You thought that I was being disingenuous or disrespectful then you make a comment like this. I didn’t claim that Stockton was a better QB.
Our Passing Game vs ND's
- Thread starter fastlax16
- Start date
A&M-Weigman- Benched midseason
NIU-Hampton- 1600 yards, 12tds, 6 ints
Purdue-Card- 1641/9/7
Miami (OH)-Gabbert- 2921/21/11
L'Ville- Shough- 3195/23/6
Stanford-Daniels- Benched mid season
GT-Pyron- Backup for most of season. 2 starts in 2024. 1st start since 2022 against ND.
Navy-Horvath- 1352/13/4
FSU- Glenn- Backup for most of season.
UVA- Colandrea- 2125/13/11
Army- Daily - 1128/10/4
USC-Maiva- Backup until final 3 games+bowl. 1201/11/6 in 4 starts and mop up duty
Not exactly murderers row. Shough, Maiva and maybe Gabbert? I will let our ND visitors explain which of these are really young Joe Montanas in disguise though, since I'm sure there are a couple mixed in.
The beauty of sports. We will find out Thursday night.
Just that UGA was likely better positioned to win the game with Stockton.
So this was a throwaway comment of no actual value or meaning other than just the pointing out the randomness of life and outcomes. Like saying UGA might have played worse if they'd stayed at a Hilton instead of a Marriott, or Marcus Freeman might have coached a better game against NIU if he'd gotten to the stadium 5 minutes earlier, cuz hey ya never know.
Shough is similar to allar imo, and maiava might be best qb or at least most talented nd faces this year. Louisville stud wr shut it down after nd game to preserve year of eligibility, cost them a win or two. Louisville had a really good offense before he shut it down. There’s not a gauntlet of stud qbs this year in college football. Gabriel is one of the best and a good D made him look average. The face Sanders may get drafted top 5 tells you a lot about this qb draft class.
I think I have read almost every, if not every post in this thread. I have held back, but I gotta say it. Isn't the real issue not how our receivers compare with theirs, but how our receivers compare with their defenders? Both WR rooms could be off the charts in stats, but one team will finally stop the other. At that moment, a pick or a deflection or a hold or interference by the offense will decide the issue. ND's receivers will only succeed if we let them.
No. Beck had three 3 INT games. One 2 INT game. It’s reasonable to think that he might have had another one of these games. It’s not like he only had one of those games. It wouldn’t have been some wild occurrence had he thrown three picks against ND.
It’s also possible that UGA would have beaten ND with Beck. I’m not going to say that Georgia would have beaten ND though because I don’t think QB play was the reason Georgia lost.
Beck is the better QB. All evidence points to this being the case. That said, Stockton played well and took care of the ball.
I mean it kind of does... Playoff opponents in bold. If what we played is "bad", I'm curious what descriptor you'd like to use for their opponents.
| Name | Season Comp % | Name | Season Comp % |
| Stockton | 70.3 | Gabriel | 72.9 |
| Rourke | 69.4 | Howard | 72.6 |
| Shough | 62.7 | Rogers | 70.7 |
| Daniels | 62.7 | Martin | 68.6 |
| Colandrea | 61.9 | Bazelak | 66.9 |
| Maiava | 59.8 | Brosmer | 66.5 |
| Hampton | 58.1 | Jennings | 65 |
| Card | 58.1 | Moss | 64.4 |
| Horvath | 57.6 | Madsen | 62.4 |
| Gabbert | 57.3 | Altmyer | 60.8 |
| Weigman | 56 | Greene | 60 |
| Pyron | 53.6 | Morris | 59 |
| Daily | 52.4 | Card | 58.1 |
| Glenn | 44.7 | Locke | 55.4 |
| Ulatowski | 46.3 |
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Yes both teams want to establish the run and of course turnovers play a part. The game keys are quite simple. Warren is an X factor but I think it is wishful thinking as a Penn State fan to think that if our run game is stagnant that we can simply pass to Warren to move the ball. I am hoping Reynolds and Dinkins could step up but the bottom line is if we cannot run vs ND then we are not scoring much. We could still win but we will need a lights out performance from the D and perhaps a turnover. Also a great day from our FG kicker.
I'll start first by stating the team with the most points at the end of the game wins. This pretty obvious statistic is sometimes lost on people. I will say though however I don't know if Notre Dame could put together that kind of offensive performance against Penn State as they did to George. What was it field goal and then interception setting up Notre Dame deep in Georgia territory, fall by a quick score and then a touchdown to open up the second half?
I forget the exact stat but I believe they scored 17 points in a few seconds, maybe 55 seconds or so? All of these points count in Notre Dame is a great team that made it success by working for it, however can they count on that against Penn State?
If they pull off something similar I could see them winning rather easily, however Penn State strength is similar to Notre Dame's and I could see them doing the same thing.
If one team gets the big breaks or better makes the big breaks, I think they will win. Penn State might be able to come back if they fall behind against Notre Dame but I don't think Notre Dame will have the same ability if that happens. So if Penn State somehow get some big breaks the capitalize on they could win relatively big in my opinion. I don't know if Notre Dame could exactly pull that off but it's not impossible.
I think both teams can win a close game and due to my bias in my leanings I'm gonna say Penn State don't have a better chance in that case. Honestly I've seen what Penn State could do and have not really watched Notre Dame much. So I'm gonna attend the lean towards my guys being better because they are pretty good. Notre Dame obviously has a mobile quarterback That contributes that offense in a great way and great running backs. They have average white outs at best like Penn State, and I think Penn State has an edge at the tight end.
This is one of those games were honestly it's a real tossup in my mind, in early November I believe Penn State could be Ohio State but I saw them as a favorite. Penn State loses a close one to Ohio State, but here I could see it going multiple ways and we will find out in two days.
They're a good team, but they played a de facto ACC schedule and also Navy and Army, along with TAM and USC. We've seen how bad the ACC is, and Navy hasn't beaten ND in like a 1000 years.
Yep, that is true but I will counter with so? I've heard PSU downgraded for their schedule over the years, like app 50 years lol. ND is good, I think we are better, but maybe they are better than I think. the supposed gap here isn't as much as 1986 Miami and PSU with PSU being the heavy favorite. We won like they are winning and I have great respect for teams like this due to PSU's history.
The ID comes from Allar, not the offensive linemen. Drew sets up the blitz protection for the o-line. Landon Tengwall pointed out that it might be better if they give that responsibility to the center. But if it’s going to stay with Allar, let’s hope they’re correcting it with him.
Question for our visiting ND fans since your mods don’t approve posts/replies from outsiders.
Why do so many Notre Dame fans think Price leads the country in yards after contact? Keep seeing it repeated and Jeanty’s YAC is 2.5x Price’s overall yardage.
Why do so many Notre Dame fans think Price leads the country in yards after contact? Keep seeing it repeated and Jeanty’s YAC is 2.5x Price’s overall yardage.
I don't get the "well we beat UGA so we're going to destroy Penn State" narrative. UGA's defense pretty much shut down ND and UGA's offense has been questionable all season. Why would we think a first time starter was going to work wonders with that poor offensive line?
Yes ND's has been shutting down the run game but Indiana's ranked like 65 in rushing offense and UGA is around 100.
Yes ND's has been shutting down the run game but Indiana's ranked like 65 in rushing offense and UGA is around 100.
I don't have the numbers right now but what they were reported was average yards after contact (i think he's like 4.1) not total yards after contact. Of course they aren't close there as Jeanty has like 200-300 more carries than Price.
IMO, price is similar to singleton, except has a better first cut and stiff arm. They both go down a little easy between the tackles for my liking. Singleton a little better top end speed, and better receiver. Price will cut it or bounce it more and put you in a 1-1 tackle situation to gain no yards, or if you miss he gets a huge gain. Love is more, if there's only a yard to get i'll ram it and try and get 3-4 out of it.
The assumption is that ND went very vanilla the first two games as they expected their D to shut down both offenses (it did). I think their game plan was, if our offense doesn't make big mistakes, we win. I hope that is true and ND is a little more creative this game. They hardly ran Riley at Indiana (other than short yardage), and they didn't run him against Georgia until the 2nd quarter and that's when the offense starting moving the ball well.
My hope is ND comes out running him early and often as I think PSU has a better shot to score more than georgia or Indiana did on ND.
They’re sensitive about their draw being easy as well, not sure how else to look ant a team playing their starting qb with a torn acl and then a backup in his first career start, along with their regular season schedule. They trash SMU even though they play half the ACC themselves.
Of course, they didn't play SMU, Clemson, Miami or Syracuse in their de facto ACC schedule, which were the four best ACC teams. They did play at Louisville, which was a good team, so I've give them that.
ND got the big plays (forced fumble in the redzone, strip-sack for a quick score before half, and kickoff return for a touchdown). The Georgia player also had the 15 yard penalty for sideline interference.
The refs missed a facemask in the open field that would have given ND a better chance for a TD where they settled for a FG. There was a questionable illegal shift penalty that contributed to ND settling for a FG that took away a first down that was picked up. That was still partly the fault of ND even if it was the incorrect call. A dumb defensive delay of game that gave Georgia a chance to go for it on 4th and 2 when they should have been punting. ND got the stop though. Questionable pass interference that gave Georgia a fresh set of downs inside the 15. I believe it was the correct call but Georgia still got lucky on that play. ND still got the stop. One more thing I believe that I can’t remember.
I believe ND showed themselves to be the better team. They still won by 13.
I believe the ND-PSU game comes down to stopping the QB run game on both sides. Mostly PSU stopping ND’s QB run game.
When has Notre Dame gotten creative on offense this season in a tight game?
Not saying they can’t but they didn’t need to in most games. Outsiders observation, they’ve been vanilla all season and rely on the defense.
They only had 1 score against Louisville in the second half and went 3 and out when a couple of first downs ice the game and had to give Louisville the ball back with a chance to tie.
Shut out in the second half against NIU.
USC or A&M week 1?
Leonard only completed 4 passes in the second half against SC…
Just seems like a weird expectation that you’re going to go suddenly get creative (and have success with it) against the best, or second best, defense you’ve seen all season on a short week after scoring 9 offensive points against the second best, or best defense, you’ve seen all season.
Agree completely. The key to this game is the PSU Offense vs ND Defense. I just don't think there's a great probability of ND putting up a lot of points on our D. ND had 244 yards of offense against UGa - their only offensive TD came when UGa gave them the ball at the 12 yard line with only 27 seconds left in first half.
USC's Offense put up 557 yards of Offense on ND - 200 yards rushing with a 7.0 ypc. If PSU can run the ball forcing ND out of their preferred Cover 2 Man and bring deep help up, I think PSU will control this game.
CFB is all about matchups and at times, randomness...you don't think the ND staff will throw any new wrinkles at all at PSU? I'm not talking crazy trick plays, but different personnel for a particular scheme that we haven't seen, etc? I would say that PSU at times does the opposite...we get too cute and do too much window dressing, rather than just playing football and riding what is working...ala the 3rd and 1 idiotic call by AK to pass instead of run. Since you are assuming ND won't get creative in a tight game, I'll assume that since ND's defense is arguably the best, or 2nd best behind OSU that we will have faced this year, that we will have a hard time moving them off the ball and running to win the game or close out the game on our own terms. That is how much of our matchups have gone with OSU and other teams that we don't have a major talent advantage against.
Let's play the game and see what happens. I think both teams will struggle to move the ball at will. Turnovers and field position will be massive, especially for PSU. I don't think we are balanced enough to just march down the field starting in minus territory -- the WR"s aren't good enough and Allar needs to be better than his sub 60% comp pct in the playoffs. i think the same can be said for ND....I'd be stunned if they march up and down all day unless we help them. So, it should be a very good game.
ND has been much more creative through 2-3 quarters in game, then didn't need to be.
I really liked the offense we ran first 2-3 quarters of Virginia and USC game (obviously Army as well but, not a great reference).
ND was more balanced early in those games, and ran leonard on some early down calls. ND took it's foot of the gas up 14 vs USC and it almost cost them.
My point is I hope you see more creative plays right away from ND. By creative i'm not taking PSU creative, i'm talking calls to keep psu off balance. Early down qb runs, early down quick passing game, maybe even a shot! Then the fourth quarter score/situation will dictate how ND has to play.
USC absolutely made some plays vs ND but those starts are a bit misleading. ND was up 21 points with a minute left, and ND had their 2/3rd team in and USC had 4 runs go for about 70 yards. ND went way to much prevent D in that game when they got up 2nd half.
All of this is actually meaningless. The games are played on the field. We will know the better team around 11:30 Thursday night.
ND was also only up 7 with under 4 minutes left with USC first and 10 on the ND 21 before a 99 yard pick 6. Followed by another 100 yard pick 6 after usc drove it back down to the nd 13.
If ND was playing prevent up 7 well I don’t know what to say. Not sure if the stat line is more misleading than the final score.
I agree we won't go on a bunch of sustained drives just running it. My question is though can we have enough success running that it opens up the offense for us and gives us the advantage. Has ND faced a tandem like Allen and Singleton? Thinking of Allen, he can just pound at you. And he is peaking now. Can ND handle that effectively? Have they really faced a back of his caliber in terms of shear physicality? I don't know. If their defensive front is as good as OSU then it will be very difficult for us to get any traction on offense. But I don't think they are that good but if they are just a little worse than OSU then that will be very tough for us as well.
On the other side, with the ND RB starter banged up then their run game is obviously limited and nowhere close to OSU's tandem of Henderson and Judkins. So then their X factor on offense is Leonard running. We will be ready for that so I don't see him having a big day. I could be wrong with Carter limited then maybe they have an opening there?
So if we really cannot run much and ND really cannot then what happens? Obviously low scoring, someone steps up from either team. Warren can do that for us. Maybe Singleton out of the backfield, maybe Reynolds or Dinkins. I would like to say a WR but just not feeling it from them in a game like this.
ND has a good TE so maybe he makes a few plays? That guy Faison, the lacrosse guy, maybe shows up.
This game is going to be really close. Decided by a few critical plays in my opinion and probably turnovers and kicking.
Well said...these teams are very similar in strengths, style of play ,etc. If neither team is moving the ball all that well or consistently, then I think as you said turnovers and special teams are huge. ND has the edge on both. I believe they are tops in forcing turnovers (like 31) and are 3rd best in the FBS in turnover margin. Meanwhile our special teams does us no favors in the punt and return game. This is a game where we can't drop open passes, which we do frequently, and commit stupid moronic penalties...another staple. Hopefully they put it all together.
Yeah the mental side. I think back to JoePa. Play smart, don't try to be a hero. Rely on your defense. Wait for the other team to make a mistake. But as you said, they force the turnovers and don't commit them. I'm not saying we go all out conservative but we can't be stupid. For example, 3rd and longs could get ugly for us if they blitz and we are not ready. Just don't force throws. Play smart. Cannot play into their hands with turnovers or we are doomed.
Exactly, the OP's post is recreationist bullshit. They went up by 21 after back-to-back Pick-6s. USC was trailing 35-28 with 5:47 left after ND had just punted the ball - USC took possession at their own 16 yard line.... proceeded to drive the length of the field.... and threw a 1ST DOWN INTERCEPTION on a pass from ND 21 yard line with 3:39 remaining that was intercepted at the ND 1 yard line and returned 99 yards for an ND TD (IOW, there was nothing remotely garbage time about this situation). USC then took a touchback on ensuing KO and proceeded to drive the ball down to the ND 13 yard line with a 1:20 remaining where Maiava threw another Pick-6 - this one returned 100 yards for a TD.
Utter bullshit, and complete nonsense, that ND gave up most of their yardage to USC after game had been decided! USC's Offense was moving the ball at will for most of the game - the problem for USC was the fact that their defense was allowing ND to move the ball at will against them. The latter being extremely important as USC does not have an elite defense (bottom half in b2g and FBS). I really don't think ND's Offense is going to have the type of success that they had against USC, against PSU.
ND was up 21 with a minute to go, and USC was willing to run out the clock, and popped a few runs.
It was NOT a pretty game for ND, no doubt, but they led almost the entire way.
Could say the same thing about the SMU game. SMU was driving and had an easy td to go up 7-0, then next 2 possessions pick 6's, and made the game easy. Penn state was clearly the better team, but SMU wasn't as bad as the score.
Your first sentence is ridiculous. My comment was USC ran for 70 of their yards in the final minute when ND was up 21. That's a fact. I was responding to a post on how ND gave up a ton of rushing yards that game.
USC made plays that game no question about it, and ND went very conservative on D fourth quarter when they were up 14. The majority of the yards are legit that USC put up, the 70 yards rushing and last TD in the final minute was a clocked out team.
Stats are what they are, they're in the books. And again, ND's D is far from perfect and plays can be had against them. But their run D is far better than the stats vs USC show. Just like PSU's is far better than what they showed vs Oregon.
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Ah yes the outcome of the first drive of the game was as distorting to the outcome as 199 yards worth of pick 6s on back to back drives in what was a 1 score game late in the fourth...
Penn State put a true freshman under center with 11 minutes left in the SMU game (gifting SMU their only TD). When was Leonard pulled against USC since these game flows were similarly misleading?
USC put up 557 yards of Total Offense.... and you're trying to claim 70 rushing yards on their Final Possession explains why they had so many yards (i.e., if you deduct their last possession - a 5 play 75 yard TD - why precisely you would do this is a bit of a mystery..., but even if you take away their final TD, USC put up 482 yards of Total Offense!!)... talk about ridiculous! None of the stats point to the utter bullshit you're trying to sell. ND didn't stop USC's Offense BEFORE or after USC's last possession! USC moved the ball consistently against ND's Defense all day long.
BTW, your claim that USC choose to run out the clock on final possession is more of your tripe and made-up bullshit.... USC scored in under a minute on their last possession! They got the ball after the 2nd Pick-6 with only 1:18 left.... and they scored in 5 plays with time remaining on the clock!
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