Buechele tossed a costly interception late in the third quarter, and Notre Dame capitalized with a touchdown – pulling within three points of Texas after being down by 17. That was certainly not the case on Sunday. Jones now leads the nation in rushing following his 249-yard, two touchdown performance. His stock continues to be on the rise.
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This week will undoubtedly be a week of running for the Spartans as penance for the poor play and unforgivable amount of penalties they picked up against Furman. For a re-tooled offensive line, they protected pretty well and ran the ball pretty well. Freshman safety Devin Studstill had four tackles in his debut and could start this week with safety Avery Sebastian being evaluated for a concussion. But this week, Texas Tech (at Arizona State), TCU (Arkansas) and Iowa State (at Iowa) carry the Big 12 banner in marquee games.
I have no doubt that Notre Dame was ready for Texas, which is why the victory is even more impressive.
The Pack is a run-first offense out of the Pistol formation. Both of them sustained head injuries, so they’ll go through our battery of tests and we’ll see how they are today and proceed from there. Turns out, Studstill was exhausted of it as well, and he broke coverage to try and make a play.
“Each one of the No. 2s that I’ve had have a different way of feeling they’re engaged in the game and part of it”.
“I mean it’s the first game, and you go into the first game and there’s a lot of uncertainties”, Kelly said. No team has gone undefeated in Big 12 play since it switched to a round-robin. And you just want to make sure it builds. “The change is to allow the replay booth to come down and, so to speak, create the foul from the booth if they deem appropriate”. This tells us a couple of things. We had just scored the game leading touchdown and basically gave them two free points on a blocked XP to take it to overtime. Heck, they weren’t enough to get them to a bowl. It was a great win for Texas, undoubtedly, but it’s not as if the Longhorns blew out Notre Dame. Things looked bleak for texas until foreman gave the Longhorns the lead on a tough 19-yard touchdown run. Incredibly, that number seems low.
As Notre Dame turns the page and looks toward its home opener against Nevada (3:30 p.m. Saturday, NBC), Kelly has no intentions at this time of pulling the proverbial rug from VanGorder.
He even called Shane Buechele’s mom the night before to say her son would start against No. 10 Notre Dame. Think about it, what five star players is Notre Dame trotting out there on offense? They are wasting a top-flight offense by running a bad defense week in and week out. For instance, in the loss to Texas, Notre Dame started in a three-man front. “You’re going to have to play some games where you outscore people”.
And a year ago, Zaire was involved well beyond Kelly’s expectations after suffering a season-ending ankle injury in week 2 against Virginia.
Why have rules? Why have replay?
Junior DeShone Kizer and Kelly both credit Zaire’s presence as an important thread in Kizer’s development into statistically one of the top season-long performances by a first-year starter in school history. “Now you have a system where you can play two and you can rotate those guys”. “They’re obviously a very good football team”.
While the duo of Nicholson and Cox were strong against Furman, they are going to need to be smart in their play against a QB like Kizer.
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In a flawless world, Crawford stays at nickel and Nick Coleman figures out what’s going on at corner. “And [Buechele’s] one of those players”.
