Sep 3 | South Florida

[Old Man Mike]

This "football study hall" post-game assessment indicated that without the turnovers, Notre Dame outscores USF [viewed as to standard down play success] by twelve and a half points. Curiously, this is almost the exact middle of the 10-to-17 point range that most experts, and most of us, were predicting on the basis of what we thought we saw "on paper". I suppose that makes me feel a little better as not being a complete idiot.

This method's way of estimating the impact of turnovers weighed in favor of USF by a whopping 33+ points! The analyst said that given this horrendous turnover impact, ND was "lucky" to lose by three. [the method said that the loss "should have" been more like twenty.] What that also means to me is that we [again excepting the turnovers] outplayed USF by significantly more than the twelve point advantage from "standard plays" to shrink the turnover deficit down to three points at the buzzer.

So once again: we lost the game. And once again, almost everything about that game says: you guys are pretty damm good if you could just get your heads out of your butts on a few plays and into the game.

 

[autry_denson]

I'm watching the replay of the game on a channel called "universal HD", don't ask me why they're showing it now.

Three observations:

1) Crist wasn't nearly as bad as I had thought. He had a few terrible throws in key spots, but things could have been very different without a couple key drops.

2) At the end of the 1st quarter there was a shot of Rees slapping Crist in the helmet and trying to get him fired up. In retrospect, it was fun to watch and makes you really want to see Rees succeed.

3) In all of the focus on ND's mistakes, we forget that USF made some huge mistakes that ND just didn't capitalize on. The most glaring is the jump offsides in the 3rd quarter on the field goal attempt, giving us a first down and new momentum. Two plays later: Rees' int off of Jones' helmet.

 

[NDbrbkny]

I would say lets close this thread and move on to the next game?

 

[GBdomer]

I would say lets close this thread and move on to the next game?

i was honestly just about to post this but i didn't want to seem like a jacka$$ but i couldn't agree more.

 

[autry_denson]

Or you could not read this thread. One of my favorite things about football is watching tape, dissecting plays and re-analyzing games, whether things went well or not. Others, particularly those who coach or have coached, probably share this. Recognizing that it's painful to relive this game, just don't read the thread.

 

[Buster Bluth]

Or you could not read this thread. One of my favorite things about football is watching tape, dissecting plays and re-analyzing games, whether things went well or not. Others, particularly those who coach or have coached, probably share this. Recognizing that it's painful to relive this game, just don't read the thread.

Agreed.

 

[Rhode Irish]

I'm watching the replay of the game on a channel called "universal HD", don't ask me why they're showing it now.

Three observations:

.....

3) In all of the focus on ND's mistakes, we forget that USF made some huge mistakes that ND just didn't capitalize on. The most glaring is the jump offsides in the 3rd quarter on the field goal attempt, giving us a first down and new momentum. Two plays later: Rees' int off of Jones' helmet.

Ironically, if that offsides hadn't occurred we may have won the game. I know it is not safe to assume that everything else would have played out exactly the same the rest of the way, but had that play not happened and the rest of the game played out similarly, we probably would have taken the ball for that last drive with a chance to win the game with a TD (I'm assuming here that we would not have gone for two earlier if we had the FG on the board).

So not only did we have the seven boneheaded plays (turnovers and penalties) that led DIRECTLY to a 24 point swing away from ND, and had any one of them not happened we probably would have won, but THEIR stupid penalty can also be counted among the plays that if it had not happened ND would have survived the game. (Sorry if this paragraph is hard to understand. I'm tired.)

 

[Buster Bluth]

So once again: we lost the game. And once again, almost everything about that game says: you guys are pretty damm good if you could just get your heads out of your butts on a few plays and into the game.

/thread