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And win the TO battle

A healthy Ben Morrison, Traore & Mills and we beat those sons of bitches.

late and the general passing ability of NDs offense was subpar last year. It was not a threat at all. Sticking Angeli in and throwing the ball would have helped a lot.

Defense killed itself by allowing points and long drives all game.

I realize that doesn't answer the question, but it's a longstanding observation.

Even when Holtz was ND's coach and John Cooper roamed OSU's sideline, they still went 2-0 against ND.

level fell during 1994 and in 1995 if Emmit Mosely doesn't drop a punt we beat them because Holtz was outcoaching Cooper easily. Same thing in 1996 when Mosely dropped a perfectly thrown Paulus pass and in the same game our punt return was called back. Ohio State had the better teams in 1995 and 1996 but we could have beaten them. Imagine if we had Randy Moss instead of Emmit Mosely at the time.

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Notre Dame, even with Lou, was beginning its decline. Ohio State, on the other hand, had just become a powerhouse again for the first time since the 70's. They averaged just over 8 wins per season in the 12 years before that.

Sadly, they were on our schedules again at the wrong time.

1995 onward started ND's long decline.

The simple fact is those OSU teams that defeated ND from 1995 onward had better players at key positions.

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exploiting them until the end of the game.

We recruited a ton of boundary type WRs that O$U hasn't worried about as a deep threat and their DL/LBs pretty much just stacked up to stop the running game.

skill positions. They had a fair amount of edge with overall talent. We had some difference makers but we had to play a great game to have those difference makers make a difference.

We were young and thin in the secondary (top 4 corners were frosh and a sophomore). Michigan, for all their issues last year, still had a physical secondary that was capable of pressing Ohio State's receivers without getting quickly beat in coverage. And their front 4 was able to get pressure without a heavy mix of blitzes. We blitzed a lot, largely because we had to with all of the injuries on the D.L.

And a healthy offensive line really would've helped. We had 4 straight non-scoring possessions after our opening drive, while Ohio State scored 4 t.d.'s and a F.G. on theirs.

The DL and DB rooms were deep enough to get them into the championship game. But you can watch the defense play against Indiana and Georgia, and then against Penn State and Ohio State, and in my opinion you can tell that they weren't as sharp as they were in the two earlier games. I also think that a few times against both Penn State and Ohio State, the youth of the LB's was still caused some mistakes that the opponent cashed in on. If the DL had been fully healthy with Botelho, Traore, Mills, and Cross, and the others could be depth to rest them, I think the QB has a lot more problems against the ND secondary, even without Morrison.

If they weren't, they had superior depth.

There was a reddit thread where it pulls in ask that information for the game, people jump in and talk about the game, etc.

The consensus was how the fuck did Notre Dame make it to the championship game with all those injuries.

I'm sure OSU was tired by that game as well, however they did, by that point, have more depth to rotate in that could be effective. ND was on 2nd and 3rd string as starters on the DL, and we had very little depth at corner to rotate. It didn't help the offense went 3&out on the second and 3rd drives either.

I believed that there was a possibility that ND could win that game, but I felt like it was more likely a loss unless they could come up with something special.

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Even guys who should be 5* that commit to ND alot of times get stuck right outside that range...This class should have between 4-6 (Dunham, O'Brien, Adams, Premer) then guys like (Ewetade and McKeogh) right there looking in to the range, but lets see how that ends up.

Most of them have already been mentioned, but I'll summarize things.

1) Team health on the defense. We had a large number of injured players coming into this game, especially on the defensive line. While some folks claimed that Howard Cross was about 85%, that was being overly generous. He was more like at about 2/3rd strength, but still played his heart out.

Rylie Mills, Jordan Bothelo, Boubacar Traore, etc., were all out, and Gabe Rubio wasn't at full strength either. I love Donovan Hinish for his "never say die" attitude, and his hard work, but he's an undersized 3 technique tackle who was filling in at the nose tackle position all too often.

While our guys were holding their own against that excellent tOSU offense, there was no depth behind them to step in for that championship game. You won't be able to hang with the best offense in the nation for a whole game if you don't have a lot of a quality depth to sub in.


2) Team health on the offense. Jeremiyah Love was hobbled, and the offensive line was a patchwork of able bodies. I give Coach Rudolph a ton of credit here. He was able to plug in different people into different spots along the offensive line as our guys were hobbled with injuries.

Also, after that first series, Riley Leonard looked gimpy after having run the ball so many times.

3) No consistent vertical passing game. This was a problem throughout the year, where Leonard was much more of a dink 'n dunk thrower, especially in the early part of the season. it wasn't until later on that his medium range throws became much better, which was why we were able to get as far as we did. In terms of receivers, we had decent, but not great, receivers.

Beaux Collins was decent, but didn't really put up WR1 type numbers. Jaden Greathouse really stepped up his game in the 2nd half of the season, and especially in the playoffs, to emerge as the WR1. Jordan Faison was decent as a WR2 / WR3. None of these guys were in the same category as tOSU's WR corps.

4) Most importantly, tOSU's talent level, depth, and team health were better than ours. Throughout a 16 game season, you need that depth to keep your guys rested and healthy.


The bottom line, though, is that even if we were healthy, tOSU would still have won that game 3 out of 4 times. They were simply that much better than everyone else in the playoffs.

We know who wins that. Would have been close to a miracle but not impossible.

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And a great defensive line.

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Using QB power/iso for short yardage conversion. Penalty they not been able to run the ball effectively in early downs and the second third and fourth possessions was the difference in the game.

Not saying they would’ve won, but it would’ve calmed down to last possession

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Given that OSU was the most complete offensive team in the country, I am certainly not sure of my first factor ever being successful....but we needed to be able to play their receivers to a draw. I am far from certain anyone could do that when the stakes are high.

The second factor to me was not being able to move the ball consistently with passes of 7+ yards. The three and outs in the first half allowed them to gain confidence while tanking the ND defense in that regard.