The Irish are no more the feisty, starving underdog they’ll soon be portrayed as than the fattened-up fraud many regarded them to be at the start of the year.
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Given Notre Dame’s victory over Georgia Tech, there is a sound possibility that GameDay will come to witness both Clemson and Notre Dame as undefeated teams going head-to-head on October 3. Had Tech won, perhaps players might have observed how fresh they felt because of the lighter load in the first two weeks.
But when it was all said and done Saturday evening, the 8th-ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish took care of business, 30-22. Notre Dame’s three wide receivers all ran “go” routes down the field.
The longest run in stadium history put the Irish up by 23 points in the fourth quarter, but No. 14 Georgia Tech rallied in the final minute before Notre Dame held on for a 30-22 win. One of my biggest knocks on him is that he does not consistently come off the line with speed, often telegraphing his short breaking routes.
He’s one of four elite QBs, all varying in styles, that hit the Irish schedule in the next month – with Clemson’s Deshaun Watson, Navy’s Keenan Reynolds and USC’s Cody Kessler all queued up. DeShone Kizer replaced Zaire last week, and he was fantastic against Georgia Tech.
After the timeout, Tech runs the same shift and then runs counter option to the weak side.
But before the snap, Schmidt and Martini shift to the outside to balance out the formation with Tranquill moving from outside linebacker to safety. Instead he’s diagnosed the play and scrapes to the outside. Luatua, a brutish blocker started, and both Weishar and Jones drew first blood as receivers. We’ll make sure that he tackles.
This shows a nice adjustment by BVG and Bobby Elliot after getting burned by this formation repeatedly against Navy previous year . If Searcy can seal the edge defender, then it leaves the elusive Thomas one-on-one with a defensive back and a lot of running room ahead of him.
Compounding Georgia Tech’s problems, there was a rash of injuries.
“Moving the fronts around, giving him different edge looks”.
And someday maybe the Notre Dame defensive lineman will look back, and the indelible takeaway will be how much that didn’t matter.
Shumate shuffles a few feet in the wrong direction. After Saturday, all I heard the experts talk about was how great of a game Leonard Fournette played for LSU.
Ultimately the grade is going to be higher due to the yards and scores that were produced, but there were opportunities for even better play and production. That’s just what Drue Tranquill does in every aspect of his life. And Georgia Tech’s preparation and execution will yield dividends when Navy comes a callin’ on the 10th of October.
There’s not a lot more to go over schematically.
“You rely on your leaders to make certain that they hold everybody accountable to the way they prepare and, ultimately, the way they play”.
Here’s an examples of a good play. Sheldon Day is disruptive enough on the line and, although the secondary lacks numbers, KeiVarae Russell and Cole Luke are a strong pair of corners as Elijah Shumate entrenches himself as one of Notre Dame’s most productive veterans. “You can’t play anybody else’s position”. “But I was really pleased with the big picture stuff”.
Unfortunately for Georgia Tech, they had a number of issues in blocking. Fuller also turned a screen play – with an unblocked cornerback – into a 27-yard gain. Brown was solid as a blocker on the edge.
Right tackle Mike McGlinchey had his best game of the season, although he must continue working on keeping his eyes up when working double teams.
The tackle falls down and the guard block no one. It will be important that the Yellow Jackets learn from the loss against Notre Dame and apply it towards this week and the rest of the season. We gave up some huge third downs. Ohio State had five turnovers in all, but still managed to extend the nation’s longest winning streak to 16 games.
The Fighting Irish have to be concerned about their offensive flow.
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Now let’s hope this carries over to the Navy game.
