the hits keep coming for these guys. The coaches actually made the decision that he was the better QB in camp.

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Well this is an interesting development.

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He was a hero to my dad as well as myself. An alpha male to the core. He was a pioneer who used every bit of his God given potential and skill, consequences be damned. I'm inspired by people who who live life to the absolute fullest rather than just trying not to die. The great irony is that he lived into his 90s. He was a great American.

Quick press conference highlights from Swarbrick

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OSU has a problem

Tonight

Opening statement: Extremely proud of the University and how Father John Jenkins has been able to lead in the navigation going through a difficult, challenging year.

A lot of remarkable achievements with the ACC, not just football but in fall sports. It is a source of pride for us.

It is primarily about our student-athletes. I've been amazed the resilience of our students, the willingness to sacrifice, and the leadership of our coaches. They always made it clear their health was the first priority.

It's a remarkable challenge and the spring will continue new challenges.

Would be glorious for a no vote, but for the sake of $ I don’t see how they don’t vote in favor of changing it.

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Just watched the replay of the College Football Playoff show from last night

Kirk Herbstreit mentioned that Ohio State should root for ND and/or Bama to win out. If Bama was to lose to Florida AND If Clemson beats ND (AND the games are close - my addition), most likely, the committee will have UF, Bama, ND, and Clemson in the top 4. Ohio State would be the odd team out... Wouldn't that be something?!!! It probably be 1. Clemson, 2. Florida, 3. Bama, and 4. ND ... ND-Clemson Part III anyone???

However, I think Bama will beat Florida and ND will take care of Clemson.

Go Irish!!

Caught up with the Irish commit about last month's Clemson game

NOTRE DAME, Indiana -- Notre Dame senior linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah was selected as a finalist for the 2020 Bronko Nagurski Trophy honoring the national defensive player of the year. Owusu-Koramoah is one of five finalists, and is the third Irish player to earn that distinction, joining Manti Te’o (2012) and Shane Walton (2002). Te’o won the Nagurski Trophy in 2012.

A preseason All-ACC First Team selection, Owusu-Koramoah has totaled 49 tackles this season, which leads Notre Dame’s defense, also leading the team with 9.0 tackles-for-loss. He has been responsible for forcing multiple turnovers, including an interception, two fumble recoveries (one returned for a touchdown) and three forced fumbles this season. He has added three pass breakups.

His first-career interception came at Pitt, setting up a Notre Dame touchdown drive. In the win over then-No. 1 Clemson, Owusu-Koramoah posted nine tackles (seven solo), 0.5 sack, 2.0 TFL, one forced fumble and the fumble recovery touchdown, which was the first score of his career. Three plays later, he forced a Clemson fumble, which was also recovered by the Irish.

Owusu-Koramoah ranks tied for seventh among all FBS players with two fumble recoveries this season. He ranks fifth among all ACC players in forced fumbles (0.3 per game) and his 9.0 TFL tie for 16th-most in the ACC

Widely considered among the elite defensive players across the country regardless of position, Owusu-Koramoah is a Butkus Award, Bednarik Award and Lott IMPACT Trophy semifinalist, and now Nagurski Trophy finalist, he was named Nagurski Trophy and Bednarik Award Player of the Week, as well as ACC Linebacker of the Week, all for his performance against Clemson. At Pitt, Owusu-Koramoah was named to the Pro Football Focus Team of the Week.

Sorry if this was already posted but I hadn’t seen this before I caught it in between periods in the 2nd hockey game against Arizona State. I figured now that we’re in the down time until the ACC tile game would be a good time to post.

This is an interview with Tremble about his friend Eric Habelow. It’s a great interview and a heartwarming story.

The first link is the NBC Sports story as I saw it. I found the full length video on YouTube and put that in the 2nd link.


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Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick believes COVID-10 problems will remain throughout season.

Hard to say this isn't completely deserved for Daelin. What a cool honor for him. Here's the release from Notre Dame.

NOTRE DAME, Indiana -- Notre Dame graduate student defensive lineman Daelin Hayes has won the Freddie Solomon Community Spirit Award, honoring a collegiate football player who has impacted the lives of others through giving and community service.

Freddie Solomon, a two-time Super Bowl Champion, marked his life by his play on the field and his work after retirement in his local community. Hayes was selected by the family of the late Solomon for the honor out of candidates from across the FBS.

“Every year I am excited to read about what all of these outstanding young men are doing in their schools and communities,” said Dee Solomon, the wife of Freddie Solomon. “A major part of Freddie’s life was just helping others, and I just love to see that spirit in others. Daelin has done so much outside of his team responsibilities that I can see helping others is a major part of his life as well.”

Hayes, a team captain, has taken a leading role in the program in speaking out on racial injustice and inequality. He serves as part of the program's unity council, which has undertaken initiatives like registering the entire team to vote in November. He has also served as a voice for those efforts and a commitment to health and safety, joining programs like NBC's The Today Show to speak on behalf of the team.

His efforts have been evidenced in Hayes leading the organization of a rally in honor of Juneteenth on the Notre Dame campus. Organizing the event in roughly 72 hours, Hayes also gave a speech. In addition to Hayes, prayers were offered by University president Rev. John Jenkins and teammate Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa, while teammate Max Siegel II and head coach Brian Kelly also spoke, followed by a unity march through campus.

Prior to his recent work, Hayes has been actively involved in the Robinson Community Learning Center in South Bend, teaching a twice-weekly class last fall at the Center, working with 4th & 5th graders on how to resolve conflicts in a healthy manner. He also served as a leader at team community service events, including Shop With A Player (team members take children from local schools and the Pokagon Band shopping for Christmas presents), Football & The Force (charity softball game between Notre Dame football and local law enforcement officers), Saint Mary's College Dance Marathon to benefit Riley Hospital for Children and Roof Sit to prevent child abuse in St. Joseph County.

Other volunteer efforts include: Food Bank of Northern Indiana (weekly in 2018), South Bend Center for the Homeless (weekly 2018-19), Boys & Girls Club of St. Joseph County (weekly in 2018), Facilitator at Notre Dame Summer Bridge Program (2019) helping new freshman student-athletes begin at college, Kindness to Prevent Blindness helping underprivileged youth get eye exams and glasses, Ambassador for Irish Strong mental health initiative for student-athletes, a representative for Fighting Irish Fight for Life program which sees teams adopt children fighting a rare disease, volunteer to read weekly at Studebaker Elementary School (first graders) and mentor at the South Bend Juvenile Detention Center.

Through the 2020 football season, Hayes and the Irish have completed a perfect 10-0 regular season, sealing a berth in the ACC Championship game for the first time in Notre Dame’s one-year history of joining a conference.

Both Ian Book's and Trevor Lawrence's running and escape skills sometimes get overshadowed, but could make a huge difference — as it did for the Irish in their Nov. 7 victory versus the Tigers.
https://notredame.rivals.com/news/notre-dame-clemson-quarterbacks-as-runners

In today's The Athletic a subscriber asked what were the top schools for future success in recruiting. Ari Wasserman presented his list:

The top programs from a recruiting perspective are going to be the ones with major recruiting budgets, success in the NFL Draft as well as the ones best set up for current national title contention. I also took into account where schools are located and how I feel as though these schools are positioned for success heading into the future.

1. Alabama
2. Clemson
3. Ohio State
4. Georgia
5. LSU
6. Texas
7. USC
8. Oklahoma
9. Notre Dame
10. Oregon

A couple of thoughts on his list. I would think that Florida should be somewhere in that top-10 list. I don't know how you could leave them out. I also have to laugh at the thought of the consternation the Michigan fans must feel if they happen across this list.

Top 6 remains unchanged, with maybe only Florida able to crash the party.
https://notredame.rivals.com/news/notre-dame-stays-no-2-in-college-football-playoff-poll

And just like that, your Irish are 10-0. Again. They won a game at home. Again. 24 straight as a matter of fact. As an added bonus, you’ll never have to listen to some whiny Penn St. or other generic BIG10 fan gripe about how the Irish have an unfair advantage because they don’t play in a conference. In their first year in a conference, ND has fielded their best team in recent memory. Never mind what the Negative Nancys say about “sluggish starts” or the players were “flat,” this one was never in doubt and it wasn’t as close as it looked. It took the Offense a few series to get into gear, but when they did, Syracuse had no chance of keeping up, and the Defense did what they do, which is shut teams down. McLeod got burned early for a Syracuse TD, and there was that long TD run late in the game, but this game was over at halftime, especially considering how the D makes 2nd half adjustments. It was a great way for these seniors, who committed to a losing program after the disastrous 2016 season and helped to make one of the greatest turnaround in recent college football history, to move on. They had faith in the University and in BK and they were rewarded for it. Crazy to think some people still doubt both.
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Let This Sink In- When this season started, 7 ACC teams were ranked in the top 25; ND, Clemson, UNC, Miami, Louisville, VT, and Pitt (https://accsports.com/acc-news/7-teams-in-new-ap-top-25-poll/). ND beat 4 of those teams.

On to the game.

Things to Consider- Syracuse came to play, no doubt, as evidenced by holding ND to 3 1stQ points, but they are a 10 loss team and for every common opponent this year, Syracuse has lost to a team that ND has beat. However, they did have one game with a common opponent that had a fairly similar score and similar stats, and that was Clemson. Here’s a few Geek Stats for you: ND beat Syracuse 45-21 and Clemson beat them 47-21. ND led 24-7 at the half of our game while Clemson led 27-14. ND had 568 yards of total offense and gave up 414. Clemson had 455 yds and gave up 325. Even the Time of Possession is similar for each team. The belabored point here is that sometimes teams bring their best just give you everything they have even though their chance of winning is remote at best, but usually the best team wins.

Book- What a great story this kid has been. For those who may not remember, he was going to Washington State until Mike Sanford came to ND and recruited him. He de-committed and came to ND as an undersized QB who was looked at as a backup to Wimbush who committed the year before. Now, he leaves his final home game at ND as a legend with more victories than any other QB in the storied history of the program.
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He did so by completing 65% of his passes against a D that is describes as “above average” with a solid secondary.
Login to view embedded media Here some of the highlights:
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Quite a reversal of fortune, going from projected backup to history maker.

Speaking of Reversal of Fortune- Down 7-3 on their 5th possession with about 5:30 to go in the 2ndQ ND gets a good run from Williams for 7 yds and I expect another run. Instead they go for the pass and book gets sacked. Another pass goes incomplete forcing another punt… but hold on. There’s a roughing the passer penalty and ND gets the 1st down. After that it was the type of football we’ve been used to for the past several weeks. A deep cross to Tremble and a fight to the 1st down marker by McKinley sets up a long scramble for a Book TD and a real heads up play.



A couple of minutes later, Culpepper gets wrapped up by Koramoah but escapes only to be sandwiched by White and , Tagovaioa Amosa, coughs up the ball, which Liafua picks up. It’s at about that time the McKinley Show started, again fighting for more yardage a muscling his way into the end zone.


I was quite surprised that Syracuse couldn’t bleed more time off the clock before punting on their next possession, but that punt led to another penalty by Syracuse, this one the very definition of targeting rather than that Hamilton farce from a week ago.

Salerno- In the past, I’ve raved about how sure-handed and reliable he is so I was surprised that he bobbled this one before scooping it back up before getting crushed. The paint could be seen flying off of his helmet. I haven’t seen a guy take a hit this hard since @cheta41 ‘s 3rd divorce. Or was it his 4th?



Despite that crushing hit, he still held on to the ball! My kind of guy. Anyway, this pushes ND 15 yards forward and leads to the 2nd act of the McKinley Show.

Post of the Game- @dyoumans4706 referencing the Salerno hit: “Now that’s targeting, not what KH did last week!”

It Was Over When- Before Tony Dungy could take a breath after saying, “They’re not going to give up a TD here,” McKinley goes up top for another TD making it 24-7 going into halftime.

Tommy Rees can make good adjustments, too. With the way Lea makes defensive adjustments in the 2nd half, this game was over right here.

The Trifecta- McKinley strikes again on a stretching out TD. Did I mention he didn’t have any TDs this year before this game?


Game Highlights- Tyree breaks a long one for a TD. Him and Williams together for the next 2 years+ is going to be awesome!
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And a great spy-job by Hayes on this INT. Way to go out.


Understated- @bradenmi says it all in the game thread: “Book scrambling is a thing of beauty”


I Hate to Say It…- …but he’s right-

joemontana said:

Terrible throw and INT by Book! The pass was egregious...

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It was a terrible pass and an ill-advised throw. I only bring it up because it was so rare of a play and because it’s not all sunshine in My Two Cents.


As true as Joe’s comment is, I’m a member here so I can learn from the experts. @Tilion80 so adroitly noted, “How do you guys watch football every weekend and get angry about easily understandable football plays. Book read the original read by the hash safety as he stepped up. He disguised and dropped. Book attempted to throw open his WR on the post who was bracketed by a player who he thought stepped up. Sometimes you just get deceived and the defense wins a play.” I would have quoted it directly from the Game Thread, but the Thread Nazis locked it so I can’t quote anything from that thread this week.

Defense- Some had problems with the performance of the D this week, but I think this was more a case of the individual scheme for this game. There were more diverse lineups in the front 7 than I’ve seen all year. By my count, 23 players took snaps on D as opposed to 18 in the previous week against UNC. Now that could be a Senior Day thing or more likely it was part of the scheme for a game you know you’re going to win and trying to keep a few secrets from Clemson on the rematch. Individually, there were some unbelievable performance. JOK and White where everywhere, either making big plays for ND or preventing Syracuse from making big plays. Here you have Ogundeji causing a fumble and JOK is there again making a big recovery.


Questions About Buck- If your like me, you want to know why they rotate like they do, here's a good explanation:
https://irish.nbcsports.com/2020/12...otre-dame-but-proving-to-be-a-productive-one/

Post-Game Post of the Game- A few point to consider from the Thread “My 3 Biggest Concerns in the Clemson Rematch.”

densontheman23 said:

Let me start this with that ND has had a tremendous season and this is a very good ND team. These are my biggest concerns at this time going into the Clemson game, and the playoffs.



1. The CB's since the Clemson game have not had tight coverage, have had some busts and have not tackled well



2. Obviously ND faced Clemson without their starting DT and MLB and ND has lost their stud Center. Figuring out the Center-Right Guard combination is not only vital, but Hainsey hasn't played well since the Clemson game. Is he hurt? I saw braces on his elbows today. He's not moving well or anchoring well.



3. Doerer had the best game of his career against Clemson, and since then he's missed several kicks. He has always had a hook in his kick and has always had "mental" issues while kicking. He corrected both of those issues this year and then things started falling apart with BC. He needs to get his technique and confidence back.

Click to expand...

@Hond has a great post on ND-Clemson Part Deux here: https://notredame.forums.rivals.com/threads/nd-vs-clemson-ii-lets-get-it-on.161446/

It’s on to the ACC Championship game and, I’m confident, on to the College Football Playoffs. This team is for real and they can play, and beat, any team in college football. You faithful have seen the evolution of ND football, stalled for so many years, take place during the service of this outgoing senior class. Enjoy it.

Here’s to the seniors:

Have to think this could help Michigan's chances to land 2021 RB Donovan Edwards... We shall see.

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Supposedly they talked on Sunday...
Link

Time to bring back the player ratings. Tough loss. Thought we'd take this one with a great shooting display at home. We did what I thought we'd do and hit 51% on twos and 46% on threes. That wins you the game 90% of the time. But Ohio State hit 48% on threes, and 88% from the line (21-24). Our defense is certainly nothing to write home about, but for an away game they hit a lot of tough shots. Unfortunate, as this was a game I had hoped to be in ND's win column. ND had 13 turnovers which was also uncharacteristic and probably cost them the game. Ohio State only had 8 which either means they took great care of the ball, or we did not put enough defensive pressure on them. Maybe a bit of both.

Prentiss Hubb - A - 26 pts, 6 assists, and 5-9 from deep. He's frustrating as hell, but the overall picture is almost always positive at this point in his career. His last possession unfortunately was "bad Hubb", where most of the game was "good Hubb". He's always going to be a player who looks like he took a terrible shot...until it goes in. Eventually I'd like to see Cormac Ryan as the guy with the ball on the last possession. He's a much better passer and a better shooter than Hubb. I think he'll have to fight Hubb for the ball though.

Cormac Ryan - B+ - He was all world in the first half and then disappeared. 15 pts on 5-8 shooting. Love his ability to create and his defense. He's played three games in a year so I think he'll only get better. We clearly have a player here. Was disappointed he did not influence the game more down the stretch.

Nat Laz - B 17 pts on 5-7 shooting. He's shooting the ball great and rebounding better than I ever thought he would. However, after grabbing 9 boards in the first half, I don't think he had a rebound in the second half when ND started to lose control of the boards. And he really struggled defensively in clutch time when Ohio State starting attacking him. Overall the arrow is pointing up on Laz. He's following the typical Brey big man junior blossoming schedule so he's right on track. His defense has improved light years, but he'll never be a defensive stopper, and the middle of our defense is going to be an issue.

Juwaan Durham - B- 3/8 with 9 rebounds. Durham was a mixed bag. He was a warrior on the offensive glass with 6 offensive rebounds. But then he missed a couple easy put backs. He eventually fouled out which probably cost ND the game as ND's soft defensive under belly became a complete sieve. Ohio State drove at will on ND's defense down the stretch. Best part about Durham's game has been his passing which has been terrific for a big man. They need more out of Durham and I think he can play better than he's played these first three games. He was mixing it up tonight with players which was good to see.

Dane Goodwin B Goodwin hit some big shots, but he struggled defensively against quicker players. This has been a weakness throughout his career and I don't expect it changes.

Matt Zona B - I graded Zona and Sanders on a curve as they are freshman. Zona acquitted himself well for a freshman, but the reality is he should not be playing. He's the beneficiary of really lackluster big man recruiting that has left us with only two upperclassmen over 6'8. He grabbed a couple of tough offensive rebounds, but defensively he offered no help as Ohio State attacked the basket down the stretch. Zona was an unheralded recruit in high school that was a good late find for ND and will probably develop into a good player, but if he's playing in crunch time, we have a problem.

Tony Sanders C This was another unheralded recruit that I was really happy we signed because he's an athlete on a team that does not have many. He might be the teams best athlete (which means he's an average ACC athlete). Like Nova, he is a junior year arrival that's playing now. Love his energy, and he's a willing defender. But his turnovers killed us today. Wertz or Carmody in his role and we probably win the game.

Overall, disappointed in the loss, but encouraged by the team. We need to get Wertz eligible and well have something this year. Defensively, the team is going to have to tighten up, but you can see where this is going to go offensively. We are going to score some points this year. Brey may have five shooters if Wertz is eligible. It's about as a good a shooting team as he's had. Lot of missing parts in the soft middle of the team, but if you give Brey give good shooters, he's going to create a lot of games like tonight's game. Hopefully, we'll have better outcomes than tonight.

Final word from last night