My prayers are with Coach

The Irish have never lost on this day — 16-0-2, a rarity, just like on Halloween Day.

Bronze Medal, 1978: No. 10 Notre Dame wins its eight straight game with a 38-21 decision at Georgia Tech to move up to No 8 in the country against the nation’s No. 1-ranked schedule. Vagas Ferguson rushes for a single-game school record 255 yards that would stand for 25 years, while Joe Montana also ties a school standard by completing his final 10 passes, finishing 14 of 19 for 189 yards.

Silver Medal, 1961: One of the most controversial finishes in college football history enables 4-3 Notre Dame to upset No. 10 Syracuse, which won the 1959 national title and now features 1961 Heisman Trophy winner Ernie Davis, tight end John Mackey (yes, the one the award is named after) and Walt Sweeney, who crashes into Notre Dame kicker Joe Perkowski during a 56-yard field-goal attempt on what was supposed to be the game’s final play.

Instead, with some ambiguity about the rules then that resulted in changing the rule after the season, Perkowski lines up a second time for a 41-yard field goal that is converted and results in a 17-15 win — and much like this year’s election, an extended process for days before a victor is declared.
A good recap here: https://www.syracuse.com/vintage/20...e_game_against_notre_dame_orange_bowl_be.html

Gold Medal, 1989: The reigning national champion Fighting Irish put up an astounding 425 yards rushing against a Penn State defense that had been allowing only 104 per game. The 34-23 Irish victory also is the 23rd straight — the current school record.

QB Tony Rice rushes for 141 yards on 28 carries, Ricky Watters adds 128 on 16 attempts, Rocket Ismail totals 84 yards on nine tries, and Anthony Johnson, referred to as the best fullback in the country by Penn State head coach Joe Paterno, adds 45 yards in tough, short-yardage situations. Notre Dame ends its 0-4 record in Beaver Stadium in the 1980s.

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we have good recievers but he is a five star talent

On his Twitter.

I knew this always had a decent chance of happening. Big time prospect & commitment.

Go Irish

Good lord what a busy day.

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Another offer out to a younger brother of an Irish player. This time to Alex Bauman, younger bro of freshman TE Kevin Bauman

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Here's the release:

ATLANTA (Nov. 19, 2020) – Officials from the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Foundation and Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl released the midseason watch list for the 2020 Dodd Trophy. The list includes 19 of the nation’s top college football coaches representing six conferences.

The Dodd Trophy, college football’s most coveted coaching award, celebrates the head coach of a team who enjoys success on the gridiron, while also stressing the importance of scholarship, leadership and integrity – the three pillars of legendary coach Bobby Dodd’s philosophy.

The midseason watch list was created through a selection process by the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Foundation and the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, taking into consideration each program’s Academic Progress Rate (APR), current performance during the 2020 season and each coach’s commitment to service and charity in the community.

Considering The Dodd Trophy represents more than just a coach’s performance on the field, a coach in his first year, who has not had a full season to establish his own impact on APR and the local community, is not eligible to win.

“It’s been an unprecedented season so far this year and we had to consider a variety of factors when compiling this list,” said Jim Terry, chairman of the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Foundation. “At the end of the day, we selected the coaches who we felt truly embody Bobby Dodd’s three pillars of scholarship, leadership and integrity, both on and off the football field.”

Ton of smoke out there about him potentially flipping from Auburn to Notre Dame. From those I've spoken with in the past 16 hours, I don't believe he's made that decision final yet, but he is scheduled to have a Zoom call tonight with the Irish staff at 6pm ET.

I'm told the Auburn staff spoke to Johnson for about an hour last night. Obviously Notre Dame has been in contact as well.

This one will be fun to keep tracking.

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If he flips to the Irish where would you rank the o line class? I would have to think I would be top 3 if not the best.

IF MI loses tonight, J-Mac has got to be thinking elsewhere. Meanwhile, he's having a stellar season at IMG. Had ND offered JJ early, he would have committed....just sayin!!

Out for the 2020-2021 season.

Tough break for him, 2 seasons in a row he will miss.

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The Notre Dame football team had one positive test out of 232 administered from Nov. 10 through Sunday, it announced Tuesday morning. That player is in isolation and did not travel to Saturday's 45-31 win over Boston College. There were no close contacts identified through contact tracing.

As of Nov. 16, there is one player in isolation and two others in quarantine who were previously identified as a close contact.

Notre Dame has 195 active cases on campus as of Nov. 16 and reported 17 positive test results Monday. The fall semester ends Friday.

8-0 Notre Dame already has played a full Big 10 schedule and surpassed any kind of Pac-12 schedule as it enters first-semester final exams week from Nov. 16-20 before the Nov. 21 bye and the Nov. 27 game at North Carolina.

With NCAA offering an extra year of eligibility, how does the staff reconcile the scholarship distribution going forward? It seems like there will be a major logjam (especially with a larger incoming recruiting class) to figure out the 85 scholarships.

Which seniors does Kelly bring back vs offering for this signing class

The Irish head coach achieved his 100th victory at Notre Dame last weekend, yet it remains a milestone with a * or ^.
https://notredame.rivals.com/news/lou-s-confessions-recognizing-brian-kelly-s-record

Notre Dame’s is 8-0 with strong playoff chances. Heisman winners usually come from playoff teams. Does Notre Dame have anyone with a real case? Should it? Examining the question:

Mike, It looks this might be trending Notre Dame’s way right now. What are you hearing currently?

Mike Mickens - B. The corners have struggled this year. Part of that is we don't have a dominant pass rush. With all that, ND ranks 11th in the country in passes defensed and 6th in passes broken up. That's good and for comparison the 2018 secondary ranked 10th in both categories. The corners have produced 16 out of the 34 pass breakups this year so far. In 2019 the corners produced 20 pass breakups. The lack of INTs is the the troubling part for me. Only corner with an INT is McCloud. The lack of INTs brings the grade down for me.

John McNulty - A+. The TE's have been outstanding so far. As a unit the physicality is a big reason for the running game success. At times under Long I felt the TE's didn't block as well as I thought they should have. McNulty did a great job getting Mayer ready and transforming Tremble into a complete TE. I would like to see Tremble used more as a receiver but that's not on McNulty. Home run hire so far.

Tommy Rees - A-. I probably rank his performance higher than some and I understand he struggled against Duke/Louisville but the offense has been really humming lately. I love how the offense is coming together the past several weeks. It's balanced and plays to this teams strengths. Props for building an offense around what he has to work with. Scoring 47 points against a defense like Clemson is what we have all been waiting for. I think he wanted to establish a physical team and that's why they worked on the run game so much early. Pitt was the turning point to this season on offense imo. Overall very pleased and his offense is averaging 37.6 ppg which is the highest since I can't even remember. I dropped the grade due to some problems in the red zone.

Lance Taylor - A+. In his first season as run game coordinator the run game has been efficient no matter who they played. I don't know how much input he has but I think Taylor and Rees have worked great together.


Thoughts?

Junior season is now over for St. Louis 2022 DE Tyson Ford, and he is starting to think about his college selection. Notre Dame is one of the teams near the top of his mind:

Might get more fun here soon!

In today's The Athletic, Pete Sampson had this gem of a thought in his follow up article on the Boston College game:

5. Love that Notre Dame is acknowledging the reality of Brian Kelly’s 100th win at Notre Dame. This place has been too timid about its bookkeeping after NCAA sanctions forced the vacation of 21 wins during the 2012 and ’13 seasons. Enough with that. The games happened. Notre Dame did a disservice to itself by pretending they didn’t happen much of the past two years.

My thought is simply - Its about time. Kelly has 100 wins, and Notre Dame has 938 wins. I don't give a shit what the NCAA says.

Love for ND that this kid came back, physical and strong kid and well put together. Long as well and an important get (re-get) in Florida. Could be an island corner but more likely a boundary guy or a safety if that doesn't work.