Tag: byu

Old time football made it’s appearance in Notre Dame stadium on senior day. Bitterly cold, snow swirling and a nice cold wind blowing all over. Freezing temps – all this reminded me of the old days – November weather and bitterly cold Thanksgiving Day games played on frozen sloppy ground. I think it’s over for our stadiums natural grass field – time to move on to some type of field turf. It is just too easy to get injured on a field in this bad condition. With that said, Kelly continues to try a lateral running game, when even if a lane was there the running back slipped on the cut.

It really seems to me that opponents know our play calls even before Kelly makes them – position groups or whatever this has been a bad year on Chuck Martin’s part – small time football – ok for Grand Valley but not in the big leagues.

On what, if I remember is the first game against Temple ND actually scored on the first possession on a beautiful pass for a 61 yd TD – Rees to Daniels. As usual Tommy, God love him, also threw a pick in the 4th quarter but with one TD pass and one pick he actually matched the talented BYU QB who is quite heralded. ND sealed this game with some hard rushing by McDaniel (117 yds) Folston about 70 yds for an evenly balanced attack – 235 yds pass/rush. Hero of the game, FG kicker Brindza – he hit 3 with a 51 yarder to put the game away.

Finally, we saw a team that was jacked up to play – what would have been nice in the preceding games. ILB’s Fox and Calabrese played their best games – seems Diaco cut them loose to just play football instead of having them play in a straight jacket all year. The depleted DL was superb with Jarron Jones playing a truly great game – big stops, blocked FG that crushed BYU’s hopes – kid is going to be good. Tuitt stepped up again and I believe BYU QB Hill never wants to see him again. Only enigma is Mathias Farley – he just can’t tackle – what happened to him? he played outstanding last year.

So kudos to this team, now at 8-3 and really do have a chance against Stanford – if only the coaches got out of the way.

Tommy Rees – 7000 yards and 59 TD passes sorta makes up for all his travails of the last 4 years. Needs 2 more to pass Jimmy Clausen and land at #2 behind all time leader Brady Quinn – who the hell would have ever thought that 4 years ago. Make no mistake, he still has a few picks left in him but kid can hold his head high. Not many can say “I was a ND QB and threw 60+ TD passes” not even in their wildest dreams. Whatever he does in the future I will always be grateful for what he did for ND football, period!!!

Really worried about this game all season. Had misgivings about what ND team would show up at Pitt – they were on the field and that’s about it. Coaches also took the night off.

So here comes a good BYU team that just hung 59 points on Idaho State as a tuneup to this game. So what you say “it’s Idaho State”, well guess what they hung 40 on Texas, 38 on Georgia State and 47 on Houston. If Diaco sits back in his bend/break defense and only rushes 3-4 we cannot win. If the db’s play 8 yards off the ball we will get eaten alive.

For Notre Dame to win this game they simply must run the ball and not put the whole game on Rees. It’s going to be cold and rain – not conducive to throwing the ball 30 times. So far ND has not been able to run – even against a weak Pitt team – I don’t see it happening here either. Wisconsin pounded the ball against BYU and they didn’t care if the box was loaded. Empty back set is a perfect set up to get Rees hammered, and continually running east/west won’t help things.

Senior day hasn’t meant much past years and I expect the same ho-hum this Saturday. We only beat them by 3 points last year with a far better team and BYU is better this year.

My only hope is that Tommy goes out in a blaze of glory.

BYU dual threat QB runs all over this depleted defense especially with Nix done for the year having had surgery. All year we have let QB’s look like Heisman candidates and in this game Taysom Hill shines.

BYU 30 Notre Dame 21

Whew, well that’s over and the Irish are 7-0. Really not a good offensive day for ND point wise but ND racked up 270-60 yards rushing over BYU which was 3rd in the country in rushing defense. ND got it going just enough to win late and that is scary with the Oklahoma Sooners on the horizon.

Rees started out great hitting Eifert who had a TD catch then things reverted back to tipped balls for picks. Who says Rees can’t fire the ball, he threw a rocket to DaVaris Daniels that almost took his head off, unfortunately he was only about 5 yards away. So we know Rees can throw a fast hard ball but really never see him do it. His jump balls to Eifert were just things of beauty–right on the money.

Heroes of the game:

• Eifert–what more can you say–get it near him and he catches it.
• Riddick– 15 carries 143 yards–tough tough running on the inside.
• Wood–18 carries 114 yards–real nice running.
• GA III — nice move for TD when we needed it.
• OL — sometimes
• Stephon Tuitt– 2 big sacks and harassed QB all day.
• Manti Te’o—usual game and gets a pick.
• Danny Spond — great all day and ended game with a pick.
• Defense–another great game but man BYU receivers way too open.
• Punch out winner–Troy Niklas for smacking a guy right in front of the ref.

So we move on to Oklahoma who throttled Kansas 52-7 with over 300 passing yds uh oh.

I personally think BYU a good team but at times we gave them too much time to throw–can’t do that against Oklahoma. We get Golson next Saturday and I really hope Kelly has a high octane offense ready–we just have to score points and more points here on out.

We won’t beat Oklahoma if we just score 17 points. Our offensive production is scary when you look at what others are putting up–like Oregon and Kansas State.

I wish our coach Kelly had spent the bye week with Oregon’s coach Kelly to learn what a spread is supposed to do. Or even Rich Rod at Arizona who pummeled Washington 52-17.

Ya gotta score points period and we haven’t outside of 2 games. Sooner or later our defense will not be able to save us.

Bowling–I’ll take LSU–want no parts of the others.

I really wish Notre Dame had a tuneup opponent this week. Somehow or other I would like to see a solid running game by the Irish to determine whether this is a good line or not. Also I’m not sold on their pass blocking. Our QB’s have very little time to scan the field and are getting hit too often.

I have always been in favor of having a real fullback in my offense, not only to run the ball in the short game but also as a pass protector. I know Kelly not really into the fullback position but if he’s changing in his thinking about his offense he may be open to the benefits of a real fullback, He actually has one in the 2013 recruiting class in Alex Anzalone–who could play ILB and fullback on occasion–think goal line.

On Anzalone, glad to see he’s returning this week for the BYU game. I was very worried when he went to the FLA. LSU game. Really hope ND gives him a lot of loving this weekend.

Ok, onto BYU currently 4-3 but could easily be 6-1 and they really hung in there with Oregon State. By the end of the 3rd quarter score was 21-21. Things broke down in the 4th quarter including a pick by Oregon State for a 47 yd touchdown.

BYU quarterback Riley Nelson has a good arm and can also run as well as pass on the run. He’s dangerous for 4 quarters and given time he could really light it up.

The BYU defense is for real–currently listed in the top 20. They held OSU to 118 yds. rushing but gave up 332 in the pass game. Solid front seven led by a great linebacker in Kyle Van Noy. No doubt he will go at it with Troy Niklas after watching Niklas against Stanford. Hope someone worked real hard with Troy this week.

The BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall also serves as the DC–he’s good as well as innovative. Just watch what he brings in the ND game. With what I consider a unstable QB situation at ND — BYU will be coming after the QB on every play and you can bet–strip the ball was a priority this week.

Notre Dame has to score 35 points to win and the ND defense must play another shut down game.

I’ve been trying to think who Tommy Rees reminds me of, and it finally came to me–Bernie Kosar who played for Miami and the Cleveland Browns. Kosar had a weak arm but he was very accurate as well as smart as hell re football. It looks like we will never find out with Kelly’s infatuation with Golson.

Anyhow scary game. My prediction:

Notre Dame 31 BYU 24

BYU’S season stands at a deceptive 4-3 and got waxed last week by # 10 ranked Oregon State 42-26.

Head Coach– Bronco Mendenhall also serves as the Defensive Coordinator. He has a Head Coaching record of 66-24 which is not bad and has won 5 of 6 Bowl games in the last 6 years. He was the DC for the legendary BYU coach LaVelle Edwards for 2 years and it was Edwards who pushed hard for him to be the new Head Coach when he retired.

I’ve always been interested in BYU, now an Independent in football. They will play anybody and always put up a battle with good old time football. Have always favored a passing offense and good defensive play. Bronco has developed a very confusing defense which starts out as a base 3-4 with a lot of movement and they can be very difficult to run on. So let’s see how 2012 is going for them:

• Washington State W 30-6
• Weber State W 45-13
• Utah L 24-21
• Boise State L 7-6
• Hawaii W 47-0
• Utah State W 6-3
• Oregon State L 42-26

So outside of Oregon State they’ve not been too bad at all and could be a real problem for ND this Saturday. I expect them to Surprise–load the box, blitz from all over and harass Golson the whole game at the same time doubling up on Eifert. Until Golson proves he can throw the ball, he’s in the cross-hairs of every team he plays. You can bet BYU’s been practicing all week to strip the ball.

Mendenhall is a terrific defensive CO and BYU will come to play and not be intimidated playing in Notre Dame stadium. Upset alert?