With all due respect to the first two opponents on the Notre Dame schedule, everyone with a pulse knew in August that this season will likely be determined by what happens next Saturday at Georgia.
Nothing has changed in that department after the Irish’s 66-14 rout of New Mexico, a game that bore a slight resemblance to last year’s Ball State no-show early on before settling into the blowout it should’ve been. It was also a game that, due to the nature of the opponent, didn’t answer any questions about Notre Dame. Those will have to wait until next Saturday.
Best thing about the day: The D
These reactions generally focus on the offense, understandably so given how important Ian Book and the passing game is to the Irish’s success. Today, the best part of the game was ND’s defense, which apart from a couple of silly pass interference penalties pretty much shut down an admittedly poor Lobos attack. Their strong start covered up for a slow offensive start.
New Mexico had over 360 yards of offense, but since essentially the entire second half was garbage time, that number is meaningless. What mattered was that UNM’s only real prayer of moving the ball in the first half was pass interference. The ND defense clearly had no interest in the kind of sloppy start that plagued it against Louisville. Also, Sheriron Jones was basically just whipping the ball out there to see what happened:
Not that our QB is lighting the world on fire but New Mexico’s QB looks like he doesn’t care one bit of a throw is within 10 yards of a receiver. It’s just leaving his arm.
— 18 Stripes (@18stripes) September 14, 2019
But you didn’t come to this section to hear me tell you things. You came to watch freshman Kyle Hamilton do ball-hawking stuff. Well, my friends, here you are:
TIP DRILL TD@DaelinHayes_IX sets it up and @kham316 brings it to the house for six to start the scoring today.#GoIrish☘️ #UNMvsND pic.twitter.com/zrjsDkSHXe
— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) September 14, 2019
He’s fun. Also, that was a nice boost early after the disappointing failure to score on the opening drive.
Book: Back?
The first couple of ND possessions showed us the same messy Ian Book stuff as the Louisville game did. But after Avery Davis (how about the speed on that guy?) raced to the end zone, that seemed to kick Book in the butt, and he looked far better the rest of the game. The stats looked better than Book did – 15/24, 360 yards, 5 TD, but about a third of those yards came on two pop ‘passes’ in the backfield – but seeing him wing a couple of nice deep balls to Chase Claypool in the first half alleviated a few worries.
We can’t stop.@Ian_Book12 hits @ChaseClaypool in stride for a 37-yard TD, our fifth of the half.
All of this was made possible thanks to the third Irish INT of the day by @ShaunCrawf20.
NM 0 | #7 ND 35
1:39 2Q | NBC#GoIrish☘️ #UNMvsND pic.twitter.com/MEmhTciWbg— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) September 14, 2019
And hey, if anything bad happens to him, Phil Jurkovec and Brendon Clark both led TD drives, so they’re basically just as good, right? (Don’t answer that. And knock on wood.)
Running game: Issue
Far be it from me to complain after ND beat a team by 52, but man, the Irish really aren’t gonna be able to run it on Georgia, are they? For chunks of the first half, the push by the offensive line was straight-up nonexistent, which seems bad considering they were playing a bad Mountain West team. Even with all the good stuff that happened today, ND only averaged 4.1 yards per rush (again, garbage time, but it’s not like the reserves were dragging the stats down that much), and Book’s 46 yards led the team on the ground. C’Bo Flemister led the running backs in carries, with seven (hey, no one got used up) but gained minus-2 yards (um, alright).
This team really misses Jafar Armstrong.
Hi, young guys!
Our review will go more in depth on this, but we saw a ton of guys we’ve never or rarely seen before today, and there was a lot to like. Brendon Clark displayed mobility and toughness at QB. Braden Lenzy showed off his speed and a little bit of tackle-breaking ability on his TD catch. Javon McKinley did some stuff, to put it mildly.
Touchdown Irish.
Javon McKinley makes SIX GUYS MISS on his way to six more points for the Irish.
NM 0 | #7 ND 28
3:21 2Q | NBC#GoIrish☘️ #UNMvsND pic.twitter.com/NQeibe1ZcH— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) September 14, 2019
Standard garbage-time caveats apply, but these are the kinds of potential future difference-makers that you didn’t see outside the starting lineup very often until recently at ND. Talent is not the issue this season, for sure.
Next week will essentially decide the season. Go Irish.
(Photo credit: South Bend Tribune)
Not for sure if I can agree that the best part of today’s game was our D. Sure our pass defense was fine but not our run defense which has been a glaring hole for this team over these first two games. Other than that I am pretty happy with what I saw today.
Yeah, I thought the D was just trying to get out of there without getting hurt. Didn’t really give a lot of respect or extend a big effort here. And, I mean, I don’t blame them. They didn’t need to. Nothing they would or wouldn’t do today means that much to me.
On a side note though, if you only watched the game film of this year you’d probably think Daelin Hayes was the All-American DE candidate. That’s good, but also kinda damning praise for what Okwara and Kareem were supposed to do. Let’s see it next week, plz.
Oh yeah, and on the first one, there was a massive hold of Drew White right in the hole. Massive. Check the replay, the OL yanked him backwards hard.
Edit: In the interests of fairness… I just realized that the 44 carries for 128 yards includes the bad snap on the FG. Take that out and it’s 43 carries for 156 yards. Still just 3.6 per carry with about 35 minutes of garbage time though.
Also, their starting QB was 4/15 for 19 yards with 3 INTs. Of course I don’t think that portends dominance against Georgia, but I didn’t see anything on defense that portends disaster either.
First string D gave up one big play in the first half when we were up 35-0. Maybe the third string D – not sure who all was in, but we were waaaaay down the bench – gave up another in the fourth quarter when we were up 66-7. Other than that, UNM had 128 yards on 44 carries, or 2.9 yards per carry. I think in context the run D was fine.
The only concern I have coming out of this game is the run offense. It just doesn’t look like it’s there yet. Maybe Jahmir Smith’s return will help, but that’s a lot to ask of him.
On the subject of the run offense, I just want to say that the inclusion of the yards from the touch passes (essentially jet sweeps) in the passing yards instead of rushing yards skews the stats in what I think is a misleading way. I do agree it’s a problem though.
I feel ridiculous complaining about a 52 point win and the most points scored since 1977, but here I go anyway.
The running game is a major problem. We are going to struggle hard against Georgia. I can say this with certainty because we struggled hard against a terrible UNM team that gave up an average of 370 yards on the ground in the last quarter of last season. Average. Perhaps having Smith back will help, and Kmet back in the passing game can’t hurt, but I can’t see us having the same kind of explosiveness against Georgia, and since we cant string together sustained drives with effective running, I just dont see a way to keep it close.
Is there any chance that the ND game plan for Saturday was “win with the passing game and only have the offensive line do the bare minimum to get a decent win to lull Georgia into a false sense of security,” and that it actually worked this time instead of how those “see if Brandon Wimbush can win with his arm and not his legs” games went last year against Ball State and Vanderbilt?
Please?!?
The first quarter was really really bad (Hamilton aside). Then it was like they remembered what was going on.
I feel good about Book late, he was confident and making good throws. Tough to have a lot of confidence for him on the road next week but oh well.
“Next week will essentially decide the season.”
Is it weird to not agree? This doesn’t really look like a playoff team, certainly with their best RB, TE and second best WR out hurt. Next week, objectively, they’re playing a more talented team in their house. Should lose.
To me the Michigan game at this point decides the season, and that’s it it’s a NY6 season or something forgettable. I mean next week alters the course of the season, no doubt, but that course seems pretty obvious at this point that UGA is better in almost every area.
I agree with the last sentiment but have been thinking of virgins as the game that defines the season. Beat them you should be 5-1 heading to the bye and getting most if not all your skill guys back with a chance to legitimately improve during the second half of the season.
Clearly this team has placed a huge emphasis on Georgia and I’m concerned there will be a huge hangover no matter what. We’ll be two touchdown dogs and should they lose by 20+ how will the team respond. The Nd game will be Virginia measuring stick game
Big game against the virgins.
Should be an easy win. Those guys have never scored.
Hopefully this game is remembered as that time they tried the sideline sky cam, and then got rid of it forever.
Relatedly: that camera angle on the McKinley touchdown is sweet as a replay. It was terrible as the angle for live play.
Two comments:
1. It’s official, Gameday at Athens next week.
2. Met a Georgia fan at a concert tonight. I said good luck, you guys look good this year, gonna be tough for us in your house. He said yeah, but we have a bad habit of falling flat on our faces in a big game every year instead of winning out.
There was a whole lot to like from this game. Looking at the schedule, after next week, I can see us being favored in each game and ND running the table. The problem is next week.
The team that runs the ball best next week is going to win the game. I just don’t see that being ND in any way. If ND can’t run the ball their big play chances dwindle as they become one dimensional. If Georgia can run the ball, they become much more dangerous. I don’t see our front seven being stout enough to stop them. If I’m wrong and the run games turn out even, then we’re going to see one hell of a football game.
My guess is that next week the run game will be Book
Georgia’s LBs will break him if he’s running constantly. They are not small and they are not slow.
Asmar had himself a game. Hamilton looks like the real deal. I consider the two touch passes for touchdowns as part of the run game. That would add plenty of yardage to our run game. I don’t know if we’ll have success with them against GA, but it should give them something to think about.
What was with the two scoring plays for NM? Those plays seemed very similar to me. I don’t want to see GA doing that to us.
I definitely favor GA, but they still have to play the game. I’ll be downplaying ND’s chances to all of my friends here in DAWG country, but I think there is definitely a chance for an upset.
Quick note on a comment thread here that I deleted… An unusual handle posted a comment that had some of you wondering what the heck was going on. I didn’t want that to spin out of control, so I removed the thread and want to drop a quick explanation here.
When we post articles here, we usually grab lead photos from either places that we’ve checked with before or that we think are probably OK with proper attribution. Sometimes we’re wrong, and that’s what happened this time – the photographer who took that picture for their client took issue with the reproduction of it here. We completely understand that as it’s their effort and expense that goes into creating that photo; we’re an amateur sports commentary site, but of course we respect professionals and we want to do things the right way.
The photographer created that handle to raise the issue with us and also contacted us via Twitter DM. Some of you may have noticed our Twitter correction last night about the lead photo, which was the outcome of that. It was all resolved quickly and professionally; we certainly don’t harbor any ill will towards the photographer and I’d hate for the fun-snarky commenting culture we all know and love so much here to upset them as an unwitting participant in it.
TL,DR: We messed up and it’s fixed. On to Georgia!
How can both “we’re an amateur sports commentary site” and “It was all resolved quickly and professionally” be true?!?
Sounds like Brendan just talked his way into a cut of this photographer’s earnings!
Heh, not a chance bud… We can try to act like the professionals while still being unpaid, no? Imitation is, after all, the sincerest form of flattery.
[signs commission check]