I'm not overly panicked or surprised with what we saw in the first half. It was much of what we knew and expected about this team...
I'll start with the defense...
- I thought the linebackers looked young and inexperienced. Bilal was bad, but he's always lacked instincts. He can't be a full time player. Drew White gets crushed at times, but he also makes plays. Reminds me a lot of a short, former walk on who manned that position a few years back. Smart kid. As I said earlier today, Owusu-Koramoah is going to be a star and he was moving at a different speed than everyone else in that first half. Excited to walk him keep growing. He adds a ton to the rover position in this defense.
- The defensive line was what I expected. Weak in the interior where we are undersized, and strong on the edges where we have veteran, future NFLers. The ends were good in the run game and Satterfield didn't give them many chances to rush Pass, which was a good strategy. That said, they took two of those opportunities away from themselves, when two seniors were offside. Kareem and Okwara need to be better than that.
- I was fine with the secondary. The safeties were active and I was happy to see Kyle Hamilton get some work. He missed a tackle in run support, but redeemed himself with a nice pass breakup. The corners weren't really challenged through the air, although I was disappointed with Pride's physicality against the run. Crawford had a great tackle in space... Not surprised. Crawford makes plays whenever he's healthy and on the field.
- I thought the coaching staff made nice adjustments after a bad first quarter, which was nice to see. They're rotating a lot at linebacker so I'm expecting to see some bad run fits until they settle on a 2-3 man rotation of guys they like. I'll be disappointed if they give up more than 1 long drive in the 2nd half. Louisville is going to struggle through the air. Notre Dame needs to approach the 2nd half like they do against Navy. Gotta penetrate, get up field and rally the defense through pursuit. I think they'll be fine as long as the defense doesn't give them any short fields.
On to the offense...
- The offensive line did a nice job about 75% in that half. Some nice running lanes and decent pockets to throw from. Patterson has got worked a few times by the Louisville nose and Liam Eichenberg is still a step back at tackle from what ND fans are used to, but overall, they did enough for ND to score points.
- The running backs were what you would expect. Outside of bad drop by Kyran Williams, they did what they were asked to do, ran with power and got production. Tony Jones is slower than molasses but ran behind his pads, with good vision in that half. We'll see more running in the 2nd half and I'd like to see the backs keep doing what they're doing. As a group they look ready to go.
- The wide receivers and tight ends didn't get a chance to make any plays because of the quarterback play. Claypool had a nice twisting catch, but I feel sorry for the group. They were WIDE OPEN down field a couple times and Book didn't even look at them. I'll hold my opinion of them until the end of the game.
- Then there is Ian Book. That was Pittsburgh 2.0 in that first half. He managed the running game pretty well and made a couple plays with his legs. Two fumbles running the ball is shit though. If he's going to keep the ball he can't fumble constantly. They're lucky they didn't lose both of them. There was no excuse for that passing game. He was inaccurate on the RPO to Claypool. He's lucky #83 made a great adjustment to the ball or that might have been a pick 6. Way behind him. The 4th down throw to Finke was worse. That's an easy first down for Finke if Book doesn't throw that ball into the ground and he knew it. The worst one was when he locked onto Claypool into the boundary and didn't even see that there was a pre snap coverage mistake and that both the tight end and receiver to the field were uncovered. That was awful... I'm expecting Ian to play much better in the 2nd half like he did against Pitt last year. Deep breath. Don't drop your eyes when you come off your first read. Two fumbles is not acceptable... Lets go kid.
Go Irish!
I'll start with the defense...
- I thought the linebackers looked young and inexperienced. Bilal was bad, but he's always lacked instincts. He can't be a full time player. Drew White gets crushed at times, but he also makes plays. Reminds me a lot of a short, former walk on who manned that position a few years back. Smart kid. As I said earlier today, Owusu-Koramoah is going to be a star and he was moving at a different speed than everyone else in that first half. Excited to walk him keep growing. He adds a ton to the rover position in this defense.
- The defensive line was what I expected. Weak in the interior where we are undersized, and strong on the edges where we have veteran, future NFLers. The ends were good in the run game and Satterfield didn't give them many chances to rush Pass, which was a good strategy. That said, they took two of those opportunities away from themselves, when two seniors were offside. Kareem and Okwara need to be better than that.
- I was fine with the secondary. The safeties were active and I was happy to see Kyle Hamilton get some work. He missed a tackle in run support, but redeemed himself with a nice pass breakup. The corners weren't really challenged through the air, although I was disappointed with Pride's physicality against the run. Crawford had a great tackle in space... Not surprised. Crawford makes plays whenever he's healthy and on the field.
- I thought the coaching staff made nice adjustments after a bad first quarter, which was nice to see. They're rotating a lot at linebacker so I'm expecting to see some bad run fits until they settle on a 2-3 man rotation of guys they like. I'll be disappointed if they give up more than 1 long drive in the 2nd half. Louisville is going to struggle through the air. Notre Dame needs to approach the 2nd half like they do against Navy. Gotta penetrate, get up field and rally the defense through pursuit. I think they'll be fine as long as the defense doesn't give them any short fields.
On to the offense...
- The offensive line did a nice job about 75% in that half. Some nice running lanes and decent pockets to throw from. Patterson has got worked a few times by the Louisville nose and Liam Eichenberg is still a step back at tackle from what ND fans are used to, but overall, they did enough for ND to score points.
- The running backs were what you would expect. Outside of bad drop by Kyran Williams, they did what they were asked to do, ran with power and got production. Tony Jones is slower than molasses but ran behind his pads, with good vision in that half. We'll see more running in the 2nd half and I'd like to see the backs keep doing what they're doing. As a group they look ready to go.
- The wide receivers and tight ends didn't get a chance to make any plays because of the quarterback play. Claypool had a nice twisting catch, but I feel sorry for the group. They were WIDE OPEN down field a couple times and Book didn't even look at them. I'll hold my opinion of them until the end of the game.
- Then there is Ian Book. That was Pittsburgh 2.0 in that first half. He managed the running game pretty well and made a couple plays with his legs. Two fumbles running the ball is shit though. If he's going to keep the ball he can't fumble constantly. They're lucky they didn't lose both of them. There was no excuse for that passing game. He was inaccurate on the RPO to Claypool. He's lucky #83 made a great adjustment to the ball or that might have been a pick 6. Way behind him. The 4th down throw to Finke was worse. That's an easy first down for Finke if Book doesn't throw that ball into the ground and he knew it. The worst one was when he locked onto Claypool into the boundary and didn't even see that there was a pre snap coverage mistake and that both the tight end and receiver to the field were uncovered. That was awful... I'm expecting Ian to play much better in the 2nd half like he did against Pitt last year. Deep breath. Don't drop your eyes when you come off your first read. Two fumbles is not acceptable... Lets go kid.
Go Irish!
