Well, we have a team that's undefeated at 4 - 0 to answer my own question. This year seems to be a little different where we have a handful of very good teams, but I wouldn't consider any of them dominant. I see quite a few good teams where the mind set should be, you'd better come to play or you're going to get beat by someone you're not supposed to get beat by. Look at Arkansas. Something is wrong if they're not in the top 10 after this week, and at the other end of the spectrum look at Iowa State and Clemson. ND can't afford to relax, and it must come to play every single week.
I think we had some questions answered yesterday about what we have. I felt all along that the big advantage ND had was it had more athletes than Wisconsin, and it showed. The first thing that would come to mind are the WR's and RB's, but the athletes that made the difference were the one's on defense, and especially along the D line. Wisconsin was very big upfront, but they were also slow. 9 ND defensive linemen played meaningful snaps yesterday, and 8 of them registered tackles. That is probably the best stat of the day for me. When I see Howard Cross, who is giving up about 40lbs to the guy in front of him, constantly crossing the lineman's face and making the tackle from the backside, then that's where the whole bigger is better thing gets tossed out the window. But, It just wasn't Howard, it was everyone in that group. Jayson Ademilola is playing the best football of his career - by far, and so is Myron. Their PFF grades are 77.4 and 78.1 respectively. This is the first game that Jacob Lacey has really contributed, and he played solid for 20 snaps which is his highest total of the season. The player that surprised me most was Rylie Mills, and not because I didn't think he had it in him, but there was such a small sample size so far this year. He played 30 snaps yesterday, and he had some bull rushes that were impressive, and even though he wasn't credited muchwith anything in the stat column, he made a difference disrupting things.
No reason to get into how the rest of the D played, because we all saw it. I will add that Freeman put together a nice plan, and that was not being outnumbered up at the LOS which was going to stop the run and make the QB beat you, Mission accomplished.
Offensively the first person that comes to mind is Kevin Austin. He didn't have a monster game with 6 catches for 76 yards and 2 TD's, but I was just happy as hell for him after all he's been through during his career, and his performance from last week.
Has this fanbase ever had a 3 QB controversy? I wouldn't put anything past us for a second, but let's not get all upset when Jack comes out for the first series against Cincinnati, because it's going to happen.
We all have our opinions about the O line, and the struggles with the run game and pass protection. Wisconsin registered 6 sacks, and had an additional 6 TFL's plus a forced fumble against Pyne that they recovered. This is totally unacceptable. As far as pass protection goes, there were times during the game when it was very good. On the other hand seeing Cain Madden get fooled on a simple stunt while rushing only 4 made me crazy. What's not helping matters is Coan standing in the pocket and not moving. Do we understand why teams have been sending the house against us? Do we think that this is hurting the run game as well? The answer in my opinion is clearly yes. I've said all along that it's never just one thing. Another example would have been Baker riding his guy past the QB on a hard rush from the outside only to give up the sack when his guy came back around. It reminds me of these silly Rivals camps where they have 2 linemen going one-on-one and a cone sitting stationary about 7 yards back
(and no, I didn't mean to do that.)
There was one play where we moved the pocket intentionally that I can remember, and that resulted in a throw away on the sideline. Where I can see Jack helping matters? Instead of taking one step up in the pocket, why not just take off and run? He did it yesterday for a nice gain. I understand that he's not Ian Book back there, but taking off and running it, or just doing a QB draw will change what the defense is doing. Hell, I don't care if he just picks up 5 yards and then slides, it's positive yards.
The team is evolving, and it's getting better. We can pick out the negatives, but there are way more positives. At the top of my wish list is to get a little more creative in the run game. Wisconsin has a nice front 7 and the 3-4 that they ran took away the outside run game - jet sweeps, toss sweeps. Kyren was never able to bounce anything because there was always an OLB there. I'm not even sure it's in the play book anymore, but we need to have our linemen pulling more. The only player I can remember from yesterday was the TE kicking out the OLB.
The week is over and it's on to Cincinnati. Let's keep getting better.
I think we had some questions answered yesterday about what we have. I felt all along that the big advantage ND had was it had more athletes than Wisconsin, and it showed. The first thing that would come to mind are the WR's and RB's, but the athletes that made the difference were the one's on defense, and especially along the D line. Wisconsin was very big upfront, but they were also slow. 9 ND defensive linemen played meaningful snaps yesterday, and 8 of them registered tackles. That is probably the best stat of the day for me. When I see Howard Cross, who is giving up about 40lbs to the guy in front of him, constantly crossing the lineman's face and making the tackle from the backside, then that's where the whole bigger is better thing gets tossed out the window. But, It just wasn't Howard, it was everyone in that group. Jayson Ademilola is playing the best football of his career - by far, and so is Myron. Their PFF grades are 77.4 and 78.1 respectively. This is the first game that Jacob Lacey has really contributed, and he played solid for 20 snaps which is his highest total of the season. The player that surprised me most was Rylie Mills, and not because I didn't think he had it in him, but there was such a small sample size so far this year. He played 30 snaps yesterday, and he had some bull rushes that were impressive, and even though he wasn't credited muchwith anything in the stat column, he made a difference disrupting things.
No reason to get into how the rest of the D played, because we all saw it. I will add that Freeman put together a nice plan, and that was not being outnumbered up at the LOS which was going to stop the run and make the QB beat you, Mission accomplished.
Offensively the first person that comes to mind is Kevin Austin. He didn't have a monster game with 6 catches for 76 yards and 2 TD's, but I was just happy as hell for him after all he's been through during his career, and his performance from last week.
Has this fanbase ever had a 3 QB controversy? I wouldn't put anything past us for a second, but let's not get all upset when Jack comes out for the first series against Cincinnati, because it's going to happen.
We all have our opinions about the O line, and the struggles with the run game and pass protection. Wisconsin registered 6 sacks, and had an additional 6 TFL's plus a forced fumble against Pyne that they recovered. This is totally unacceptable. As far as pass protection goes, there were times during the game when it was very good. On the other hand seeing Cain Madden get fooled on a simple stunt while rushing only 4 made me crazy. What's not helping matters is Coan standing in the pocket and not moving. Do we understand why teams have been sending the house against us? Do we think that this is hurting the run game as well? The answer in my opinion is clearly yes. I've said all along that it's never just one thing. Another example would have been Baker riding his guy past the QB on a hard rush from the outside only to give up the sack when his guy came back around. It reminds me of these silly Rivals camps where they have 2 linemen going one-on-one and a cone sitting stationary about 7 yards back
(and no, I didn't mean to do that.)
There was one play where we moved the pocket intentionally that I can remember, and that resulted in a throw away on the sideline. Where I can see Jack helping matters? Instead of taking one step up in the pocket, why not just take off and run? He did it yesterday for a nice gain. I understand that he's not Ian Book back there, but taking off and running it, or just doing a QB draw will change what the defense is doing. Hell, I don't care if he just picks up 5 yards and then slides, it's positive yards.
The team is evolving, and it's getting better. We can pick out the negatives, but there are way more positives. At the top of my wish list is to get a little more creative in the run game. Wisconsin has a nice front 7 and the 3-4 that they ran took away the outside run game - jet sweeps, toss sweeps. Kyren was never able to bounce anything because there was always an OLB there. I'm not even sure it's in the play book anymore, but we need to have our linemen pulling more. The only player I can remember from yesterday was the TE kicking out the OLB.
The week is over and it's on to Cincinnati. Let's keep getting better.
