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Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month, new customers on first three-month plan only, taxes and fees extra, speeds lower above 40 gigabytes of detail. Welcome everyone to another edition of the Irish Breakdown Podcast. I am Vince Diderio, that is Brian Driscoll, and it is another edition of "Upon Further Review" episode two of the 24th season. And we are going to be discussing the Northern Illinois Notre Dame football game that occurred on Saturday. It was a 16-14 Notre Dame loss, and if you stayed with us until the wee hours yesterday, then you know how we feel about that, and that is not what this show is about. It is not about how we feel, it is about what we saw, and we want to make sure that that is the focus of today's show, Brian. Early on, correct. Yes. Now, the format of this show, as it is every week, is we will revisit the keys to victory that Brian put out on the show with Brian earlier in the week. And there's offense, there's defense, and there's even a special team's key to victory on there, and so we will revisit those and discuss whether Notre Dame did or did not meet those keys. And then, of course, we will jump into what we saw on the tape. We're going to talk team, we're going to talk defense, we're going to talk offense, and we have added a third segment to this show, the most part. Basically, for all intents and purposes, how do they fix it? You know, I mean, you know, people have been asking us whether it was in the show last night, whether it's been on text or social media or whatever during the day today. You know, what would you do? How would you fix it? And since people are asking, we decided to give it an answer. And so that is what we are going to do in segment number three. 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. 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You've had Wendy's nugs dipped in sauce but have you had them covered in sauce? Wendy's new saucy nugs takes the crispy and spicy nugs that you love and turn them up to eleven. Choose between flavors like buffalo, honey barbecue, garlic palm or if you're a real heat seeker try spicy ghost pepper only on Wendy's signature spicy nugs. I dare you. That's seven delicious ways to try the nugs you already love. Pick a flavor grab some extra napkins and prepare to nug like you've never nugged before. For a whole new way to nug it's got to be Wendy's at participating US Wendy's. So Brian without further ado. Let's jump into segment one and let's revisit the keys for the keys for the game all right so the Notre Dame what would have been a keys to a Notre Dame victory correct. Yes correct so let's talk about these keys. So let's start on offense because that's what we do and you had three keys to victory okay and the first one was start fast it was get into a rhythm build confidence jump out to a big early lead and don't let Northern Illinois hang around. So, how do they do on that first key Brian failed and like because like we talked about this last week Vince a fast start is not just that first initial score. Right it's not just okay you put a touchdown on the board wonderful you started fast well no because that team answered your score with the score of their own. And so like you said don't let them hang around. There there wasn't that's exactly what they did they let Northern Illinois hang around that they let noted this is what we talk about all the time Vince, which is you cannot let a team that's inferior to you stay around. And, and get into a hey I think we can win this game type of thing you can't let them have that confidence they go on and get that big old play what you need to do is come right back and say hey, you guys got lucky with that big play you caught a break this is going to be a long day for you correct and instead Notre Dame went plus one minus one minus nine punt on on on drive number two. Northern Illinois goes down and kicks a field goal Notre Dame gets the ball back. They go first down eight yards second down incomplete pass third down first that you get a first down next play interception. And then at that point and then Northern Illinois goes down and gets another field goal. That is not a fast start at that point time Northern Illinois said hey we can beat these guys, we can absolutely beat these guys. And every time Notre Dame tried to answer they faltered here next drive they move the ball get the ball down to the 39 get the ball in Northern Illinois territory. That's one plus two minus two and plus two scramble punt at the 39 the going in 39 yard line. So you need this is exactly why we say all the time is there but why do you always talk about fast starts all the time. This is exactly why because when you play a team like this and you come out slow and you let them hang around. You start to believe hey, sure you can win this football game. And when you combine that with the fact that they're kicking your butt physically. No wonder that this team is is going to go out there and beat you. So you absolutely cannot cannot let a team like this hang around I mean that what what did you say Vince it's like you can't allow a team like this to hang around and stay in the game. Right. 100% you can't give them confidence. I mean that that's the worst thing that you can do to an underdog is give them confidence period and I don't care what sport you're playing. I don't care what the situation is you cannot give an underdog confidence. Once you do that you have given away your advantage period that that's why we talked about starting fast because if Notre Dame would have gone down obviously they scored a touchdown on drive number one. I'm honest with you think you know Northern Illinois didn't even put together necessarily a drive that they scored on on that on that touchdown right because they never really sniff the end zone after that right that plenty of issues on defense until like yeah until the very very end of the game right. Correct. But they got field goals. Okay, you know what you shouldn't get beat giving up field goals but you all shouldn't be giving up field goals Northern Illinois but again different conversation but if you're scoring touchdowns and they're scoring field goals I mean I'm not I was never a math major but that's still good news for Notre Dame you still have to cliche Lee answer a score with a score. And Notre Dame answered Northern Illinois score with a three and out. I mean that that's not starting fast that's that's giving them confidence look. We were in Northern Illinois podcast and we talked about starting fast. That would be a check mark because Northern Illinois scored on their first three drives of the game. I mean you want to talk about having confidence and being sky high. They scored on their first three drives of the game Brian. That's a fast start. Yes. That's a fast start. Right. Right. They absolutely had a fast start. 100 percent. Yeah. Notre Dame getting the first drive score and then not putting points on the board again until the fourth quarter is not a recipe to success. And that's pretty much what Notre Dame has done the last two games. Gotcha. Yeah. Well I think about it like they they scored a touchdown on the first. They scored a they've. Notre Dame has scored this season Vince. 37 points correct. They scored 10 points in the first drive of the two games. Right. They got a touchdown this week in a field goal last week. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. They scored 10 points of the fourth quarter last week. And they scored they scored seven points in the third quarter. They scored 30. So they scored 10 points in the first quarter 13 points in the second quarter. And then a field goal in the second quarter against Texas A&M and a touchdown in the third quarter against against Northern Illinois. That's it. Mm hmm. They're averaging 18 and a half points a game. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's not that's not good enough. Okay. So anyway, they did not fast start. At first when we were talking about this I was like. Yeah, maybe they got a fast start because they scored on the first drive but that's but they didn't continue it. They didn't. They didn't. You know, because Northern Illinois answered like they answered Notre Dame's touchdown with a touchdown. You're back to square one at that point. And then Northern Illinois continued to answer and ended man. That's that's the bottom line from an offensive standpoint. So I agree with you that point number one is a failure. Point number two, or I should say key number two was get the pass game going early efficiency be willing to take shots. Letter needs to be better. Wide receivers need to make some more plays. That would be a big time failure. Yep. On Saturday. Yeah. I mean, look, your your pass game was was ridiculous. It was it was worse than it was in the first game. And I hear I'm sorry, some of y'all are not going to like my comments today. And honestly, it is what it is. But here's the point. What I said all summer was if Riley Leonard plays exactly like he did against at Duke, Notre Dame is going to be very hard to beat. He's not playing anything close to like. Oh, Duke. New. And it's why he's not a very good passer. All right, that's fine. Riley Leonard is a true sophomore. Literally through at least one touchdown pass in every game he played in in the regular season. The only game he didn't throw a touchdown pass that season was in a 30 to 13 bowl victory over UCF and when he rushed for two touchdowns. And so, you know, you're talking about a kid that in his career has scored. I mean, multiple touchdowns averages multiple touchdowns a game as a starter and he hasn't he's reached the end zone once in two games at Notre Dame. Right. And we're supposed to believe, well, he was always this guy. Okay. But he wasn't though. Right. Well, you know, he has, you know, when he's played teams like this at Duke, he was way better than what he was on Saturday. You know, last year against Northwestern, he went 15 of 20 for 219 yards and rushed for 97 yards and two touchdowns against Northwestern against Yukon. He went 23 of 34 for 248 yards a touchdown. And he rushed for 30 yards in a touchdown. You know, when they when they played Clemson last year, only I only went 17 to 30 for 175 yards. But yeah, but he almost rushed for he rushed for 98 yards in a touchdown. You know, look, this is not who we saw at Duke. Right. You know, his his first three games, or first four games of the season as a true sophomore, he had a 10.9 yards per attempt average at 10 point. Oh yards per attempt average gets Northwestern, by the way. He had a 12.9 yards per attempt average and a 9.3 yards per attempt average on the road against Kansas. Right. I mean, so, so you say, well, you know, he was always, no, he was never this guy. And that's the whole point. It's how did he regress? Well, you know, Chris Mitchell, he got to see if you can do this at Notre Dame. He did it at Florida National. You mean at Florida National? He was playing teams exactly like the one that he played on Saturday. Group of five teams where he would like people up. Right. Why did he come here and regress the way that he has in group of five conferences? You know, the Mac is towards the bottom. Let's be honest. Right. Right. And historically, the Mac has been towards the bottom. If you're going to be ranking the group of five. In the last five to 10 years, it's certainly like there was an error when the Mac was really good. That was a long time ago. Right. A long time ago. And, you know, there's just so many, like if you guys want to just sit here and, and, and, and just sound like just simpletons, some of you. Oh, Riley Leonard sucks. All right. Who said Riley Leonard played well yesterday? Who said that? And raise your hand if you've said that. No one. The question is this, why can't Notre Dame get him to play well when Duke did? Well, he's not good enough to beat Georgia. You're telling me he's not good enough to beat Northern Illinois? He did that at Duke. You're telling him he's got better players around him at Duke than he did at Notre Dame than he does at Notre Dame. He had good enough players to beat Clemson and Northwestern and Yukon at Notre Dame, but he's not good enough to do this, right? Riley Leonard's played terrible so far. The question continues to be if you want to just be that simpleton fan that just is. Oh, Riley Leonard sucks bench Riley Leonard. That's the answer. I'm sorry. You're, you're, this is why we had the same crap under Brian Kelly. Oh, it's never Brian Kelly's fault. It's this guy's fault. It's that guy's fault. It's this guy. This guy sucks. That guy sucks. Yeah. But why does this continue to happen in Notre Dame? Why does two years in a row Notre Dame goes out there and gets a portal quarterback who then regresses big time? It's not like they went out and got a group of five guy. That's transitioning to this level. They got power five quarterbacks who beat power five teams and they come to Notre Dame. They can't beat Northern Illinois. There's a problem and then the problem goes much deeper than just Riley Leonard and we saw that yesterday Vince in the game. You want to break down why the past game of struggling? You know you're struggling to protect the quarterback. So I'm third nine in their territory. You drop back at the, what was it? The 39 yard line. Think it's where they were. You drop back the pass and run all birds out of a four out of a four receiver outset. And your quarterback doesn't have time to get the ball off. He gets to the top of his drop and gets hit. That somehow Riley Leonard's fault. Right. That's a horrible play call. You're not putting your players in position to be successful. In that situation, Vince, you're in two down territory. 100%. You got to have some sort of high low, some sort of built in. If they blitz, we're going to attack it with this. Right. And they ran all birds that it was actually all stops. Those are long, slow developing routes. The quarterback got to the top of his drop and didn't even get time to throw the even step to throw before two guys hit him. Yep. You know what you do against that? You run something hot behind it. You run something quick behind it. You want to blitz on third down? We're going to run an angle route with our running back right behind it. Quarterback and fade away and throw that ball. Correct. I could throw that ball right now. 46 years old. Because it's a five yard pass. Yeah. I mean, right. So, so again, was Riley Leonard bad yesterday? Heck, yes, he was bad yesterday. But at some point in time, you got to say, were you putting him in position to be successful? Right. And the answer yesterday was no. You absolutely were not. Now, there were times and stuff was there. He's got to hit it. He didn't. And then a couple of times he did make good balls. Got Jay and Great House dropping a ball. The past game is a hot mess right now. And it's they can't protect the quarterback. The quarterback can't read the defense worth a darn right now, despite being a 20 plus game starter at the power five level. He has no feel for the offense whatsoever. I don't think he has much of a feel for his receivers either. Like at least it doesn't look like it. Here's the thing that pisses me off. That's not what we saw at practice. Sometimes you got to make that throw. You got to make that throw. You got to hit. This is not what we saw at practice. This is obviously not what happened during the Jersey scrimmage. Otherwise, the offense wouldn't know on the Jersey scrimmage. Right. So, so everything's a mess right now. And I don't have answers just to why. But what I know is is their failures yesterday go a whole lot deeper than just the quarterback. Correct. Quarterbacks got to play better. Jay and Great House catches that one ball. We might be having a different conversation right now as bad as the quarterback was. Mike Dembrock makes a couple different play calls and third down situations. Maybe we're having a different conversation today. Right. There's a lot that has to be fixed here. And this game was a perfect example for anyone to look beyond just the really easy low hanging fruit of Riley Leonard's socks. Okay. Cool. You're showing me you don't really think through things at this point in time. And honestly, I'm not pulling punches today because I'm tired of the lazy conversation about this. Riley Leonard was terrible yesterday. That's terrible. Benching Riley Leonard doesn't fix the fact that you had it. So, let's pretend for a second that they would have put CJ Carr in the game on that drive. CJ get you down into Northern Illinois territory, third down. Right. And you run all stops versus a double weak side blitz. You don't have enough guys to pick it up. He gets so what would CJ Carr or Kenny Menchie or Steve Angeli have done differently on that play that Riley Leonard didn't do. There was no hot route. He was hit before anyone even got thought about getting to the top of their break. What could he have done differently. So my whole point is you can say be a grown up and say no matter what you thought of Riley Leonard coming in. We were very high on Riley Leonard coming in. We're not sitting here saying no this isn't Riley's fault. Riley actually did really good yesterday. His team did. Nope. Nope. He's stuck. He played terrible yesterday. Terrible yesterday. But you have to be if you want to fix it right instead of just like like get in your fields and you know during a chat or on Twitter or on the message board. If you actually want to talk about how to fix it. Then you have to be willing to look past just the simple of you know oh hey Riley Leonard didn't play well no no kidding. Why. Right. And that's the issue Vince. There's no rhythm. There's no I can't understand the rhymer reason to some of the things that they're doing. There's a complete lack of preparation for what the other team is going to do in certain situations. Third and long. Hmm. Our offense is really struggling. We've had trouble protecting our quarterback so far on third down. Maybe just maybe we might not want to run all stops out of a two by two with the backstaying in to protect. Maybe maybe maybe just saying here. Right. So there's a lot to fix that simply replacing the quarterback doesn't address. Correct. Doesn't address. I'm watching receivers that I've seen on film run really fast routes against SEC defenses come off the line. Slow yesterday. I can't figure it out. I don't understand why. I understand why you see you're seeing that Vince. I'm seeing Jaden Greathouse play worse yesterday than he did at any time last season. Why. There's something there's something here that goes a lot deeper and it was so evident in the past game yesterday. So you had no plan to really attack what Northern Illinois does. Your quarterback has no concept of how to read a defense right now. None. He's going done so fast. Like just his head is all over the place. I mean, yeah, it's. And he's it's like he's looking for the check down too. I mean, he's he's bolting through his reads getting to the check down and then just checking it down. And a lot of times throwing it to a covered check down as well and trying to squeeze it into some of the smallest spaces where some of the throw to Mitchell Evans, for example, like he was covered. I mean, that's just not a great throw, but he squeezed it in. They made the catch. Okay, cool. But it was check down after check down after check down because he was rushing his reads. So, I mean, he was just going through them so fast that you can't you can't even be expected to make those throws when you're going through them just to get down to the check down. Yep. And that that's a major problem in the past game. So it was fail in the past game. No doubt about it. This is an example of what I'm talking about Vince is I'm just so tired of just the laziness. This is an example. Kenny says, did you all not watch Riley Leonard to Duke? He wasn't no Cam Ward or Kyle McCord throwing for 300 yards a game. L O L. Hmm. Riley Leonard stats in his first season as a starter. Game one, 328 yards. Game four, 324 yards. Hmm played against Pittsburgh on the road at ranked Pittsburgh team 290 yards three touchdowns next week in the out dueling Sam Hartman 391 yards. And he didn't, he only threw for 155 yards against North Carolina A&T. I went 11 of 12 for two touchdowns because he only played the first half. It's probably out of half time. Hmm. Yeah. You know, I mean, guys, this is exactly what he did when he, in a battle against Drake May, he passes for 245 yards, rushes for 130 yards, and has three touchdowns. That is who Riley Leonard was at Duke. And we did watch Riley Leonard. You didn't. You only saw him play against Notre Dame and Clemson and think that's who Riley Leonard was. What I'm saying is this is not who he was at Duke. So there's two things that you have to evaluate. We'll get into that in the next section. But for yesterday, your quarterback was super inaccurate. He had no feel for the past game. And, and you can't, and you can say, hey, right now, he needs to catch that ball. Yeah, but you need to have more than just one throw a game where you're like, like, if they went on the money. If they were dropping four, five, six balls, then that's a conversation that we can have. They dropped one ball, Brian, like, yes, it would have been a big play. Maybe they go down and score because they would have been in the red zone if he catches that ball. Maybe it's a touchdown on that play. Right. Yes. Absolutely. But you can't boil it down to one play. Right. And be like, well, they didn't want to help them. And the reason that it was that one play is because, like, that's really the only, like, dime that he threw yesterday, really. He had a, actually had a couple of really nice balls to Mitchell Evans on third down. He did have a couple, though. Sure. On, again, static routes where Mitchell just ran a great route and Riley made a great ball. But like the inner, the first interception. Jayden's open. He throws it way too late. Yeah, way too late. That ball's got to come out as soon as Jayden hits his top and he hits in. It's a first down, just like it. They did earlier. On the first drive, on the first drive, just like he did in the final drive at Texas A&M where he throws the ball as great house is coming out of his cut on that third down. Great throw and catch. Right. So it's not that he can't do it. It's just that he's not doing it on a consistent basis. And that's a huge problem. It's a huge problem, especially with the way that they're running the offense. Well, we'll get, we'll get to that. So I want to get to the third offensive key. The other thing too, real quick is, yeah, you got to be able to give your quarterback some sort of comfort in the pocket. Well, he's seen that's clearly an issue. Yeah, it's clearly an issue. No doubt about that. And we didn't even, we didn't even have an opportunity to get to the offensive line last night, which is shocking from a five hour show. Like we didn't even really talk about the offensive line, which was the big question mark coming into the season. We just assumed that everyone knew that he was bad. It was bad. Yeah, good call. Okay, so third key to victory revisited run game must be more efficient, limit negatives, better first down consistency. Again, this is over three. Yeah, I mean, Northern Illinois didn't have a ton of negatives. They only had four tackles for loss, but there was a lot of stuff. Yeah, for Notre Dame. And honestly, I don't think Notre Dame really ran the ball. The way they should have. I mean, you're running backs. You're two stud running backs had 15 carries in this game. I mean, that's just a problem from a numbers standpoint. And, and Riley Leonard had 11 carries, but I, off the top of my head, off the top of my head, five of those carries at least were scrambles. Pass game square. Yeah, they weren't designed. Meaning you weren't designing a bunch of stuff to get him going. And how many of those runs were on the first drive of the game. And that's the problem that I had when we were talking after the game. I didn't think it was even on the show, but it's like, yeah, if you want to get, and I know that their game plan was not to maybe get him as much involved because of the competition and all this other stuff. But in my opinion, you know, Riley Leonard is one of those kinds of guys that, you know, there's some got there's some quarterbacks out there, you know, to get into the rhythm of the game, they need to throw some screens or some short passes, you know, whatever, get to the rhythm. For a guy like Riley Leonard, and similarly for some running backs right, they just, they need to get into the rhythm, they need to get some carries to get into the rhythm. That's how Riley Leonard is in my opinion, he needs some carries to get him into the rhythm of the game. And I feel like they went away from that very, very quickly. I mean, he, his numbers, 11 carries 16 yards, one score, but his long was 11. That means he had 10 carries for five yards. That's what that means. And yes, I understand that sacks are part of that. But still, you didn't, you did not utilize him in the run game the way we saw him utilized in the run game in game number one. So, that's a problem when you talk about needing to be efficient in the run game Brian. The 2024 Notre Dame team, that involves the quarterback, if Riley Leonard is your quarterback. Right. And here's the thing, somebody in the chat said this, and I was talking with, I think you about this amazing my buddy Jeff. But, you know, Riley Leonard twice got up slow once he hit his head. Yeah. And you wonder like, was he seeing straight after that? But I think he completed his next pass or something. They had him throwing on the very next play by the way. Which I was like, did he completed or is it was like, it was, I mean, it was just a throw to the wide receiver. Like, at the top of the screen. Yeah. And I think it was off target. Wasn't it? And was that the one, but I don't know. And then there's another time he gets up and he goes like this to his arm. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Here's my thing. Riley's a little banged up. He can't use the run. Then why are we still seeing you guys run the same stuff you were doing before you got hurt. Right. Right. So like, here's my point. This is what we talked about adjustments. Alright, Riley's injured. You can't use him to protect the backside like you want to. The way that teams are defending Notre Dame backside, they're taking that stuff away. You and I were talking about that in the press box yesterday. Yeah. There were no answers for that. No 12 personnel answers. No motion answers. Here's a thought. Go 21 personnel and run what you and I've talked about all off season. Run inside zone with the swing route by your back. Something like that, you know, and then see how that guy handles it. I mean, there's a lot of different things you can do. Go with you. Go 21 personnel. Do some kind of jet orbit motion, something like that. There's a lot of things you can do and not go into it. So if you don't have your quarterback run because you don't feel comfortable going to that, then you need to be doing some different answers. And that's the other thing too. Yes, players play bad, but it's also your job as a coach to put guys in the position to be successful. There's a lot of missed opportunities on the player level against A&M. There was a lot more not putting guys in position to be successful on offense, but here's the thing. Well, you know what? Do you want to hold off on the preparation thing for the next segment? Yes, I do. Okay. Yeah, I want to hold on. So from a run game standpoint, Vince, you've got to more quickly figure out what your problems are and find some answers. And I didn't feel like they did that. And here's the thing, final thing. You want to get, you have these two dynamic running backs. Jeremiah Love, Jadarion Price. Jeremiah Love comes out in the third quarter. He goes four, four carries for 45 yards in a touchdown. He had one carry for seven yards after that. Second half of that game, when you're losing to them, Jadarion Price had two carries for four yards. That's it. That's all those guys did. And that's, that's a, that's a coach. That's inexcusable. That's coaching. That's absolutely inexcusable right there. And, and I'm not even one of those. He was like, Oh, you should have run it on second and one. I don't care about that. I mean, I look, I actually like the, I like taking a shot there. I don't mind it. Not that shot, not that particular throw. And if you're going to take that throw, obviously you need to execute it. Right. But second and one, that, look, if anybody knows anything about football or watches football or coaches football or whatever. Second and one is a shot down. I mean, that, that's just, it's very classic. It's a very classic shot down because you feel like because of their dynamic running game, because you have a running quarterback. You're going to get a yard and you have third down to do it. That's, you take a shot. I, I really, if, if people are really zeroing in on that play call, then they're not really understanding how plays are called, in my opinion, like, it's, it's bigger than that. It's not just this one call. Yes, it was executed at an extremely poor level. And hindsight being what it is. Oh, terrible call, terrible play call. Yeah. Well, that's not really true. That's not really true. So, yeah. And the other thing too, is you had another stupid holding penalty on a long running situation where you bust a long run to get in the Northern Illinois territory. And you get called for another down field holding that's just a pure technical mistake. Exact same way from last week. It was similar. Yeah, similar in situation. Yeah, similar. It was first and 10. You running in, I believe as I'm looking at it right now, you're running inside zone play. It's literally events. It's just inside zone, man. He pops it out. You're on the second level. Guy has his back turned to Jeremiah Love. And instead of blocking him properly, you get your hands all outside and then grab onto his jersey as football one on one. And if you're not teaching it, then you're allowing it. And those are the same player, same player. So, Jeremiah Love gets knocked out of bounds at the 30, the Northern Illinois 34 yard line. And instead, the ball comes back. And it's now first in 14. I think something like that on that next play. Like, that's the kind of stuff we're talking about, Vince. You cannot have those type of plays. You can't correct. And, you know, it just, those things will get you beat, man. Those things will flat out get you beat. And if they don't fix those, I mean, those are, hey, you had a good play call. It was there. And then you just, you just kind of blew it. And until stuff like that also gets fixed, it's like, you know, you're going to continue to have these problems. Yeah, it was first. It was, no, it was sorry. It wasn't first and 10. It was second and one. And they were in 12 personnel and they busted that inside zone out the back door and get a big old play. I'm actually looking to see what play was that. I'm trying to find it. It was so then it was second on 14. And then that's when they kind of broke it open. So I'm trying to find that play, Vince, where he had that play. So it's on play 31. It was at the 39 yard line and I youth. Yeah, I'll find it here in a second, but it was a, it was a short yard situation. And then Notre Dame broke it for a big play. It was here. It was third and one actually is what it was. So it was a third and one play. When you ripped off that long run. So yeah, it was third and one. He ran for 27 yards to get down to the 34 yard line. And then of course next play Riley does complete a pass, but then of course this drive stalls. And you don't get anywhere. Total drive killing penalty. And it just, and it's an excuse. Like it's not one of those ones where the play worked for big game because you held. No, there was no need for the whole. Correct. Just like the gidarian price one last week. And again, no need. You and I kind of disagreed a little bit on the penalty. We didn't disagree that he held. Right. On whether or not it should have been called. I'm right because of the timing behind the play and doesn't affect your weight should be called. There was no debate of no, that's not a hold. I was like, because I think you thought I was saying it's not a hold. You're like, dude, that's clearly holding us. Oh, no, it's clearly a hold. I just don't think the penalty should have been called. Yeah. I think there's no need for. Yeah. Right. I get that. There was no need for not for the point. There's no need for the hold. Right. Exactly. Oh, yeah. Look, with the guys that are running the football, all you need to do is get in the way. I mean, keep your hands inside. Keep if you just keep your hands in the frame and you get in the way that is all that these guys need to make a play, especially when it's open field like that, because it's not even a situation where it's at the line of scrimmage. You're three, four yards down the field where these guys can make a cut and make a play. So if you just keep your hands inside the frame, you're going to be just fine in that situation. And now we've seen it two weeks in a row and it's becoming, I mean, two weeks in a row now it's becoming a trend. And that's, that's a problem. Hey, Irish Breakdown listeners, it's Urban Meyer. This fall the game changes. Join me. Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram and broadcaster Rob Stone as we bring you a new perspective on football and culture every week. We will be joined by the biggest name in sports and talk about everything inside and outside of the lines. Let us guide you through a new era of college football. Watch Triple Option on YouTube or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get podcasts. Hey Irish Breakdown listeners, it's Matt Liner. I've got a podcast called Throwbacks with actor Jay Farrar, where we'll be talking all things sports, but also so much more. We'll give you the behind the scenes stories from my days as the quarterback on an iconic college football team to Jerry's days as a star on an iconic TV series. So subscribe to Throwbacks on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get podcasts. The point is Vince, there were a lot of issues on Saturday. And, and, and benching the quarterback, I might say that's not what they should do. That's not even the point. Right. That other stuff's got to get fixed. That's not Riley Leonard's fault that Ashton Craig did that. It's not Riley Leonard's fault that Riley Leonard needs to own his role in the loss Saturday. Right. He played a big, as an individual player, he played the biggest role offensively and Notre Dame struggles yesterday. Would you agree with that? Yep. As an individual player, everybody contributed to some degree. Oh, sure. He had the most minuses by far. He's got to play way better. The point is, there was a lot wrong yesterday. Correct. A lot wrong. And we might be having a similar conversation about the quarterback position no matter who was in it, but at the same time, he missed, he missed some throws. I'm not, I am not making excuses for Riley Leonard specifically. But I, what I am saying is the, the problems are bigger than one position. That's all I'm saying. I don't, it, and I think that's all you're saying. That's true to everyone in the chat that, that is, that is willing to have a conversation beyond that of a 12 year old. Right. Exactly. That's all you're saying. Like, yeah, it's not just in the chat saying this guy suck. Grow up. Right. That doesn't solve anything. Oh, yesterday. We're trying to talk football and explain it. And if you got nothing more than that, like, here's the one from Andrew Gilmore, who, one of them are quote unquote negative posters, right? But it, why don't they go back to quarterback power? Like, those are the kind of conversations we need to be having. Yes. Why are we not the same thing that? Yes, I said the same thing. That's a good answer to something like, they're doing that crashing down, right? So you're running inside zone and they're doing that crashing down. Here's a thought. Come on a jet sweep, have one of your backs lead, run quarterback power. If they crash inside like that, you've got daylight for days, you're gone. Yeah. Go 21 personnel with Jadarion is the lead back in Jeremiah going in motion. Right. Where's that? Where's that creativity that we watched Northern Illinois staff have yesterday. Yes, the name doesn't. And then if Riley does an executed, then we can, we can deal with that. Right. And address that. And that's the whole point is there's a lot that's got to get fixed on Saturday and it's not just, well, bench the quarterback. Okay. And then what about all this other stuff? Right. Right. Doesn't solve this other stuff. That's the thing. And then so put Steve Angelion. And then when the same crap happens to him, the next time it happens. Well, he sucks. Put in Kenny Menchie. Then the same thing eventually happens to him. He sucks. Put in CJ car. Same thing happens to him. Then it's, I can't wait for Noah grubs to show up. We've been doing this song and dance for a long time. Let's put in Tyler Buckner. Come on. He's on the roster for reason. That cone sucks. Put in Buckner. Buckner sucks. Put in pine. Pine sucks. Put in a portal guy. Ah, Sam Hartman's the answer. He sucks. Put in Angeli. Not going to bring it around him. He sucks. Still put in Angeli. And then when he sucks, well, there's a lot more going on here. A lot more going on here. That's bad. Yes. Again, guys, we're not defending anybody. Yes, sir. We're saying, let's have a conversation beyond that of a simple thing. We're doing as Notre Dame fans, what we always accuse Michigan and other fan bases of Bing. Not real smart. Just say stupid things on Twitter and sound obnoxious, but don't actually have any depth at all. Let's not be that fan base. Let's have an actual football conversation. And maybe benching the quarterback is the answer. But if benching the quarterback happens, it needs to come with a lot of other changes. That's the point. Right. And what we're saying here is it's bigger than the quarterback. Like, we're saying the quarterback is an issue in this game. No doubt about it. Quarterbacks an issue. We're actually saying the problems are even bigger. We're saying that that is not going to solve all the problems that that that ailed Notre Dame on Saturday. It is bigger than that even. And that's the point we're trying to get across is that I would say it's ridiculous that people are trying to advocate for getting your quarterback who's a playmaker off the field, but then we heard the head coach say before the game that they don't care about the quarterback being a playmaker. We'll get to that later. So that covers the offensive. And again, when we're talking about this every summer, we're not talking about Marcus Freeman, guys. No, Marcus Freeman wasn't in the headset saying, hey, Mike, run this, run that, run this other thing. There are things that Mike Marcus Freeman's doing that I think put the mindset of the offense in a problematic situation. But even with that, there are still things coach Dembrock needs to do. Correct. Right. Because the creativity in the run game wasn't there. Like you said, and all of these other things and we're going to get to some of that as well. Let's let's shift over to the defense Brian and the you had three keys to victory for the defense. And number one, sorry, I shouldn't chuckle but number one was be disciplined and have a have a plan to handle all the pre snap movement amidst misdirection that Northern Illinois was going to throw at them. And I don't know that they could have failed that any worse. It's ridiculous. Then they did, to be perfectly honest. It was awful. I mean, and it was creative stuff but not like that creative. They ran a jet sweep motion where the jet keeps going and the running back goes on a wheel route and three Notre Dame defenders ran with the jet sweep running back just runs right up the field untouched. Right. Then you ran that stuff in high school. That's a high that D three and the FCS schools I coached at, like, you know, offense that like a high school runs like that kind of stuff, because it's supposed to, you know, it's supposed to mess with your eye. And all that. Okay. You knew it was coming. Like, I would understand, because again, this was a key that I discussed on Thursday. Ryan and I talked about this. We both watched the film. One game worked the film. That's it. And we said, guys are going to do a lot of this different stuff. They're going to run jets. They're going to have guys going this way with the backs going that way. They're going to free guys up. They're going to post snap switches. They're going like we saw it. And then it seemed like Notre Dame wasn't prepared for it. Right. Now, we're going to talk about a topic later that comes down to Notre Dame's lack of preparation. And I think that's a big part of it. You need it as many reps as possible to prepare for this offense. And when you basically quit after Wednesday of preparation, you're going to get what you saw on Saturday. Yeah, you're flat out going to get what you saw on Saturday. And yes, there's a lot of older guys, but you know who were making a lot of those mistakes. There's a lot of younger kids were making those mistakes. And you put them in a bad spot. You put them in a bad spot as coaches because you did not maximize your opportunities for them to be prepared for that offense. They were getting out leveraged. They were getting constantly. They were just getting out schemed the entire day. And you have to expect when you have a roster that's markedly better on one side than the other side. How does that roster compete with a better roster, Brian, you have to be creative. You got it. You got to mess with the eye discipline. You got to be in motions and you got to do these different things. So it's not surprising that that's the way Northern Illinois played. They're seven and 16 last year, they've got to do some things to elevate the play of their players and put them in a position to be successful where it's not just a one on one that their guys may not win. You know what I mean, you've got to move some things around you've got to again mess with the eye discipline all of that. But there were also times Brian and you and I were sitting right next to each other and we saw this happen. They broke the huddle or the little sugar huddle you know they were just kind of together they broke the huddle. They just went to a straight twins left situation just guy in the slot guy, you know, on the outside straight twins simple like popcorn or stuff. And nobody came over and Benjamin Morrison's like screaming at the defense some and nobody reacted to him. And that happened about three or four times the other instances somebody eventually came out. And it was a design quarterback screen. And so the slot guy was like this full back looking I mean there was no way he was getting the ball. All he did was come block Benjamin Morrison and guess what, there's nobody else there. And the kid picked up a bunch of yards. Like, I mean that is it was creative stuff but it wasn't reinventing the wheel then no, you know they, but here's the other thing too. They just lined up at times and just ran wild now that that's not my don't remember seeing in the in the fair but they went 14 personnel and ran inside zone with their wild cat running back that's not something oh God we weren't prepared for this that's just. I want it more than you. We're gonna push your butt off the line and there's nothing you're gonna be able to do about that's what that is. And you know when they did that Brian they didn't do that to the second half. And why do they do that because they were having success pushing Notre Dame's defensive line around. And they're like whoa, if we can do this in our normal, you know 11 personnel situation. There's a couple more big bodies in and let's outnumber them. And we're going to get yards and they don't have answers. Like what we what we saw on Saturday. As much as I respect Al Golden in the job he does. He doesn't have any answers for a team that's just running it down his throat. He has tons answers for Teamstone football. Sure. There's tons answers. And as a team just come out there hey we're just gonna put he has no answers. Right. No, we're just gonna keep trotting Donovan Heinesch out there and ask him to asking him to play like he's gave a Rubio. That's incredibly unfair to Donovan Heinesch is you want to talk about putting a guy in a position not to succeed. That's exactly what they did to him and he did and they did it again last they did it last week to talk about it. You mentioned it. Yeah I remember. Yeah. And now they did it again. Right. And this isn't a oh Donovan can't play it Notre Dame. Yeah he can play it Notre Dame. He's shown that but if you're going to put him in the game you got to let him do what he does. Correct. You got to play to his strength. There's way too much of that going on. Right. Way too much of that going on a Notre Dame. Both sides of the ball where they're not letting certain guys kind of play. Hey, you know we just need a bigger body there. Donovan's not. It is what it is. No it isn't what it is. You went out and you got our momukam who's 300 plus pounds. You've got that's what you need. You've got Devin Houston who's 290. You've got Sean Savalana who's 330. I mean if you're going to ask a guy to play stout at the point of attack football then ask then have someone else come in. If you're going to keep Donovan in because you think he's earned playing time which he has then when you put him in let him attack. Correct. Let him get skinny and get in there and use his speed and all of this stuff and things. Exactly. Yes. Exactly. But it's just like hey when he's in there we're going to act like he's Riley Mills. That's what that's what they do. They have him do what they have Riley Mills. Yeah. Riley Mills is six five 300 pounds with really long arms. Riley can do that. Donovan can't so don't ask him to and I'm not blaming Donovan Hynish for this by the way. I'm not saying he can't play. I'm saying you put that kid in position and not to fail on Saturday. That'd be like if we put together a basketball team and you were like Vince I need you to go play center. Like it's probably not going to end well unless we were playing one of your kids's teams. It's probably not a good idea. Right. Exactly. And you know it's just you're putting this kid in a position not to succeed. Okay. And that's the point that we're making and that is a bigger picture problem as we were referring to offensively it's a bigger picture problem that needs to get fixed. Right. And we will continue that conversation in the next segment. The second key to success defensively was tackle better. Very simple. Just simple tackle better. I'll say this. I don't think they tackled poorly in this game from the standpoint of they had a lot of missed tackles. They had some important ones. Yeah. You had the play where Jayden Osbury and Jaylin's need both got. Miss in space on a I think it was second and long which and it should have. Yeah. It should have been a situation where that was a TFL and then they're in third and long. And I don't know that he picked up the first down but he made it very third manageable. I can't remember exactly. But he was able to get the edge. And just again, Notre Dame was out leverage. You gotta make it was the first. I think it was the, I think it was the second and nine call I believe. Okay. And save your watch, tackle him on the sideline. Right. That sounds right. I think he pushed him out of bounds. Yeah. And it was second and I he picked up 10 yards. Yes. He pushed him out of bounds right after the first down marker. I remember that now. So, yeah, two minutes back points on that. But here's the deal. On that drive, they went from it would have been sick third and long at your own 25 24 to now they ended up turning it over on downs at the Notre Dame 36. So it took three minutes off the clock. I'm gonna say time off the clock and field position. Right. Which you could have used that time on the clock. This was a third. This was a third quarter play. Right. And there wasn't a lot of that. What it was was when they were hitting ball carriers. They were moving forward three four yards. Right. That was a problem. Right. Agreed. So it's a guy. You want to say this is a. That's a minus. Okay. Because see, part of being a good tackling team is when you when you have contact, you don't then let them pick up three or four extra yards, getting run over and then getting four extra yards is no different than you missing attack on them getting four extra yards. You're not tackling stout. Fair enough. Yeah. No, fair enough. And we didn't. You probably didn't think about the fact that, you know, a key to success would be, you know, winning in the trenches or anything like that. So. But the next one is somewhat in that neighborhood defensively. So the third key to victory was be more disruptive. Yeah. That's what I don't understand. I mean, this was a decent sized offensive line. We talked about that before the game. Sure. You had the more athletic group and you didn't play like it. Right. They had a big physical defensive line and offensive line and you played right into their hands with the, and we talked about what was one of the takeaways we didn't like about the defense last week. You let them lean on you a little bit too much because you were playing, keeping everything in front of you. We don't like to seem a little bit more disruption. We understood it because you didn't think they had backs hit big plays and they didn't. They had a great back this week. We talked about this kid didn't come out of nowhere. I mean, literally, we talked about him. Irish Breakdown fans first heard this kid's name back in July. And we did the all opponent show. So you all have known it's so, so like, how do, how do they not say, hey, you stop number one. They can't beat you. I thought it was an arrogant game plan. It was, we're just going to line up and we're going to be better than them. And they weren't. You played right into their hands by trying to play the same game plan. You played right into their hands because they just pushed you off the ball. They did a great job of double teams. I mean, that's the thing. It was like one guy pushing one guy. It was like, they were hitting great double teams and running their zones and stretches and just pushing noted him off the ball because what was so smart about their stretch concepts, stretch, stretch concepts. We've seen on film before is that the thing about a stretch play events that I really like is if you have somewhat bigger offensive lineman is when you're working laterally is that once the defender starts working laterally. If you keep your hip square, you can start really getting a vertical push as you're working downfield and that's exactly what they did. And they did it to Riley Mills at times. Right. They did it to Howard Cross at times. They did it to Donovan Heines a lot of times. A lot of times. And your defensive ends struggle to set the edge. Yep. Yep. I mean, anytime in this game. And there were there were multiple cases where the defensive ends eyes got them in trouble as well because they would follow some action. But then the action would come right back. I mean, they did what was so smart about what they did. I mean, that's frustrating and you weren't prepared for it. Again, we saw this on film guys. We pointed this out. We pointed this stuff out. And Notre Dame didn't have answers for it. And the other thing I just want to capitalize on your double teams and things like that. When you have a running back with the talent that Northern Illinois had, right, that number one kid was talented. When you have a kid like that, he doesn't need much space. Okay. And Northern Illinois did a good job of, I mean, they created more than he needed. But even if they weren't as successful as they were, that kid doesn't need a ton of space. Right. Like they were just trying to get to the point of attack and push Notre Dame a little bit. Thank you. And they did that. But even more so. And they gave that kid so many opportunities in so much room to make plays that he just gash Notre Dame for three quarters. Just gash them. And by that point, even though he was out, they were just continuing to do what they were doing it in matter who was running the ball. And the thing is, is for all of that being said, if you don't give up a 98 yard touchdown drive in which you have a just misplay the ball, where they go for 83 yards, then we're having a different conversation. Sure. I think that that was when the game turned is you had a chance to pin them at their own two and your best units on the field. And, and, and I actually watched this play on the broadcast and I had to turn it off. Like Jason Garrett says like the coverage is actually good. Nobody played the ball. Right. Nobody played the ball and they just ran into play the ball and Benjamin didn't play the route Benjamin tried to go for the interception instead of going for the receiver. And they went right between them and 83 yard touchdown. Poor play all around. And Notre Dame was not at all disruptive. No, they, they didn't do a ton of run blitzes like they sat their linebackers back. Did you did you feel that way Vince when you read, I mean, I felt like they they were not as aggressive as they were last Saturday. No, that's for sure. No, and you let those guys get downhill. I think you said this to me and we're talking earlier. They were letting their gear, their, their linemen get up to the second level a lot in this game. And that goes back to the, the passiveness that comes with an uncertainty. There was a lot of uncertainty at the linebacker level in this game. And that caused them to be a lot easier to block, in my opinion. And that just comes down to, you've got to be willing to take the fight to them. And, and for 60 minutes, it was northern Illinois that took the fight to Notre Dame. She's just never counter mind blowing. How that's even possible. How that's even possible. But it happened. We all were, we were all a witness to it. So, man, that was, that was something else. All right, our final. No, that was our final defensive key. We had one for special teams. And so I do want to get into that one real quick. You had one and it was field position. And obviously that is the kicking game. It's flipping the field, you know, all of these different things. And it wasn't pretty. Okay, it wasn't pretty. But on paper, they did do that. I mean, they did, the special teams did, I think, you know, I thought the field position game was okay in that, in that regard. Now they didn't get, you know, the return game wasn't fantastic. But I think that the kicking game as far as field position. Yeah, like, yeah, the 134 yard return by Jane Harrison that gave you a field position. I thought he was going to break that there was. Yeah, they did nothing with it from the ninth floor. There was a massive hole there for a second. And I was like, he's gone. And then it kind of closed. But yeah. Yep, they did nothing with it. And that was after they went up 10 to 7. And he has a 34 yard return. And the offense does nothing. You know, I mean, because that was late in that that was, that was. I think that was late in the second half. Right. It was that drive right before the the interception. That Notre Dame had second late in this late in the second quarter. Oh, okay. It was the interception to great house. So you got the ball with two minutes left at the 37 yard line because you had a good return. And then, you know, eight yard pass and complete pass. Quarterback run to go first down in the next play though pick at midfield. And then they went down and kicked a field goal. Had a big play and then kicked a field goal. Gotcha. I think how I remember that or they missed a field goal. Right. So it was it was maddening. Yeah, absolutely maddening. So those are the keys of the game revisited for the Northern Illinois Notre Dame football game. We have more to come. So stick around. But in the meantime, make sure you hit that like button that share with your family and friends and notification bell. All the fun stuff. And of course, boards on ours breakdown.com. Make sure you head over there. We were still breaking this game down and we will continue to, you know, break down the ensuing matchup for game number three. So you're going to get all the good stuff over at boards on ours breakdown.com. [Music] [Music] [Music] At King Super's pharmacy, care is making it easy to get vaccinated. Care is helping you stay protected from flu, COVID and RSV. Seasonal vaccines are available seven days a week with evening hours. Care is giving you a shot at staying healthy this season. Walk in whenever is best and get multiple vaccines in one visit at your local King Super's pharmacy. So come and get the protection you need while protecting those around you. King Super's, a world of care is in store. Visit king supers.com/vaccines for more restrictions and exclusions apply seaside for details.
