Northwestern opened up the upset playbook on Saturday night, covered several pages, then found out their game plan had limits as the Fighting Irish talent was too much to overcome. With moments of dominance, Notre Dame’s 9th win of the season was sprinkled in with lots of frustration in a close game until a gut-check touchdown drive by the good guys late in the 4th quarter.
Here’s a recap of the win on the road at Northwestern.
Stat Package
| STAT | IRISH | CATS |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 31 | 21 |
| Yards | 464 | 249 |
| Passing | 343 | 141 |
| Rushing | 121 | 108 |
| 1st Downs | 25 | 16 |
| 3rd/4th Conversions | 8/17 | 7/19 |
| Yards Per Play | 6.3 | 3.6 |
| Turnovers | 1 | 0 |
PASSING OFFENSE
Book had 8 incompletions in the first half. He’s regressing! On a serious note, the trend continues for Book to struggle a little bit in the opening 2 quarters before halftime adjustments open up the door to more productivity. How do we look at this? Should the offense be more prepared out of the gate? Or, are we happy that the adjustments seem to be on point for the most part?
Nevertheless, Book finishes with very stout numbers despite his completion percentage falling to 64.7% in the game, the first start this season he fell below 71.4% which was the previous low against Virginia Tech. It was the 3rd highest rated of his 6 starts while his 10.1 yard per attempt mark was the highest for a full game in his young career. Also, Book snapped his 3-game interception streak.
Heading into the week, Book now sits as the country’s 6th-best quarterback in passer rating with a real chance to move up to 4th behind Kyler Murray, Tua Tagovailoa, and Will Grier before the season is complete. He may not be invited to New York City but there’s a possibility Ian Book finishes something like 9th in Heisman voting this year.
I thought the offensive line very quietly absolutely shut down Northwestern’s pass rush. We should commend them for that. The Wildcats finished with only 2 hurries and didn’t register a sack. For the most part, Book had plenty of time to go through progressions.
Five players caught passes of at least 20 yards, that’s a big win for the offense in a game against a stout run defense. Chase Claypool–who received the game ball–didn’t set career highs but put up one heck of a performance with 8 receptions and 130 yards.
RUSHING OFFENSE
Notre Dame found a few short-yardage wins, a few medium runs, and one timely touchdown run from Ian Book. Other than that, it was a long night for the Irish ground game.
Interestingly, a week after seemingly letting Jafar Armstrong run free coming off injury he wasn’t getting many snaps against Northwestern. This looked like a “lean on the senior on the road” type of game even though Dexter Williams didn’t find much success out there.
Irish Running Success
Williams – 7 of 19 (36.8%)
Book – 5 of 11 (45.4%)
Armstrong – 2 of 4 (50.0%)
Jones – 1 of 3 (33.3%)
TOTAL – 15 of 37 (40.5%)
In the moment this seemed like a pretty poor rushing performance. Even if Northwestern’s front was strong against the run Notre Dame’s 3.03 yards per carry average was the 3rd best effort for the Wildcats this year. And remember, that’s without any sacks.
The Irish opened the game being successful on just 1 of their first 9 carries so if you want to be positive the offense was trending a little better finishing with success on 14 of the last 28 carries.
However, the legs of Ian Book absolutely made a difference. He gets credited with an unsuccessful run on the early fumbled exchange with Dexter, although he had runs of 9 yards (3rd & 11) and 6 yards (3rd & 7) that would ultimately set up 4th down conversions to continue drives. In a way, it felt like Book had success 70% of the time.
Got ’em. pic.twitter.com/uN7A31sWQs
— 18 Stripes (@18stripes) November 4, 2018
Obviously, Book’s game-sealing touchdown was a thing of beauty. That whole drive could go down as one of the top clutch moments of the season. Backed up after a holding call on the punt, a 10-play 89-yard touchdown drive came through for the victory.
PASSING DEFENSE
In a bit of a shocking development, Northwestern stayed patient with their running game (more on this below) and Thorson only threw 29 passes, 10 fewer than his season average coming into the game. Unfortunately for the Wildcats their passing game did very little to help their cause.
Thorson finished with a paltry 4.86 yards per attempt and maybe the reason why Northwestern ran so much on first down was because their quarterback finished 3 of 9 for 22 yards and just one 1st down throw.
On third down, Thorson was far more effective with chain-moving throws of 10, 11, and 6Â yards plus the 27-yard touchdown pass down the seam on Houston Griffith in coverage. He also had a 7-yard pass on 4th down to keep a drive alive. However, Notre Dame also notched 3 of their 5 sacks on 3rd down.
The Wildcats barely challenged the perimeter or deep down field, mostly taking advantage of Notre Dame’s linebackers with shallow crossing routes. It worked just enough to be annoying, but that’s about it.
RUSHING DEFENSE
I may be a Debbie Downer but I thought this might’ve been the worst performances of the year for this aspect of the defense. True, they were rotating liberally up front and Tranquill wasn’t playing much and nowhere near 100% healthy but still this was not a good opponent ground game.
What stuck out to me was Northwestern’s success on first down. They managed 68 yards on 16 first down carries for 4.25 per rush while never getting much off schedule. There were zero tackles for loss on first down for the Irish which kept Northwestern pretty safe relying on their short-passing game.
Additionally, the Northwestern drive that began at the end of the first quarter and ended with under 8 minutes remaining in the 2nd quarter witnessed Notre Dame allowing 8 successful runs on 12 attempts. The Wildcats simply weren’t explosive but they were able to grind out yards and keep things moving on this drive which totally changed the dynamic of the game until the Irish caught fire in the 3rd quarter.
Wildcats Rushing Success
Bowser – 11 of 23 (47.8%)
Vault – 1 of 2 (50.0%)
Hanaoka – 1 of 2 (50.0%)
Nagel – 0 of 1 (0.0%)
Lees – 0 of 1 (0.0%)
Thorson – 3 of 6 (50.0%)
TOTAL – 16 of 35 (45.7%)
Yet, as we’ve seen most of this season as the game wears on the Irish defense leans on its opponent and they slowly break. Northwestern packed half of their successful runs into that one touchdown drive and there’s only so much consternation you can have for a defense that allowed 249 yards and 3.61 yards per play. Those were the 2nd best efforts of the season for each stat.
SPECIAL TEAMS
Yoon came back from injury and missed from 44 yards while hitting from 43 yards. Jonathan Doerer kicked another ball out of bounds, and Northwestern blocked a punt in the 4th quarter that would lead to a touchdown from the 17-yard line. It was another rough day for special teams.
Although, the Finke 19-yard punt return to midfield which set up the early 4th quarter field goal was a big play in hindsight.
TURNING POINT
I thought the completion to Claypool (3rd to last highlight in the video below) to open up the final touchdown drive was absolutely massive. Northwestern had grabbed so much momentum and closed the game to a 3-point lead. Notre Dame was backed up to its 11-yard line and then with one pass they got breathing room and some of their own momentum after Claypool’s 21-yard grab.
Ian Book’s 4th down sneak and Dexter Williams’ 19-yard run that followed it were all major turning points on this same drive leading to the touchdown.
3 STARS
1 WR Chase Claypool – Held without a touchdown but most clutch in this game.
2 QB Ian Book – Ho hum, 399 total yards and 3 touchdowns.
3 LB Te’von Coney – Without Tranquill next to him for most of the game he was a complete leader with a team-high 10 tackles with 2 sacks and a pass break-up.
FINAL NOTES
Amazingly, Tranquill picked up 5 solo tackles on damn near half an ankle. We saw Jordan Genmark Heath pick up his first career start and he was…serviceable? That’s a big move for him going into next year with added experience.
I thought it was a little curious that the Irish offense didn’t run a single bootleg to the tight end. Obviously, it hasn’t been a super explosive play this year but I thought it would’ve punished Northwestern for stacking the middle so often, especially early in the game. The same principle applies on Book’s rushing touchdown near the end. Northwestern got completely sucked in and the edge was wide open.
It was covered during the broadcast that Tommy Kraemer came in at right guard for Trevor Ruhland. I have to think we haven’t seen the end to this positional battle, although it does look like Aaron Banks is beginning to cement himself at left guard after a couple starts.
Through the first 3 games of the season with Wimbush at quarterback the offense averaged 5.09 yards per play. Since then, they’ve improved by a full yard per play (amazing, really) to a more respectable 45th nationally. In the Book starts, the offense is averaging 6.51 YPP which would fall in 21st nationally through week 10. The defense has held steady all season, being at 4.55 in Wimbush’s 3 games and now at 4.56 on the season through all 9 contests. That’s tied for 10th nationally with Alabama. The current +1.5 YPP differential is the best of the Kelly era, the best since 1996, and 6th best for the school since 1984.
Something has to be done about the special teams. It’s getting ridiculous. A million headlines today about ND “surviving” or “sneaking past” Northwestern despite leading the entire time. This was an easy win if the blocked punt doesn’t happen. Defense and offense were both solid, and it’s a shame that is getting overlooked nationally because of poor special teams.
We have a top-10ish kicker and a top-10ish punter, and have a roster half comprised of blue chip athletes who presumably should be able to run fast and tackle. Notwithstanding that, our special teams S&P+ is 64th. It’s probably time to take the coaching duties away from Polian and let him just run recruiting.
We’ve had at least 3 special teams coaches under BK and ST has always been a problem for the team. I’m pretty certain at this point it’s due to BK’s not setting aside enough practice time for ST rather than the position coaches’ failures.
Earlier this season after the worse problems BK in reply to a presser question indicated he had allotted more practice time to ST. Then later that he was putting the best players on ST. Then I assume he threw Alohi under the bus on the blocked punt by saying a player went too fast (at least it was Alohi out there). And he has been in Pollian’s face on several notable occasions.
So it’s not like he has not addressed the problem. And we have made a bit of progress. But WAY NOT ENOUGH I heartily concur. So yeah, blame it on BK, but it may be more the kind of problem he had in retaining BVG as opposed to not caring.
One fix is simple and obvious: have Yoon kick off. That seems like it’s more Kelly than Polian on that decision to just not put too much workload on Yoon. Not sure if for the knee tendinitis, groin stuff if they just think that Yoon can’t handle it or will fall apart or what but it’s beyond ridiculous to keep putting out a place kicker who can’t keep the ball in bounds in games.
Yoon couldn’t even play last week due to injury. I don’t think they want to make it worse by having him kick off.
Even prior to the injury though this has been the case that Doerer has provided a high percentage of sub-standard kicks that either go out of bounds or are low and returnable.
They said the groin issue was minor and now healed, if Yoon can attempt 40-50 yard field goals, he ought to be able to kick off with only a handful of games left. The performance of the other kicker clearly isn’t good enough.
Yoon has been injured every year of his career since high school though.
To this point and tying into Adam’s point below about the relative randomness of college special teams, here’s a comment from ISD’s Matt Freeman in a discussion there about the punt block:
“I spoke to a source at a team known for quality special teams play (ranked in the top 5) and they spend 10-15 minutes each practice on special teams. ‘Not a lot. 2-3 periods which is about 10-15 minutes.’
I believe Notre Dame’s staff has to get more quality reps into those periods but no team can spend more than 10-15 minutes on it each day. It’s just not practical with the time restrictions.”
Teams get 20 practice hours per week, which I believe includes coach-assisted film study and meetings. The description above works out to about an hour a week on special teams; if you want to double that, you need to take an hour away somewhere else.
Can our limited ST practice time be better used? Probably. Can we realistically devote significantly more time to it? Probably not.
I’ll reiterate my point from the game thread, but I think college special teams is mostly random noise. Alabama is ranked 103rd in S&P’s ranking, Clemson is 70th. The likes of New Mexico, Illinois, and Maryland are in the top 10.
Most of the frustration is Doerer. Yoon’s legs probably can’t handle the double duty, and well, you don’t exactly get loads of scholarships to make sure you have a deep bench of kickers, so when you get a bad one, you’re stuck with the bad one! What’re you gonna do?
I don’t really care about Polian one way or another, but if he’s as crucial of a recruiter as he seems to be, letting him go because of the occasional random dumbness of college special teams seems short-sighted to me (maybe he can be retained to just be recruiting coordinator but I doubt it). I just don’t think that dynamo special teams coach everyone seems to think is out there really exists.
I don’t know how they’re calculated, but I’d imagine not kicking a lot of field goals and fewer punts contribute to Alabama & Clemson’s rankings. Conversely, lots of punts and kick-off return yardage probably is padding the stats for the latter 3 teams.
More fuel to the fire:
I went back and looked at our FEI ST rankings over the Kelly era (not including this year, since it’s not over yet):
24th, 52nd, 87th, 59th, 53rd, 19th, 81st, 10th – averaging 48th in the country
Over that time: Clemson averaging 60th in the country (high of 7th and low of 105th), Alabama is 35th (high of 3rd, low of 116th!).
Super random!
But what are these measures ranking? Do they calculate dumb stuff like offside penalties on 4th & 3? Does it differentiate a kickoff going OOB? I think that kind of crap is what has many up in arms, not the actual performance of special teams.
I think, more than anything, that’s my argument. These are dumb, inconsistent college players. Often not even your best players, and even if they are, doing things on special teams that are quite different from what they do 90+% of the time.
This crap happens everywhere, on every team. No one would dare allocate their best coaches to special teams, there aren’t actually any good ones, and even if there were, it would be a waste because it’s not up to you whether your dumb crap happens 8 times in a season or 3, or if it happens in the 4th quarter of a big game or the 1st quarter of your easiest game.
That might be overstating the argument a bit, but I just tend to think it’s true overall. There’s a reason #collegekickers and #collegespecialteams is a thing.
I think that maybe the out of bounds kicking doesn’t happen with other kickers as often, though. That can’t be just an aberration.
Kickers miss FGs, punters have some shanks – I don’t think anyone’s suggesting otherwise. Those measures are logically baked into the ST “metrics.” The coachable things, such as: don’t jump off sides, kick it as hard as you can straight ahead or you’re not kicking at all, block rushers seem to be more of the issue.
I see points in both of what you’re saying. A better coached team might have known more who is assigned to block who even in confusing situations. But for the kicking thing, they say the kid kicks well in practice. And clearly they don’t want Yoon doing kickoffs to preserve his leg for field goals. I don’t put that on the special teams coach.
So I do agree that yeah it’s random and bad things could happen to anyone, but then again they probably could be better prepared in some instances too.
Dorer kicks well in practice like BW throws in practice?
That’s the spin Kelly puts out there at least.
Had to.
Can(could) Newsome kick off? Just wondering. From what I hear Doerer just doesn’t perform in games.
Hayes had two sacks? The stats on UND.com say 5 solo tackles were his entire stat line at Northwestern. Sacks were 2.5 for Okwara who had a hurry and forced fumble, 2 for Coney along with his PBU, and .5 for Kareem also with a PBU.
Whoops, deleted that part. But Hayes played pretty well!
Yup, the whole line did. Second 5 sack game of the year…and as the announcers mentioned several times…Hayes didn’t get the stat, but his stunting opened up a path to the QB for his teammates.
I think E was projecting the 2 sacks had rampant holding not been allowed.
^truth
Northwestern didn’t have a turnover during the game either if we’re doing minor edits.
You passed the test. Everyone else, you failed.
Thanks for the writeup, especially that fast dig into stats and putting them in a meaningful analytical context.
I do think we continue to get teams giving us their best shot, fwiw.
To all, need a bit of help — I had a very late event in Paris so had to record the game on ustvnow (can’t get most of the US-side streaming over here). But the recording stopped in the middle of the final drive. Is there any kind of long summary or even the entire game recording available anywhere? If this drive is the kind of drives potential champions make (B&G), or “gut check… thing of beauty” (Murtaugh) then I would dearly love to see it!
At the risk of jinxing it, I don’t think we’ll get Florida State’s best shot in the sub-freezing temperatures. I really hope we steamroll them.
Just checked the South Bend weather forecast on my phone and saw the little snow icon for Friday and a high of 33 on Saturday. I’m so haapppppyyy!!!!
22 degree wind chill at kickoff will probably demotivate FSU a bit.
Full replay here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee6XSHJkuKs you might need a VPN
Okwara was robbed.
I’m currently living in London and you have no idea how much of a pain in the ass it is to watch every game this season. I audibly moaned when I saw on twitter that ND-Northwestern would be a night game because that meant another day where I’d have to stay up until 4am to watch the full game.
Welcome to my world in Paris, only I have an hour later than the UK. So I truly do feel your pain!
Are there any ND bars in Paris? Thank god there’s at least a college football bar a 20-minute walk from me, it’s been a life-saver so far.
Definitely a cathedral, at the very least.
Actually no. but a couple of sports bars where sometimes one can talk them into a college game or two, on one of the TVs/. However, we have a good ND Alum Club (I am having the gang over for Thanksgiving on Sunday the 25th and a taped USC game watch, if you want to come across the Channel for the weekend!
I lived 2 years in Korea, 7 in Japan, and 1 in Afghanistan. I think I’ve got an idea. When your wife gets up at 4:30 AM Japan time to point her computer at the TV so you can watch ND lose to UCONN in Weis’s last season at 1 AM Afghan time via Skype, you know you’ve got a keeper. And probably an addiction problem.
I was at that UConn game and you probably had a better time watching it than anyone in the stadium did.
Where would the +1.5 YPP differential rank nationally? And how about +1.95YPP (the book differential)?
Like most seasons, there’s a clear elite class of teams in YPP. Here’s the AP Top 25:
1 Alabama +3.61
2 Clemson +3.59
3 Notre Dame +1.51
4 Michigan +2.48
5 Georgia +2.21
6 Oklahoma +3.52
7 WVU +1.95
8 Ohio State +0.93
9 LSU +0.03
10 Wash St +1.39
11 UCF +1.78
12 UK +0.75
13 Syracuse -0.04
14 Utah State +2.04
15 Texas -0.06
16 Fresno State +1.77
17 BC +0.98
18 Miss State +2.19
19 Florida +0.71
20 Washington +1.29
21 Penn State +1.50
22 NC State +0.27
23 Iowa State +0.97
24 Michigan State +0.16
25 Cincinnati +1.75
A handful of these could be adjusted for strength of schedule of course.
Among the P5 teams, Notre Dame is 8th but would be tied for 6th in the Book Era. I usually look at +1.0 to +1.5 as good solid teams, +1.5 to +2.0 major bowl winner candidates, and anything north of +2.0 as legit National Title contenders.
Scary thing about Alabama. Their defense doesn’t look quite as good as their usual offerings. But their offense is absurd now. Compared to 2012, their defense is giving up +0.38 YPP more. Yet, their offense is +1.22 better. 2018 Alabama is just under a full yard per play better than 2012 Alabama. Although, I think this year’s schedule has been far easier for them so that would adjust things and make them closer.
Syracuse as a negative stands out, what is the cause of that? Do they run too many plays with their tempo and bring down the average? Poor defense? For all the building hype behind them I would have expected this to be a lot better on them.
Tons of plays plus average defense.
Just looked at Syracuse’s S&P+, they are two spots BELOW Nebraska at #58.
Buzz, your girlfriend. WOOF.
Yeah I’ve been tracking them for a while. A 45 spot difference is pretty drastic. A top 13 8-2 Syracuse team is best case scenario for us. Aside from the whole yankee stadium thing, they should warrant ND full attention and they’re not actually that good. Feel like it would have to be a super flukey game to lose
Gotcha, thanks. Would think a full season of boon including ball state and Vandy would probably put us around+2 which is really encouraging and top 5/6 feels about right. Clemson has seemed like a team getting scarier by the week and that seems to reinforce that. Feels like they’re a lot closer to bama than we are to them. Oh well hope we get the chance to find out
^I know it was over 8 days ago, but I don’t remember losing to Navy.
Hahahaha. I was wondering why we had a 0% chance to get to 12 wins. Classic BK losing to Navy in a year where we have playoff hopes.
Everything is off one column – 57% (!!) of going 12-0
Also Navy is never going to be a home game for us, no matter how many of these tables get made.
The guy who runs this pulls the data from a site that has the ND/Navy scores reversed. Hopefully they’ll fix it, but Drick said, just mentally adjust everything one column to the right starting with Navy.
Does anyone have the full story on the Fitzgerald – Tillery exchange? Or was it a nothing burger.
I have a guess with 0% knowledge of what actually occurred – (That’s what the internet is for, right?)
Either ask Tillery or Tranquil (he was standing right there when it happened).
Of course, ESPN completely failed to notice what was going on.
I didn’t see it, but I saw someone say Fitz grabbed Tillery when their QB was tackled near the sideline. I’m sure Tillery got a good chuckle out of that one. Reminds me of Eddie Murphy’s bit about Eye-talians coming out of the theater after seeing Rocky.
Looked to me he was just separating guys who were getting chippy. Way overblown.
I don’t think it’s much of a thing either. Though he really shouldn’t touch an ND player.
“HEY, THAT COULD REALLY HAPPEN YOU KNOW.”
A few thoughts to add…
By S&P+ Northwestern was the toughest defense remaining, and they’re the second toughest on the entire schedule, at 32nd. Michigan is 1st, Florida State is 39th, USC is 43rd, and Syracuse is 77th.
So one way to look at the game is that we put up 31 points on a decent defense, with a TD being wiped out by a questionable penalty. Another way to look at it is that Northwestern played a virtually flawless game, got a few good breaks, and quite a bit of help from the refs and still lost by 10 at home.
Are we Alabama? No. Are we Clemson? No. But I’m not going to apologize to anyone for being ranked 3rd, and I think we’d smack the crap out of Michigan in a rematch. That offense is no better than the first time we played.
The stretch run is setting up very well for us. We’re going to get two brand name opponents when they’re extremely vulnerable and we’ll have a chance to run it up on them. We’re going to get a Syracuse team that’s waaaaay over-ranked according to advanced stats, which makes them (a) eminently beatable and (b) likely to stay in the final top 20 anyway.
A 12-0 record with a win over a top 10 (at least) Michigan and top 20 (at least) Syracuse will be plenty to get us into the playoff. STONE.
Brendan, really, nicely written. Thanks! You made me smile (albeit very faintly) before I crawl back in my cave of fears — FSU deciding they want to atone and show they are really all 5 star guys,, the fatigue of travel and the awful uniforms gets to the team in NYC, and the oh so many memories of the Trojans doing it to us out there. But before I go back in and join KG in the Cave of Horrors, let me venture a thought. Should it possibly play out the way you put it, getting the n 3 seed is crucial — simply to avoid playing the Death Star with the Evil Genius of Saban getting six weeks to prep. Not sure we can exact revenge for ’15 and the hurricane but it would be tons of fun to try — then yeah, if we make it through, then line it up for the Tide and see if we can make it 6 wins vs 2 losses against them (to this effect, note BK’s remark in his College Gameday interview Saturday.)
Speaking of CGD, who would have guessed in August that there would even be a possibility of going to BC & ‘Cuse games in consecutive weeks?
Because what we all need is ESPN’s wall to wall coverage of our horrible uniform choices.
Alabama looks like crap day in and day out & no one says a thing.
@@@ ME
Crimson/maroon is the ugliest color.
Alabama crimson >>>>>>> maroon
Lots of wiggle room there. I agree maroon sucks.
I don’t understand why people are stressing about the playoff (and I agree 95%). If we win out, we’re in. It’s not even a question. If we lose to one of the teams remaining on our schedule, this late in the season, we’re out. It’s all we could want, really, if like me you believe that any 1-loss ND team would more than likely be left out of the playoff anyway.
On Michigan…hell, they’re playing good football and have a great defense. I don’t think they’d beat the crap out of us. My feelings are the standard dread I always have thinking about playing Michigan, because in my head a loss to Michigan is worse than anything else in the football world. They’ve improved (and they’ve gotten better on offense, come on) but so have we. S&P+ has them ahead of us, but we’ve got the head to head win. I’m not worried about them jumping us to knock us out of a playoff spot, unless we lose.
Getting there should be the focus, and to do that, we just have to keep winning. Then we’ll have a month to worry about stopping Bama or Clemson. And there’s really no pressure, because literally ZERO pundits will pick us to win against either. Go out, play loose, see what happens, and maybe we get lucky. I agree with More Noise that we’d rather play Clemson in the first round, but my larger point is that even if we lose by 50, everyone will go “yep. Bama/Clemson is that good” much more than they’ll say “Wow, ND is bad.” Being a playoff team is HUGE for us–showing we can do it, that it’s possible despite being an independent, etc., will help with recruiting, but more importantly in the long run it’s going to help in our next coaching search. That’s why I think this is so important.
Also we might win.
Covered under the “Go out, play loose, see what happens, and maybe we get lucky.”
Roger all, KG. No differences between us. We agree on preferring Clemson for semi-finals; my rationale is just that Saban has developed an incredible ability to use a long prep period — Dabo is clearly quite the coach, but in this aspect not in Saban’s league either.
I also like the thought of scUM’s defense knocking Tua around a bit before whoever has to face bama the next week. Maybe tightens things up in Tua’s head and the NC game becomes much closer
Leading to decades worth of Michigan fans screaming “WE LOOSENED THE JAR” and claiming a half a national title.
Would that be followed by Nebraska fans claiming a quarter of it?
I seriously doubt they do any knocking around of Tua. Michigan isn’t in the same galaxie as Bama. I also doubt that Michigan would score more than 10 points, if that.
ND led by Book is much better than the Wimbush led team that beat UM. I pick us in a rematch.
Wait are you backing off your 11-1 prediction? FLIP FLOPPER
My 9-3 prediction still has a chance.
Which TD was wiped out? i’m racking my brains trying to recall…even with the help of the play-by-play.
If you all don’t listen to the Irish Sports Daily Podcast, our old pal Jamie Uyeyama almost blew a gasket talking to Mike on it today. Mike Frank was going off about one particular play where ND gave up a third down completion on one of Northwestern’s scoring drives, and using that as a overall criticism of the defense. Jamie was listing off all the statistical rankings for ND’s defense in S&P+, which overall is the #3 defense according to him. Mike retorted with “but we haven’t played any good offenses.” Now, if you’re like Mike and don’t know, S&P+ is opponent-adjusted, meaning that it takes into account your competition and weights it based on how they do against you vs. how they do on average in their other games. Jaime was trying his hardest not to scream at Mike when he was like “Mike…MIKE…S&P+ IS OPPONENT ADJUSTED!!” It was pretty funny.
I used to listen to Mike Frank until 2014 when he had on a Michigan blogger to talk about what would become the 37-0 game. The Michigan blogger pulled the usual Wolverine BS of “You’re only canceling the series because you’re chicken” line, and Frank actually agreed with him. Shut it off, and I haven’t listened since.
Needless to say, I don’t put up with Wolverine collaborators.
I mostly listen for the other guys at this point.