When you schedule lower-tier foes like Miami (OH), you hope to put the game away early and get extended garbage time. Lots of playing time for younger players, and lots of opportunity to work on stuff you consider weak spots.
Notre Dame did exactly that Saturday, crushing the first half and cruising to a 52-17 win that made them 4-1 on the season. We have quick takes.
For a while it looked as if ND could name its score. Even with Brandon Wimbush less than impressive through the air early, the Irish were unstoppable on offense. That was thanks largely to Josh Adams, but Adams aggravated his leg injury late in the first half and, as far as I know, never returned. You can exhale, Julius Jones – Adams had ‘only’ 159 yards on his eight carries. Had Adams gotten 20 carries, Jones’ single-game record was toast. In the second half, the Irish basically stopped moving the ball for the most part, content to run the clock as quickly as possible.
Despite not playing the last 35 minutes or so, Adams was still third on the team in carries, as ND spread the ball around again. Pretty much everyone who ran the ball was successful, as the Irish averaged 8.5 yards per carry. Deon McIntosh didn’t have the finest all-around game, but his 26-yard TD run in garbage time was very pretty.
Wimbush shook off a 1/7 start and was 6 for his last 11 attempts, throwing for 119 yards and 3 TD. He tossed a couple of nice balls, most notably the 54-yard bomb to Miles Boykin that capped off the first half. He’s still very much a work in progress, but he’s able to turn bad starts into good finishes now, which is something he hadn’t done yet as a QB.
There is little to be said about the defense, which was perfectly fine in the first half and managed to hold the RedHawks to just 3 points after the break even though they gave up some yards. There will be better examples, but Mike Elko just continues to impress.
We saw Kevin Stepherson play! He wasn’t good. He will need to be better. It would probably help if ND threw to him on a go route or two.
I like Ian Book. He isn’t an overwhelming force or anything, but he seems to make mostly good throws and good decisions, and he’s more than athletic enough. ND isn’t going to have a great season if Book gets pressed into duty, but there’s reason to believe they wouldn’t be completely sunk either.
Unrelated to the game: Georgia is freaking awesome. ND had every chance to beat them and let it slip away. USC lost to a very good Washington State team. If ND is at full strength going into the USC game, might this Irish team have a chance to win that game, and maybe even (gasp) several more after? Also, UNC is really bad. There’s little reason that game should be any less lopsided than the Michigan State game was.
Nice, stress-free blowout. ND has had 3 1/2 of those (the less said about the first half of BC, the better). This is sort of….fun, isn’t it?
(Photo credit: AP)
I agree on Book… he can run this offense. Though, BW is the game breaker.
Oh, and Adams did well despite having an ankle.
And BK revealed in his post game presser that Studstill has “a foot”.
Hmmm, singular in both cases. They’ll be lopsided. i wonder if this means we’ll see more end-arounds, sweeps, and other runs to the sidelines.
Cruisin’ is a great title for this. Easy win at home against an overmatched team. Nothing too impressive, aside from those 2 Adams runs really. Worried about his nagging injuries, may be best to give him a breather before USC in 21 days. Ideally Williams could be back for UNC but who knows where he’s at.
Wimbush remains inconsistent. He’s got the arm strength but doesn’t seem to have a great base. Also, if tight ends are a QB’s best friend, why don’t they try to bake in some easy completions to Smythe or Weisher (if not Mack)? None today for any of them. Didn’t seem like Miami was rushing anyone, Wimbush had all day back there but coverage did look good, and not many plays developed quick aside from the WR screens that never seem to work for this team.
But, say what you want about Wimbush’s throwing accuracy, at least he takes care of the ball (got lucky once though today) and he drives the offense efficiently, especially in the red zone. Some of that is the all-around offense but with his legs too this offense finishes a lot better than recent years. And that doesn’t look like a fluke and worth some credit for him.
Games like this should never be in doubt, and it never was. Not always the case with Notre Dame. Satisfying effort, on to the next one!
They tried to get Wimbush an easy completion to Mack, and the ball was delivered somewhere around Mack’s feet.
Could be the “game breaker” in both senses of the word. He’s saying all the right things about his performance, but his inconsistency is still a concern. The backwards throw out of bounds (rescued by a roughing the passer penalty), and the dirt ball on the screen pass are the sort of things that will lose games to tougher opponents. We’ll have to see how he steps it up in the next month.
Stress free games, I love em!!
Defense gives up a lot of yards to short passes over the middle. But still, night and day over last year.
Good, stress-free win. Injuries aside, I think the only real downside from the game is that Chuck Martin identified a fairly significant weak spot in our defense in Nick Watkins’ downfield coverage. I’m not super excited thinking about what Ahmmon Richards might be able to do against Watkins, especially if Watkins plays like he did yesterday.
The same Nick Watkins that had two pass breakups?
I think I’m more with you on this one, dannan12 – Nick looked like he was pretty much on body on coverage all day; that 6’4″ wideout made some great plays, but he was forecast as a genuinely good threat. BK talked about this either in the presser or the gaggle with the two NBC guys at the very end. Got the impression they we overall pleased with the coverage, but Gardner just made a couple too many great grabs. But I am no expert on secondary play.
He really was very poor on those two plays and they were 100% picking on him the whole game.
That said, I thought he played good D on the PI call. Also, last week vs Michigan State he was very good. I’m not too concerned.
one of those breakups was definitely an uncalled pass interference in the end zone
Watkins got burned several times by their best WR. I suspect that if we hadn’t been so far ahead he would have gotten some help. As it was, it was great practice for him.
Adams 4th in the nation in rushing yards.
Bryce Love a clear #1 with like 1100. Stanford can run the damn ball.
I love that their all in (again) on putting the workload so much on one player. Love has been great so far but how healthy will he be by the last game?
Stanford does have a little ways to go to catch us in most rushing categories 🙂