This one felt a little different.
Not a lot different, but a little.
I suppose that’s an easy sentiment to dismiss. The ramblings of a biased Notre Dame fan. That’s alright. I’m just telling you what I felt.
Notre Dame lost another close call against a presumed elite team, basically a yearly ritual for this group at this point, by a 23-17 margin at Georgia. But this close call had something that ’14 Florida State, ’15 Clemson, ’17 Georgia, et al. didn’t quite have.
It had a team getting up off the mat and averting a TKO.
Most ND fans, I imagine, basically conceded defeat when Ian Book tossed a telegraphed interception on a flea-flicker, down 20-10 in the fourth quarter. The rout was about to be on. UGA was about to score a couple touchdowns, win 37-16 or something, and get to trumpet itself as having killed the Irish even if that hadn’t quite been the truth.
But that’s not what happened. ND got a stop (with a big assist from Kirby Smart), held the Dawgs to three, and through a remarkably gutsy effort from the offense and the defense, actually got itself within 40 yards or so of what would’ve been an absolutely titanic Notre Dame victory.
It was a level of toughness that no previous Irish team in that spot had been forced to display (Clemson was the closest, but there was an eternity of time left in that game by comparison when ND launched a comeback, and Clemson wasn’t yet Clemson). And, while they didn’t complete the comeback, that was noteworthy. Not as an excuse in another shoulda-woulda-coulda game – Georgia was the better team overall, certainly the smarter team – but as a trait this team will have to display the rest of the season and beyond.
Here are a couple topics worth hitting on this one.
Penalties
It’s actually kind of remarkable how few true complaints ND fans, I think, will have about this game and the way the team played, but the biggest will be undisciplined penalties. A brain-dead personal foul by Liam Eichenberg basically scuttled the first drive of the game, and then the Irish started jumping early on offense. Over, and over, and over again. They ended up with 12 penalties, the most ND has ever committed under Kelly.
Of course the raucous Georgia atmosphere affected things; how could it not? But after the first couple false starts, the credit swung from the Bulldog fans who affected ND’s snap count to the Irish players who couldn’t figure out how to adjust to it. A couple of short-yardage situations became long-yardage spots because ND did a very poor job maintaining composure. The fact that multiple players jumped on several of the penalties leads me to believe the center snap was the problem, but that’ll be up to Brian Kelly and folks to fix.
The talent differential
It’s impossible to watch Georgia’s blitzkrieg in the third quarter, versus Notre Dame’s ability to relatively control the game but not do that much with it most of the rest of the time, and not notice that top-end talent was a big deal. The Bulldogs, as we know, have a bunch of running backs that would’ve started over Tony Jones had they been in blue and gold. Lawrence Cager wasn’t a blue-chip recruit (although he held offers from Bama, Ohio State, Auburn, ND and others when he went to Miami out of high school), but he showed off his chops on the pivotal TD drive, with two huge third-down grabs.
The Irish, meanwhile, have a slew of good players, some very good. But they don’t have much elite talent, and tonight they needed a game-breaker. I’m not sure why they didn’t throw a couple of Braden Lenzys out there to see if something great could happen (Lawrence Keys flashed once or twice early, but that was about it), given that Georgia seemed to basically take away Chase Claypool, but whether something like that would’ve worked is anyone’s guess.
Kmet will make the offense go
Cole Kmet was absolutely amazing. Without any of those game-changing threats I mentioned earlier, Kmet, playing his first game of the season after busting his collarbone in August, simply kept the offense going early. He had 9 catches for 108 yards, both career highs. The ND media brigade has spent the bulk of the last two years telling us how great Kmet is and is going to be, and tonight we saw what they were talking about. Provided he stays fully healthy (knock furiously on wood), he is an incredible safety blanket for Ian Book.
A good, strong effort, but playoff-worthy?
CBS’s Gary Danielson was nice enough as the game was ending to say the ND loss didn’t ruin the Irish’s playoff hopes. And in a literal sense, he is right: ND is not dead. But this isn’t 2017. That team, had they finished 11-1 after the close loss to Georgia, would’ve possessed ranked wins over Michigan State, Pac-12 champ USC, NC State, Miami and Stanford. This ND team has 2 currently ranked teams remaining on the schedule, maybe 3 by tomorrow if USC jumps into the polls again. None of them are even close to lighting the world on fire at the moment, and certainly none would qualify as the kind of ‘signature’ win you need as an independent to get in with a loss.
In ’17, ND would’ve been able to overwhelm most opposition to their playoff candidacy with their impressive list of pelts. This team, should they be fortunate enough to be 11-1 – certainly no team left on the slate strikes you as a team ND ought to lose to – won’t have that. They’d be hanging their candidacy on the gutsy road performance in a loss, the way the ’15 team did (and ultimately would’ve likely fallen short of accomplishing, had they been 11-1).
But you can’t make the playoff every year. If this team focuses, defeats 9 teams they ought to beat in the next 2+ months, finishes 11-1, and takes advantage of what would then be a favorable NY6 matchup against an ACC also-ran (Orange) or the Group of 5 rep (Cotton) – which are the only possible non-playoff games ND could play in this year due to tie-ins – it can be a great season.
Of course, the Irish shouldn’t think like that. They should think that if they come out and dominate Virginia – deserved or not, they’re probably gonna be in the top 20 – next week, they can get right back in the playoff hunt. We’ll have to see if they can do it.
I could go on for a while, but this is getting long, and I know you guys have more to say. Hit the comments.
(Photo credit: Associated Press)
MVPs: Chip Long, Clark Lea, Kirby Smart not going for it
LVPs: Jarrett Patterson, Liam Eichenberg, Jeff Quinn
Still, it was a hell of a game, and I’m proud of that team.
The above comment failed to include Cole Kmet as an MVP. Editors regret the error.
I’m proud of this team. They did a lot better than reasonably expected and showed a ton of heart.
Biggest difference was Notre Dame had no chance at a running game, and Georgia has a top RB. Ian Book was pretty good, Jake Fromm was almost flawless. That’s it, that’s the game.
Otherwise, effort was tremendous. Chip Long called a wonderful game, introducing a lot of wrinkles that kept UGA on their heels, and it was easy to see they didn’t expect to be on their heels. Kmet is a stud. Clark Lea had the defense mostly doing very, very good against a superior opponent, so happy for White and Wu and they’ll only get better. The D wore down a bit, but IMO couldn’t expect much more all things considered.
All on the road, matched up against “better” and it still goes to the wire.They held their own. No points in moral victories but they acquitted themselves well, primetime, SEC on the road. Everyone expecting the worst.
And they belonged on the stage. Enough breaks didn’t break, but so it goes. Had a real shot. Just proud to be Notre Dame tonight. Give me a healthy Armstrong and a Tyree next year and this is the type of game Notre Dame can not just compete in but also win. And if you can compete @UGA at night, you can compete against anyone. I don’t really care about playoffs at this point, just show out against everyone who lines up, beat Michigan, USC and Stanford (which I mean…they should) and that’s a quality year.
It’s pretty crazy that ND came as close to winning as they did, on the road, against a kind of prototypical super-talented, physical SEC team, while essentially not even trying to have a rushing attack.
What I don’t get (and this is not really a complaint so much as just confusion) is did something shift and it’s just really hard to run the ball inside in this day and age? It seems like we recruit truckloads of blue chip OL and have at least solid backs, but if an opponent’s front 7 is at all good, we call plays like they’re a literal brick wall at the point of attack and there is no hope of running there.
It feels to me like if ND is going to ever get to that next level, they need to be able to run the ball, not get 200 yards, but just pose some kind of legit run threat against other stout defenses.
That said, there was a nice 3rd down conversion up the gut, which was nice to see, but it’s kind of the exception to the rule.
Howdy all. been visiting 18 stripes for last couple seasons and read all of your posts. i bounce around between 18 stripes, onefootdown, uhnd, and r/noteredamefootball on redit. I was having flashbacks of miami ’17 before this game, but fortunately the irish proved me wrong and they kept it close. one thing i didnt like watching the game second half was the 1 (most likely 2) flops the defense had to slow georgia down when they were going hurry up. they had already burned 2 timeouts so i get why they did it, but tbh thought it was kind of embarrassing. i mean say we pulled of the upset? that would have been all espn and media would of talked about, and they would of showed the replay of gilman pulling our guy down to the ground and the “eye poke” with fromm going wtf? to the official over and over and over. imho a good team doesn’t need to do that to win, and it felt really bush league tbh. i had to get that off my chest, and im really sorry if i offend anyone or if im out of line. with that being said otherwise really proud of the way the boys played tonight. really glad we have clark lea for a dc. i thought book played solid and confident. never looked like a deer in the headlights or the moment was too big for him. thought protection was pretty solid. only complaint passing was nothing really downfield at all. after first half georgia adjusted for kmet and drives stalled. the final rushing yards im sure will not look favorable, but to be fair the false starts took us out of 3rd and short several times so its hard to say for certain. the loss stinks no doubt, but we have virginia next week to get ready for. there is a lot of football left guys. ga gave us a benchmark of what kind of football team we have this year, and i have to say im excited for the rest of the season. you should be too. go irish!
I wasn’t crazy about that but I think the JOK one was a legit eye situation – why the heck is he walking directly into Fromm and then going to the sideline for eye drops if that’s fake? – and the other one… Whatever. It looked stupid that Gilman took him down but teams always tell guys to go down if they’re remotely hurt in those spots.
On quick inspection, I thought Gilman looked to be telling Bilal?, “if you’re hurt get down”. Not, “pretend you’re hurt”.
Yeah he was limping before Gilman told him to get down and the innocent explanation was that Gilman was telling him what to do so that the refs would stop play and there wouldn’t be another play run with him out there hurt. The commentators went with the angry Georgia blogger explanation with gusto. The retired ref expert gently rebuked them (the commentators) the second time.
This is what I saw too.
Agreed. It was a player getting his first year of playing time who was trying to communicate to the sideline “I need a sub” and a veteran teammate saying, “If you don’t get on the ground they’re going to snap the ball.”
I’m not at all in favor of the fake injury, but if it’s going to be pulled, you don’t have it pulled by someone playing as well in the game as Wu. That was the clearest evidence to me it wasn’t him faking it.
The real loss tonight was the Notre Dame “mystique.” I’m pretty sure it officially died at some point during that KFC commercial.
Are you thinking of leasing an Alfa Romeo for only $1799 per month?
What’s going to bug me going forward after sleeping on it is that unlike some of our previous close calls (and similarly to the UGA game 2 years ago) is we didn’t play our best game. Very gutsy game, but not our best. Between the dumb penalties, lack of a running game, and two turnovers in our own territory, it probably goes down as a B game or so. Maybe B- if you want to grade very harshly. B+ would probably have been good enough to win.
Also, I can’t emphasize enough how dumb Smart’s decision to kick the field goal was. At the time I thought it would be irrelevant because we couldn’t score, but it almost turned out to be suuuuuper relevant. We were reeling at that time and Kirby threw us a life preserver.
Of course if they didn’t make it and we only needed a FG at the end…well? They had been stopped for no gain on 1st and 2nd down. Certainly wasn’t the worst decision I’ve ever seen. Not worse than ND’s clock management before the half.
Disagree.
We got to the 38? on our final drive. That was meaningless because of needing a TD, if a FG ties… play calls are just trying to get 8 yards and set up a FG. Much harder for GA to defend that.
And what if we scored a TD quickly in the last 2 mins? Fromm would get the ball back with, say 45 secs, and only need to go about 40 yards to set them up for a game winner.
I’m almost always a go-for-it on 4th guy, but I felt that there Smart made the right call.
Agree this was not an A game, but we were never going to get a running game going against a solid Georgia defense with our running backs situation and offensive line.
I think the real mistake was in the 3rd quarter going away from Kmet and Claypool and trying to get other receivers involved. It wasn’t broke, and they went back to the well in the 4th, but that 3rd quarter killed us.
So, I’d say it was a B+/A- game, and we would have won with an A game.
Unfortunately, that might have been our running game at it’s best. At least it’s best going into that game. Armstrong out and not trusting the kids, leaves ND with little talent at RB. Jones would be 6th or 7th string on Georgia.
Jones probably wouldn’t even have been recruited by Georgia
I get the sentiment. But what I came away with was in the past we had to play perfectly (and maybe also be lucky) to win. This was the first game in a long time where I came away thinking, we’re actually good enough to compete even when we’re not perfect.
It’s a weird thing, would you rather be winning, but know your team’s will get trounced in a bowl game? Or take a loss, but know you’re actually at a higher level? Right now I feel great about bowl possibilities… its been years since I’ve said that.
^This. It’s always frustrating to lose. It’s very frustrating to lose despite near perfection in game plan and execution. It’s insanely frustrating to know you were a huge dog and only lost because of repeated self-inflicted wounds. But knowing that those self-inflicted wounds almost didn’t matter? That’s rational hope for a NY6 win. This team may still have a head scratcher, but even at 10-2 NY6 is a strong possibility. i’d almost rather have this very good but flawed team miss the playoff this year and win a major bowl for the first time in over a quarter century. Another playoff run in 2020 would be with nearly the entire team being used to playing at a high level their entire college career. Maybe that’s what it will take for ND to find a killer instinct and regain the expectation to win the big ones.
i’m a little confused about all the high grades. ND played a very sloppy game while UGa made very few mistakes. i still think we could have run on them. Not TJJ, of course, i think maybe the only one who played worse than him last night was Eichenberg. Why zero carries for Kyren when TJJ played so poorly? A little creativity with the run game wouldn’t have hurt the passing attack…and the receivers really did need some opportunities to get open.
i did not like the game plan at all. Even so, cut the copious mistakes by half (to a “normal” amount) and ND wins by 10. This is the kind of disappointment that makes me think we just need Kelly to get us to 10+ wins for a few more years to make the job more attractive to the next new “elite” coach. We probably should have won. Kmet definitely should have blocked on the final play…and maybe Finke could have tried to get to the ball as well? i dunno, i’ve got a sour taste in my mouth about this game. UGa has a notch better talent and ND seemed the better team.
No chance we run on them. Their athletes are better than ours, we were IN the game because of the game plan, and playing to our strengths offensively (which is not our running game.)
About the playoffs if feel like even with the loss and the weaker than expected up coming schedule that there is still a way they could play themselves in as a one loss team. What would happen if they did what Clemson, Ohio State, and Bama do? If they absolutely destroyed every team in the next nine games. Highly unlikely. But what if that did happen, it would likely be a result of the return of the offense they wanted to have in the summer and the return of Young, Austin, and Armstrong and a better run defense that maybe we saw some off last night. Maybe book settles. So the narrative would be the “their a different team than when they lost” just the way Michigan got before Ohio State last year.
Highly unlikely, but wouldn’t that also be a possible route?
Also, I was just hoping they would compete last night. And in the fourth I was hoping to see them make it a game and not wilt. And I was happy to see it.