Matthew McConaughey’s beloved Texas Longhorns started off their college football season strong on Sunday night, with a double-overtime victory over the No. 10-ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish, who drubbed them for a 39-3 loss last season. The Longhorns averaged six yards per play and had 517 yards of total offense. 10 Notre Dame on Sunday signaled the team is ready to be back in the national conversation. “Clearly, we’ve got to coach better”. You have an idea of how things are going to go, and we were prepared. Fair question. And mind you, if you bleed Alabama Crimson or you make it out to Ann Arbor at least once a season to watch your Wolverines, you probably shouldn’t bother reading beyond this point, but for the time being, the Longhorns are the most exciting thing in college football.
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Bob Stoops, who coached Oklahoma back into the playoffs last season, now may be in a little trouble at the school, especially if his team is about to slip a bit and Texas, the arch rival, is about to come back on.
While some of Notre Dame’s preseason concerns showed up, there were also expected strengths that let the Irish down at times.
Swoopes finished the game with 13 carries for 53 yards and three of the five rushing touchdowns Texas had against the Fighting Irish. “What really happened in the Texas game was you had the offense that had a chance to win the game – but you’re going to have to play some games where you outscore people”.
“(It was) to put guys in position that we felt were our best players to go against a hurry-uptempoed offensive set. We had just scored the game leading touchdown and basically gave them two free points on a blocked XP to take it to overtime. So we had a lot of young guys that got their first start.
“We evaluate from week to week”. “I think the media was the one who questioned it”. “At the end of the day the defensive structure and what we’re doing is run through me”, Kelly said. It wasn’t against Texas. Notre Dame knew what was coming and loaded the box to stop Swoopes, but it didn’t matter.
“We knew what Tyrone was”, said UT coach Charlie Strong.
Zaire only completed 2 of his 5 pass attempts for 23 passing yards.
The competition was one of the country’s most intriguing in fall camp, and Kelly apparently will keep some mystery to it, not saying as of Tuesday whether he’ll continue to use both quarterbacks when the No. 18 Irish play host to Nevada (1-0) on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET. “In my estimation it doesn’t do much for them if they’re just sitting and watching, so I wanted to get them in early, yes”.
The Irish went into the game planning on splitting snaps between DeShone Kizer and Malik Zaire. Kizer took the reins from there and led touchdown drives the next two possessions. “We have to do those better”, he said.
Sixth-year senior safety Avery Sebastian and redshirt junior wide receiver Torii Hunter Jr. will go through Notre Dame’s concussion protocol after leaving the Texas game with head injuries, Kelly said. No flag was thrown on the play and replay officials did not replay the hit as they are able to do under new rules this season.
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“Just unfortunate that it wasn’t officiated or reviewed in a manner that I thought it should have been”, Kelly said, adding that his exchange with the officials following the play was “heated”.
