WHAT IF
- Thread starter Patrirish
- Start date
SC is not undefeated. They lost to Utah.
Losing to Stanford and having 3 losses we arent running any tables. USC plays UCLA before us so we have an advantage because we play 2 crap teams but they have a big emotional drain before us. Then it all depends on the bigger picture. Nd wont run any tables.
I agree, Navy and BC should be wins. USC DL is small, we should be able to run for 300+ yards.
If we had taken care of business against either Marshall or Stanford, this would be an important question. Since we didn't, the answer is easy. We will go to the Orange Bowl, or another prestigious non-playoff bowl. We can be really proud of our immense success in the 2nd half of the season. We didn't do enough in the first half of the season to merit a playoff berth, though. Lot's of great things still to accomplish. Go Irish!
I believe we can but if UCLA beats USC then even if we win out I dont think we are running any tables inll terms of bowl games.
That doesnt make sense. What does ucla winning that game have to do with us winning our last remaining games?
You know what running the table means?
Usc has a better offense than Clemson but we should absolutely run all day on them. We could very well be favored in that game..
Then please don't come back once it happens...ND with its much needed signature Win and you've got to rain on their parade. SC owns the better record but playing against very mediocre competition with a loss to the one truly good team they've played in Utah. Very beatable if we play with the intensity we displayed tonight. GO IRISH!
Clemson isnt as good as billed. They have struggled with some close wins. They have some issues on offesne. A strong performance by ND but Clemson never really mounted a threat which tells me they are not elite this year.
They don't have dynamic WRs to expose our solid secondary so we dominated. They also don't have our oline.
We are building pieces of the puzzle but we need a QB and WRs to start playing well.
We usually agree but not today.
Parity is high in CFB. The scholarship limits...now money being thrown around...the star trek portal...
Clemson was 8-0 and while they didn't dominate everyone just look at the new darling of CFB...Georgia...
Georgia narrowly escaped a game against Missouri who us 4-5 BTW.
Yes Clemson had a couple tight games...Syracuse as example. Syracuse ALWAYS gives them fits. Kind of like Pitt and Stanford against us. More than not they play us very tough for whatever reason. It just happens.
Clemson had a fairly close one with Florida State. Oh yeah...that same FSU team who beat the flavor of this week LSU.
Lastly sometimes it's just not your day. No matter what you do thr opponent is one step ahead. One thought ahead. It can unravel and the opponent plays perfect.
It happens.
Not specifically picking on you but it irritates me the superficial perception, in other words trendy bullshit, that an SEC team can have close call games and nobody says a word. A win is a win.
Teams not in the SEC apparently have to beat all 12 opponents by an average score of 222-0.
Otherwise it's well they aren't blowing every team out or they had a couple close games so they're not the Trevor Lawrence Tigers.
It will be absolutely glorious when a real playoff starts in CFB instead of the prettiest 4 teams at the beauty pageant.
Better players is always welcome but...
Earlier this year I said a team today could dominate if they committed whole heartedly to power football. Defenses are built to stop the spread. Lighter/smaller but faster.
The problem is coaches are terrified to completely commit to power football. You can lose running the spread and you'll keep being employed. If you lose running power football it's because you ran power football.
Look what happened Saturday night. We averaged more yards per play running the ball than our scared to death curl and sit routes we've run the last 12 years passing the ball.
The biggest thing was Rees committed to the run. He didn't coach from a script or robotic and tried forcing balance. He didn't try and force our QB to have a 300 yard game.
NO...
He coached to win the game. He coached to our strengths.
We didn't just win...we dominated.
Too many people outside football don't quite understand a few things...( not saying you're one of them)
But...beating Clemson 35-14 with CU essentially getting 14 garbage points...in other words we dominated them.
Yet some think apparently it wasn't that big or we aren't that good if we aren't a high flying circus act with speedy WR's and throwing the ball everywhere.
Let me tell ya...
Winning 35-14 getting gobs of yardage on the ground is utterly demoralizing to the opponent. They know it's coming...know where it's going...and still can't stop it.
It's also a tremendous confidence builder to the team who ran all over the opponent.
Running roughshod over a daisy means nothing. Running roughshod over a top opponent is powerful for the psyche.
BTW...
In the books it says
ND 35
CU 14
It doesn't say
ND 35
CU 14 *
* ND didn't win the trendy way by throwing all over the field.
I'm sure Rees will throw more against Navy to work on Pyne but if he realky gets committed to powet football we could be in for a dominating run.
P.s.
Remember when the prettier and more exciting FSU team came in 1993? While Ward is throwing the ball all over the place and the media says nobody can beat them...
We very quietly demoralized them with Becton reeling off 8 yards a clip...Adrien Jurell on a 20 yard end around...
We dominated that game.
Yep...the uglier not as trendy power football team.
1989 vs Michigan Tony Rice threw 2 passes the entire game.
Yes...2
And that 1989 team was the best I've ever seen. (Even better than 1988 but 3rd ahd 43 happened)
Will Rees be committed to the run? REALLY comitted to it ahd recruit accordingly.
He might as well because he apparently has good job security.
They dont ask how...they ask if.
If we were to upset an undefeated USC team at season's end, it would go a long way toward healing some of the wounds I still feel from my childhood. Unfortunately, USC already has one loss, but God, I would love to see us go out there and throttle them.
You are a fool. The ND offense brutalized and owned a Clemson front 7 that is considered the best in college football. It would be different if they dominated Clemson by attacking their weakness. ND attacked and dominated Clemson's strength.
Clemson knew what was coming and still couldn't stop it. They had 8-9 in the box and the ND OL was opening up holes and getting big push. We haven't seen this type of dominating performance since the early 90's
Compare this to the win over Clemson in 2020, where Clemson was actually missing their QB and several defensive players.
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