing the blitzes and maybe try a delayed blitz to get Williams off balance.

Last night was a perfect night for a Snead spy. You could’ve done a lot with that. It would’ve freed Kollie up to take on the RB. Could’ve then used Kiser on the Mickey side to provide him help.

Ben Morrison and Xavier Watts on one side with Mickey, Kiser, and Brown/Henderson on the other. Kiser and the S could rotate covering the TE but the TE is so seldom used in that offense, you don’t need to dedicate too many resources. Snead spying Williams and Kollie covering the run.

The game would’ve been much different if a few of those Barry Sanders-esque escapes were snuffed out.

 

[Dale]

 

[Jimmy3Putt]

This game went how I expected it to on the defensive side (minus the poor run defense). I expected the superior talent at quarterback to be the difference just like at OSU when Stroud converted every third down in the second half. It was up to the offense to control the ball and limit SC's touches. Pyne played great until he didn't, but his inability to convert third downs in the first half and the really bad fumble in the second was the difference in the game. I know they were stopped running the ball on the first half third downs, but a better quarterback makes the defense honor the pass and the conversion becomes infinitely easier.
The talent is there to win ten games and imo, the team is trending upward. Freeman still has my full confidence and if they can pull a really good transfer quarterback, we could be playoff bound next year.

 

[Dale]

You can tell this ref is doing nothing but watching Williams thinking roughing intentional grounding etc are my calls at this point. It’s like Lincoln found a rule to exploit, refs stop watching the OL when CW is 20 yards in the backfield. Other refs are looking at the WRs 20 yards downfield.

 

[Grahambo]

You can tell this ref is doing nothing but watching Williams thinking roughing intentional grounding etc are my calls at this point. It’s like Lincoln found a rule to exploit, refs stop watching the OL when CW is 20 yards in the backfield. Other refs are looking at the WRs 20 yards downfield.

Umpire’s job to watch the linemen. Man probably lost a lot of money on ND/Clemson and got rent due next week.

 

[rtrn2glory]

I'm convinced more than ever after watching the Tim Donahae doc on Netflix that the zebras live on the cut across all major pro and college sports

 

[irish4ever]

I'm convinced more than ever after watching the Tim Donahae doc on Netflix that the zebras live on the cut across all major pro and college sports

Surprise, surprise!

 

[BeatSC]

Well I avoided watching the game for health reasons. Went to a three stooges film festival and checked the score when it was over to take my gut lunch for the year. Haven’t decided whether to watch or not. Didn’t watch the Marshall or Stanford games either. Btw Marshall has 8 wins so maybe not as embarrassing losing to fledgling Stanford at home. We would beat them both handily now if we had the chance and we really should be a 10 win team even with Drew Pyne and Tommy riding along. Shocked from what I’m reading and the stats that it appears we lost both sides of the trenches. If we do that against USC we don’t deserve to win regardless of two turnovers etc. the completion % of pyne was impressive but met with similar % CW scrambling and running abilities totally Trump anything lil Drew can do. Hope Buchner can safely play in the bowl game. Free is not owed anything for his service. ND made his dream come true and we can blame him for a Stanford loss to some extent but not the USC loss. The rest of his games he did ok and we won. Next year is a new year with our WRs coming out and Price and Buchner adding to our running game and Pyne being QB2 at the best and more likely QB3. Hope no one sits out the bowl game. Well maybe Pyne.

 

[Irish4life]

ND needs to stop recruiting the Pyne/Bertrand types.

Bertrand is good

 

[irishandy]

Postgame Thoughts:
1) ND steals this game if Caleb Williams is not USC's QB. Besides Williams, USC did not impress me.
2) The game changer for me was our turnover in the 3rd qtr., that killed ND's momentum. If we score, ND is back in the game.
3) Mayer is going to be missed and Colzie showed why he should be a starter next year.
4) Big plays and poor tackling has killed this defense all year. Is Al Golden the answer at DC?

Go Irish!