OK. This hasn’t been the most ideal last week and a half. A thousand apologies are in order to the loyal Subway Domer readers for the almost total lack of readable material. I suppose I could offer a bunch of reasons/excuses, but I’m sure we are way beyond that now. What’s worse, is that it is continuing into this week. I will turn the dial up to 11 soon enough.
Until then, we have something to wrap up…
Stanford. As per the usual custom as of late, this Hangover will be a little more unorthodox that the usual (but what is the usual anymore?)
Nobody likes excuses. Nobody wants to sit around and read or listen to someone go on and on about something that had no “direct” effect on another. So, I won’t be offended if you just click off this insanely built story right the fuck now. Still with me? Good.
I’m not sure what all of us collectively expected in this game, but if we had the ability to take a step back- it would never be as gruesome as some of you out there are making this 28-14 loss out to be. I’m not going to candy-coat this shit, but I will offer valid points as to why ND was unable to win.
- Andrew Luck is a Heisman caliber quarterback and most likely the first pick in next years draft. There really isn’t much more to say after that. The other team’s quarterback was a billionty times better than anyone on our roster. That’s a hard thing to overcome. However… despite the 4 TD passes, Luck looked like a lot of college quarterbacks that we have seen over the past decade. Credit that to the Notre Dame defense. They played about as well as I had hoped.
- Injuries. The fatal blow really. I think we all saw just how important Braxston Cave is to this offense. Golic was just not up to the task. Besides the mental errors from Golic, he was physically dominated at the point of attack. It made for a bad mix while Stanford dialed up their blitzes.
- Injuries. Jonas Gray anyone? On a field THAT TERRIBLY SHITTY IT SHOULD BE NUKED BY THE US GOVERMENT, Notre Dame could have really used a bigger back that has been running as well as anyone in the country.
- Injuries. While Stanford was rotating in running backs lefet and right, the Notre Dame defensive line was tiring down. Ethan Johnson still doesn’t look 100% and the loss of KLM is still seen on a few different levels. The absence of Stephon Tuitt was just another kick to the nuts of a unit that has been deep and strong all season.
That really should be enough reason to see how Notre Dame lost… on the road… to a top 5 team… playing against a Heisman front-runner at QB… by 14 points. At what point in the season did we expect to wipe our asses with Stanford- especially after last year? This game shouldn’t be an indictment of Brian Kelly or the Notre Dame program; instead it is just another measuring mark for a program that still has a lot of improvement to do.
Seriously- get your heads out of your asses.
As far as our own QB situation is concerned, I find it exhausting to debate. Rees is not the answer, but did you really expect Kelly to change the starter at QB while ND was winning? Perhaps this loss was a blessing in disguise. It may now allow a TRUE competition for the starting job in the spring and the summer. This thing ain’t going to be be done for a while, but when it is, we may finally have the right QB, in the right offense for Brian Kelly.
I’m going to leave it at that. If you feel that I left something out, or I’m completely out of my mind (I am currently on a TON of drugs of the legal nature)- please enlighten me. If you wanrt to play the role of typical NDNation.com poster… I’m game for that to asshole.
Let’s go bowling.
