perspective - Is ND just that good? | Syracusefan.com

perspective - Is ND just that good?

richmondcuse03

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Thanks to a colleague, I got lucky and had some great seats up close to the field. While at times difficult to see (having to look over line judges and players), it offered a really cool vantage to see how fast and powerful the players are. I sat around a lot of ND fans and spoke with them quite a bit. I personally think their defense, especially their secondary, is that good. It's experienced, they're incredibly fast and they have great cover skills.

When you fall behind a team like that with a great defense, you're limited in what you can do offensively and play right into their hands. Not having any breaks/calls go our way made things a lot worse. I thought we matched up poorly going into the game. Plenty of what if's you could play...but I walked away thinking ND is a lot better than I even realized going into the game.

No shame in losing on the road to a team like that -- score in the end is disappointing but doesn't matter. It's still one loss. We've come a long way and I'll take losses like this season over years past. Hopefully Dino gets the guys focused and we close strong at BC.
 
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The interception over the middle where Harris lost the ball and the defender caught it. Take a look at how big that guy is. We are getting there, but it will be a few more years before we have that size and strength all over the field. Notre Dame is elite. So that is a truly high bar to strive for, but we are closing the gap.
 
I think they are.

I think they’re better than Clemson to.
I started writing this this morning, and stopped myself. I think they are very comparable in a lot of ways and better at the quarterback position. They are going to be a tough out for anybody.
 
The interception over the middle where Harris lost the ball and the defender caught it. Take a look at how big that guy is.

Thought the exact same thing when I saw it happen. Thought it was a LB running in stride with Harris. Immediately went to the ND roster to look the kid up. Not a LB, but a safety. Kid was big and guarding our #1 WR. I was impressed and it stood out to me.
 
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They played well and definitely proved they are a legit playoff team.
They made no mistakes except a couple false starts.
They took advantage of our bad play as good teams should do.
It was more about them dominanting but losing Dungey on the 3rd series ended any chance we had. DeVito got some needed reps and tape to look at and improve next year. He wasn’t expected to be able to comeback against the 3rd ranked team in a semi-road game. DeVito has a lot of potential but needs to work with these WRs on slants, outs, 3 step drops and not go for the vertical every pass.
 
It’s a miracle Pitt and NW hung with them given this ND squad is apparently South Bend Bama orrrrr maybe some posters are trying to justify how poorly prepared and shell-shocked we were in a big moment.

Yeah maybe or maybe ND played up to their competition today and caused us to play poorly.
 
Their cover guys were amazing - in our jerseys all game. Toughest secondary we've faced. The rest of the team is also very solid, especially their passing attack ... which was MUCH more creative than ours. Their guys were consistently open, ours were consistently covered. On series when we didn't get much going on 1st or 2nd downs, they pinned their ears back and not much TD could do. Hats off to them.

One thing that was very disappointing is the one-sided officiating. I realize the broadcast and 'home' game were set up to feature ND. But missing all those calls - Trill's sideline strip that wasn't even noticed let alone reviewed, 2 big pushoffs by ND receivers, the ND WR we stripped and recovered the fumble, the DPI on ND in the end zone and the ridiculous call on Fredrick for a ball 5 feet over the guys head - left me feeling like the game could have been a lot closer.

BOL to ND going forward. They're for real. But the back judges should have had Pin Stripe Jerseys on.
 
It’s a miracle Pitt and NW hung with them given this ND squad is apparently South Bend Bama or maybe some posters are trying to justify how poorly prepared and shell-shocked we were in a big moment.
Pitt gained 242 total yards, NW gained 249. We gained 231.
One notable difference was our 3 TOs, while both Pitt and NW didn't turn the ball over.
 
Yeah maybe or maybe ND played up to their competition today and caused us to play poorly.
I’ll say that ND did open a lot of eyes across the country, including mine, that they’re not a joke and are playoff worthy.

However, they’re not Bama and we have people who think they’ll beat Clemson?...nah.

They didn’t force us to rush 3 and drop everyone else 25 yards off the LOS on 3rd and 16 leading to the first ND TD.

They didn’t force Johnson to drop a TD that would’ve made it 13-7.

They didn’t force Harris, right before half, to bobble a perfect pitch and catch straight into ND’s hands that took us from 1st and 10 in ND territory to a 1st and Goal for them in ours.

20-0 had as much to do with us choking in big moments as it did ND capitalizing on said choking.

Second half we seemed to wave a white flag, and the officiating certainly didn’t help.

It’s the first time a Dino coached squad of ours has gotten embarassed like this, so I’m more than willing to let it go and see how we respond, but I’m not going as far as to say ND is just so good that we didn’t stand a chance of not getting steamrolled. That was on us simply not showing up ready to play this game.
 
It’s a miracle Pitt and NW hung with them given this ND squad is apparently South Bend Bama or maybe some posters are trying to justify how poorly prepared and shell-shocked we were in a big moment.

I think you're dead on here. ND beat Pitt in the later stages of the 4Q, in South Bend. NW was one big defensive stop/series away in the 4Q of having the opportunity of taking the lead against the Irish a couple of weeks back. ND struggled against Ball St., Ball St., in South Bend earlier in the year, a one possession victory at 24-16.

The game couldn't had started any worse for us with Dungey's basically pick 6, then the injury immediately afterwards. ND is not invincible by any means, but we would've had to of brought our A game, with no turnovers, drop passes, two that would've been TD's, etc. Instead, we brought our D game. If we bring our A game, and ND their B game, we could've won.

Some were concerned about Dino's comments that this wasn't a league game, somewhat down playing the significance of it, house money, etc. and the team played that way. They weren't focused, and the lack of execution was the proof. Not the end of the world in the realm of things for this program, but it still was a deer in the headlights performance when the cameras started rolling.
 
LSU got stomped 29-0 by Bama at home. ND and Bama are playoff teams for sure and maybe the two best teams. It happens to even really good teams when you go up against the best.

If anything, I'm selfishly looking at the silver lining and saying is the better result long-term. I would be getting legitimately nervous that Dino would leave if he could knock off #3 ND and finish in the top ten. Hopefully this lowers his stock a bit until he can put together one truly great season.
 
ND has been in control of every game they played this year with the exception of the Pitt game. Every team is going to have at least one sub-par performance (Clemson and even Bama yesterday are no exception) and Pitt is obviously much better than people thought at the time of that game. ND's defense has given up a lot of their points and yards when the games were out of hand. Even the NW game on the road that outcome was never really in doubt. Their defense is elite and will keep them in every game. I think their O Line is their weakness but it's not terrible.
 
Thought the exact same thing when I saw it happen. Thought it was a LB running in stride with Harris. Immediately went to the ND roster to look the kid up. Not a LB, but a safety. Kid was big and guarding our #1 WR. I was impressed and it stood out to me.

That kid (Gilman) was a two star recruit from Hawaii that started at Navy as a freshman and then transferred to ND because he wanted to play in the NFL but wouldn't initially be able to because of military service commitments at Navy. He may be the best all around (run and pass) safety in the country.
 
That kid (Gilman) was a two star recruit from Hawaii that started at Navy as a freshman and then transferred to ND because he wanted to play in the NFL but wouldn't initially be able to because of military service commitments at Navy. He may be the best all around (run and pass) safety in the country.

Agree. ND fans around me were raving about him all game. They love him. They're so happy they got him.
 
I think you're dead on here. ND beat Pitt in the later stages of the 4Q, in South Bend. NW was one big defensive stop/series away in the 4Q of having the opportunity of taking the lead against the Irish a couple of weeks back. ND struggled against Ball St., Ball St., in South Bend earlier in the year, a one possession victory at 24-16.

The game couldn't had started any worse for us with Dungey's basically pick 6, then the injury immediately afterwards. ND is not invincible by any means, but we would've had to of brought our A game, with no turnovers, drop passes, two that would've been TD's, etc. Instead, we brought our D game. If we bring our A game, and ND their B game, we could've won.

Some were concerned about Dino's comments that this wasn't a league game, somewhat down playing the significance of it, house money, etc. and the team played that way. They weren't focused, and the lack of execution was the proof. Not the end of the world in the realm of things for this program, but it still was a deer in the headlights performance when the cameras started rolling.

I think his comments are more trying to take cover for his players, and get them to refocus on what matters next week (a league game).

Totally agree every possible break we needed to go our way didn't go that way, and we didn't make the plays we needed to. That said, given their secondary, even if we bring our A game, I don't think we win that game. We don't match up well against a team with that type of strong secondary yet.
 
They're good, but Syracuse made them look a lot better than they are. That's not sour grapes either. They shot themselves in the foot a lot yesterday. When they're given short fields like they were, there's only so much you can do. This is the same team that needed all four quarters against Ball State, Pitt and Northwestern. Syracuse was on the wrong end of a perfect storm. I think Bama and Clemson will give them fits all game.
 
ND is good and they also were the wrong type of team for SU to match up with. They had answers for SU's strengths and strengths for SU's weaknesses. Add to that, SU strengths played poorly.
 
ND has been in control of every game they played this year with the exception of the Pitt game. Every team is going to have at least one sub-par performance (Clemson and even Bama yesterday are no exception) and Pitt is obviously much better than people thought at the time of that game. ND's defense has given up a lot of their points and yards when the games were out of hand. Even the NW game on the road that outcome was never really in doubt. Their defense is elite and will keep them in every game. I think their O Line is their weakness but it's not terrible.

Overall the sched has been extremely kind vs what it looked like in August; Stanford, Va Tech, FSU, and now USC are all way worse. NW a road game like St John's is for us. Clemson still killed us on the stat sheet in their bad game. IDK nitpicking obv; you go 11-0 with a decent sched you're good and deserving of the playoff. But they're on par with a half dozen teams clearly below the two titans imo.
 
Thanks to a colleague, I got lucky and had some great seats up close to the field. While at times difficult to see (having to look over line judges and players), it offered a really cool vantage to see how fast and powerful the players are. I sat around a lot of ND fans and spoke with them quite a bit. I personally think their defense, especially their secondary, is that good. It's experienced, they're incredibly fast and they have great cover skills.

When you fall behind a team like that with a great defense, you're limited in what you can do offensively and play right into their hands. Not having any breaks/calls go our way made things a lot worse. I thought we matched up poorly going into the game. Plenty of what if's you could play...but I walked away thinking ND is a lot better than I even realized going into the game.

No shame in losing on the road to a team like that -- score in the end is disappointing but doesn't matter. It's still one loss. We've come a long way and I'll take losses like this season over years past. Hopefully Dino gets the guys focused and we close strong at BC.

I'll say Notre Dame is the first team all year that was better than us at every unit. Clemson was better than us pretty much everywhere but punter/kicker, and their wide receivers were still developing at that point.

I'd still take Clemson straight up over Notre Dame. Better in the trenches with more dynamic skilled players.
 
ND has been in control of every game they played this year with the exception of the Pitt game. Every team is going to have at least one sub-par performance (Clemson and even Bama yesterday are no exception) and Pitt is obviously much better than people thought at the time of that game. ND's defense has given up a lot of their points and yards when the games were out of hand. Even the NW game on the road that outcome was never really in doubt. Their defense is elite and will keep them in every game. I think their O Line is their weakness but it's not terrible.

They weren't in control of the Pitt game. Pitt gave that one away.
 
I think his comments are more trying to take cover for his players, and get them to refocus on what matters next week (a league game).

Totally agree every possible break we needed to go our way didn't go that way, and we didn't make the plays we needed to. That said, given their secondary, even if we bring our A game, I don't think we win that game. We don't match up well against a team with that type of strong secondary yet.

That's why I said we had to bring our A game vs. their B and could win. But, just as Dino stated, they don't think scoring 33 points is a lot anyways, so, if SU had any semblance of a P5 offense yesterday, who knows how things play out. The 3 (sloppy) to's in the first half contributed to a bunch of their points too. I had stated as well, our A game in addition to us not having any to's.
 
From now on SU should play Citadel, UMass or Lemoyne before the BC game.
 

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