There's always next week, right?
Notre Dame is 1-3 at this point (although I'm sure I don't have to tell my fellow Irish fans about how we easily could be 2-2 or even 3-1... *sigh*). I wasn't among those who thought Brian Kelly would come in and instantly give the Irish four more wins than last season. Turning around a team takes time. I was hoping we'd be able to finish somewhere along the lines of 8-4.
Technically 8-4 could still happen. Judging by today's game, however, that seems like a stretch. The Irish still have quite a bit of work to do.
Positives-
-Manti T'eo is looking better and better every game. He recorded a career-high 21 tackles (13 individual). Think of how great a player he'll be when he's a senior.
-The Irish won the turnover battle 3-2. It's always a plus if you can generate more turnovers than the opposition. Even more of a plus if you can score more than three points off of three turnovers...
-At least our kicker is looking good. David Ruffer is seven-for-seven on the year and he's only a sophomore. He nailed home 22 and 40 yarders in today's game.
Negatives-
-Where to start? The Irish need to establish the running game, and establish it early. When I was little, one of the first things my dad taught me about football was exactly how important a dominant running game is for winning teams. How many rushing yards did Notre Dame have against Stanford? 44. That's all. A mere 44 rushing yards. Notre Dame needs to come out and run the ball early, so they don't have to play catchup every single game and chuck the ball downfield. It would also help the offense settle in and get some rhythm, which was a problem today. Remember when, I think it was in the third quarter, Notre Dame's offense had third-and-one at midfield, and opted to throw the ball. Not only did they throw the ball, they attempted to throw it about 10 yards downfield. Why, why, why would you ever throw the ball in a third-and-one situation? Notre Dame needs to get the running game going early if they want to snap their three-game losing streak.
-Winning the turnover battle is a good thing. Turning the ball over about twice a game is not. Dayne Crist is still in the adjustment period so some of his interceptions can be credited to learning pains. Still, the Irish need to take better care of the ball if they want to win. You can't win if you don't have the ball to score. Speaking of which...
-Time of possession. Another battle Notre Dame has to try and win. I know Brian Kelly likes a hurry-up, spread offense, but still. Stanford had the ball for almost 13 minutes longer than Notre Dame. There's nothing wrong with having an offense that can score quickly if they need to, but they also need to be able to maintain longer drives, keep the ball out of their opponents' hands, and give the defense a rest.
-The defense was better than the statistics suggested, I think, (some of that can be attributed to fatigue because of the offense's inability to establish any rhythm and hold on to the ball) but they still need work. The secondary has been decent, and Gary Gray is turning out to be quite a player for Notre Dame, but they need to practice their open-field tackling. The run defense is better than last year. Nose tackle Ian Williams is thriving in the 3-4 defense and is doing a better job at clogging up the middle, but they still get beat on runs to the outside too easily. You know what else is killing them? Screen plays. Notre Dame has been defending well against the long ball but giving up too many chunks of yardage on screen plays.
-Brian Kelly has to stop wearing a visor and start wearing an actual hat. Just kidding. I like poking fun at grown men who wear visors, even if they play for or coach a team I like.
-Going back to turnovers for a minute, the Irish have to be able to capitalize and gain momentum off of the turnovers they force. Winning the turnover battle is no good if you can't score off them. Three points off of three turnovers isn't going to cut it. If Notre Dame had scored a touchdown rather than a field goal off of the recovered muffed punt early in the game, they could've established some early-game momentum and the turnout may have been different.
Those are the things that really stuck out to me this game. Notre Dame can learn from their mistakes this game and use them to prepare for Boston College next week. It's still early and the season isn't lost yet. I still think Brian Kelly is the right man for this job, but like I said, it's going to take a couple of seasons for it to start to show. But if Kelly can get a program like Cincy in the top 5, he will be able to get the Fighting Irish back in BCS contention.
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