There were dark clouds on the horizon when Rice kicked off to Notre Dame to start the 2014 season, both in the sky, and surrounding the program after an academic fraud investigation saw five players suspended for this game. Regardless, Notre Dame looked impervious and acted and played like they had a huge stash of umbrellas to keep them dry for the first Saturday of the season.
Here’s your Hangover:
RUNNING WILD
One of the “running” jokes this offseason has been about Brian Kelly calling a pass play 110% of the time. (God, I love puns). Some Irish fans didn’t have a lot of confidence in Brian Kelly creating an offensive gameplan “worthy of Notre Dame.”
Hopefully, this game will help calm the nerves and excite the old souls of the Gold Seats. The Irish ran for 281 yards while throwing for 295 yards. That’s a total and a differential that everyone loves to see.
Both Greg Bryant and Tarean Folston ran for 71 each with the former also getting (diving) into the endzone for a touchdown. Cam McDaniel looked very Cam McDanielish, and Everett Golson added 3 rushing touchdowns to his resume (One designed run, one scramble, and one Mr. Wolf problem fixing run). Add that all together with an over 50 yard run from backup quarterback Malik Zaire on his very first play ever at Notre Dame and you have something more resembling the “glory years” than we saw at any point last year.
All eyes turn to the Michigan game to see if this trend continues.
THROWING BONES
Despite all of that running love we just talked about, the most exciting plays of the day came through the air. BUT HOW IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE? I mean after all, according to a large number of people, Notre Dame didn’t have the experience required at the position to give good results.
We know that’s a bunch of crap. Everett Golson hit 7 different players with passes, and 4 of those players had over 50 yards of receiving. Even without DaVaris Daniels, this group of receivers (including tight ends and running backs) is as athletic and deep of a group as we have had at Notre Dame.
Even with all of that talent producing, at some point this season, that “go-to” receiver will emerge. It doesn’t really matter who it is, and as long as the group performs like this, the offense will be undeniably dangerous to opposing teams.
A SPECIAL SPECIAL
There was a lot of excitement Saturday involving the return game. Hell, we were just happy it showed up. Not only did it show up, it was a weapon and something that could serve Notre Dame nicely this season.
While almost all of the special teams attention this week was on the return game, I have to give recognition to Notre Dame’s one man kicking machine, Kyle Brindza. Yes, Brindza missed a 39 yard field goal, but his kicks were pretty dominant. Her’s what Kyle did:
- 2 for 3 FG’s
- 7 of 9 kickoffs were touchbacks.
- 3 punts that averaged over 48 yards a punt.
Thar’s a ton of hidden yardage, and something that will help decide football games this fall.
CLEAN SHAVEN
Mike Frank said in a podcast last week that he wanted to see a really clean game from Notre Dame regardless of what the margin of victory was from the Irish. He got his wish with zero turnovers and only two penalties. The two penalties were both committed by Nick Martin and both were snap infractions. I’ll take that.
WRAPPING UP
I’m really ready to move on, but I have to at least share some of my defensive notes from Saturday.
- Although it looked far more aggressive than in the recent past, the Notre Dame defense played a mostly vanilla type of game. I really like the new looks, and things should get crazier this week.
- Joe Schmidt led the way with 8 tackles, and more than looked the part on Saturday. Almost all of my preseason/spring doubts about Schmidt are now gone. He’s a football player- and I am going to run with it:
- Jaylon Smith is a sick, sick individual. Smith only had 3 tackles, but he looked like the best football player in the stadium. I’m curious as to how his role expands this week.
- Mathias Farley loves Dylan Thomas. He will not go gently into that good night. The former starter had seemed to be an afterthought to most once he started to get moved around the defense; and yet all he did Saturday was make 5 tackles and grab an interception. The old man lives.
- Speaking of defensive backs… hopefully some of the kinks are getting worked out this week. A lot is asked of them with the blitz packages, and communication needs to be improved.
MOVING ON
I’m ready for the Skunkbear Hunt- so… we done here.
