Welcome to your Hangover post after a 23-17 victory over PITT and a few days to stew on it. In many ways, the 2010 version of The Fighting Irish have developed a new identity for itself, and is starting to finally tear away from the Weis era, but it still has a little ways to go.
I have railed about wanting a football team that just drops the hammer, steps on the gas, cuts the fucking throat- whatever cliche’ you want to use. I am tired of the games coming down to the final moments. I’ve had enough of those over the past 2 years to last me 20.
However… I’ll always take a win. Notre Dame evened the score with its schedule and pushed its record to 3-3 and gave itself new life and hope for a season that was uncertain after the 1-3 start. Sure, we all saw some progress and thought that the team was better than the record that they produced, but could we have endured a 2-4 or 1-5 start? Probably not. We would have been as emotionally unbalanced as a pregnant woman in her 7th month of pregnancy.
What a fucking tool. A complete tool. When I saw Pitt’s fullback, Henry Hynoski, walking into Notre Dame Stadium with a pair of boxing gloves around is neck, all I could think of was… TOOLBOX SUPREME DOUCHE. Are you fucking kidding me? You are walking on a campus with a set of boxing gloves, that holds an event called “Bengal Bouts” where a kid from Dillon Hall would knock your ass out like Tyson vs. Spinks. Seriously. Tommy Zbikowski has wrote your name down, and when you make the practice squad for the Ravens- he will own your fat ass.
Too harsh? I think not.
Welcome back, Mr.Floyd. For most of the season, Michael Floyd has looked a little lost in this new offense. He is still putting up decent numbers, but things haven’t looked “right.” Against Pitt, Floyd hauled in 7 receptions for 59 yards and a touchdown. The real proof is in two plays that were called back for a penalty. Both were 44 yard receptions, with one of those being a touchdown late in the game that would have been the stamp on a win.
Floyd looked in sync with Crist, and he was doing all of the things that Brian Kelly asks his wide receivers to do in his spread offense. It has took half of a season for Floyd to get to this level, and he has another half to blow that level up.
David Ruffer has quietly become one of the best kickers in the country. No one saw this coming, No one. Most of us were convinced that Tausch would retain his kicking duties in 2010 that he appeared to have solidified after a solid freshman year in 2009. However, Kelly’s promise that he would hold the players to a different standard than before and create competition was fulfilled when Ruffer won the job in August.
Ruffer was the difference in this game. I had to laugh when i watched the UND.com post-game show and heard Brooks and Jurkovic talking about how Ruffer would get “no vote” from them for the MVP award of the game. Typical for former players, but it didn’t make a fact become untrue. Ruffer was the MVP on Saturday with his 3 field goals being the difference in the win/loss column with one of those FG’s being a beautiful 50 yard kick that looked good from further.
Make no mistake about it. David Ruffer is on track to become an All-American at this rate.
Rudolph needs some rest. It is painful to watch. Kyle Rudolph is giving everything that he has to give for this football team and this university, but it’s too much and not enough. This hamstring injury of his has slowed Rudolph down from being the best TE in the country to becoming a liability in Notre Dame’s offense. He is unable to fire out of his stance to block, and his routes are far too short to take advantage of the mismatches he was supposed to create.
The dropped pass by Mike Ragone was like taking a knife and slicing Rudolph’s hammy a little more. Eifert is banged up, and Golic probably isn’t quite ready. Notre Dame needs someone to step up and help fill the TE depth chart for a few weeks. Kyle needs rest, and an ordered rest. He is too much of a football player to not give 110% on everything he does… so you need to sit him. Save him. Savor him at the end of the month. Hell, the way we recruit TE’s, I wouldn’t mind seeing a little bit of Alex Welch if the situation arises.
(And right before I was going to publish this… I find out that Rudolph is out for the year.)
Happy 21st Birthday Dayne Crist. You know, people are really warming up to the color commentary that Mike Mayock is giving us each week. I didn’t think that I would be one of those people, but when he talked about what he “knew” Dayne would be doing that night, I had to tip my cap to him. Haden would have barely brought it up, and treated the audience like a bunch of 7 year old girls.
Say what you want about Harrison Smith’s past performances, he continues to develop himself into good safety. He had 11 tackles against Pitt which was 1st on the team and he had an interception and two pass break-ups. His tackles have been sound, and if you go back and watch the game, he was laying the wood on guys all day long. He has come a long way in a short time, and we should give him more credit this year after getting moved back and forth as a safety and linebacker for 3 years.
“Ian Williams is quietly becoming one of the best nose tackles in the country.” That quote, was another one from Mike Mayock. He is really impressed with the way that Ian has `played this season, and how disruptive he has been from the nose in the 3-4. He also felt that Ian might have played his best game of his career against Pitt.
Everybody needs a little help sometimes. Manti Te’o is no exception. Manti had somewhat of a quiet game as he registered 5 tackles against Pitt. We could over-analyze that stat, but it would be a disservice to those who stepped up, who showed that the dead weight is shedding itself from the defense. Harrison had 11 tackles, while the next in line was Calabrese with 9- after that, 4 players (including Te’o) had 5 tackles and 4 more players each had 4. Distribution of pain.
This defense isn’t going to knock your socks off with impressive play after impressive play… but they are solid. Solid and stout once they get their back against the goaline. The ND defense has only allowed 7 TD’s in the last 19 trips for our opponents into the redzone, and only 3 in the last 11. The “bend but don’t break” style can be frustrating at times, but this is proving to be a pretty stiff defense.
In the last 3 games, Notre Dame has allowed 166 (Stanford), 5 (BC), and 110 (Pitt) yards rushing. That’s an average of 93 yards per game in the last 3 games. The numbers may seem a little screwy, because of the BC game, but even if you would give BC 50 yards rushing instead of the 5, the average would be around 108 yards per game. I’ll take that.
As the rushing yards seem to go down, there isn’t a significant increase in the passing totals, from what we are used to from Notre Dame. In the same last 3 games, the passing yards averaged out to about 258 yards (not great), but in that same span, they have only allowed 3 passing TD’s as opposed to 4 interceptions, and have only allowed 5 TD’s over that same span.
This unit is getting better, and it is better than most people think.
Wrapping up and moving forward. I have so much more I could talk about from penalties to closing games, but I’m just going to wrap this up with saying that we are 3-3. 3-3 with a legitimate chance at ending the regular season at 9-3 or 8-4; either way should see Notre Dame in the Champs Sports Bowl (the new bowl game tie-in instead of the Gator; still ACC opponent). That may be looking too far ahead, but it is within reach and the season has a more profound meaning.
Bring on Western Michigan. Use it as the game to blow up. I’ll predict 56-0 right now, just to have some fun with it. You’ll thank me later.
