Outside of DBs not named Love, this seems to be the glaring weakness that's holding the team back.
recievers, tucks the ball and slides for another 4th down. The frustration on Kelly’s face said a lot...
The OL got pushed around at times by Clemson but every OL gets pushed around by Clemson. Next year 4 of 5 starters are back too so there should be some reason for optimism there.
The biggest problem was the vertical passing game which is two fold 1) Book was skittish from the start and 2) the lack of speed and athleticism at WR KILLED us. If Notre Dame goes into 2019 with the Boykin / Claypool / Finke trio starting, they will struggle with elite defenses again. Some combination of Austin, Keys, Lenzy, Young need to get in the mix if ND is going to move forward as an offense. Ideally I'd love to see Boykin / Young / Austin that's a trio with pure speed (Young), athleticism (Austin), and size (Boykin).
that's on the OL. Go back and look at the season and you will find the same issue existed many times, specifically at PITT and I believe Ball State gave us fits too.
I don't disagree with your WR comments either. IMO that all other things are manageable as long as the QB has time and Saturday he did not. Book was overly skittish but after you have guys like Clemson's in your face a few times this tends to happen to a QB.
The defense played a damn good game. Depth at corner has been an ongoing issue for us, when we lost Crawford we have been suspect at nickel all year. Losing love made us more suspect, they tested us, they won. And I'm not giving Vaughn shit for that second touchdown, he had great coverage, got a hand on the ball, that receiver made one hell of a catch on the deflection. Vaughn might be the unluckiest corner we have on the team.
The offensive game plan was pure dog shit. You had more time than everyone else going into the playoff to do something, come up with something, and that was what we got. Let's go back to letting an excellent pass rusher come unblocked, that worked so well against Georgia, don't worry, we'll execute this time.
The one pass play that has been damn near unstoppable all year for us was the back shoulder throw to Boykin, and low and behold the one time that I remember going to it, we got a 15-20 yard catch. Was there literally nothing that we found on tape that we could use against them? They were just that unbelievably good on defense? I call bullshit on that one.
Kelly has been able to have much better games and game plans during the regular season, against solid competition. But for whatever reason, we try to go into the bowl season and do everything that we already did before, that they know backwards and forwards from tape, and just believe that we are going to do it anyway. He needs to make a meeting with Urban Meyer and pick his brain. I know Urban got the same kind of curb stomping from Clemson we did a few years ago, but unlike Kelly, I think he actually learned from it.
All the bullshit talk about lack of 5 star talent and not enough speed outside, essentially blaming the players, or lack of them, takes responsibility away from where it should be. On Brian Kelly, and his offensive staff, who shit the bed once again. The defense gets a pass from me, that 2nd quarter was an aberration and lack of depth rather than play and coaching.
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effectively when needed. I still wonder if it’s coaching or schematics or both. I do know this topic has been debated on this forum many times in the past.
ND needs to go find an elite coach at that position.
And we already want to run him out of town.
The OL was not dominant this year but it was awful either. With 4 of 5 starters back next year the OL should be much better than they were this year.
solid functioning unit. Yes, it's great media hype and does will for recruiting but you guys are too caught up in Stars and on paper size and stats. Even with Heistand (who was great) his OL's were soft and got pushed around. I can't recall the last time ND had a road grading unit that week in week out made solid DLs pay.
If this was not true you wouldn't see ND fail miserably in games like the playoff against real teams. And, you certainly wouldn't see what seems like a decade of inability to convert on 3rd and 2 or 4th and 1, when everyone in the house knows you are going to run it. More often than not, for ND, it's been a loss of 2 on these plays. The Achilles heel for quite some time has been picking up the tough yards. The run it up the gut type stuff. That is solely on the OL and we CAN'T do it.
ND OL's haven't consistently generated real push, in I don't know how long, but it feels like Holtz was the last guy to have a punishing OL.
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I am not trashing the players here. I'm talking about the system that they are forced to play in.
Quinn could be a great OL coach and apparently the man can recruit beyond well. But as jray mentioned, we have had all kinds of talent on the line, but when we need the run game to be there, it never seems to be able to get going.
It could be that in 3-4 years, this OL haul that he brought in will be the difference. Or they could have the same issues that we always have.
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