Notre Dame has had some great performances in 2022. Unfortunately, they’ve had some real clunkers this year too. On Saturday against Navy, Notre Dame did both. After jumping out to a 35-13 lead going into half-time, Notre Dame had to hold on for dear life as Navy cut the lead to 35-32 before time ran out. If the game was five minutes longer, we might be having a different discussion right now, but luckily for the Irish, the clock ran out with them still in the lead.
What was that second half?
For the first 30 minutes of football, Tommy Rees and Drew Pyne could do no wrong. Then, for the next 30 minutes, Notre Dame’s offense looked as futile and inept as we’ve seen it since 2007 when Charlie Weis tried like three different offensive systems in one year. It was bad. Very bad. And to be honest, there’s no excuse for a turnaround like that against an opponent like Navy.
Notre Dame scored on five of their six first-half drives, and the only drive that netted zero points came on a missed field goal by Blake Grupe, who is now just 10 for 15 on the season on field goal attempts.
In the second half, Notre Dame scored zero points on six drives and picked up just one first down against a weak Navy defense. Tommy Rees got away from the screen game that was working to near perfection in the first half Pyne was 7 for 7 on screens, and Pyne held onto the ball too long as Navy sent jailbreak blitzes almost every down. Neither Rees nor Pyne had an answer for Notre Dame.
Marcus Freeman said all the right things publicly after the game, but behind closed doors today, Rees and Harry Hiestand have a lot to answer for today. A week after dominating Clemson in the trenches, Navy sacked Drew Pyne five times in the second half alone.
Build Brian Mason a statue already
The one coordinator on this team that won’t have any tough questions from Freeman today is Brian Mason, whose special teams unit blocked yet another punt – a program record seventh on the season. That is now four straight games with a punt block. Considering how awful the offense was in the second half, Jack Kiser’s blocked punt at the end of the first half basically won the game for Notre Dame since it set up the offense with the chance to score another touchdown.
In the pre-season, everyone pegged Tommy Rees as the most likely Notre Dame coordinator to get a head coaching gig in the off-season. Still, at this point, I can’t imagine how anyone could look at the performance of Rees and Mason and not think Mason was the better choice to run a program.
For Notre Dame’s sake, hopefully, no program is progressive enough to take a chance on a special teams coordinator with no head coaching experience because he is the best coordinator Notre Dame has had in any capacity in a long, long time.
Notre Dame missed JD Bertrand more than most fans want to admit
JD or “JT,” as the NBC announcers who have seen him all year long called him last week, Bertrand missed the game with what Freeman said was an area in the “groin area,” and he was missed more than most Notre Dame fans would like to admit. At times, Bertrand has been a bit polarizing for some of Notre Dame Twitter, but his presence was sorely missed.
Playing the option for the first time is not fun, and Notre Dame had to turn to true freshmen Junior Tuihalamaka and Jaylen Sneed. It showed. Navy gashed Notre Dame up the middle, where Bertrand would have been roaming.
Bertrand was coming off his best game in a Notre Dame uniform against Clemson, making it unfortunate that he missed yesterday’s contest. Luckily, Freeman said he should be back next weekend against Boston College.
Notre Dame missed Brandon Joseph too, but remember that Joseph never saw the option before and Xavier Watts has, so there was a good chance that Watts would have played a lot anyway.
Braden Lenzy earned that ridiculous touchdown
Braden Lenzy has been wide open for multiple long touchdowns this season – and last season, for that matter – but hasn’t gotten the ball. Notre Dame hasn’t had the kind of quarterback who can consistently hit deep balls the last two years, which is Lenzy’s game. So yesterday’s “catch of the year” candidate was a long time coming for Lenzy.
ARE YOU KIDDING?
— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) November 12, 2022
GO OFF @blspeedy21#GoIrish pic.twitter.com/YWv1VXIYtq
Lenzy ended the game with five catches for 67 yards and one insane touchdown. Amazingly those 67yards were the most in a game for Lenzy since he posted 87 yards, also against Navy, as a freshman in 2019.
Eight carries for Audric Estime was playcalling malpractice
A week after bulldozing Clemson, Tommy Rees only gave Audric Estime eight carries, and I am still trying to wrap my head around that a day later. Estime is a battering ram of a back, and you don’t give him the ball more against an undersized defense? It just doesn’t make sense to me.
One could argue that Navy was stacking the box, but so was Clemson and Estime still found a way to top 100 yards.
This is why you keep feeding a back like Estime the ball against Navy.
Big Run by @AudricEstime ???❗️ pic.twitter.com/m1oPFTLzbq
— Terrence Fedé (@T_Fede) November 13, 2022
The only thing predictable about this team is it’s unpredictable
I said on last week’s pod that nothing would surprise me with this team anymore, and that is why I wasn’t that surprised with how yesterday unfolded. Notre Dame’s trend of looking great against good teams and not so great against bad ones continued. The only difference this time was that the Irish started this one off well before falling off.
At this point, this team is what it is, so any outcome over the final two games seems possible. Lose to Boston College and beat USC? Sure, why not? Win them both? Sure, it could happen. Lose them both? Definitely could happen.
I can’t remember a game where Notre Dame went from looking so dominant to so inept from one half to another before, like this one. The contrast was that stark. Notre Dame has had moments against Navy where they’ve fallen asleep before (see 2008 and 2014), but not quite like this, where they put up 35 points in the first half with five touchdowns from their quarterback (4 passing, 1 rushing).
Freeman has learned how to push the right buttons in big games and figured out how to get his team to start fast against a bad team this weekend. Next, he’s got to figure out how to keep his team engaged for a full 60 minutes against a team like Navy when you’re winning big next.
1. It could have ended like Garry’s kids did in faust’s first year (no bowl, losing season. Or, it could have ended like LOU’s first year, also a losing season with no bowl. But it will end instead much like Devine’s first year…8-3 with no bowl (by vote of a team with many players who played hard for Dan, or at least for ND, but did not want him as coach from the start. Most of them graduated away after year one).
But Coach Freeman will get a Bowl, and well deserved….but hardly the top tier bowl the team was capable of, or that I predicted. A lot like Dan’s 1978 team…9-3 (with a Cotton Bowl win). This would require us to go all the way back to ARA, 9-1, 1964, to find a clearly better season one! I can live with that;
so can my mother and two of my brothers. But it requires three more wins, and for this team, it’s achievable, as would be three losses. So GO FOR IT, IRISH, GO!
BTW- if we do win three more, PYNE (who I always liked), will have a career winning percentage higher than any Coach except ARA, Brennan and Leahy for year one. Apples and oranges? Sure. But for me, at least, it would be something to consider carefully before my next rant before putting PYNE under your bus or into the portal. How bout a bit of praise or encouragement on this site for one of the University of Notre Dame du Lac’s best ever back-up QB’s? GO PYNE, DO ’em like DEVINE…no online friends, no support, no thanks, a bit of demonization here and ther, all resulting in nothing, because Dan didn’t given give a damn, didn’t even LISTEN to it…just preformed, won, and took his green and gold lunch bucket home. Every damn day.
BGC 77 82
david with yet another homophobic obscenity, guess that’s what’s always on your mind
Covering for Rhonda’s shift again tonight? That bitch owe you, girlfriend.
We had to be telegraphing our offensive plays in the 2nd half. 2 yards per play for an entire half is nearly impossible.
I think the Navy game was less “Jeckyll and Hyde,” and more “Freeman et al. were embarrassingly out-coached at halftime.”
Getting out-coached at halftime is the one thing this team has done consistently this year.
Lots of progress though. Freeman is stringing together some Ws. Game plans have been really solid since Stanford. Just need to start making effective adjustments. Maybe that will come with experience.
Kelly lost to Navy in 2016. If winning is embarrassing, what is losing?
Go suck a tranny dick.
…in truth, Kelly likely wasn’t embarrassed losing to Navy at all.
By that point in the 2016 season, he was 1-4.
Freeman era is starting like the Gerry Faust era.
In Faust’s first season ND beat LSU, mediocre results followed.
A feature of ND loses under Faust were 2nd half meltdowns, and predictable play calling like this ND season.
ND took a chance on Faust from his stellar high school coaching. ND taking a chance with Freeman lacking head coach experience.
Freeman so often going back to the drawing board is not sustainable at ND.
Rees needs direction from a proven head coach, and shows he lacks the creativity to adjust game plan when needed.
In past years if your QB misses easy throws or is inconsistent like Pyne you try QB2 like Angelli. Who will want to go to ND to never play behind a dubious starter?
Kenny Minchey – Class of ’23 QB looks like he is on his way to ND.
So Googled the guy…and found a 24/7 Sports article from a few hours ago.
His high school coach is quoted in the piece a lot. FWIW, he’s effusive about Minchey’s character, practice work ethic, and his touch on the ball.
Pretty much the opposite of the shit Kelly said about Kizer before the NFL draft.
I have yet to see a plausible analysis of why ND’s offense went from excellent to awful in 15 minutes. It’s confusing and troubling. No one, including the coaches, seems have an answer. Very bizarre.
If there’s any team in college football that never quits, no matter the score, it’s Navy.
If there’s one team that usually takes it’s foot off the gas as soon as it gets a 2 score lead, it’s ND.
World’s collide, Jerry.
This ND team really boggles the mind. One week they play almost like NC contenders, absolutely dominant in every facet of the game. Next game we’re back to something like year 3 under Charlie Weis, as Frank alluded to.
They need consistency. Badly.