“A$3 poor start, whatever way you want to characterize it”.
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We’ll see if Notre Dame can fix its pressure problem and/or buck last year’s trend over these next nine-to-10 games. And if we’re just in a better position, a better football position, if we just put ourselves in front of the ball carrier and get run over and hold on for dear life, they’re only going to get another yard or two. Michigan State for years has had one of the best run defenses in the country, so give them credit for stopping Notre Dame’s ground game.
This is OConnors first season as Michigan States starter after he waited his turn behind Connor Cook. “That’s what we talked about over the last day or so”. Kelly said Rochell needs to “let it go” and move from being close to getting to the quarterback to actually getting to the quarterback.
“I think we knew each other well”, Chryst said. “He’s so talented, and he makes so many plays for us, and just some of the routine things he sometimes has trouble with”. We play really well for a period of time, and then we kind of don’t play at the highest level necessary against really good competition.
It’s hard to believe that two teams from the same conference haven’t played in four years, but that’s the reality these days with unbalanced schedules, expansion and realignment.
Connecticut’s Chiney Ogwumike earned comeback player of the year honors after recovering from microfracture surgery in her right knee that sidelined her last year.
Brian Kelly on defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder: “He’s coaching his butt off”.
“Well, I have to be able to know that everything in the program is being taught, being effectively communicated on a day-to-day basis”, Kelly said. It means that I have to be aware of what the game plan is.
“I don’t need a headset, I don’t need to be on the defensive side of the ball coaching tackling”, he said. He’s been running things since the Lakers put him in charge of their program in 1991.
“I don’t need a headset”.
On Tuesday, Kelly said he and VanGorder maintain a cordial working relationship.
The final scoreboard didn’t reflect the beating that Michigan State put on Notre Dame in South Bend last weekend but it was clear to everyone who watched for nearly three quarters who the better team was. “We’ve got to do a better job coaching it”. “I have great respect for all my coaches”. I wanted them all last week.
“We have a chain of command”. It’s just business as usual. Michigan State is good, again, right now. Saturday night, redshirt freshman Raequan Williams took his first step forward in claiming more playing time as the season progresses. He finished eight-of-12 passing for 112 yards and one touchdown, and the one interception he threw went through his own receiver’s hands first. “Once you get out there, you have to be an athlete, you gotta be a player”.
■The physical brand of Spartans football – punishing defense and running game – doesn’t light up scoreboards. In that way the season sets up auspiciously: They should be favored in every game, starting Saturday against Wisconsin, all the way to a colossal October 29 showdown with MI. The Badgers’ next five games might be the toughest of anyone in the country: at Michigan State, at Michigan, vs. Ohio State, at Iowa, vs. Nebraska. When the Irish do go to the air, Kelly said he expects junior quarterback DeShone Kizer to step up and play with a objective.
“Colleagues in it together to get the most out of our players”, Kelly said.
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Kelly said they will try to expand the role of freshman receiver Chase Claypool. “We had seven plays in a row that were negative plays that are just unacceptable offensively”. “That’s why, from my perspective, I look at it a little bit differently than maybe everybody else in our fan base, that the sky is not falling”. They’re a very good team that will lose to other very good teams.
