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And I think, I mean, let's be honest, it all starts with the guy calling the plays and the coup that Marcus Freeman made by bringing in Mike Dembrok and what he brings to the table and his longstanding history in offensive game planning and offensive play calling it his last two stops and what they've been able to do. I mean, my last break, really the last three stops fair enough, you know what I mean? But I mean, bringing in Mike Dembrok was just a huge, huge move that just makes everybody who thinks offense and wants Notre Dame to win just kind of gives him a sigh of relief and some excitement. Prize picks is America's number one daily fantasy sports app with over five million active members. Prize picks is the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports. Unlike other apps on prize picks, it's just you against the numbers. All you do is pick more or less on two to six players stat projections and watch the winnings roll in baby. 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The listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsor job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com/bluewire. Just go to indeed.com/bluewire right now and support our show by saying that you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's indeed.com/bluewire, terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Well, I'll say this, Vince, part of the reason that I have optimism is because the last time Notre Dame was actually good on offense against the best teams they played was with Mike Denbrock. So I gave you the numbers where they were barely over 200 yards against the top teams on the schedule. If you go look at the three Notre Dame played three top five teams that year in 2015. They passed for 321 yards and a last second loss to Clemson. They passed for 234 yards, 9.4 yards per attempt against number three Stanford in the last second loss. And by the way, part of the reason they only quote unquote only passed for 234 yards is because they ran for 299 in that game. Then against Ohio State in the postseason, they threw for 284 yards. And then you look at the other, I would say the best teams in the schedule, they threw for 313 yards against Texas. They threw for 262, 10.5 per attempt against USC, and then threw for 299 yards against Temple, who had a, if you remember, had a great defense that year. So that was the last, I mean, that was the last time Notre Dame was really good was the last year that Mike Denbrock had full control of the Notre Dame offense. That's the last time we saw this offense in big moments be competent. And the reason they weren't better as a team is because they had one of the worst defensive coordinators in the history of Notre Dame football and in college football at that time. And now you don't have that problem because Mike Denbrock's gonna have a far better side kick. And honestly, it's, you know, it's partly why they had the success they had at Cincinnati in 2020, 2021, because you had strengths on both sides of the ball, obviously Marcus Freeman being the defense coordinator in 2020 at Cincinnati, when they went undefeated and almost beat Georgia in the peach ball. And Cincinnati was what nine to no, 10 to no that year, only losses in the peach ball to Georgia. A lot of people thought Cincinnati should have gotten in the playoff over Notre Dame. I don't agree. But they, then they go to the peach ball against George and they lose by two points. I think a point, two points in that game. And so those things help Vince, those things help a ton. And when you look at Mike Denbrock, he's got that track record of success. And even at LSU, the last couple of years, I mean, their offense wasn't always good. Right. And you're never going to always be good. Sometimes you're just, you're going to have those games or your offense doesn't like the world on fire. I mean, even as good as that 2019 offense was against, you know, against at LSU. They still had a game where they beat Auburn 23 to 20. You're going to have those days. But when you look at LSU, Vince, I mean, even last year, the offense was not the problem and big games in their loss to Florida state. They had 459 yards of offense, 7.2 yards per play in a road loss against top 10 Mississippi Ole Miss. They had 637 yards of offense, 8.5 yards per play in a road win over a top 10 Missouri team. They had 533 yards, 8.1 yards per play in a road loss at Alabama. They scored 28 points at 478 yards and average 8.2 yards per play. Like that's what they did last year. Same thing the year before, you know, first game, not great against Florida state. You go for 348 yards, 5.4 yards per play wasn't great. When you go out against Mississippi state, you have 417 yards, 5.6 yards per career. They are ranked team, play ranked Tennessee team. You get smacked, right? Through the ball. Well, they couldn't run the ball. Do for 300 yards that game, but couldn't run the ball. Then you play out in Alabama team, you score 32 points, you have that great drive at the end, you average 5.6 yards per play, and you have 549 yards in a postseason loss in the SEC title game against Georgia, you know, 7.6 yards per play. So by and large, way more often than not, at LSU, Mike Denbrock's offenses were good no matter who they play. And that's going to be a key. And so, you know, we're going to find out if you can build that same thing at Notre Dame, right? Because he's going to have a completely different type of roster. He won't have a Jaden Daniels. He's going to have Riley Leonard, different players. Sure. He doesn't have Malik neighbors and Brian Thomas at Notre Dame. He's going to have good receivers, but not that. But LSU didn't have a Mitchell Evans and didn't have a Jeremiah Love and didn't. I don't even think had a Jadarian Bryce, honestly. So there's going to be some differences to what they do, but he's shown in this career, he can win with different type of offenses. So, you know, and what, why, right, attention to detail, it's going to be greater. Mike Denbrock is an aggressive play caller without being too aggressive, right? They're going to throw the ball down the field, but they're not a team that throws the ball down the field a hundred times. It's just we're always going to be looking for that opportunity to beat you deep and scheme you to beat you deep. Brings a nice blend of scheme to the table, you know, horizontal stretch, vertical stretch. He's really good at creating isolate. He understands the importance of creating, you know, isolation match ups, right? Where we're going to use this formation, this alignment, move this guy here, do this with motion because we want to get this guy matched up right here in this look, in this particular situation. So, those are things you look at and say he's bringing that type of experience and talent to the table. And he's also someone who's shown a willingness and ability to alter what the strengths are based on what he thinks his team strengths are. So if they got a great line and they can run it on people, he's going to run it on people. If they, if he doesn't think he has the advantage in the trenches, he's going to gain planning away that negates that, that lack of advantage and, and he's going to do it a lot of different ways. So you're bringing in a guy with a proven track record in those moments. I mean, Jared Parker showed last year, like, give me the better team and I'm going to rip you up. Sure. But Jared Parker didn't have the experience or the ability last season to go out there and do that when the talent wasn't pro Notre Dame or the coaching wasn't pro Notre Dame. And those are things that, that, you know, you won't like, for example, I'd be shocked if Mike Dembrock takes Audrick Estimale off the field on that last try. Like not after one carry, like things like that just are that sadness like, look, man, I know what our game plan was coming in, but right now I'm watching this. We are leaning on them. We are pushing them off the ball. We're going. And if he would have taken Audrick Estimale off the field, probably would have been an epistle or under eye situation and you're just running duo downhill, he's not trying to run some misdirection thing to catch him off guard, that type of stuff, which is what happened on those two plays that Ohio State blew up. Those are things that you look at Vince and say, that's what a veteran play caller is just going to have that feel for the moment. And Mike Dembrock's been in a lot of big moments like this in his career. He's coached in title games, national title games. He's coached in Fiesta Bowls. He's coached in the Cogswell playoff. He's coached in all these types of situations, Vince, SEC title games, huge moments and big crowded stadiums, he's had some failures in those moments. He's had some successes on those moments and I've all to let him to where he is now. So I think that more than anything is the biggest reason for optimism for me. And you know, I like Tommy Reese. I like Jerk Parker. I've defended them more than most. The last couple of years. But the reality is this is the reason, the biggest reason for optimism is because I'm not confident that those two coaches would have been able to get the most out of this roster. I just said, potentially they can, but I don't know that they can with Mike Dembrock. You just kind of assume it's going to happen because he's just shown he can be that guy for the last 10 years. Speaking of the roster, yet another reason to be optimistic is a player that you mentioned during the Mike Dembrock talk and that's Riley Leonard and what he brings to the table as a high level championship level type quarterback. And that, as you are well aware when you're calling plays, having good players certainly helps and having a signal caller like Riley Leonard and again, when we talk about this stuff, we are anticipating, you know, health and all of those things. And so I just want to put that as a caveat, you know, just because I know how some people are. I mean, I've got the chat off, but I understand, oh, he's the injury, we're not going to have that yet. So, okay, good, good, okay, good, but we're talking about Riley Leonard and what he has been able to do on the field when healthy. And he's a championship level quarterback. And so again, bringing in Mike Dembrock, you also brought in Riley Leonard, it's going to be a huge part of the passing game this year, and it's a very big reason to be optimistic. Well, when you look at Riley Leonard, Vince, you look at a kid that took over at Duke for a team that the year before went in three and nine and in the three years before he arrived went 10 and 26, sweet, before his before his injury against Notre Dame, right? And I'm going to include the Notre Dame loss, but before, you know, past that, he had led Duke to a 13 and five record in 18 games, right, 18 games were in the two, three previous years in three full seasons, which was 36 games. They won 10. Now Mike Elko's arrival had something to do with that. And Mike Elko's a heck of a football coach, Mike Elko doesn't go nine and four in 2022 if he doesn't have Riley Leonard a quarterback. Right. But I don't know is how Riley is going to be in the state. You know, Riley hasn't played in front of 112,000 screaming, you know, Texans, right? I mean, it's true. We got up, but he also has never played with the kind of town around him that he's going to have at Notre Dame either. But you can't, you can't look at what Mike Denmark's done with his last two quarterbacks and not get excited about what might be coming to Notre Dame this season because, you know, you look at what he did, obviously with Jane Daniels, we know what he did there. And even Desmond Ritter, I mean, you know, I was never Desmond Ritter fans still and not a Desmond Ritter fan. But that's a kid that threw for over 3300 yards last year with Mike Denbrock 30 touchdowns and eight interceptions. And I don't even think he's that good. You know, and just I look at it now and I'm thinking, dude, like you, you, you give a guy like Riley Leonard, Mike Denbrock call him plays and you're going to feel a certain way about, about what you think he can be because Riley's the kind of kid that can put a team on his shoulders and carry them to victory. But at Notre Dame, he doesn't always have to do that, right? Like that's the difference is like, dude, we don't need you to go out there and be Superman to beat every team we play every week. I mean, you just watched last year when he got hurt, that offense just could do nothing the rest. Even in games where he played but couldn't run, the offense could do nothing. At Notre Dame, it's like, dude, you're going to have to be that guy. You're going to have to put the cape on sometimes. Oh, yeah. You're going to win a championship looking at, you know, if I'm looking at it from I'm a coach talking to Riley, hey, we're going to need you to put the coach cape on sometimes. You know, we just are. There's going to be a game where our defense doesn't have it that day like they normally do or our line doesn't have it or our receivers or whatever that team is just on fire and we're going to need you to put the cape on and, and, and win this one for us. But it's not going to be every week like it was a lot of times a Duke where if Riley didn't play well, then they didn't play well, they couldn't win exactly. And he won't have that kind of pressure, but he does have the ability to do it. And with Sam Hartman, you know, I think in some ways, Sam gets a bit of a bum wrap for how last season went partly because of his own, you know, some things he did, but, but a lot of it is, you know, Sam Hartman was never a quarterback that you went and signed and said, okay, he's going to put this team on his shoulders and carry it a victory. Sam Hartman is the type of quarterback that's always dependent on people around him doing their jobs. I'm going to get you to ball where it needs to go to, but you got to do your job. You got to block for me. You got to run the route. You got to catch the ball. And when, when his players weren't consistently doing that last year, I think he lost confidence in them and in himself. Yep. Completely agree. And he looked like a different player the second half of the season. He just did. You know, he carried itself differently and it was a lack of confidence. No question about it. And it was confidence around what's around him. Yeah. Yeah. Where he, he couldn't put that team on a shoulders and say, let's go. Now he did it that one time against Duke, right? Nothing does it every now and then, but it's not something where he was going to consistently make a living, you know, going down and just saying, okay, I'm going to run around. I'm going to make this play. I'm going to throw this bullet. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. That's not who Sam Hartman was. And they didn't recruit him to be that, right? And so you can't fault him for that, but you didn't recruit Riley Lender to be that. And then you went out and put some pieces around him that are very impressive. And that's obviously the next part of what we're going to talk about. Man, that's like a professional transition. That was well played. And so you are absolutely correct that the pieces that came in around Riley Leonard are a huge reason for optimism. And it's not just the pieces that were brought in, that it's also some pieces that were already here. And we're talking about the wide receiver unit. And when you take pieces that were here and you add it in with the pieces that have arrived, then this is about the deepest wide receiver room, as honestly as I can remember, Brian, and you're so much better with the history than I am. But this is pure talent. I don't remember. This is a deep room. I mean, I mean, there have been years in the past where, you know, we're talking about, you know, a six man rotation. Maybe they expand it to seven or maybe even eight at times, you know, this year. And it's like, okay, who are those six or seven, eight going to be because there's some serious battles for those spots? And in the past, it was like, okay, who's going to start at wide receiver because I'm not sure they're much deeper than that, to be honest. You know what I mean? So it's just a different scenario. And you were always in those situations where, and we've talked about this before, we don't need to talk about too much, but you're always in situations where if the other team could shut down the tight end or if your guy that you thought was going to be your guy didn't pan out or got hurt, you were in trouble. Yeah. You know, 2022 was boy, they really need Lorenzo styles to step up and he didn't and it hurt the whole, the whole unit. And when you look at at, you know, you look at 2021 and you look at Kevin Austin, when Kevin Austin was really good, that offense was really good. When Kevin Austin struggled, like you did again, he was terrible in Cincinnati. And guess what, offense completely disappeared because you were almost entirely dependent on your both of the football on whether or not Kevin Austin was ready to step up and play well. 2020, I mean, you had good receivers, but you know, you, you didn't have guys that you were going to go out there against Bama and they were going to win. And you just didn't have that type of team. And partly in 2020, the issue was you thought you were going to have Kevin Austin that year and he got hurt, you know, and couldn't play. You add Kevin Austin to that receiving court, Ben Skiranika, Javon McKinley and a focus Kevin Austin. We might be talking about something then with Michael Mayer, tight end and Tommy Trumbull and Brock Wright and all that. But he got hurt and all of a sudden, boom, you're out. But that's the whole point though, Vince, right? One injury could completely derail that those teams. One guy not performing well could completely derail those receiving courts. Now you're not in that situation. I mean, you're really not. So, I mean, you could, right now, my projection for the starting lineup, just as of today, facing what we've seen in practice is Chris Mitchell at Z, Jayden Graydaus in the slot, Jayden Thomas in the boundary. Yeah. Right. If you lose, if you lost all three of those guys, you'd have a starting lineup of Jordan Fazon, Jayden Harrison and Bo Collins with KK Smith, Cam Williams, Micah Gilbert and Logan Saltate and Dion Colsey coming off the bench. Like that's basically been their receiving court in previous years, but not with as much speed. But you, you know, you still have those guys. So I mean, you're talking about your right now, your third string wide receivers would be probably KK Smith, Jayden Harrison and the reason I'm going this way is because Jordan Fazon can kind of play in both. Yeah, he has. And I would assume that right now, like Jordan would go out to Z if Chris Mitchell got hurt full time as opposed to KK, but pick one, but for now I'm just going to go with, with, you know, with, with the way it is now, but you'd have KK Smith playing Z with Cam Williams as his backup. You've got Jayden Harrison playing the slot with Logan Saltate as his backup. And you've got Micah Gilbert in the boundary with Dion Colsey's as backup. That's your, that's if you lost your entire first two lines of receivers. That's basically what last year's receiving core was Vince pretty much. And so when you look at it now, you're talking about, you do have Chris Mitchell. You do have Jayden greenhouse. You do have Jayden Thomas. You do have both columns, Jordan Fazon, Jayden Harrison, KK Smith, Micah Gilbert, Cam Williams and Logan Saltate, Dion Colsey, I mean, it's hard not to get fired up about that, Vince. Because why? A lot of talent, a lot of depth of talent, a lot of different type of talent. What's something that we complained about last year? I know Ryan and I talked about this. I don't know that you and I talked about this a whole lot because we don't do as many shows during the, during the season except for post games, but you had a bunch of guys that kind of all did the same thing outside of Chris Tyree and Tobias Meriwether. Yeah. Like Rico Flores, they all kind of did the same exact thing. This year you have a much different group from a diversity of skillset standpoint. They're not all slots than some of the slots have to play outside. You've got some size to them. Now Tobias was tall, but Tobias was skinny. He wasn't a muscle guy. Bo can be a little bit of that, especially when Jayden Thomas got hurt, right? And so you had all those aspects to this year's receiving core. And last year, honestly, Vince, it's like, if Tobias and Jayden Thomas don't step up, the receiving core is in big, big trouble, Tobias didn't step up for whatever reason we can debate, whether he was given a shot or didn't, it doesn't matter. The fact is the end result was the same. Whatever you read, the think, whatever you blame for why Tobias wasn't better last year is irrelevant because the result is the result, right? Jayden Thomas gets hurt again and he's not healthy. He goes to a month and a half or he doesn't catch a pass and it just, the whole receiving core just got jacked up when that happened. This year, you're in much better position to where if you have an injury, it sucks, but you're fine. Just keep rolling. And so it's that margin for error so much greater this year. And also in past years, if you had really good guys that could cover in short area, this pass offense struggled because you couldn't stretch the field the same way. You didn't have guys that could get off pressure, you didn't have big bodies. The fact that they have different types of receivers this year allows them to attack defenses differently depending on what the strengths and weaknesses are of those teams. And all those reasons or when you look at this receiving core is just another reason why the expectation is, I think this receiving core has a chance to be really, really good. They have a lot to prove Vince, but they have a chance to be really, really good. This episode is brought to you by our good friends at NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. I'm sure by now you've all got back into your Sunday routines, but they could be even better with NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV. 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And obviously, specifically Jeremiah Love and we have discussed this, you know, a bunch over in the offseason about how he's been working at slot and he's been doing some different things and all of that. But, you know, when you've got a playmaker like Jeremiah Love, you want to get the ball in his hands and that is going to be a special aspect to this past game where defense are going to have to pick their poison in my opinion. You know, are you bracketing some wide receivers or, you know, what are you going to do in the past game and then all of a sudden you've got Jeremiah Love matched up with a linebacker or a nickel or something along those lines and frankly, I give the nod to Notre Dame in most of those scenarios. It's Jeremiah Love out of the backfield big time and again, we've talked about how Mike Dembrock has shown an ability to utilize certain weapons. Well, you think about the Clemson game in 2015 and you think about it's raining, they're not able to run the ball, the offensive line couldn't get a push because they couldn't plant their feet in the ground because the field was so wet and, you know, they're double their bracketing will for the whole game and you're just like, "Dude, I don't know what we're going to do here." Well, Mike Dembrock figured it out, right? He started using Chris Brown a lot on crossers and overs and ripped off some big plays, but what was the play that really sprung things in that 2015 game against Clemson? It was a wheel route to his running back out of the backfield for a 50-plus yard touchdown. That's what it was and that's the thing that kind of sprung that game open and if you look at CGA Pro size before his injury in a five-game stretch starting with Clemson and ending with Pitt when he got hurt, he had 18, 20 catches in five games and he had 100 yard performance against Clemson. He had 156 yards against Navy and 32 yards against USC and 43 yards catching against Temple and 29 against Pitt in a game he got knocked out in the first half. So in five games, he had 20 catches for 260 yards in five games because that's when he was kind of got started to get real comfortable as the starting running back. That's not normally what Mike Dembrock has done in the past. He didn't use the running backs a ton out of the past game last year. However, what did they do to start to season off? They ran a bootleg throwback to the running back for a 50-something yard gain against Florida State in the first play, I think it was the first play of the game. So he'll use it but when he's got a guy that can be that kind of weapon out of the backfield, he will build the offense around it and you started to see him doing that with CGA Pro size. Why could CJ have that unique skill set, six, one, fast, former receiver, they're athletically very similar to Jeremiah. And so you'll see him doing that. But then also, you've got Jadarion coming out of the backfield as a unique weapon as more of a traditional running back. And those are things Vince that kind of say, okay, that's just more weapons and like, dude, we're not even going to spend time honestly talking about the tight ends because that's the one given. Yeah. I mean, like seriously. You can be optimistic about it. That's fine. It's not like, oh, they're going to be better now because of the tight ends. They've always had good tight ends. Right. The tight ends are going to be good this year. It's correct. And the tight ends be complimented effectively or even they become the like the ideal situations for Notre Dame. I don't care how good your tight end is, is it they're the complimentary weapon to your receivers and other guys, not the other way around. And even when Tyler Eifert's your tight end, you still want to have a Michael Floyd. And it's not a coincidence that Mike that Tyler Eifert had his best statistical year during a season when not when he was the number one weapon, he had more production in 2011 as the number two weapon than he did in 2012 as the primary weapon because then teams couldn't focus on him as much. And I'm going to back that up. That's not just an opinion in 2011. Tyler Eifert had 63 catches for 803 yards and five touchdowns. That year Michael Floyd was your top guy. He had a hundred catches for 1147 yards and nine touchdowns. The next year, Tyler Eifert had 50 catches for 685 yards and four touchdowns because he was the number one weapon. And it's easier to take a tight end out of the game than it is, you know, it's easier to take Tyler Eifert out of the game than it is to take Will Fuller out of the game. It's just the way the defense works. I'm not saying Will Fuller is a better player than Tyler Eifert, that's just a reality of it. Sure. So your tight ends are already strong, it's, but every, your tight ends are strong last year. I mean, your tight ends, not the reason you lost Ohio State. He was brilliant against Ohio State. You know what I mean? Like Wolf. I mean, Mitchell Evans was great against, against Ohio State. I mean, he, he, when you're down 14 to 10, he catches a big long pass down the field against Louisville, but it comes back because you have an illegal hands in the face by your office, climbing, drive stalls, right? They're all the problem last year and they're in that stretch of bad offensive play events was not Mitchell Evans because that was when he was at his best was during that stretch of football. Just because the, what was around him wasn't good enough. So tight ends set, it's the, it's the other stuff that starts to get excited about how good this group can be because you don't need Mitchell Evans to be Hercules this year. He just, just do, just go do your job. Right. Right. And sometimes you're going to have to carry the load because you're getting one on ones other times that they're trying to stop you. That's cool. Get your two catches for 30 yards and, and make sure you're down there celebrating with all your teammates when we're scoring all those touchdowns to other people. And that's just the way that it's going to be. And that's what gets you. That's me. Vince is what kind of has me so fired up about what this team can be this year is. Yeah. It's not just Mike. It's like, I don't care how good of a coach you are. Don't care. If you don't have dudes, you don't have dudes. I mean, I, I pointed this out before in five years as a coach, I coached two all Americans and see five, uh, four, uh, see one, two, three, four, seven, all, all conference players in five years. All of them could play. My job was just, okay, you've got dudes, get them coached up, get the most out of them. Right? I mean, he's, you can't take players that are mediocre and say, okay, we're going to go in a national championship because you're a phenomenal coach. You're going to win more games than you otherwise would, right? But you're not going to, I mean, Kyle Winnie and Mike Gundy have Vince. I think you and I both agree. You're a great coaches. Right? Yeah. Have they ever even been in the, in the conversation for a national title? You had the one year with Mike Gundy in 2011, that one freaky, or I actually thought they should have played for the title outside of that. Mike Gundy's had one year with his team competed for a title. Kyle Winnie and Sam Hems had zero. Why? Because he's getting the most out of the team, but the team still isn't talented enough and the program's not capable of going to win at that next level. And so yes, it's great to have Mike Denbrok. It's wonderful to have Mike Denbrok and Mike Brown and Dila McCullough and those guys, but you still need the dudes. And I think this year, they're much, much in a position where you feel like they do have the dudes. Those are our reasons for optimism here for the past game, offensively, and frankly, I'm super optimistic, but come on now, we all have to be realistic as well. And as optimistic as we are, there are also, you know, reasons that we have to talk about the question marks or, you know, reasons, I don't want to say for pessimism, because that's not the right term, but, you know, concerns, there are things that, you know, we don't know the answer to, and we are going to find the answer out together. And one of those major, well, not major, one of those concerns is the offensive line and pass pro. And, you know, it became a larger concern with the news of Charles Jagger saw going down and not being available for this season and them having to find an alternate left tackle, right? And so I think, I think, I think pass pro still would have been on this list, but it might not have been as big, it may, maybe it would have fallen down a little bit in the ranking, but it is at the top of the list for me, and I think it is the top of the list for you as well, Brian, it's, it's, it's the pass pro, we just don't know what that's going to look like. And, you know, we don't know who the starting five is going to be at this point. And so it's a, it's a question mark right now, for sure, it is, I mean, and it starts there, Vince, it's one of those things where what's the one thing, if all the things we talked about are true, is there anything that can stop this unit from being as good as it can be? And it's this right here. Yeah. Absolutely. In the big moments in the against A&M. So I'm not worried about it against Miami, Ohio, sure, not worried about it against Northern Illinois. I'm worried about it against Texas A&M, I'm worried about it against Louisville, I'm worried about it against the state, and then when you get to the postseason, USC, you know, with their improved defensive line, that, that's the thing is, if they can't protect the quarterback, then how good your quarterback is, you're going to be in trouble. You're going to have trouble winning those, the biggest, the biggest games you're going to have trouble winning, if that's the case. Absolutely. And I am, like I said, it is a bigger concern than it maybe once was, and I think they'll probably get it figured out the question. The biggest question mark for me and the biggest concern for me is, will they get it figured out enough that it does not affect them in a negative way in week one? That's my biggest concern right now. It's week one. And can they operate at a high level in the past game with the past pro being a big part of that in week one? I just don't know the answer to that, and I don't know if we're going to know the answer to that until we see them run out of the tunnel and strap it up during week one on the road in college station. I just don't know if we're going to have the answer to that. I don't even know that we're going to fully have the answer in that game. And that's fair. That's fair. It's like, because we're talking about what do we talk my events, right? We're talking about the ability to kind of put this whole thing here. Can you protect the quarterback? Can you, can you make the big plays? Can you get the ball down the field? Can you do all those things that go into being a successful pass offense, right? That's what we're talking about here. Well, yes, if it's great if you can pass pro against the Texas A&M. But as I've said, just because you play well one week doesn't mean you play well the next. I mean, no defensive line looked like world beaters against Ohio State last year. Well, it's just, that's an exact, that's hyperbole, but they were very good against them. They were very good. That was their best game. Yeah. They were as good as they were against Ohio State. They were even worse than that against Duke the next week. And they were bad against Louisville. So it's going to be about doing it consistently. And then the other thing too is if the offensive line can just hold their water, I think their names should throw the ball because I don't, I don't, Texas A&M's D secondary is a little bit shaky. Yeah. And it's, it's solid, but that's it. It's just solid. You know, so it's, it's the A&M game at least gives you a taste. Sure. And if you, but just like if you can't do it against A&M, it doesn't mean that you won't do it against, well, it is the first game of the year and I, I want to push back a little bit on this notion of we're going to know everything we need to know about this team and the opener. Right. It's still the first game. And that's true either way. I mean, if Notre Dame goes out and beat A&M by 30, that's a huge win. It's a perception win. It's a big win, but it doesn't mean that that's what Notre Dame is going to be when they play Louisville. It doesn't mean that that's what Notre Dame is going to be when they play Florida State. I mean, we've seen those games for Vince. I mean, we watched Notre Dame go out there and beat Clemson by three touchdowns when they were at top five team two years ago. That was what two weeks, three weeks after they lost at home to Stanford who hadn't beaten an FBS team in over a calendar year, right? It's, it's, but it does give you a taste, in my opinion, of, of where you are. And, and, you know, when, when I, that's, that's big, the big thing for me. And for Riley Leonard, you know, one, the big things for him is, can he make the big throws in those big games? Sure. That's going to be a question. I'm not as concerned about that in the opener because throwing the ball down the field requires a level of timing that takes time to work on. He may miss some shots then, but at some point soon he's going to have to start figuring out, you know, hey, can they get here? Can they get here? Can they get here? Right. Those are things that are going to have to, to be factors. And, and, and then of course as we talked about Vince, when you talk about it, it's, it's, what does it all lead to? It's what you said. It's, can you do it when it matters most and can you do it consistently when it matters most? Can you put all it together? Right. When it matters most. And we will, there's no way for us to know that answer until November. Right. Right. Because again, if they do it against Texan and that's great. That's great. We don't do it against Louisville. Right. Exactly. What if they do it against Louisville, but then don't do it against Florida State and USC. What if they do it against Florida State and USC, but then, you know, when they get in the postseason, they don't do it in the first round of playoff, or, you know what I mean? Like it, they're just, it's going to have to be more consistent. And we won't really know until we see them play multiple good teams next year. Because I mean, dude, if you go back and listen to some of our shows in September last year, and, and, you know, there, there's, and look at our chats. There's people talking about, you know, why is Hartman not getting more Heisman Trophy love? I mean, seriously, and, and, and, and it wasn't nuts to say that. Because again, I mean, you're, you're the starting quarterback at Notre Dame and you're putting up good numbers. You're putting up huge numbers. Yeah. I mean, he put up 254 in the opener. He put up 194 in game two, he's only played a half, he completed 82.4% of his passes. He went for 286 against central NC State on the road in a, in a 45 24 win over a ranked team. And then through for 330 yards against central Michigan, dude had 13 passing touchdowns and had two rushing touchdowns. So 15 touchdowns in four games. Right. Look, look great. And then it kind of just, and then it didn't, you know, so it's, it's, we're going to, we're going to get little room, you know, there's going to be certain gauges along the way. Oh, yeah. Milestones. That's a, that's a much better way of saying it. Yeah. Milestones. It's okay. Yeah. You pass that one and you're doing this. That's good. Right. But now it's, it's what's comes next. So if Riley Leonard comes out in the first four games and he's light in the world on fire, it's like, all right, that's great. But is it any different than Sam Hartman doing that last year is, is texting him that much better than what NC State was last year? We don't know the answer to that. They weren't last year. Right. And say, yeah, but, but they got freaky athletes and they don't know, texting him isn't anybody's freakier of an athlete than what Peyton Wilson was at NC State. Are that linebacker? Yes. Oh my gosh. Yeah. No kidding. So I mean, those are, those are different things you look at and say, okay, let's see what, let's see what he can, let's see what he can do, you know, it. So yeah, first month is great, but it's like, okay, but you've got to keep it rolling, man, because we could go back to different periods of time. That 2017 offense from the Michigan State game, actually it was from the second half of the BC game until the wake, through the wake forest game was one of the best stretches of offense I've ever seen it in the other day. Yeah. And they were averaging over 45 points a game, then some, they were running for 300 some yards a game. I mean, they were absolutely ripping people up. Do you remember that stretch? Oh, yeah. 49 against BC, 38 against Michigan State, 52 against Miami, Ohio, 33 on the road against North Carolina with your backup quarterback, 49 in a game over a highly ranked USC team, 35 against North Carolina State in a 21 point win and then 48 against NC State. And you know, offensively you're in that stretch from BC to wake forest, they, their lowest rushing yardage game in that period of time was 182 yards was their lowest rushing a total. The next lowest was 318 and that 182 yards rushing was against Michigan State who that year, the number two rush defense in the all of college football, I think they gave up like 70 something yards rushing that year. I mean, it was just, it was absolutely nuts. How good that, you know, how highly ranked that Michigan State rush defense was. And there's only two teams could run the ball on them all year, Notre Dame, Ohio State. That's it. Michigan State gave up 95 yards rushing that season. Notre Dame almost doubled that and did that with Josh Adams, Dexter Williams missing over a chunk of that game because they got hurt and Tony Jones missed the entire game. They played the last quarter and a half of that game with Dion McIntosh at running back and they still couldn't stop them. But then what happened? Miami came and then that team was never the same. Right. So no, it's not about do you do it in stretches. Can you be that team? Yeah. All the time. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's the key. Brian, that's going to do it for this part of our talk, the offensive side of the ball and the in the past game and all of that fun stuff. And so before we move on to the next part, make sure you hit the like button, the subscribe button, hit that notification bell, share with your family and friends. And of course, jump on the boards, boards.irisbreakdown.com for all of the breaking news and excitement that there is around Notre Dame football. You will not be disappointed. Thank you. Bye. Bye. [BLANK_AUDIO]
