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Snap Judgments: Michigan St. @ Notre Dame

Lightning soon struck in the form of Holmes, who sprinted 73 yards untouched into the end zone, an exclamation point on a dominant stretch of football by Michigan State. But a curious decision at best by Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly ended any chance of a Notre Dame victory. “When you get into that kind of hole it’s hard to dig out of”, he said. “But their team is a challenge, if that’s what you mean”. The Irish offense again could not stay on the field long, responding with a three-and-out, and a exhausted defense was quickly sent out to once more try and weather the storm. Any guy that we put on the field now is a true freshman. If the Irish can get a few things figured out, they can easily salvage the season with wins over either Stanford and Miami, and then beat the teams they should beat on the rest of the schedule. Like I said earlier, they pride themselves on the same things that we do. We were focused right now on beating Michigan State.

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Barring some sort of 2007-like level of chaos, Notre Dame has been eliminated from playoff contention, meaning we probably don’t have to worry about the “quality” of the losses going forward.

“We can cry all we want about what we didn’t do, but we got to start doing it”.

The Irish brought their 251st straight home sellout to its feet late in the second half, scoring 21 unanswered points to account for the final.

On Notre Dame’s next possession, Kizer was sacked for a 5-yard loss by Raequan Williams on third-and-2 and Notre Dame punted with 3:37 left in the game and the Spartans ran out the clock. Now quarterback Tyler O’Connor and the number twelve ranked MSU Spartans look to win on the road tonight.

Yes, Josh Adams is a much better running back than Cam McDaniel, and while we made comparisons between the Irish ground game of 2011-13 and Notre Dame’s rushing attack of today, surely the Irish were going to do better than the 3.2 yards per carry of those three games against the Spartans.

– Written by Jon Kinne, who is part of the Athlon Contributor Network and a college football fanatic. Notre Dame’s defense gave up 501 net yards on 78 plays.

“DeShone Kizer is not going to be asked to carry us”, Kelly snapped. Quarterback Deshone Kizer led the comeback in the fourth quarter with a trio of TD’s but a costly interception and several badly placed sequences that saw ND go three downs and out really killed the team’s momentum. It’s our job as coaches to coach them better and get them in position to make the plays necessary for us to be successful. If St. Brown and Torii Hunter Jr. can shake the Michigan State secondary and get open, the Irish should score in droves.

Kelly pointed to two mistakes on special teams. The defense can’t do that. We’re sloppy as a football team. “What we can’t get caught up in is the emotion of a game like this where words turn into poor actions”.

Kelly’s disgust was shared by players, one of whom, senior linebacker James Onwualu, seemed nearly defiant afterwards with his short answers.

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A frustrated Kelly accepted blame for the loss in the post-game press conference. It was insane. Then I watched (a replay) a couple minutes ago, and it looked exactly the same. On the other side, MSU defensive tackle Malik McDowell is an elite player that is listed as a top 10 overall NFL Draft pick in some of the very early mocks.

Senior linebacker James Onwaulu tackles the ball carrier during Notre Dame's 36-28 loss to Michigan State on Saturday