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My Take

That's what happened to him? I couldn't figure out where he disappeared off to.

Yes. Makes sense because I believe he’s a ND alum.
 
Only watched the first half, gave us Marvin Harrison in a gold jacket, lots of HOF Cuse players, Tirico kinda backing up us missing 27? players this season to this point. Seems like things may have gone downhill from that.

That was when we were playing well and making the game interesting so they had to prop us up. Then ND took over and they went back to their lovefest.
 
3rd and 10, up 4 we get a stop but they call a super weak hit to Book’s helmet. Next play, TD. The series before Rex gets hit in the helmet, no call.

This is the kind of stuff that makes me want to watch less CFB. ND is good enough to beat us straight up, without bogus calls.
 
Tirico is the one of the best play by play guys in the biz. The NBC production is weird because it’s essentially a local broadcast that is carried by a national network. I’m sure if opposing fans had to listen to Park and Terry they’d be upset as well.

Dungey, however, is awful. The next insightful things he says will be his first.

Was proud of the game SU played today. D stepped up and played their butts off. I wish we had more at DL, that could’ve kept a couple scores off the board.

O is just so damn limited with our QB situation. I didn’t love Gilbert this year, but he’s also trying to game plan around some massive deficiencies. I’ve been harsh on our WRs but they played well today. Tucker is special. Having two guys go for over 100 yards against ND might be the achievement of the season.

Tons of work to do in the off-season. But I do have some hope.

Agreed on Tirico. He's not perfect but by and large he's very professional. I think some of the criticisms here are a bit over the top.
 
Gotta be quick because of the basketball game.

So proud of this team. They could have given up so many times during the season but did not. They might not have been the most talented or experienced team in the country but they showed me they had as much heart as anyone out there.

Thought Gilbert did a nice job with the game plan against what is probably the finest defense in college football. Those short passes were surprisingly effective and reminded me of how the Syracuse offense was in the first couple of years under Dino, when Sean Lewis was still here.

Was pleasantly surprised as how well we were able to run the ball. Tucker was brilliant at times today. Such a nice blend of size, speed and agility. He really struggles pass blocking and at this point, does not look comfortable catching passes but he will get better in these areas. You gotta like what Lutz can do as well. He looks way more comfortable catching the ball and with Hough arriving this spring, I wonder if we see him go back to the slot? Gotta find a way to get more playmakers on the field, and Lutz is most definitely a playmaker.

Thought the OL had their best game of the year. They opened some holes for the run game and usually gave Rex ample time to get throws off. Good to see, wish we saw this kind of play earlier in the season, when it would have meant more wins. That late bye game Servais a chance to heal up and he was much better after that.

Thought Rex played welll in a lot of ways. His throws were accurate most of the time, he seemed to get more zip on them than normal and he made a lot of good decisions. Clark Lea tightened up coverage on the WRs and started blitzing late in the first half, and that bothered Rex quite a bit, but I thought he showed poise in the pocket and toughness too. It is a shame he lost those two fumbles. More on that later.

Thought Taj played like a senior leader again. I am not sure Sterlin knew what he had for much of the year...really didn’t feature Taj on offense until pretty late in the year, but better late than never. Props to him...if he doesn’t come back, he went out like a champ.

Thought Queeley made a couple excellent catches. That TD was a thing of beauty. He has distanced himself from the other WRs as the next featured guy. Excited for his future. Nykeim had a quiet game (we had no KO or punt returns, which is really weird). Hope he decides to come back.

Aaron had that nice reception and got popped and lost the ball. He again did not look close to 100%, I am sure he is playing hurt for the good of the team and feel bad for him. Hope he comes back to have a proper senior season. That offensive pass interference call against him might have been the worst call of the season. On the topic of bad calls, why do we always get the short end of the stick on these? The fumble they called on Rex has been reversed 95% of the time in games I have watched. Was shocked when it was not. And what was going on with the roughing the passer call on Kingsley Jonathan where he hit the top of Book’s helmet (not grab his face mask as the ND announcers claimed)? Or the other roughing the passer call where Book was pushed just after he released a pass? Or the blatant offensive PI on 88 when he pushed Iffy, who had position, to the ground so he could make a catch. When that play was replayed, the ND director was careful to start the replay just after the push off. How was that play NOT reviewed? Why can other teams hit our QB late and hard and we can’t even touch opposing QBs?

This would have been an entertaining and close game if not for these incompetent refs blowing all these calls. Those calls directly lead to like 18 points for ND. What a disappointment.

Thought the defense did a fine job. ND was unable to run the ball effectively for almost the whole game. Book struggled to find open receivers and the only reliable play for ND was Book running out of the pocket and either throwing on the run or running for his life. Team effort all the way. Carter was again very good. Wax is getting better. Black was a man out there. Jones was a force stopping the run, as was Thompson. No one ever notices Williams but he occupied his guy and held his ground. Tough kid. Under appreciated. Iffy and Williams battled with some really good WRs, won some battles and lost some. Looked like Iffy was asked to cover that big TE a few times. Tough assignment. And oh yeah, Hanna is a tough SOB that plays his heart out every game.

Thought ND had a few terrific players. Even though 88 likes to push off a lot, he has a lot of talent. Book is as good as any QB in college football. So smart, so accurate, so athletic. If we have Book on Syracuse, we win this game. I really believe that. That #6 on defense made big plays all game long. He will also play on Sundays.

I hope Mike Tirico is making a ton of money to give up his journalistic integrity and become a fanboy for ND football. It has to be tough for him to confirm all the bad calls that went ND’s way as good calls. What does it say about the intelligence level of ND football fans if they insist on listening to announcers who step over each other fawning over how great Norte Dame’s players and coaches are? Ugh. I grew up and continue to listen to home team announcers for NYC teams, who always take pains to be objective and calls games honestly. I would hate to have to listen to ignorant blowhards making crap up about my team all the time. How unfortunate.

That said, I thought Dungy made a lot of good observations and he, and only he, made an objective call. I was fascinated with the broadcast for a number of reasons besides seeing Tirico reduced to a slobbering sycophant. I thought that Collinsworth kid that was such a major disaster when he was somehow given a job at the ACCN was back washing dad’s car but no, he has actually been hired to constantly make idiotic comments about ND that are meant to be positive. Ugh.

They must have a big budget. They had a ton of cameras in use during the game. Had way more repeat angles available than I am used to. They even had one of those cameras mounted on two wires, that could produce overhead shots from virtually anywhere (largely if not completely wasted).

But they insisted on using an angle from way up near the top of the stadium for their base shot, with the camera pulled back so you could see a ton of field with no players and the players were thus about half as big as normal.

They also did things like let a shot of a player walking off the field stick as the live shot until after the ball for the next play had been snapped. It was like the director was watching another game and got distracted regularly. Weird. The ND production team is not very good.

This was a most unusual team. They seemed to be at their best when challenged against excellent teams and the worse their opponent, the worse they played. It is a shame because when they played well, they were capable of beating a lot of the teams on the schedule. In the end, the lack of a capable QB for most of the season was a crushing blow, and probably cost the team 3 or 4 victories. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Sigh.

When I watched ND play Clemson, I thought they had a good chance to beat them in the ACC championship game. Not so sure now. I think Syracuse exposed some weaknesses that Clemson is going to be all over in their rematch. I think to beat Clemson, you need to have a good pass rush. Didn’t see that today. You have to be able to run the ball well. Didn’t see that today.

If Clemson has their starters back on defense, they will win the rematch by 20. Maybe 25. If their defense is still messed up, ND has a fighters chance, but they are going to need to outscore the Tigers. Look forward to watching it. Who knows, those two teams might end up playing a third time a few weeks later for the NC. Stranger things have happened.

I think you are way way off in your comments on Tirico. Way off.
 
I think you are way way off in your comments on Tirico. Way off.
I like Mike a lot. Have been watching and listening to him since he was a teenager at SU. He is a great announcer and a great alum. I know he does a lot for Syracuse in general and Newhouse in particular and I love him for this.
But if you think he is calling these ND games as an objective journalist, I think you are nuts.

Glad he is making a lot of money. I felt bad for him. There were awkward pauses a couple of times in the game when they showed a replay of plays where the refs made awful calls that favored ND. Collinsworth (I think) would always enthusiastically endorse the call, regardless of what the replay showed. Dungy would say nothing. Or quietly note that maybe the ref wasn’t quite right. Tirico would pause for a long while and then affirm the call. You could sense him being uncomfortable and sense his reluctance to be a homer. But sady, he did it. A number of times.
 
For me Tirico was bad not due to bias but because he had about 5 misidentification. Dungy was getting embarrassed correcting him. As for the refs I agree the OPi was missed and fumble could have been overturned, but we'll officiated by rule. First roughing call also right by rule. Holding was not a theme yesterday as I think we only had one. We played hard. ND was better. Stripes don't impact result.
 
for the most part, i thought tirico was just fine. he gave us as many props as he could to expect more than what he gave would put him in the category of a homer. as it is he, he very close to a homer. as for the last td comment about being against the second team defense---well it was true----i would have preferred if he did not say it---but so what.---he ignored some blatant nd miscues such as opi for a td. i would take him anytime .
 
Thought Taj played like a senior leader again. I am not sure Sterlin knew what he had for much of the year...really didn’t feature Taj on offense until pretty late in the year, but better late than never. Props to him...if he doesn’t come back, he went out like a champ.

Senior? He's only a junior right? Or am I crazy?
 
Tirico referred to Syracuse as his drunk uncle that showed up to the company Holiday party uninvited.

The Collinsworth kid is a sad reminder of what nepotism can get you in today’s society. I bet Mike Tirico knows a few recent Newhouse graduates who are unemployed that would actually be qualified for that position.
 
One thing I didn't see mentioned is how our oline looked competent with Davis back in and Servais less banged up. This isn't a shot at Rhino (more on that shortly) but having Davis and Tisdale on either side of Vet kept a good dline at bay as far as inside push. Still too many 0 and 1 yard rushes where RB seemed to have nowhere to go but if we can turn those into 2 or 3 yard rushes this offense works. Best pass protection we've seen this year and credit the coaches gameplay on that as well.

Onto Rhino. He's 6'0 280 so having Davis 6'5 325 and an actual olineman in there is always going to make us more imposing. However, I don't think what we were missing on the oline with him was anywhere near what we missed by not having him at full back. It's a position that's hard to statistically quantify but having him in there makes every part of our offense better. Lead blocking, blitz pick up, and the most obvious today in allowing our other RBs to immediately release in the passing game. We've all been clamouring for short RB passes all year and they finally showed up today because of Elmore. Hats off to that man for doing whatever is asked of him but when used at fullback he adds so much more to this team. I hope he comes back next year, we need his unique ability as well as toughness to drive this offense to where it can be next season.
 
For me Tirico was bad not due to bias but because he had about 5 misidentification. Dungy was getting embarrassed correcting him. As for the refs I agree the OPi was missed and fumble could have been overturned, but we'll officiated by rule. First roughing call also right by rule. Holding was not a theme yesterday as I think we only had one. We played hard. ND was better. Stripes don't impact result.

Ah, my favorite piece of sports mythology. “Stripes don’t influence the result.”

Everything influences the result.
 
Only watched the first half, gave us Marvin Harrison in a gold jacket, lots of HOF Cuse players, Tirico kinda backing up us missing 27? players this season to this point. Seems like things may have gone downhill from that.

they were both as kind as possible given it is an ND broadcast and the obvious mismatch.
 
That's what happened to him? I couldn't figure out where he disappeared off to.

yep, he gets booted in the middle of the year with no comment and shows up on daddy’s network
 
Gotta be quick because of the basketball game.

So proud of this team. They could have given up so many times during the season but did not. They might not have been the most talented or experienced team in the country but they showed me they had as much heart as anyone out there.

Thought Gilbert did a nice job with the game plan against what is probably the finest defense in college football. Those short passes were surprisingly effective and reminded me of how the Syracuse offense was in the first couple of years under Dino, when Sean Lewis was still here.

Was pleasantly surprised as how well we were able to run the ball. Tucker was brilliant at times today. Such a nice blend of size, speed and agility. He really struggles pass blocking and at this point, does not look comfortable catching passes but he will get better in these areas. You gotta like what Lutz can do as well. He looks way more comfortable catching the ball and with Hough arriving this spring, I wonder if we see him go back to the slot? Gotta find a way to get more playmakers on the field, and Lutz is most definitely a playmaker.

Thought the OL had their best game of the year. They opened some holes for the run game and usually gave Rex ample time to get throws off. Good to see, wish we saw this kind of play earlier in the season, when it would have meant more wins. That late bye game Servais a chance to heal up and he was much better after that.

Thought Rex played welll in a lot of ways. His throws were accurate most of the time, he seemed to get more zip on them than normal and he made a lot of good decisions. Clark Lea tightened up coverage on the WRs and started blitzing late in the first half, and that bothered Rex quite a bit, but I thought he showed poise in the pocket and toughness too. It is a shame he lost those two fumbles. More on that later.

Thought Taj played like a senior leader again. I am not sure Sterlin knew what he had for much of the year...really didn’t feature Taj on offense until pretty late in the year, but better late than never. Props to him...if he doesn’t come back, he went out like a champ.

Thought Queeley made a couple excellent catches. That TD was a thing of beauty. He has distanced himself from the other WRs as the next featured guy. Excited for his future. Nykeim had a quiet game (we had no KO or punt returns, which is really weird). Hope he decides to come back.

Aaron had that nice reception and got popped and lost the ball. He again did not look close to 100%, I am sure he is playing hurt for the good of the team and feel bad for him. Hope he comes back to have a proper senior season. That offensive pass interference call against him might have been the worst call of the season. On the topic of bad calls, why do we always get the short end of the stick on these? The fumble they called on Rex has been reversed 95% of the time in games I have watched. Was shocked when it was not. And what was going on with the roughing the passer call on Kingsley Jonathan where he hit the top of Book’s helmet (not grab his face mask as the ND announcers claimed)? Or the other roughing the passer call where Book was pushed just after he released a pass? Or the blatant offensive PI on 88 when he pushed Iffy, who had position, to the ground so he could make a catch. When that play was replayed, the ND director was careful to start the replay just after the push off. How was that play NOT reviewed? Why can other teams hit our QB late and hard and we can’t even touch opposing QBs?

This would have been an entertaining and close game if not for these incompetent refs blowing all these calls. Those calls directly lead to like 18 points for ND. What a disappointment.

Thought the defense did a fine job. ND was unable to run the ball effectively for almost the whole game. Book struggled to find open receivers and the only reliable play for ND was Book running out of the pocket and either throwing on the run or running for his life. Team effort all the way. Carter was again very good. Wax is getting better. Black was a man out there. Jones was a force stopping the run, as was Thompson. No one ever notices Williams but he occupied his guy and held his ground. Tough kid. Under appreciated. Iffy and Williams battled with some really good WRs, won some battles and lost some. Looked like Iffy was asked to cover that big TE a few times. Tough assignment. And oh yeah, Hanna is a tough SOB that plays his heart out every game.

Thought ND had a few terrific players. Even though 88 likes to push off a lot, he has a lot of talent. Book is as good as any QB in college football. So smart, so accurate, so athletic. If we have Book on Syracuse, we win this game. I really believe that. That #6 on defense made big plays all game long. He will also play on Sundays.

I hope Mike Tirico is making a ton of money to give up his journalistic integrity and become a fanboy for ND football. It has to be tough for him to confirm all the bad calls that went ND’s way as good calls. What does it say about the intelligence level of ND football fans if they insist on listening to announcers who step over each other fawning over how great Norte Dame’s players and coaches are? Ugh. I grew up and continue to listen to home team announcers for NYC teams, who always take pains to be objective and calls games honestly. I would hate to have to listen to ignorant blowhards making crap up about my team all the time. How unfortunate.

That said, I thought Dungy made a lot of good observations and he, and only he, made an objective call. I was fascinated with the broadcast for a number of reasons besides seeing Tirico reduced to a slobbering sycophant. I thought that Collinsworth kid that was such a major disaster when he was somehow given a job at the ACCN was back washing dad’s car but no, he has actually been hired to constantly make idiotic comments about ND that are meant to be positive. Ugh.

They must have a big budget. They had a ton of cameras in use during the game. Had way more repeat angles available than I am used to. They even had one of those cameras mounted on two wires, that could produce overhead shots from virtually anywhere (largely if not completely wasted).

But they insisted on using an angle from way up near the top of the stadium for their base shot, with the camera pulled back so you could see a ton of field with no players and the players were thus about half as big as normal.

They also did things like let a shot of a player walking off the field stick as the live shot until after the ball for the next play had been snapped. It was like the director was watching another game and got distracted regularly. Weird. The ND production team is not very good.

This was a most unusual team. They seemed to be at their best when challenged against excellent teams and the worse their opponent, the worse they played. It is a shame because when they played well, they were capable of beating a lot of the teams on the schedule. In the end, the lack of a capable QB for most of the season was a crushing blow, and probably cost the team 3 or 4 victories. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Sigh.

When I watched ND play Clemson, I thought they had a good chance to beat them in the ACC championship game. Not so sure now. I think Syracuse exposed some weaknesses that Clemson is going to be all over in their rematch. I think to beat Clemson, you need to have a good pass rush. Didn’t see that today. You have to be able to run the ball well. Didn’t see that today.

If Clemson has their starters back on defense, they will win the rematch by 20. Maybe 25. If their defense is still messed up, ND has a fighters chance, but they are going to need to outscore the Tigers. Look forward to watching it. Who knows, those two teams might end up playing a third time a few weeks later for the NC. Stranger things have happened.

all this pain is set to stage this team for a huge step forward next year
 
One thing I didn't see mentioned is how our oline looked competent with Davis back in and Servais less banged up. This isn't a shot at Rhino (more on that shortly) but having Davis and Tisdale on either side of Vet kept a good dline at bay as far as inside push. Still too many 0 and 1 yard rushes where RB seemed to have nowhere to go but if we can turn those into 2 or 3 yard rushes this offense works. Best pass protection we've seen this year and credit the coaches gameplay on that as well.

Onto Rhino. He's 6'0 280 so having Davis 6'5 325 and an actual olineman in there is always going to make us more imposing. However, I don't think what we were missing on the oline with him was anywhere near what we missed by not having him at full back. It's a position that's hard to statistically quantify but having him in there makes every part of our offense better. Lead blocking, blitz pick up, and the most obvious today in allowing our other RBs to immediately release in the passing game. We've all been clamouring for short RB passes all year and they finally showed up today because of Elmore. Hats off to that man for doing whatever is asked of him but when used at fullback he adds so much more to this team. I hope he comes back next year, we need his unique ability as well as toughness to drive this offense to where it can be next season.
Yessir. Hope he comes back.
 
We played pretty well against a good run team up until that 95 yard TD run. Hate that it happened as it makes our run D look worse.
 
I do not understand how we are always consistently on the short end of the stick on the ref calls in these ACC games. I turned he tube off after the roughing the passer against Kingsley because I said to myself, they are not going to let us win today (even if we could which we didn't). Meanwhile our D was held blatently on pretty much every ND offensive play and not one call. Some of them were so unbelievably bad I was doing face palms. How is this possible year after year ?

We are terrible but I am convinced that we are getting screwed by the ACC refs in both FB and BB. I feel like we just take it and don't make enough noise from the AD down. Make a greatest hits tape and go see Swofford over an over an over. The squeeky wheel gets the grease.

Swofford and his cronies' response will be we rescued you from the AAC so shut up and cash the check.
 
Jac Collinsworth worked at ESPN they then shifted him to ACCN.
His contract with ESPN expired December 31, 2019.
NBC signed him likely because of his dad. He works ND football.

He is the personification of a nepotism hire.

I am sure he will be a contender for the ND PBP job once Al Michaels retires and Tirico takes over SNF.

The broadcast wasn’t an issue. Tirico knew every detail about the SU roster and situation. He wasn’t bad.

The refs being bad I don’t expect him to say anything when they go ND’s way he is a ND announcer.
Dungey was just super positive all game long and never says anything critical or interesting.
Comparing Taj Harris to Marvin Harrison is just coo-coo for coco-coco puffs dumb.
 
I really question that roughing call by rule.. it wasnt with force so that takes that part out.. he was also out of the pocket so that removes protection of the QB.. I watched probably 20 games yesterday.. didnt see it called one time and saw lots of QBs get hit in the head by random hand shots
 
I really question that roughing call by rule.. it wasnt with force so that takes that part out.. he was also out of the pocket so that removes protection of the QB.. I watched probably 20 games yesterday.. didnt see it called one time and saw lots of QBs get hit in the head by random hand shots


Bad teams have those calls go against them. It's usually a couple of dumb field-flippers like that where in our bad days get us behind the 8 ball.
 
I really question that roughing call by rule.. it wasnt with force so that takes that part out.. he was also out of the pocket so that removes protection of the QB.. I watched probably 20 games yesterday.. didnt see it called one time and saw lots of QBs get hit in the head by random hand shots
Hands to the face is all too obvious and the risk of a call is high. To me it looked like a very avoidable foul. If they had done that to us we would have gone nuts with a no call.
 
Hands to the face is all too obvious and the risk of a call is high. To me it looked like a very avoidable foul. If they had done that to us we would have gone nuts with a no call.
yeah but it isnt a rule..
 
Please nd was winning yesterday. Stripe did not impact that.

Probably. But that’s bedsides the point. Saying the stripes don’t influence the outcome is dumb. Of course they do or we wouldn’t need refs.

It’s one of those things we tell ourselves to feel better about sports and fairness.
 

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