Plenty of them. (GASP!!!)
I thought Oklahoma was going to simply crush Notre Dame. I think score predictions are inherently a stupid idea, but I went ahead and predicted 52-21 Oklahoma. The Irish looked better than I thought they would.
I think it's set in stone that Rees will be essentially useless against supremely athletic defenses. Southern Cal 2010, Florida State 2011, Oklahoma 2013. If a team can force Notre Dame into passing situations the Irish will struggle. That's why, for me, Rees' eight or so straight incompletions are much more indicative of his inabilities than the interceptions. He doesn't have the arm strength to put it into small windows.
Notre Dame wouldn't have been in said situation if it weren't for spotting them fourteen points, and **** away opportunities into the fourth quarter. They could have ran the ball on Oklahoma and use that play action big time, but the situation obviously wouldn't call for that. But anyway that (the running game) is a huge positive. I loved the zone running today, Kelly has a really athletic offensive line and Niklas is just the cherry on top who can own the end of the line of scrimmage.
Defensively I think people are overstating a lot of things. Oklahoma has a fantastic offense, and they simply match up with Notre Dame well. I was actually impressed by how well they did cover in space, muuuuuch better than against Purdue/Michigan. They're making improvements every week, I think that much is obvious if you actually look at it. They weren't put in good positions; Oklahoma had the ball for 35 minutes, in large part due to quick Notre Dame drives for better or worse. Bend but don't break would have worked as well as ever without ****ing ourselves for in the first three minutes.
As much as we want to rip safeties for being slow or whatever, how many long passes did Oklahoma complete on them? I can't think of them. I was expecting them to hit seams all day, Oklahoma was almost totally lateral today. That they didn't throw at safeties says something, I don't know what though.