USC post game thread

[IrishSpartan]

Not sure where to ask this. Is Harper a one and done DB, or could he come back?

Really interested to see which freshman start getting run with 4 games to go and the BYE week to prep them. Hoping to see some Daryk Bowen at LB.

Harper is out of eligibility

 

[Old Man Mike]

Sam is WONDERFUL. He is just not some video fantasy hero that bitch-about-anything "fans" insist upon. When this season is over, what he gave us with what little he had to work with in the receiving corps will astound people who actually know something about football. Sam really gushed about getting Evans back healthy, calling him the core of the receiving group ... meditate....... Sam also has to put up with erratic offensive approaches and play-callings game-to-game.

Benjamin Morrison is WONDERFUL. He, play to play, game to game, is the best coverage corner I can remember at Notre Dame. He's little. He must make greater efforts than most to get every tackle right. OK. So what? He showed some attention-to-detail on several tackles this game. The PI play versus Rice was a brilliant play by Rice, and the announcers explained it. Morrison is NFL.

How in the hell this thread contains multiple bitchings about either Sam or Ben completely flummoxes me. These guys are also playing the two most difficult positions in football. A player has to have the Xavier Watts Hollywood Hero game NOT to be griped about by the drool-dribbling morons, apparently. ... and Xavier, WOW, someone should get you a trophy for that one, at least the Game Ball. Magnificent.

 

[NDohio]

Chris Wilson write-up:

1) Walking around campus late Friday afternoon, I would have described the general mood as funereal. A dark Northern Indiana sky was looming, threatening rain, as some students hauled luggage out to the buses, making the business decision to maximize their fall break. If Ohio State was a festival weekend with perfect weather, Southern Cal was quietly dodging raindrops and hoping for the best, confused how the Irish could possibly be favored considering how the trip to Louisville had gone. But it ended up being a full inversion of the Buckeyes’ visit, from weather and confidence in the status of Marcus Freeman’s tenure to the most important change: A blowout win instead of a heartbreaking loss.

Much like the Clemson game last year, faith in the team was rewarded with an all-time defensive performance. There have been few efforts against Lincoln Riley in his six-and-a-half seasons as head coach as good as this, particularly considering the presence of the reigning Heisman winner and presumptive number one pick: Six sacks, five forced turnovers, four yards per play allowed, explosives choked off completely. It’s nice knowing every time some sort of draft coverage is going on for the first four months of next year that you’re going to see Number 0 in blue and gold pop up a bunch when they’re haggling over quarterback rankings.

As we’ve discussed many times and last week in particular, you can win in this stupid sport in so many different ways. Sometimes you score 48 points on 47 non-kneeling plays with under 300 yards of offense because there’s nothing in the rulebook that says you can’t. Down the road, no one is going to see those stats, just a four-touchdown win over Notre Dame’s biggest rival that brought the jeweled shillelagh back and extended the home win streak against the Trojans. It’s fun to remember there are babies who were born after USC’s last win in South Bend that’ll be wrapping junior high by the time the Trojans have another chance at a road victory. That was a good one.

2) The main issue we’ve had with Al Golden’s defense is that even sometimes when it played well and the overall numbers looked good — which is far more often than not — you wouldn’t necessarily see the opposition feeling them: There wouldn’t be much in the way of turnovers, there’d be minimal havoc and maybe a higher third-down conversion rate allowed than you would prefer. On Saturday night under the lights, there wasn’t a snap where Caleb Williams did not feel the defense. Last year’s performance from the front seven was so poor that Golden knew exactly what not to do, bringing disciplined pressure while keeping Williams corralled, a penning in that resulted in desperation heaves that tilted this game toward the Irish.

A common refrain running through my head before kickoff is that this was such a leap in defensive competition from anything the Trojans had dealt with before. If their offensive line was leaky against the softer first half of their schedule, how was it going to perform against a motivated Irish attack? It turned out to be Not Very Well. You could pretty much shoutout anyone here and hit a key performer but Jaylen Sneed was an agent of havoc in so many ways, the Rylie Mills spree was euphoric and Javonte Jean-Baptiste continues to be a rock, with his hyphenate-mate Nana Osafo-Mensah shining as well. Another great night for J.D. Bertrand, who ended one second quarter Trojan drive on his own, including a fourth down annihilation on a mesh that was simply too slow.

Making Williams’ life even more difficult was that his receivers were not getting open consistently due to another sterling effort from the Irish secondary, which has now suppressed the offenses of both Riley and Ryan Day this season. One fear with attending this game was seeing the full field and knowing how it might feel watching USC receivers break free. Instead, there was a lot of comfort as everyone did their jobs so well. Golden motivating one of his defensive backs to have out-of-body efforts in consecutive years — Benjamin Morrison against Clemson last season, Xavier Watts with an official Mo Crum Jr. Game of His Life this week — is some smart coordinating. (It should also be noted Morrison was awesome again on Saturday, as he’s been all season.) Cam Hart got a strip for the second straight game and everyone else* was always in the right place at the right time contributing to the worst game of Williams’ Trojan career, allowing a long reception of merely 20 yards. Cannot say enough about what Golden and his charges accomplished here.

* 207 combined snaps from D.J. Brown, Thomas Harper, Ramon Henderson, Clarence Lewis and Jaden Mickey and not a lot of mistakes jump out.

Notre Dame now sits at fifth in defense in the SP+ and while we’ll see what the other metrics kick out and how the rest of the season goes, we’re officially on watch for this potentially being a legendary unit if they close the job. It took Golden a while to find his groove back in the college ranks but after an offseason of “Gonna be weird to have an offense carrying the team!!” his side of the ball is doing the heavy lifting. And as a wonderful added bonus, the result has sent USC fans into an existential crisis about their head coach midway through his second season, the greatest of all possible gifts.

​

3) These were not the best performances by the Irish offense or special teams but in the second half when the Trojans afforded themselves two moments of hope with touchdowns these units responded with haymakers in the form of the 46-yard pass to Chris Tyree and the 99-yard kick return by Jadarian Price. You don’t always have to be perfectly efficient or particularly pretty as long as you have a sense of the moment and that’s what we saw Saturday. Additional plus: After struggling with pressure the last few weeks, the offensive line and scheme combined to keep Sam Hartman vertical throughout and did enough to keep a sprier Audric Estime ahead of the pace success-rate wise.

On the negative side, only three third-down conversions again (on 10 attempts), running into loaded boxes so many times and barely six yards per attempt for Hartman in a game with scant few explosive plays (Rico Flores had a 24-yard reception in addition to Tyree’s touchdown, while no run was longer than 16 yards). Very strange how there were stretches where the sole focus of the offense seemed to be getting the ball to Jordan Faison, a guy who was not playing two games ago but hey he had that longest run. I did not foresee a situation where Notre Dame would score 48 and we’d be thinking “That’s a bum rap for the USC defense” but that’s why you should always raise a skeptical eyebrow anytime someone cites points per game in their analysis.

It seems like this bye week placement could be hugely beneficial for getting the offense right. Jayden Thomas is still clearly hurt so perhaps he can get closer to 100% while Eli Raridon comes along further and Jaden Greathouse returns to early season form. It also gives the coaches time to breathe and reassess and self-scout and get away from some of the stuff that is clearly not working. It also helps that they only play one good defense the rest of the way (Clemson is 9th in SP+) and then have some lighter lifts against Pitt (40th), Wake Forest (57th) and Stanford (103rd).

4) Field Goal Watch: At the start of the second quarter up 7-3, Notre Dame opted to kick it from the 18-yard-line on fourth and two. Perhaps the staff knew they were going to have Williams’ number at that point, but usually you’re not going to win these types of games making that choice. This is nitpicking but it's also not wrong: Up 38-20 late, Freeman chose to kick on fourth and one from the Trojan five, turning a three-possession game into a three-possession game. USC was cooked either way, but if the offense failed, they're still putting the Trojans in a position to drive 90+ yards.

Also, regarding special teams, please don’t punt line drives to the fastest man on the field.

5) The weather Saturday ended up being okay after lunch, with the downpour that raged overnight into the morning turning into a light drizzle and then a pleasant final few hours before kickoff for sprint o’ clock. Thought the stadium presentation was good, including mixing in Shinsuke Nakamura’s entrance music, a dash of “Crazy Train” and multiple uses of DMX. (Every time they play DMX in Notre Dame Stadium, we get closer to God’s light.) I thought “All of the Lights” might have been retired for the pre-fourth quarter show but they ran it back and paired it again with House of Pain which is a solid combo. The fireworks following the victory were a lovely touch. All in all, it was a great weekend and I want to extend my thanks to everyone for their hospitality and generosity and sense of community over the course of it – could not have had a better time.

6) Winning Is Hard Round Up: Oregon lost a classic to Washington because by the rules of the sport when two teams play one of them must not prevail. Texas A&M lost to Tennessee and you have to really begin wondering if we’ll actually be seeing Jimbo in College Station to open next season. In maybe the most predictable result of the weekend, Louisville followed up their Super Bowl by being pulled into a gross game with Pitt and falling to Pat Narduzzi for their first loss of the season.

West Virginia lost at Houston on a Hail Mary. Colorado blew a 29-0 lead to Stanford. Boise State blew a 30-10 lead in four minutes versus Colorado State. Washington State got absolutely housed at home by Arizona. Dante Moore and UCLA struggled on the road at Oregon State. South Carolina lost at home to Florida and it seems like their path to making it back to a bowl is getting shaky. Wisconsin only scored six points in a home loss to Iowa, the Dairy Raid not quite on track yet.

Miami dropped their second in a row as North Carolina continues their undefeated start. Indiana and Vanderbilt had 7-0 leads over Michigan and Georgia and while those did not hold we should not forget they existed. NC State lost 24-3 to Duke in a game where Riley Leonard’s backup completed four (4) passes - Dave Doeren come on man. Sparty gave up 21 fourth quarter points to Rutgers in a 27-24 loss. And congratulations to the Fighting Illini, who were struggling in Year Three under Bret Bielema but took out Maryland as two-touchdown underdogs. The Terps let Ohio State beat them twice, but Illinois was game enough to avoid allowing Nebraska to do the same to them to keep bowl hopes alive.

7) A special night and just what this program needed after an uncomfortably wobbly stretch of games. Losing would have not meant just a miserable bye week and going 0-for-2 in the big home extravaganzas, but it would have put an absolutely insane amount of pressure on the trip to Clemson. It’s important for Notre Dame to win games under Freeman because our emotional well-being depends on it but it also buys him time to evolve as a head coach until he’s the best version. He checks nearly every intangible box that if we just give him enough time to sand off some of the rough edges— we’re Eliza Doolittling him, only getting rid of latent Tressel tendencies instead of a cockney accent — he can get Notre Dame back to the top of the mountain. As fun as the USC and Clemson wins were over these past 12 months, they need to start coming with a single digit next to the Irish in the rankings to fully feel the effect. We can get there.

Whew, season is two-thirds over after that wild stretch that included a transatlantic jaunt, an extended lightning delay and four straight primetime clashes. 6-2 isn’t ideal but it’s still quite good and now this exhausted roster and staff can consolidate the good, eliminate the bad and get ready to raise hell over the final four in hopes of another New Year’s Six bid. Enjoy the bye week, rest up, see Killers of the Flower Moon, enjoy some spooks, root for some chaos, take care of yourselves, take care of each other and we’ll gather here again next Monday.

 

[RDU Irish]

I would love to hear any thoughts on any individual defensive performance in ND history that can compare to Xavier Watts vs USC 2023. That is a whole season worth of stats in one game. Bravo young man.

If OC's aren't being contacted as we speak with a hire announced within 5 minutes of time expiring at Stanford I will vomit.

 

[IRISHDODGER]

Chris Wilson write-up:

Nice write-up. How dare he still not be satisfied w/ the offense

 

[IRISHDODGER]

I would love to hear any thoughts on any individual defensive performance in ND history that can compare to Xavier Watts vs USC 2023. That is a whole season worth of stats in one game. Bravo young man.

If OC's aren't being contacted as we speak with a hire announced within 5 minutes of time expiring at Stanford I will vomit.

It’s gotta be Mo Crum Jr vs UCLA in ‘07 right? Of course, that was such a forgettable season that it’s easily overlooked.

 

[IrishSpartan]

I would love to hear any thoughts on any individual defensive performance in ND history that can compare to Xavier Watts vs USC 2023. That is a whole season worth of stats in one game. Bravo young man.

If OC's aren't being contacted as we speak with a hire announced within 5 minutes of time expiring at Stanford I will vomit.

Harrison against Miami

 

[NDRock]

It’s gotta be Mo Crum Jr vs UCLA in ‘07 right? Of course, that was such a forgettable season that it’s easily overlooked.

As much as we harp on the offense this year, the ‘07 was 100x worse. I remember that UCLA game that year. Our defense picked up a fumble (or maybe an interception) and returned it to the 1 yard line. I remember being bummed because I knew we would have to settle for a field goal because our short yardage running ability was non existent. Think Clausen got sacked on 1st down and we eventually kicked the field goal.

Nothing will ever be that bad again. If Charlie had the portal back then things probably would have turned out differently. Ty screwed him over badly.

 

[Jiggafini19Deux]

As much as we harp on the offense this year, the ‘07 was 100x worse. I remember that UCLA game that year. Our defense picked up a fumble (or maybe an interception) and returned it to the 1 yard line. I remember being bummed because I knew we would have to settle for a field goal because our short yardage running ability was non existent. Think Clausen got sacked on 1st down and we eventually kicked the field goal.

Nothing will ever be that bad again. If Charlie had the portal back then things probably would have turned out differently. Ty screwed him over badly.

Spot on. The 2007 team doesn't do anything close to what the 2023 team did in the first four games.

 

[Giddyup]

Fwiw. Never knew Bryce McPherson had elite wheels.

 

[IRISHDODGER]

Fwiw. Never knew Bryce McPherson had elite wheels.

I remember Sampson talking about limiting Branch and saying something to the effect of “just don’t hit a line drive punt that gives Branch a good shot at housing one”. As soon as the ball left McPerson’s foot, I was thinking “oh shit”. It’s got to be harder as a punter b/c they’re under duress from the defense. It looked like Branch grabbed Bryce’s face mask at the end of that tackle but I could’ve been mistaken.

 

[Huntr]

Click through and see his follow up tweets. Good info on what ND did to try to hinder Caleb "Nails" Williams.

 

[LSWho?]

Click through and see his follow up tweets. Good info on what ND did to try to hinder Caleb "Nails" Williams.

Well done. In that clip, CW reads Middle of Field Closed pre-snap ("MOFC") and looks at the curl at the bottom of the screen post snap. I can't see the route the #2 receiver runs, but it looks like they're trying to high-low the boundary corner. The problem for USC is that ND rotated to Middle of Field Open ("MOFO") post-snap and has a safety to take the #2 receiver going high while the boundary corner takes the curl going low.

What makes this really work though is the D line pressure. Without that, CW would have had time to shift to the secondary route combination on the field side. The combination of coverage rotation (confuses CW which route combination he should start with) and excellent pressure from the D line made this gameplan shine.

 

[GoldenToTheGrave]

I would love to hear any thoughts on any individual defensive performance in ND history that can compare to Xavier Watts vs USC 2023. That is a whole season worth of stats in one game. Bravo young man.

If OC's aren't being contacted as we speak with a hire announced within 5 minutes of time expiring at Stanford I will vomit.

Jaron Jones vs FSU in 2014 was one of the best I can remember.

 

[calvegas04]

Fwiw. Never knew Bryce McPherson had elite wheels.

Also can we get him to teach the D how angles work

 

[Irish#1]

You have low standards. Everything ND pleases you and is good, but I have more respect for ND and I bet all the coaches do to. I want more experiences like last night, so I can both enjoy the win as well as discuss which gaps need to be closed without hindering my enjoyment.

You can't name a single statement I've made about a player that you're willing to critique (we've done this dance).

You about had a heart attack when I was first to predict Tobias would struggle, that Kiser isn't going to combine, and everything since. Your track record is awful and I wouldn't be this "mean" to you but you're relentless in pretending I've been off target.

I'm aware I have no impact on the program, never said I did. Really weird comment but at least you tried to have somethint to say something I guess. Move on, I have no interest in your posts and never look for them. If I bother you so much, match my disinterest.

I call Bull Shit.

 

[stpeteirish]

As much as we harp on the offense this year, the ‘07 was 100x worse. I remember that UCLA game that year. Our defense picked up a fumble (or maybe an interception) and returned it to the 1 yard line. I remember being bummed because I knew we would have to settle for a field goal because our short yardage running ability was non existent. Think Clausen got sacked on 1st down and we eventually kicked the field goal.

Nothing will ever be that bad again. If Charlie had the portal back then things probably would have turned out differently. Ty screwed him over badly.

Ty had nothing to do with Charlie's inability to recruit or coach defense, or hire someone who did.

 

[Irish#1]

I would love to hear any thoughts on any individual defensive performance in ND history that can compare to Xavier Watts vs USC 2023. That is a whole season worth of stats in one game. Bravo young man.

If OC's aren't being contacted as we speak with a hire announced within 5 minutes of time expiring at Stanford I will vomit.

IIRC Luther Bradley had an off the charts game. I'm thinking it was also against USC, but not sure.

 

[Jiggafini19Deux]

Ty had nothing to do with Charlie's inability to recruit or coach defense, or hire someone who did.

True, but so much of why 2007 happened in the first place was because of Tyrone Willingham. Charlie had to break the mold at ND with training tables, early enrollment, so many other little administrative ticky tack things where the program was behind. He missed the mark on strength and conditioning, nutrition and he absolutely never should have brought Tenuta in after hiring Corwin Brown to be his DC.

All that being said, so much of why 2007 was what it was boiled down to the previous staff having been nearly entirely negligent with recruiting, something that is still incredibly painful to be saying even now. There was zero excuse for it then and zero excuse for it now. The 2004 and 2005 recruiting classes set the program back significantly, and the 2007 season was in the direct eye of that storm.

 

[Irish#1]

I remember Sampson talking about limiting Branch and saying something to the effect of “just don’t hit a line drive punt that gives Branch a good shot at housing one”. As soon as the ball left McPerson’s foot, I was thinking “oh shit”. It’s got to be harder as a punter b/c they’re under duress from the defense. It looked like Branch grabbed Bryce’s face mask at the end of that tackle but I could’ve been mistaken.

He did grab it and hung onto it. I'm surprised Branch didn't get flagged.

 

[Irish#1]

True, but so much of why 2007 happened in the first place was because of Tyrone Willingham. Charlie had to break the mold at ND with training tables, early enrollment, so many other little administrative ticky tack things where the program was behind. He missed the mark on strength and conditioning, nutrition and he absolutely never should have brought Tenuta in after hiring Corwin Brown to be his DC.

All that being said, so much of why 2007 was what it was boiled down to the previous staff having been nearly entirely negligent with recruiting, something that is still incredibly painful to be saying even now. There was zero excuse for it then and zero excuse for it now. The 2004 and 2005 recruiting classes set the program back significantly, and the 2007 season was in the direct eye of that storm.

Love Charlie for his heart, but he is the walking example of missing the mark on nutrition.

 

[irishnd31]

Love Charlie for his heart, but he is the walking example of missing the mark on nutrition.

Yeah, had to be tough with the buy in for strength and conditioning from the players when the HC is sitting in the corner housing two rows of Oreo Double Stuffs

 

[Plankton]

Love Charlie for his heart, but he is the walking example of missing the mark on nutrition.

You mean this isn't the picture of health and fitness?

 

[Jiggafini19Deux]

Love Charlie for his heart, but he is the walking example of missing the mark on nutrition.

Probably why the OL was eating Bruno's Pizza four nights a week and the team was doing P90X

 

[Giddyup]

If Charlie hired a legit S&C coach and had even an average S&C system his teams could have been good. Can’t tell u the number of times we got our asses kicked in the trenches and we had good players.

 

[NDRock]

True, but so much of why 2007 happened in the first place was because of Tyrone Willingham. Charlie had to break the mold at ND with training tables, early enrollment, so many other little administrative ticky tack things where the program was behind. He missed the mark on strength and conditioning, nutrition and he absolutely never should have brought Tenuta in after hiring Corwin Brown to be his DC.

All that being said, so much of why 2007 was what it was boiled down to the previous staff having been nearly entirely negligent with recruiting, something that is still incredibly painful to be saying even now. There was zero excuse for it then and zero excuse for it now. The 2004 and 2005 recruiting classes set the program back significantly, and the 2007 season was in the direct eye of that storm.

This is all spot on. Crazy how far behind we were back then.

 

[Rockin’Irish]

Interesting statistic I saw after the game…..Caleb Williams came into the game with 666 passing attempts at USC. Could we say that ND performed an exorcism on him?

 

[ulukinatme]

 

[JD Irish]

It is amazing that there are still Charlie Weis apologists here. 3-9, 7-6, 6-6 in consecutive years. Horrible, soft defenses every year. Poor OL play every year. Lost to a 2-8 Syracuse team with a lame duck coach at home. He was a terrible, terrible coach.

 

[Irishdrunk]

It is amazing that there are still Charlie Weis apologists here. 3-9, 7-6, 6-6 in consecutive years. Horrible, soft defenses every year. Poor OL play every year. Lost to a 2-8 Syracuse team with a lame duck coach at home. He was a terrible, terrible coach.

OMG I remember those years. Having recruited Jimmy Clausen, such a potentially great college QB with incredible accuracy....but man that poor boy was mugged game after game. That OL couldn't protect him at all. They would then draft up plays to roll him out of the pocket to give him an extra second and it was a waste of time. Awful pass protection his whole career at ND.