Notre Dame Football Mailbag - Part IV

0:00This is Belie, one network, every topic, everywhere. We're rolling with the Friday free for all mailbag here on the Irish Breakdown podcast, brought to you by our friends over at FanDuel. Really fun questions. We're all looking to get back to college football, some games on tonight, Notre Dame Place tomorrow. It's going to be a fun weekend on the docket. Super chat from Tyler Evans. Appreciate you, man. Who was the biggest disappointment team last week? And what can they do to clean up this week? His was SMU. Opponent on the schedule. Who's the biggest disappointment last week? Well, there aren't a lot of options. Like Trev said, everybody was kind of, I don't know that I'd say SMU.

1:00I'd probably say Michigan State would be mine. I think SMU played really well outside of run game game up a couple of big plays and Kevin Jennings turnovers, which one of them is, Ratlash, he said, wasn't his fault. Receiver in a bad route. But if they didn't turn a ball over, they win that game by 30 points, I think. But they did turn it over. They only won by three. So I mean, I get that. I can see that. First game on the road, the whole light thing, it was a lot of chaos. If I'm Ratlash, dude, I just want to come out here with at least one more point than the other team has. And I predict them to win by eight, seven or eight. I think I was what, 34, 27. That's kind of close to where it was. I mean, three point game and a couple of turnovers. I mean, they did what, three turnovers in in Flores 8 territory. Yeah, I tell you, I was a little bit more disappointed with Michigan State because just overall, they just, they had a chance and then they just like, guys, why do we do this? You know, you get a lead and then you just, in the third quarter, you just go into protect

2:02mode. You lose that momentum. I'd say probably Michigan State a little bit, but not overreact into it. But I just, I thought they had a chance to earn a really impressive victory and they let Toledo back in that game. But also then showed me something late in the game to get her done. Yeah, that probably might. Yeah, I know their name schedule, I would agree with you. I thought about going a very, very, very petty route and I'll share it. But yeah, Michigan State probably, my petty answer was Notre Dame because they didn't throw for 500 yards and what can they do? Don't do that, Trent. I'm not going to. Don't do that. I won't. But yes, on Notre Dame schedule, my answer would be Michigan State nationally. I don't know how you go with anybody else besides Clemson. Yeah. From Salt. Oh, I mean, it's not even, it's not even close. Yeah. Rutgers might be the only one that could compete with it. Rutgers and Clemson had the two worst weak ones I would say. You could have thrown, if Michigan would have lost to Western Michigan, officially lost. We all know they actually lost, but if they'd have officially lost, I think you could, I'd say I'd rather lose by 41 to LSU than lose at home to Western Michigan.

3:05Yeah. Because we know what it's like and I'm not saying that the, because we know what it's like to lose to a Mac team at home and how crushing that is. I'm just saying we've been there, been there, done that. And that hurt worse than losing to Bama in the, in the pretend rose bowl. Another question in here from Salty, it's against competition level against its competition level. Excuse me. Has Miami shown that it is successfully replaced for its offensive line players and its edge rushers? No, because we, we know nothing from last night. Nothing from their O line and I don't think their O line played well in the opener, but I also don't think I also didn't expect them to look like they had done that after two games. So no, have they shown that they successfully replaced four of its, I mean, they have, in that they have five starting offensive linemen, but I think it's a little too early for us to kind of have any kind of sense of how good Miami's offensive line is. I think they're decent in pass pro, but I mean, look, Stanford had some success getting after the quarterback in that game in the opener. And again, I don't, I don't know what exactly you expected to see from them against, um,

4:13Florida, A&M. So I think it's TBD. They did run block better last night, but again, look who it was against. I just need to see him play somebody competent first draft. Agreed. They didn't show me through those two games that they would be a hindrance, but they also didn't show me enough to wear like Francis Maui, we know who, you know, Mark Hill Bell who, honest Cooper who like I, right. Yeah, that's where I met. Florida story. They're about where we thought they'd be in week two. We thought it would take him some time to figure out who's going to be where and what they would do. So no, they haven't proven that to me, but I didn't expect them to prove it to me after two games, especially with we knew what they were going against. We'll have a much better sense really next week when they play wake forced. They go on the road against wake force and can look like they did last night, not numbers wise. I don't expect them at 800 something yards again, but just like, hey, they, they look like they're jelling.

5:13They look like they're coming together. Then I'll feel like, okay, they're going to be all right. They're going to be all right, but it's, it's still TBD. And then we get this last one from Salt Day and then we'll go to some more people. Considering his experience recruiting Florida while at Clemson, with Tony Elliott, be Florida State's top head coach target if they fire in or bell after the Miami game. He'd be on my radar if I was them. I mean, he's recruited in the South, coach in the South, you know, coach in the ACC is a as a head coach and is a coordinator. He'd be, he'd be very high on my list. Absolutely. So I don't know that he'd be my top choice. There's a, you know, there's other good coaches out there, but he'd absolutely be on my list salty. No question about it. And I was just from like Trevon, I said, like, you wondered like, is he a head coach? You know, could he, could he recruit? He'd get the, you know, the players that he need to get and things like that. But the one thing that's been true for Tony Elliott from the time he got there is his players play hard for him, even in the bad years. That's been an issue for Mike Norbell.

6:15His players don't play hard for him. Even in some of the years where they were good, there were still games you're just like, they just outtellin' to people, you know, and that's just not as much of an issue for Tony Elliott, even when they've been down. They play hard for him. And they're solidly coached technically. They just didn't have players in the scheme at times as a little dull. Now there's a lot of games where Tony Elliott can prove himself to be a legitimate candidate this year. There's also some games where he can prove himself not to be. He's gonna have to build on what was all last year. Got a question here from Isaiah Layman. Do you think we will see more of the sophomore DBs going forward? I was a little surprised in either Dallas or Mark Zachary got minutes last week. I don't, look, we've had questions about Dallas Gold's health. I don't know if Dallas's gold is healthy right now. And I don't know if that factored into why he didn't play. And I'm actually pulling up the special team stats right now on PFF to see if he played special teams at all. Because I don't remember seeing him on special teams either. But I don't want to say definitively that he was not.

7:17So yeah, he didn't play special teams. So I have to think that he's not healthy. When you consider how many guys that played special teams. So I don't know that Dallas Gold's healthy enough to play right now. Mark Zachary, I understand because it was a competitive game and you're not taking Leonard Moore off the field. So I get that because that game didn't really get out of hand until like late third early four. And I think Notre Dame was trying to make a statement. But little surprise, little surprised, but not entirely surprised with Mark Zachary. Yeah, I didn't, I'll be honest. I didn't have it on my big go card that we were going to see more sophomores on offense and sophomores on defense. I mean, we saw James Flanagan on offense, no one James on offense. Obviously, Blacks the starter. I mean, I was, I was, I saw Jerome Betis Jr. for a couple of snaps as well. We did. I was surprised we didn't see Matt and Faramo, Dallas Golden. I mean, yeah, it was interesting. Another one from Isaiah Laman, if you're the offensive coordinator, what is your first

8:18call tomorrow? Uh, honestly, I'd probably take a deep shot. Yeah. I think this is a game where you're more prone to that. I'd probably take a deep shot. I think rice is going to be very committed to. Wisconsin did a nice job of loading the box post snap, not pre snap, meaning they were playing a lot of quarters coverage, a lot of Robert. Quarter's coverage in today's game is too safety is kind of coming down if they see runoff, run action in this, in this, in the corners play the post. Back in the day, quarters was like, like bail, everybody bail. That's not what it is means today. Then they did like a lot of Robert coverage, single high Robert coverage, which essentially means, you know, sometimes they just bring a safety down and they weren't even disguising it. It was even a robber says he's now in the second level. Then other times post snap, they'd bring a safety down, drop another safety deep. They'd play some Tampa two, you know, with the corners bail and then the safety kind of plays the deep middle type of thing. They did it with a safety instead of a linebacker, just from kind of where they brought the guy.

9:18But so that I think what rice can't do that, I think they're going to have to actually be more load the box than Wisconsin was because they don't have a defensive line that averages like two seven three 24 across the board. They're, I don't know. Do they have a single 300 pounder in their two deep? I don't remember saying one. I don't know. There's like guys in the two 70s and two 80s on their D line. There's a couple two 90s in their two deep, but I don't remember any 300 pounders in their two deep. No, they don't. I think their biggest starter is one of their edge rushers. I think he's like six four like two 71 interior guys is like a bunch of saw it off guys. Yeah. So I would, I would say some sort of Max Pro play action shot, you know, a game Purdue, something like that where you knew Purdue was going to come out in the first drive of the game and just be downhill, stop the run because of how bad you ran on on the year before and the fact that you had run the ball so effectively, you know, with that group in the past. So I made sense something like that and not, but it's not to shut people up or prove.

10:19No, it's game plan wise. It would make sense to take an early shot in this game. Okay. Yep. Agreed completely. Another one from Isaiah, if you could choose between having the best tight end or best running back in college football, which would you choose? Probably best tight end. I feel like the best tight end could have a huge impact on your team. I've just always been something. It's great to have the best running back into the game. I'll take the best player to position anywhere, but I just feel like if I got a really good offensive line, I don't need Jeremiah love to have a great run game. It's kind of like would you take would you take Jeremiah love and Eli rared in or would you take brought powers and Kyron and trying to think of a, a neus Williams or Tony, yeah, Kyron Williams. Kyron's a good back, but he wasn't in the conversation for best running back in college football that year. How about that? Brock Bowers and they played together. Same era. Would you rather take Brock Bowers and Kyron Williams in 2021 or Jeremiah love and Eli

11:26rared? To me, I'd give me Kyron Williams and Brock Bowers or let's use another name example. If I could get, if I could get Kyron Williams and Tyler Eifert or Jeremiah love and Eli rared in, give me the Tyler Eifert with Kyron Williams just because if my line's good enough, I'm going to still get really good production from the running back, a really good running back, whereas if I got the number one tight in the game, he can be the alert of the focal point of my team in the past game. Well, and to your point, I'm also taking tight end to the surprise of nobody, but also if you just have like a really solid running back, but not the best in the country, the tight end also impacts that and run blocking as well, something we've seen multiple times at Notre Dame. So whereas if you have a good running back, I don't really know how much that impacts the tight end position, but the tight end position and having the best tight end in college football can impact the running back position. So I'd go tight end as well.

12:27Love it. All right, let's get to one. We got a question here from Zach Becker. What do you think of my girlfriend who refers Notre Dame game versus SMU? What are some must-do's for a good experience? Player walk, Trumpets, Grotto, etc. Well, you just named three that are musts. And I think the player walk is something I've never done, Trev, you have, but people that tell me it's like it's something you got experience as an Notre Dame fan. My wife has done it. The Trumpets is pretty awesome. I don't know if they're in, I don't think they're inside anymore doing that, but it's still pretty cool. Right over to the Grotto. I've said before, just walk around campus. Just go all around campus, take her to the bookstore because when you're heading to the different things, take the long routes to those places. You know, like when I go to the Grotto, I kind of go up the stadium towards the library, see Touchdown Jesus, the reflecting pool, then walk across and you walk past the Golden Dome, which is the administration building, then you walk past the Basilica to get to the

13:29Grotto. So yeah, I mean, I think those are, those are some that I would say to do. And then the player walks a pretty cool deal from what I've been told, especially if you're going on SMU, which is senior day, I would do the player walk for sure. That's true. It's a good point. Grotto is for sure. I would also, the other thing that I love, I just walk around the tailgate part of the lots. Even if you don't have a spot, first of all, people are very friendly. You'll have people offer new food, drinks, whatever, what have you. I mean, it's, but I'm a big believer the Notre Dame tailgating experience is unlike anything else I've ever been a part of. Other tailgates, I'm saying not other life experiences in general, but I've been to an Ohio State game day for Notre Dame. It's not like I went to an Ohio State game day versus Grambling State and the tailgating sucked. I was there for Notre Dame, Ohio State and the tailgating was fine. I was at a Clemson home game against Louisville. The tailgating was fine.

14:29The Notre Dame tailgate experience for rice tops, what it was for Ohio State Notre Dame in Columbus, in my opinion. So I definitely check out the tailgating scene, all the things that you mentioned. Walk up and down to Eddie Street too. Eddie Street's a cool vibe. I don't zack. I don't know what you like doing, but you go get food, go get some drinks before the game. It's a really good time. Eddie Street's a lot of fun. I wish Guy has week one changed any of your opinions on teams on Notre Dame schedule. BYU looks better than I thought with legend glass skirt. I'm assuming that's a glass and Miami looks tough with no receiver. No, it's the receiver. Malcadtoni. Oh, okay. Their leading receiver was legend, gas, and that game. No, because they played Utah tech. I mean, again, I don't have a lot of sweeping conclusions about teams based on one game, but I don't care what Utah State or BYU does against Utah tech. And three catches for 65 yards and two touchdowns as a freshman is impressive no matter who

15:31you're playing, but he did it against Utah tech. I mean, honestly, there's not a scholarship kid from BYU that shouldn't be able to do that. And he also had a rushing touchdown in the game, by the way. But it's Utah tech. I just don't care. The only team that changed my opinion slightly was Stanford. And even that's kind of an incomplete because they're missing like three starting offensive linemen. But outside of that, everybody else played essentially nobody. Yeah. By the way, Utah tech last year went to intent the FCS level lost by 32 to Austin P lost by 21 to Abeling Christian got shut out 23 nothing nothing by Western Georgia lost 33 to 10 to Eastern Kentucky. I don't care if they'd had a thousand yards against Utah tech. It does not just like I don't nothing that I saw from Miami last night like changes my opinion Miami because we thought they're pretty good to begin with. It's Florida and it was a bad FCS team and they will they might beat Utah tech.

16:32Like I think Stanford's a decent one. I think they're well coached. I think I'm not the only other one I would say is North Carolina's defense was even better than I thought it was. But again, we don't know if that's because TCU's not very good. Like that's the thing of one game. It's like boy, you think that team was pretty good, but then you find out they actually weren't that good. That other team was bad. We don't know, but I really liked what I saw from the North Carolina. I mean, we thought they would be a solid defense because we like their D line. We've talked about they got one of the better D lines on the schedule, but I just thought overall I thought North Carolina's defense looked good and looked like they were getting coached by a Hall of Fame defensive mind. It's because they were. From USMA 87 is Kim Williams now officially quote a bust. I hate to admit it. I have been pulling him pulling for him from day one. Now that he is the permanent team rep on wake up the echoes. I mean, I'm not going to convince you otherwise. He hasn't done anything in Notre Dame. I just would like to remind you that if Cam Williams finishes this season with zero catches,

17:35he'll still have more career catches than Javon McKinley had after his third year at Notre Dame. And he ended up in pretty good when his car's over. It's just all about whether or not Cam wants it or not. First of all, I don't love the bust turn by and it's going to come from him or dude. I just never call a guy a bust until his career is over. Like right next to that, I think Bryce Underwood's a bust right now, right? But what if Bryce Underwood gets turned around and it becomes a lights out player? Could happen. So if you want to say that, I'm not going to say how now you're wrong, man. You're wrong. Just wait. Just wait because he hasn't done anything to show me he deserves to have me defend him. I'm simply going to say his career's not over yet. And until it's over yet, we really can't come on. But it's been a disappointing so far, two seasons in one game for Cam Williams. Yeah. The way that I go about this one, USMA87, I won't label him a bust until he's done at Notre Dame, but I'm also not going to bet on a turn around either.

18:37That's the best way that I can put it. Very fair. From Sean Stewart, happy Friday, fellas, currently touring Notre Dame's campus for the first time with my dad and brother, we did the tunnel experience first. Can't wait for tomorrow. Go Irish. That's awesome. That's really cool. That's very cool. From Irish guy 99, if you were Mike Denbrock and J. Wonsider, would you give the third running back reps to Kedren Young or break in Jonah as Walton? I like young, but he seems to have a similar skill set to James and Neneas. No. No, not at all. If anything, I would give Kedren more one in two reps, but no. And I don't think his skill set similar to James and Neneas at all. I think it's actually very different than those two guys. I think Jonah's Walton is more similar to Neneas and Nolan James than Kedren Young is.

19:38And Carlos Garza, do you think we'll ever see college teams do a preseason like the NFL? I think we could see that. I think we should see that, not preseason per se, but I think they should be loud at scrimmages. I've said this before. I'm a proponent of in fall camp, maybe two weeks before your first game. Instead of a jersey scrimmage, I'd love it if like, let's say Notre Dame and I don't know, pick a say Notre Dame and Illinois Notre Dame in Northwestern, a local team. Find somebody local so it cuts on the cost of the day. Every year, it will rotate, but every year we're going to spend kind of a little couple days together like they do in the NFL where they have like those three those pro joint practices have two to three joint practices against each other. And then on Saturday, we'll do like a assimilated scrimmage. So we'll do it like we do the jerk. You know, we'll do some seven on seven. We'll do some inside run and then we'll do like a half, you know, a set number of plays in a scrimmage format against another team.

20:39I fully support that. I would put limits on it, you know, like, you got to try to pick a team within a certain radius. You know, I don't want, I don't want Notre Dame flying out to Oregon to play Oregon, you know what I mean? Maybe they meet somewhere like we'll meet at, you know, like, if Notre Dame and Northwestern were going to do it, let's say they wanted to do it at Culver or they wanted to do it at some place where they meet for a few days. I mean, I think there'd be a lot of merit to that. And you get to see your team perform against somebody that's not your team and you practice against you. And there's some parts that the practice would be okay. And like Notre Dame could do this at their facility. They got four practice fields. Hey, we'll practice on these two fields. You practice on that field this day or these two fields on this day. And when we're doing our own individual practice, and then we'll come together for seven on seven, we'll come together for one on one. And we'll do some things like that. We're not going through individual drills together. We do our thing. You do your thing. We're doing team tempo. We're doing special teams by ourselves. We're doing this by ourselves. But we're going to get together on the middle field and, you know, the offense is, you know,

21:43our first team is going to get your first team and seven on seven or one on one. So, you know, then we do inside run against each other. Then we do the seven on seven against each other. We do the scrimmage, you know, the team period against each other. And then like you said, you have a simulated scrimmage on that Saturday. I think that there would be a lot of benefits to college players and to college teams if they were to do something like that. But I don't want to see like preseason games per se. Agreed. But that I could also still see because I could say, hey, we could make some money off of this, you know, and maybe Texas isn't willing to play Notre Dame anymore in a real game, but they'll scrimmage each other and we can put that on TV. I could see that. Hope not. Yeah. Yeah. I think that'd be a lot of fun. I mean, and to the cults do it up here and it's free to go to. I think that'd be a great thing for fan engagement too. Yeah. The cults do it down here in Indianapolis and technically up in Westfield.

22:43Maybe just go. I think that'd be a lot of fun. Yeah. Kind of like a joint OTA type of thing. Yeah. I'd like something like that. I think that'd be pretty cool. From Irish for life, 99, what did you make of the reporter telling Bryce Underwood that his head coach had indicated his position wasn't necessarily secure? Was he out of bounds, thoughts? So here's my thing. I didn't see the quote from Kyle Winningham. I'm taking the reporter at I'm assuming for the sake of this question that the reporter is not making up something that or twisting Kyle Winningham's words. Just assume that Kyle Winningham indicated that Bryce's position wasn't secure and made a comment that way and then Bryce is being asked about it. That's Toly Fair. Toly Fair. And Bryce should have had a better answer than that. I think that shows his lack of maturity. Now he's a sophomore in college, but that shows his lack of maturity.

23:44And is a concern. I don't have a problem giving media hard time. I thought the guy that asked Davos Swini about, do you regret how you put this roster together is a fricking clown. Like what coach is going to say, yeah, I regret recruiting the players to my roster that I recruited. Like what a stupid, moronic, unprofessional thing to say. You're a joke and you're trying to make it about you instead of just, you know what I mean? You're an idiot. I heard the question to the Michigan guy asked and I had no problem with it. Assuming it was a fair representation of what Kyle Winningham said, which I did not hear. Does that make sense? Like as long as I assume for the sake of argument that it was a fair representation of Kyle Winningham's comments, I have no problem with him asking that question. It and it was a fair representation. Okay. I heard Kyle Winningham's comments verbatim. He said, quote, he's our quarterback right now. It's not something that's infinite. We need to see improvement with a bunch of stuff.

24:44It's not just Bryce's job that's set in concrete and nobody's job is. And that's absolutely what he should have said. Yes. After that performance. Yes. Yes. And it's fair for the reporter to then go ask Bryce Underwood about that. Yep. And if you don't want him to say that, play better. From O breezy 23, has there been a bigger recruitment weekend ever bigger than the Miami game? I mean, we're still a long way away from the Miami game. I know the list is big now. Some of those kids aren't going to come. Some more kids will be at it. The USC Notre Dame game back in 11 was a monster recruiting weekend as well. I mean, like they had a lot of former future NFL players like Zach Banner was at that. I mean, that was a loaded weekend. Comparable in numbers from what I can remember. And I think that was like, wasn't 11 USC is when they introduced the new helmets. I believe I could be wrong on this.

25:46But wasn't it like their first home night game in a little bit? Yeah. Like I know they'd had home night games for, but I think it was like their first home night game in a while. Yeah. And so it's this big event and they had a ton of kids there. They've had some some weekends like that. And usually it's Notre Dame USC. There have been some Notre Dame USC games are absolutely loaded like this Notre Dame Miami game will be. It's going to be an impressive weekend. From Jay Melvin Brian, did you see the guys doing the Lambo leap after this long horrible offseason? I felt really good to see the guys get back out there and have some fun. I agree. I thought that was pretty. And look, I just I know how cool it was. Vince and I are like before the game, well, dude, we're, we're freaking sitting in the press box of Lambo field. It was kind of how I felt when I was sitting in Fenway. Like, dude, this is freaking amazing. I am sitting in Fenway Parks press box watching the Notre Dame football game. This is, this is a pretty cool deal. And I felt that on Sunday night. I was like, dude, I'm sitting here at Lambo field watching, you know, where Brett Farb has

26:50played games and and Roy Kramer and, you know, Sterling Sharp and all these, you know, great, let you know, Super Bowl teams have played in here. John L. Wei has played inside this stadium, which you know, obviously for me means something. And I'm watching the Notre Dame football game here. That's how I felt. Imagine how the players felt. Now I think they did a pretty good job of handling the moment at the time, but when it's over, enjoy it. Do the Lambo leap. You made a freaking video about it. I thought it was cool. Enjoy it and share that moment with your fans. I thought it was cool. Yeah. I thought it was really cool. Yeah. From Steve, I'm whole. Well, I never liked the soccer concept moving teams down because of not performance. The N.I.L. and Rutgers makes me think otherwise, having each power for Lee get paired with a group of five thoughts. No, I don't like that at all. But I think the spirit of where you're coming from is something that I do support. I wish that there were certain expectations for what schools must do in order to maintain

27:57their status in our league. You can't keep taking a hundred million dollar payouts and only spending twenty million dollars. And the rest is going here, here, here, and here. You need to be using that TV money to pay your players and then be investing your program to be more competitive. The reality is guys is we don't want a sport where your best teams are nine and three and eight and four because there's that level of NFL parity. You don't. It's not good for college football. So I don't want to create that type of environment. And I also don't want to create an environment where that's happening. But I do think conferences should have more authority to say we give certain standards of and I don't think a record should reflect that. I don't think Florida state should have been relegated after the 2024 season. You know what I mean? That's not I don't believe in that. But that doesn't mean like, hey, Florida state, you guys are your record is this but more

29:01importantly, everyone else in the league is spent X percentage of their TV money and conference money on the sports programs. You guys have only spent such and such percent that falls below our expectations. There should be things where conferences could say if you're not graduating your players at a successful rate, if you're not, you know, reinvesting the money we're giving you for being in a conference towards your sports programs because why is that matter? Well, why what's wrong with them spending that TV revenue on campus because campus isn't drawing more eyes to the TV, which is where that money's coming from. I want you to take this TV revenue and invest it in your sports programs to create a better product that allows us to put a better product on TV. If you want to raise money for your school, go raise money from people who want to donate to the school. And so there certainly would be things where I wish conferences would have it in their

30:03bylaws that if you don't reach certain standards for X number of years in a row. Okay, so you fall below this, this, and this for at least two years. If you fall below five of these seven standards or four of these seven standards over consecutive years, we have the authority as the conference to boot you. No, I don't relegate them anywhere because I want to bring them back. You can reapply in a couple years, but we're probably not going to do that. We're probably going to go find somebody else. So I think Steve, the heart of where you're getting out of this question, I agree with. I just wouldn't necessarily do it the way that they do it in soccer, which I had no idea that they did that until I watched Ted Lasso. I was like, is that a real thing? I looked it up, like, wow, that's a real thing. I think it's also kind of crazy that the lower league has a cooler name than the top league.

31:07But, yeah, but anyway, so the spirit of your question, I actually tend to agree with. From Ira's Dragon, do you see the rice game is more of to see how the players improved from the Wisconsin game technique, effort, etc. or how the coaches improved play calling skim fits, etc. I don't know, play, I mean, because sometimes a play call may look great against a team that sucks, but it's because that team sucks. I don't know, I just want to see, I don't know that I want to see anything improved from last week. I just want to see this team play hard and be focused. That's all I really care about because if they do that, they'll dominate it. I don't know that scheme wise or because I think too is some coaches are more willing to be more open with their play calling because they're playing a team that's not very good. That doesn't tell me, huh? No, they're named 2023. Yeah. Great example. Great example. Central Michigan, Jerd Parker wants to throw the ball down to field all day. Last state, you know, so that doesn't tell me anything.

32:09I don't tell me anything at all. You're real creative with your run game and you're playing Navy and Purdue and rice, but you run the same play 70% of the time when you're playing Miami or Texas A&M. That doesn't show me anything. I just want to see if the players come out locked in for this game, that tells me something. Agreed. All of my takeaways for this game will be big picture. Are you focused? Are you executing at a high level? I'm not paying attention to anything. Man, no matter how many of them just had the better guys on the field. Yeah, no duh. Like that's, you know what I mean? That's going to be my approach to this one. I was dragging. That's where I'm at. All of my takeaways will be big picture. From Jay Melvin, Brian, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you said earlier this week that Indiana doesn't look as dominant as they did last year, especially on the defensive line. Could you explain that a bit more? There's really not a lot more to explain. It's kind of self-explanatory. They just didn't look as dominant.

33:10I thought the two tackles looked pretty good, but the depth when they brought the second string in, they just didn't look as good as the guys that they brought in last year off the bench. Just not as talented, not as impactful. I didn't think their ends looked great, but that again, that's a one game over reaction. It's not something that in a segment where we literally called it an over reaction, because they didn't look great in the opener against the whole dominion last year either. I didn't worry about it as much last year, because we saw what those guys did the year before, but yeah, they just didn't look as good. Agreed. It's not a whole lot more to it than that. From Josh Buffo with Rice being run heavy and now knowing we will see KVA, does that also mean Man Faramos going to be playing more this weekend? I don't know. It's a good question. I'm very curious if they go with the three linebacker alignment in this game, because they've done that a lot against the option teams. They did that last year. They did a lot of four three person elegance navy last year.

34:10I think Kingston started that game. Yeah. I could see that. Who would that third linebacker be? That's a great question. Will it be Kingston? Will it be Madden? Will it be Jay and Sneed? Will it be some combination of those guys rotating in? I don't know. That's a great question. If they go four three, I would be willing to bet that it'd be Drake, Oz and Sneed, but who knows? But I think we'll see Mad Faramo at some point tomorrow. The question is when, not if... From Chief Brody, what are the biggest differences between this iteration of Denbrock's offense and his 2015 Notre Dame offense? Can't have better offensive line than what he's had so far. I think it's the biggest difference for me. He had a four three receiver, so you could maybe do some things down the field, but they did the ball down the field a lot last year. Different skill sets at running back.

35:11I mean, your running backs in 2015 were like 6-1 Josh Adams and 6-foot CJ Pro size, whereas now you have a bunch of like 5, 9, 5, 10 guys, more traditional looking running backs. Titan Room has more of a blocking prowess in 2026. I would say than 2015. In 2015 Durham's mouth was a good player. You know, but Alisa Mack was a true freshman. Both of those guys were receiver first. Yeah, that was right. Quarter back. Yeah. You were going to call a very different offensive when we'll exile here. Who had a bazooka for an arm? You were going to run downhill and throw downhill with him than you were with CJ Carr. You weren't going to do some of the intermediate stuff with CJ Carr that you're doing now. And then of course, there's been schematic evolutions, but you had also had a better offensive line coach and a better offensive line on that team. Now this line could be that, I think, but it's got to get there. Agreed. Stuff we got to get there. From Josh Buffo, the players that we listed as as or and second team, who do you think

36:12had the best performance against Wisconsin? One for offense, one for defense. Huh. That we listed as or that had the best, well, solvent abcher. Yeah. Thought. If anything, who else is listed as an or? Let me, let me find the depth chart here real quick. So let's see here. No rate of depth charts. Let me listen up. So who are the ors you had? Keijun Young or Nolan James. I thought Nolan had a pretty good game as an or James landing. It was an or he did well blocked for. I thought both of the tight ends blocked for you. Well, I mean, of course, first game, there was some plays, a couple of plays where Cooper landing and didn't drive his feet to contact, but overall I thought Cooper blocked for a while. I thought James blocked for a while. James loves to call it touchdown pass. Cooper had a couple chain moving type of quick catches. I was fine with how the tight ends played. I thought they did well.

37:13Sub and abcher is one defensively. DJ McKenny or Jaden Sanders, they both had their mistakes. DJ McKenny, I thought, played more consistently productive in that game. That would be it. What I was surprised, what was funny is coach I know reached out to me. He's like, he's complaining about the ors and why they have all these ors. And I think a lot of it's just like, you know, you want players to be invested in it. But the one position where they could legitimately have ors and detackle, they don't. Yeah. I mean, because those are literally like, that's how an or like guys, I know that this guy started, but you know, Francis Brew is basically a starter, whether he's on the field, the first snap of the game or not. Same with Tion Gray, you know, but they didn't have an or there as whatever. And I wonder if some of that's the position coach. Sure. I don't know, frickin' ors. I want guys bought into their role, you know what I mean? But yeah, I would say detackle or linebacker. Like will linebacker specifically. Yeah. That's another one where you could be like, Jaden or Jalen or Madden or Houston or.

38:13Right. And they had that for the back up, you know, with Kingston or Madden, but I think that was more about just fact knowing that Kingston wasn't going to play. They knew Kingston was going to play. So yeah, it's very interesting in my opinion. Yeah. Those are some. It's a good question, Josh. Here's another one from Josh. Have you seen a more impressive tackle by a quarterback than Leonard Morn has one handed punking against Wisconsin? Well, I've seen some corners over the years come up and lay people out. But it was a. It's a bigger play. Yeah. Yeah, I've seen bigger hits, but. But I don't think that's the point. I don't think he wants to sit in debate for 10 minutes. Whether we have or have not seen a better play, it was more about highlighting the. Leonard Morn was impressive. And Vitt said to me during the game and at first I was like, what are you talking about? He said Leonard Morn just made himself some money. I'm like, what do you mean? But I'm like, okay, no, I actually kind of get where he's coming from because it's like,

39:17if he can play like this the rest of the year, his game is literally complete. Like that's the point he made where like he's not just a great cover guy. He's an elite all around football player, which I think could maybe add a little bit of a little bit more value to what you see from him as a player. Yeah, absolutely. For Riley Erdman, when do you think when do you think Bubba Frazier could see the field? What would be the most realistic scenario in which we see him starting? There's injuries in the slot. I don't see a scenario where Bubba Frazier starts this year. This year, I think Bubba Frazier is going to be a dude. Trev, you remember I was very high on Bubba when they landed him. I'm very still very high on Bubba Frazier. I just don't think he's going to be beaten out. Jayden, great house and a mile and gram. I don't see a world of that happens. I do think that they should work on getting him on the field. But I don't know that was game one is when that needed to happen. But I wouldn't mind seeing that a little bit in this game, maybe getting him some reps with the ones in this game.

40:17Same thing with like an Ian Primer, maybe get the running backs, a series or two behind, you know, maybe third quarter you bring out your first team. If you let's say you're up 49 nothing at half time like Miami was last night, come out the third quarter. I'm taking action Craig out. I'm taking CJ Car out. Oh, yeah, probably taking Jayden, great house out. But I'm going to let the rest of the guys get a series. I want to get those freshman running backs, a series behind the O line, get my number two quarter back a series behind the first team offensive line, that kind of thing. But and I would definitely get Bubba Frazier on the field in that situation as well. Yeah. When do I think we could see him tomorrow? Yeah. I think the premise is more of like as part of like with the first team. But yeah, I hope we see everyone tomorrow, Travis. Oh, sh everyone. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I hope the score is such where I get a phone call from home to see if I have extra cleats laying around. I mean, Mike Danbrock has a ways to go to show me that he's willing to play young freshman that are inexperienced in meaningful minutes on offense before I'm willing to

41:22predict like when we see him in a starting role, boring injuries. Mike Danbrock will do it if he has to, but until then. Yep. Got one here from ND Wine and Cheese. Is it harder to win a Heisman as a quarterback at Notre Dame because of our type of offense paired with our team being good enough to pull starters before they put up gaudy stats? No. Again, I pointed out this earlier, CJ Carthruff for 40 plus more yards against Wisconsin than what for an Ando Mendoza did against old dominion. So the Heisman trophy goes usually to the best player on one of the best teams. Even Caleb Williams, the year that he won the Heisman Trev, it was done in a year. We're going into they played in the the the the pack 12 title game. You know, they were 11 and one. They were a top five team until the conference championship game.

42:25Until the week before the Heisman was handed out. He wouldn't want it if and how do we know that because look at the next year. I mean, in some ways, Caleb Williams had better numbers in in 2023 than he had in 2022. The offense scored more points in 2023 than they scored in 2024. You know, he had more touchdowns and more yards, but like his passer rating was better in 2023. He completed a higher percentage of his throws. He had, you know, he had some really impressive place to leverage over 300 yards per game. 3600 yards, 30 touchdowns, five interceptions, higher passer rating. Then then he had the previous year and he didn't even sniff the Heisman Trev in 2023. Why? Because his team sucked. That's why. I mean, he was looking at 2023 Heisman voting. He wasn't even in the top 10. Jay-jim McCarthy got more votes and he did that year.

43:27Cody Schrader got more votes and he did that year. Jordan Trav, Jaylin Milro. Jaylin Milro, who threw less yards, less touchdowns and more interceptions than Caleb Williams was in the top 10. But Caleb Williams, the defending Heisman champ wasn't even the top 10. Why? Because his team sucked. Yeah, that and I would also say the Notre Dame game in 23 shut the door on any potential Heisman. But he should have still got votes like in the top 10. You know what I mean? Like that game is why he doesn't repeat. And he wasn't as dominant overall. But like not even top 10, not even more votes than Cody Schrader. But to your point, why did the Notre Dame game happen? Because they weren't as good of a team. It was a team. It was more I think you nailed it, Trav. That was more based on the team and then he didn't play well in that game. But we've seen Heisman trophy winners have bad games. But they usually had bad games on the years when they were still good teams. Troy Smith didn't play very well against Penn State, no five. Or oh six, but still won the Heisman. Oh, and I think another reason why this is being perceived is because when Notre Dame has been

44:31one of the top teams, they haven't had a Heisman level quarterback. CJ is a Heisman level quarterback. Like in 2012, when they won undefeated, the effort Goulson was not going to be a Heisman finalist. Right. When they went undefeated in 2018, Ian Book was not going to be a Heisman finalist. Kind of was in 2020 by default. He was like what, ninth out of 10, you know, but even then. And then in 2024, Riley just didn't put up the crazy numbers that you would want to see. Like that's where that piece comes in. So I understand the lens that you're coming through because we've seen top Notre Dame teams before. What Brian is saying isn't you just have to be a top team and by default as a quarterback, you'll be in the conversations. You have to have a mixture of both. But I mean this year that I think they will have that mixture of both. But like with all due respect, the Julian Sand, who's had a heck of a red shirt freshman year. But does anybody actually believe that Julian Sand was one of the four best players of the college football last year? Like I don't even know that Ohio State fans think that. I think if you could put the last of truth on Ohio State fans,

45:32they'd say he wants even the fourth best player on our team. I mean, Jeremiah Smith, Carnautate, Caleb Downs, Arvel Reese, will see the top four on their team? Sonny Styles? No. Why was he a top four Heisman vote winner? Why was he a finals for the Heisman trophy? Because he was the quarterback on the number one team in the country for most of the year. If Jacob Rodriguez has the exact same season he had for Texas Tech last year, but they're eight and five, he's not number five in Heisman voting. But to your point, he had the production on a really, really good team. Julian Sand had the production on a really good team. If Ohio State's eight and four last year, he's not in that conversation. You need both. I mean, to your point, if Boise State wasn't a playoff team in 2024, I don't know if Ash and Genties and going out to New York. Yeah. And Jeremiah loves not not there either if no name seven and five. Correct. Same exact season from him.

46:34He's not there. Yep. I agree. I mean, look, look, the 10 finalists were you had one guy that wasn't from a top team, Indiana, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Texas Tech, Ohio State, Georgia, Ole Miss, Ohio State, Georgia Tech. You had one guy that wasn't from a top 15 team. And that's Hens King. And that guy so clearly was kind of epitomizes what that award is. And if the award went to MVP, most valuable player, there's very few guys are more valuable to their football teams than what Hens King was for Georgia Tech last year. Yeah. Exhibit week one. They ran that kid to the ground. Good night. From Notre Dame, villain, what is the coaching staff like about Matt and Jeffrey? I've never seen him play, signs blocking, what other skills do they like about his game? Duke and fly. He moves. Yeah. He's very athletic. He's very tough.

47:35I think that's what they see. You see a guy that can be a playmaker. I was surprised he didn't play on Saturday. Same. Very surprised. The moment I've been to some of the rotations, I can tell like across the board, it was very intentional. Well, I mean, not seeing Matt and Farah Moatun, not seeing a lot of the sophomore DBs at times. Yeah. Bailey Westbrough, how badly do you want to see a receiver rotation early and not just only because it's a blowout? Yeah. I would have liked to see more of that on Saturday. No doubt. Yeah, I agree completely. All right. We've got some more here from some of y'all folks. We've got one here from John A1. I think this is a good one. Do you believe the running backs will be much more comfortable in game too? I believe we saw similar things as far as timing from love and price early last year. Yeah. We complained about that as late as NC State. Or I felt like Jeremiah Love just was rushing things. I actually think this unit got turned around quicker. Oh yeah. They were better at that in the second half. You could see it.

48:36You could see it in the second half that they were more patient. They weren't getting down. Hill is quickly. They weren't cutting it back too soon. If Kyle and I would have been a little bit more patient on some of his runs, including his first touchdown run, I think the, you know, a little bit more success, not a ton because the offensive line wasn't blocking well, but they were way more patient in the second. I'd say patience doesn't mean you're going slower. It just means stay on your track. And Marcus Freeman actually did. Somebody sent me a video of Marcus Freeman broke down like three plays on whatever, which I thought was cool. And I love that he picked that special team's play and gave a little love to Thomas Davis Jr. But he talked about that. He's like, you know, that's in adjustments, you know, lining up offset versus under center. That, I mean, pistol that kind of thing. But he talked about, part of this was just the running back stand on the track and just saying, you know, that's what patience is. Patience is like, let me be slow and look for my whole. Stay on your track until you have a reason to not be on your track anymore. And when they did that, that improved things as well on top of better blocking.

49:39Because in the first half, some of the second half, some of the apps are taking this back side cutoff block and driving that guy on the end. So in the first half, they were missing that guy. And so it was both. So yeah, I think we'll definitely see them better and more comfortable in game two, John, because I think we already started to see that a little bit. Yeah, that's a good one. All right. We had this from Andy Wynne and cheese. I kind of, do you feel like we answered this one? Do we feel like we answered his question also with the explanation earlier as a national title contender? At what point do we transition from take with the defense? Gives you to impose your will, make the defense react to you as there are good balance to be had. So like, again, I think that the question and I don't mean this with any disrespect at all. I think the question comes from a flawed premise. Of what maybe some of you think that that means compared to what a coach means when he says that. So I think that that has more to do with it than anything else.

50:40Tom Conner says, do you think wide receivers can separate against good teams? I'm a little concerned. Tom, again, I just I don't think one game is going to tell us that one way or the other. Because they're getting great separation tomorrow. It doesn't mean that they're going to get separation against better teams. We won't know that till they play some of those better teams. So, yeah. From Garrett Medford, the outcome in week one is a coach's dream. You win comfortably, but due to the first half, you still have enough film to point to. A lot of fire under your team a little before a game against Rice. I don't disagree. I mean, as a coach, you don't, you don't like, man, I hope you really struggle in this game so we can have something to, but like coming out, okay, this is, we won convincingly. We showed where a dominant team, but we also, our guy, we have some things that, you know, maybe used to to create a little bit more humility with our players than otherwise we might have had because, you know, if we did just, you know, they'd believe in all their press clippings and all that other kind of stuff. And then media turned on their name is even quicker than we thought they would, honestly, which I kind of love. It's just hilarious.

51:43You covered a spread against the big 10 team and we're going to drop another name in the ranking 6-7 spots. I think it's just how utterly absurd, but it's not shocking either. But not Garrett, I think you nail it. I think you absolutely nail it. Agreed. From Irish 88 happy Friday, any chance we see more Kedron throughout the year, do you think they're ramping him up or playing a 1a1b situation? I, you're going to see him more throughout the year. I mean, I would hope so. I mean, certainly hope so. The Wisconsin game was his first time playing in a game since what Navy 24? Indy as a ballcar, he did play against Indiana for a couple of plays. They brought him in as like a lead blocker near the goal line. Got that. That was it. Because remember, he decided to red shirt later in the year. And so he didn't play anymore. And I do think Navy was his last, I think Navy was his last game. But I feel like, yeah, because Navy came after Stanford, but then he did play a couple snaps against Indiana. Well, good deal. Point being. Being carried ball, though. Yes, it's been a ballcarrier since Navy. And I wasn't expecting him to get 15 caries in his

52:44first action back in like a year and a half as a ballcarrier. I didn't expect more than three, though, extracted more than one drive. Now, when he was on the field that drive, they fed in the ball. I mean, got to catch and three runs, but I expect to see more. But maybe they like to your point, maybe they just felt like we're going to run a lot more mid zone this game. That's more of a Nolan and the display. And we just want to get let him get his feet wet a little bit since he hasn't about. It could be that could be it. Travis could good observation. Good point. From ball, pinch, Laley, according to Freeman, they always planned on giving both guys, absurred and press got around 30 snaps as a possible. That the change wasn't because of performance. It was always the plan concerning if so. I don't put any stock whatsoever into that comment. And I'll just leave it at that. I think it's a head coach doing what a head coach should do, which is protecting his player. That's what I think agreed. And I'm okay with it. From Raymond Hartin, at this point in time, do you think the catching issues by the old line

53:49are being coached not just players not executing the right technique? It seems like it's something that should have been fixed in the last three years. I remember he added on to the end of this in the chat. They fixed it at half time. And so if you're able to make an adjustment that quickly half time, it tells me that they're just not executing what you're doing. And the other thing I would say is the left side of the line and the right side of the line had two very different issues in the first half. Left side had a couple miscus here and there, but they were not at all having issues with catching. Well, Black, I thought played a really good first game. Yeah, like two or three, like just okay, that's a rookie mistake, including this act. Just as he went the shoot as hands, he stopped his feet and get you beat. Didn't do that the rest game. I played really well. Anthony and that was a dog in his first game. And I didn't see him catching. I didn't see Will Black catching and action Craig only caught on the place where you're gonna catch where you're having a reach block. You're not trying to drive the guy off the ball. You're just trying to work around him and get a body on it. Right. So there's times when that when you're not driving a guy off

54:52the ball, it was only the right side where that was an issue. And I've said it's before like when a whole unit's doing something, that's a coaching problem. When it's a guy or two, that's a player problem. And they corrected it in the second half, including Gerby. It wasn't just as simple as like they put abs in the game and he didn't do. He did the things that Styles could not. Gerby was better in the second half too. So you, you, hey, look, if I didn't coach kids on something fall camp, we weren't fixing it at a half time. I'm just telling you as a coach, if I didn't do my job in fall camp to get them ready to play a certain way, we aren't fixing it at a half time. So I think the fact that they, the fact they were able to fix it like on drive one, tells me that they were able to reemphasize, hey, guys, here's the pad. I'm just, because they can show video now. You know this isn't what we do. Watch Anthony and Will, that's what you do. You are not doing that. So I think the fact that the left side of the line was, was playing with more force tells me that it was the right side not doing what they were coach to do as opposed to them not being coached to do it. Sure. From Spencer, Miami fan in the chat,

55:56what opponent on Notre Dame schedule is comparable to Wisconsin before they face BYU? Want to know the next time I should tune into a Notre Dame game to see if they've made any improvements? I don't know. When's the next time Miami's going to play anybody good? They're still over on playing good teams so far, but I would say comparable to Wisconsin before they face BYU. I'd say potentially Michigan State. I mean, and I'm not saying this to be snarky Spencer. The first part I did. But they play Stanford before BYU. And I think that, so Miami fan, I think that's a good game to watch, because you have a gauge, right? You know what your team look like against Stanford and granted, it's a little deeper in the season, but there's some things you can kind of get a gauge on when you see comp teams play comparable opponents. I think that'd be one to tune into, but they probably Michigan State. And as far as the Notre Dame offensive line, you could make a case that the team for BYU that's going to give us the best gauge of how well the offensive line is improved. It's North Carolina. Yeah. I don't know that's going to tell us a lot about the Notre Dame defense.

57:01But it'll certainly tell us a little something about the Notre Dame offensive line. Agreed. From anyone in G's, Brian, you ever think you could get through a debate with Danny Kinellen or Bud Elliott? Would you ever have one? I would never, I don't know that I'd ever care to debate either one of them, but if they invited me on the show to do it, I wouldn't say no. I don't like going around like looking for debates. I've never asked to go on a debate with anyone. I've never invited myself as far as I know. I don't remember ever inviting myself on a show with someone. I go on shows and I'm asked to go on a show. So when I did the debate on crane and and cone, I was asked to do it. So I went on. But I wouldn't be seeking that out. But if they asked me, I wanted to have a debate, I would go on. I just would have one rule. Make a real argument. Don't let's not let's not turn this into some clickbait. Look for, you know, let's have a real football conversation. And I'll do that with anybody. I'll debate anybody

58:04in that regard. But I don't know that that's something that they care to do. Nor would I ask them to do it. It's their show they can do it however they want to do it. All right, let's wrap up here, Trev, with a couple super chats. We'll end with those. Appreciate the super chat. What do you think the chances of Miami at Notre Dame being a 1v2 matchup on November 7th? Pretty strong. I would say just because you know, Notre Dame right now is number three in the AP poll, right? Now the Cautful of Playoff poll, I think will come out the week before that. So it'll be a little bit different. But I believe Notre Dame is number three. Yes. And Miami is number seven in the AP poll, which I would probably have Miami higher than that. But I understand why Miami is still behind Oregon because Miami hasn't beaten anybody yet. Whereas Notre Dame beat a big 10 team by four touchdowns. So I get it. Miami is one of six teams. I got seven teams. I got votes last week.

59:13So you look at it. Ahead of Ohio State's number one in Texas is number four. One of them is going to lose. Then you have a believe, believe Oregon and Indiana both have games either against each other or Ohio State. Yes. So like Oregon before they before November 7th, they have to play at USC at Illinois. So maybe they have a loss. You know, Indiana has to play Ohio State on November's October 17th. They have to play at Michigan. So I think there's a chance that they have a loss before that date. But Miami's going to have to outplay Oregon because I think Oregon's got at least a shot to be undefeated that weekend as well. And they're ahead of Notre Dame. Texas if Texas loses this weekend, they'll be behind Miami. If they win this weekend, you know, Texas still has a lot of battles on their schedule before they have to play at Tennessee in the end of September. They play first game of October for them is in Dallas against Oklahoma. They got to play Ole Miss before that weekend. They've got to play Florida before that weekend. So you know, a lot of those

1:00:15teams if Ohio State, you know, wins this weekend, you know, that they may be a team that maybe they don't have a loss, but you know, they got to play at Indiana on October 17th. So there's a lot of potential losses for teams ahead of them. So if they both run the table, there's certainly a good chance they could be one verse two. I think a more likely scenario is they're both in the top four. I'd say that's a more likely scenario because I could see one of the teams ahead of them still being undefeated. So one and two, I don't know. Let's say Ohio State loses by three on the road to Texas and then they go on the road and beat Indiana by 10 and they've blown everyone us out. I'm not going to be pissed if they're ranked ahead another day. I think no, it's better, but like their resume is impressive. You know, they lose by three this weekend at Texas in a great game. Why should their ranking drop? You know what I mean? Like from beyond maybe a spot. It should drop to two and then Texas goes number one. But I don't know that they should drop behind anybody else as long as it's a legit good game. You know what I mean? Just losing does shouldn't automatically drop

1:01:19you. That's a lot of factors that play here. Here's what I would say. Possibly not likely because there's a lot of moving pieces. Noter name or Miami in my opinion aren't going to beat anybody from until they get to November 7th. That would vault them up to number one and number two, especially Miami. There's a world where Georgia and Ohio State both drop multiple games. I'm not predicting it, but they could and Notre Dame just by default goes up to number one. Who does Miami beat to not only move up to number two, but then defend off teams 8, 9 and 10 from picking up big wins and vaulting ahead of them too? Like there's a world like there's teams like Ole Miss and LSU right now that are behind Miami. If LSU goes on a tear from now until November 7th, they're going to rake ahead of Miami. Miami can beat all the bad teams by 30 all they want to. AP voters are not going to value that over beating ranked opponents. So I think that's what would make it difficult. It wouldn't shock me if Notre Dame was number one at this point. It would surprise me a little bit if Miami was number two because a lot would have to happen in front of them

1:02:21and not a lot would have to happen behind them. Trevor, are you there? Yeah. Okay. You froze for a second and I couldn't tell if you were still frozen. So it cut after you're done. So apologies on that, but yeah, that's a great explanation. I want to get this question in here real quick Trevor before we get to our final super chat and get out of here. From Irish Steel, how many times did you guys think love takes that to the House on Sunday night? Not a one. Number one, he didn't plan this team anymore and I think it's unfair to the kids that are playing to think that, but I don't know that there was a play where I thought, boy, that was blocked really well or there was a hole there that he could have maybe turned into a touchdown. Not long ones. Maybe he'd have scored on a 15-20 harder, but the biggest issue on Saturday is the same issue that Jeremiah Love had as the starting running back last year in the open and that is the offensive line didn't block very well. Yeah, look, did I think it? No,

1:03:27but there's stuff that Jeremiah Love did last year that you can't predict. I can't predict what he was going to do against Navy. Roll off of the chest and avoid touching the ground to get up and run a 54-yard touchdown. If that's your standard of love, can take anything to the house because he could, then every play you would just have to say, well, that play wasn't a touchdown. We miss love. If that's the lens that you're going into the season with, I don't not saying that you are Irish steel. I'm just saying in general, if that's the standard that fans are looking at to be like, well, Jeremiah Love, go to house that, then you're going to be very disappointed all season long and you're going to miss the goal of, this is still a really talented room. If your whole thing is like, well, a two-yard game Love can turn that into a touchdown. It's like, I mean, in theory, sure, but... And you're also going to miss the part that Jeremiah Love didn't really take off as a runner until he'd the USC game. I mean, think about this, Trev. In the first six games of the year, he only had 200 yard performance. He had a 33-yard game, a 57-yard game where he averaged 4.1 yards. He didn't do a whole lot running the football

1:04:31against Arkansas. At 14 cars or 57 yards, Jadon Price, there were multiple games early in the year, where Jeremiah Love did not have the team's best run. Jadon Price did. We talked about this. He averaged 3.3 yards against A&M. Or, I mean, Miami, 4.1 yards against A&M, 4.1 yards against Arkansas, and 4.8 yards against NC State. Now, down the stretch, 9.5 against USC, 8 against BC, 7.2 against Navy, 6.4 against Pitt, 21.4 against Syracuse. But he wasn't the Heisman Trophy winner based on what he did in the first six games. He did it based off what he did in a couple of those games with great highlight runs, but then just dominating in October, November. But this time of year ago, we weren't like, did you see that crazy run that Jeremiah Love had? He was doing his best damage the first six games out of the backfield as a pass catcher, which the backs for Notre Dame did. Yeah, I mean, I said this after the Miami post game show, the better runner that night out of the backfield was Jadon Price. And at half time, he had like

1:05:346 for 45 and then proceeded to not touch the ball the entire second half. Right. inexplicable to me. Right. Jeremiah Love had 15 touches last year in that game, by the way. He only had six fewer touches than what Ania's had on Saturday. So like, I understand like eating an I mean, I get that to a degree, but I don't love in carries. Now, and I'm not knocking Jeremiah Love. If the O-line would have blocked better against Miami, he would have had bigger runs. They blocked the play up for Jadon Price better than they did with Jeremiah. That's the whole point though. It's going to come down ultimately to the offensive line plane better. Why did Jeremiah Love run better later in the year? Part of it was patience and timing and just not I think he was trying to win that like show everyone how great he was right away. And I think I know the question. But the offensive line played better. That was a big reason for it. Is the offensive line played better? Because he had to make plays out of nothing a lot of time drilling the season because it wasn't there blocking wasn't there. He had to play hero ball. So did Jadon in early in the season because the blocking wasn't there.

1:06:38All right. Last one. And we're going to get out here from Super Chat from Tyler Odger. Thank you so much Tyler. Appreciate you man. Besides the keys to Vickery, you gave Wednesday. What is something you would like to see from each position group as a whole and from the coaches? Offensive line. I just want to see them playing well together and coming off and firing off the ball and just being physically dominant receivers. I want to see them play with a little greater urgency. I don't want to see them telegraph in or out. So I don't care how good of a team you are if you telegraph. They could telegraph routes and still score 60 or touchdown over top against rice. It doesn't mean oh watch out Miami. You know just things like that. Running backs, patience, right? Play this game like you did the second half of last game. Just keep doing what you did second half. Tight ends, keep doing what you're doing. Honestly, keep doing what you're doing what you did last week. CJ Carr don't lock in on Jordan FaZe on quite as much as you did. There was a couple a lot of times it wasn't the case, a couple times that it was defensive line. Keep doing what you're doing.

1:07:39Linebackers, keep doing what you're doing. DBs, be more consistent. Keep what you're doing. 95% of the time or 90% of the time but let's clean up that 10%. That's really it. But as a unit as a whole, I want to see you playing hard and playing focus. I want to see you come out and say, hey, we are better than this team and we're going to show you that we're better than this team. Not just say it and then expect that team to roll over and die. We're better than you and we're going to show you that we're better in you. Which is I thought they did a great job of in the second half of the season. After BC, that's exactly what they did to rest of the year. We're better than you and we're going to show you. We're going to beat you by 70. If we can beat you by 40, we're going to beat you by 40. That's what I want to say. Good stuff. Nothing to add. Great job, Tyler. Thank you for that. Well, folks, that's going to do it for us here this afternoon on the Irish Breakdown podcast. Brought to you by our friends over at FanDuel. Guys go live tonight. I've been nation sports beat 505 PM. We will be back tomorrow after the game.

1:08:42Go live about 15 minutes after the game ends for the Notre Dame versus Rice Post game show. Game kicks off at 3.30 PM. If you're not going in person, you can watch out on NBC or streaming live on peacock. But on your way out of this show, be sure to hit that like and that subscribe, hit that notification bell, share this podcast with your friends, family, anybody that you know loves Notre Dame and College football as much as you do. But as always, best way to support what we do is subscribe to the Premier Message Boards at boards. .Irosbreakdown.com. It's where you can check out all of those film breakdowns. I think it would put a lot of your minds at ease to go and look at the run game breakdown of the past game breakdown. The audience are a lot of the questions that we've already answered today. And I think it'll put some minds at ease for sure. So until tomorrow on the Post game show, that's Brian, I'm Trevor. We'll see you back here very soon on the Irosbreakdown podcast.