I wish we were playing this game with more on the line. With our losses to FSU and UVA we have effectively ended our hopes of playing for the ACC championship. Still our program needs its first statement win under Mack Brown and we were oh so close against Clemson last year. While I am mentioning Clemson, let’s discuss Notre Dame’s overtime win over the Tigers. Clemson was without Trevor Lawrence, arguably the best player in college football, and without several key defensive players yet it took overtime for Notre Dame to secure the win. But to be honest, QB play wasn’t the problem for the Tigers. DJ Uiagalelei was not the problem. The tigers weren’t consistent especially in the run game. Travis Etienne did not have a good performance. Maybe some of the inconsistency could be chalked up to the possible lack of chemistry with Uiagalelei, who knows. I believe Clemson takes care of business when they meet the Fighting Irish in the ACC championship game. Dabo won’t be out coached again and they will have the best player in college football back.
Notre Dame is ranked #2 in the nation for a reason though and the fact that they are only 4.5 points favorites are favorably odds. Their defense only allows 85 rushing yards a game and allows the fewest yards in the ACC. They have a veteran QB in Ian Book and he is a good runner.They have a solid running back as well. They will be without 2 offensive linemen though which is a gift. We need to be able to get pressure and if we don’t it may be “fly the friendly skies of Kenan” as usual. We will get several of our defensive backs back which should help in pass coverage. Key word is should. We have struggled all year regardless of who has been in the secondary. A lot of that is because we can’t get pressure. It is easy to cover for 3 seconds, it’s hard to cover for 10. Missed tackles have been a huge issue as well and our best players, Surratt and Gemmel, have been as guilty as anyone. They apply pressure and then miss the sack which has usually ended up in positive plays for the opposing team. Miss a tackle on Book and he is going to turn it into a big gain. We have struggled with running QBs in the past which is another reason getting pressure will be crucial. If he has all day to sit in the pocket then he has all day to scan the field and take off. We need to get Book to the ground on the first opportunity to do so.
As mentioned above Notre Dame has one of the best, if not the best, defense in the ACC. They have a strong front seven which limits opposing running backs. They bottled up Etienne for the most part and he is one of the best backs in the country. We do average the most yards per game in the ACC though. We need to get our run game going as our offensive feeds off of it. A lot of what we do is play action or run/pass option. Getting Williams and Carter going will open it up for Brown and Newsome down the field. We may also get Corrales back this week so add another weapon to Howell’s arsenal. But in order for Howell to be able to get the ball to those weapons we need to protect him. Going backwards makes our offense predictable and Howell has made a couple of questionable decisions under pressure. We may need to bring in extra tight ends to help block. Notre Dame’s front seven is that good. We also can’t shoot ourselves in the foot. Our offense has been the only thing that has stopped our offense this year whether it’s been drops, bad play calling or penalties. We can’t play in spurts which we have done throughout the year. We almost came back against FSU and UVA and we completed the comeback against Wake Forest, but that won’t be possible against Notre Dame. We shoot ourselves in the foot one too many times and the game is going to be out of reach before we get it going again. We have to score with Notre Dame since unfortunately our defense hasn’t shown the ability to get stops against almost anybody.
We have had two weeks to prepare for Notre Dame so hopefully our defense has figured some things out in that time and hopefully our offense has found some weaknesses in their defense. We will have to play a perfect game to beat them and Notre Dame will have to be off their game. When they are on and we are on, their best is still better than our best. I would expect Mack Brown to be aggressive just like he was in last year’s Clemson game. I can see us going for it on 4th down a lot between their 45-35 yard line. Depending on the distance to go obviously. But we got what we wanted, another big matchup in basically a primetime slot, ABC at 3:30pm the day after thanksgiving. Win this game and it increases our chances of a solid bowl game not to mention it would boost our recruiting which has already improved significantly since Mack Brown stepped back on campus. I was in the stands for the Clemson game last year and was heartbroken and slightly peeved about the 2 point conversation. This year i will be watching the game from the middle of nowhere eastern nc so don’t let me down Heels. I don’t have much else to do and I wasn’t planning on drinking till later in the night :)
Also no promises on any quick reacts, I will be slightly off the grid in God's Country. And oh yeah happy Thanksgiving!
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