Irish Breakdown previews Notre Dame football's 2024 home opener against Norther Illinois. We discuss where Riley Leonard and the Irish offense stand after last week's win over Texas A&M as well as the importance of the win for Marcus Freeman, confidence in the offensive line and the dominance of the Irish defense. We also talk about what we need to see from Notre Dame against the Huskies this weekend.
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Of course, you can watch it on NBC or on the Peacock app and you can also listen on the radio virtually around the world on the Internet, on the Odyssey app. And now it is not spelled like Homer's Odyssey, it is A-U-D-A-C-Y.com or the Odyssey app, A-U-D-A-C-Y. That's where you can find the Notre Dame radio broadcast. How are you today, Jess? I'm doing well, it's Friday, just got a new car, got to drive that home. I'm running around in style now, I can't complain. You're going to be in town this weekend for the Cowboys and Browns games. I'm pretty excited about it. Absolutely. Well, let's just kick it off as we get into, like we said, it is home opening weekend. But Notre Dame coming off a big road win over Texas A&M last week. How important was this? Let's start at the top of the pecking order. How important do you think it was for Marcus Freeman? Just Marcus Freeman specifically to go to A&M and get that win last week. I think it's a huge statement for Marcus Freeman in year three as a head coach. I think that there was a lot of kind of question marks going into the season. Are we going to see a more refined, matured, basically better overall coach in Marcus Freeman? I think there was no better way to start the season and going into SEC territory playing. It's what's considered the most hostile environments and getting the job done. Not only did we see Marcus Freeman, the coach, but we saw Marcus Freeman, the motivator, got his guys ready. I think that was the ultimate difference maker. I think that guys are going to trust you and buy in and play harder for you if you're able to motivate and show them that they can basically trust you. Marcus Freeman did a tremendous job of letting his players know that he has their back. They were going to come out of Kyle Field the victory no matter what. Huge statement for Marcus Freeman in year three. I think the thing that people are still talking about here almost a week later is the whole video from the tunnel of him fired up and firing his guys up and the offensive line behind him and the whole thing. Someone, I can't remember if it was on the message board or one of our YouTube show posts or whatever, someone said, could that have been very intentional of Marcus Freeman? Just the fact that those young offensive linemen were up there right behind him. First guys out of the tunnel and that whole thing. Couldn't have been intentional that he wanted them right there. He did say that it was intentional on his part, that he went up with the fire in brimstone and the emotion. You could see him telling those guys that he believed in them and he knew that they were going to get the job done and that kind of stuff. You think it could have been intentional just that it was him and the line there at the start? Or is it just like these, you know, typically they come out with, now that I think about it, they do come out with the offensive line out front quite a bit. You know, it's like your biggest guys get off the bus first kind of thing. Yeah, I think it was definitely intentional and I think earlier in the week someone said in the chat when we were kind of discussing this that, you know, the offensive line is usually who kind of leads the team out of the tunnel but I think it was very deliberate this week. I think there was, you know, no one else was going to do it. Your offensive line is what's going to, you know, protect you and carry you throughout the game and they were going to be the ones, you know, on the front line essentially, right? So the whole team was behind the offensive line. I love the motto that it sent. And of course, Marcus Truman out there getting those guys fired up. It was great. I even, before we got on the show today, I was showing you that clip of, you know, Nick Saban on Pat McAfee's show just talking about how he loves Marcus Freeman and how he really enjoyed, you know, seeing what he did and certain situations call for that. As a head coach, you have to have a gauge of your team and kind of what's right in the moment and I think that's exactly what Marcus Freeman did. And, you know, it goes to me to the testament of the offseason. Not only do the players get better and train harder, but Marcus Freeman had a commitment to getting better as a head coach, right? He said he studied different things on different stops on different trips that he took, you know, throughout the offseason. I think it definitely showed. He's, you know, obviously there's still a lot to go in the rest of this season, but I like the Marcus Freeman I saw in that first game and it was definitely different than the first two seasons of Marcus Freeman that we've seen. And I do think it was important for him to be able to go into that environment, especially with, essentially, a vast majority of the, you know, the experts, analysts, whatever you want to call them, picking against Notre Dame saying that it was an unwinnable situation. And, you know, look, Marcus Freeman couldn't even go on the road and beat an average Clemson team or a better than average or better than expected Louisville team last year. So for him to go on the road right away, this is, this is to me, other than beating USC and Caleb Williams maybe last season, you know, you could debate which one is bigger, I guess, but in terms of what he's done, just in road games, this is definitely his biggest win. And it was a ranked opponent, it was an SEC opponent, all those different things. So I think it's really big for Marcus Freeman to be able to kind of get this notch in his belt and to pick up this kind of win, not just play close in this kind of game, but to pick up the victory on the road against a ranked Texas A&M team. The offense was not necessarily spectacular, but they obviously made plays when they need to. Do you want to talk about the offense first or the defense first? I think there's more to kind of consider with the offense. Okay, let's do that. They, you know, they said, they've said this week that the game plan against Texas A&M was specific to Texas A&M, specific to Notre Dame's inexperienced offensive line going up against a really good Texas A&M defensive line. They got the ball out quick, they didn't ask Riley Leonard to stand in the pocket and, you know, like look down field, you know, look for deep routes and those different kind of things. How differently, though, do you think this offense looks now over the next month, potentially? I think you're going to see nothing like too drastic. I think the number one that thing that you'll see, you know, this offensive line is naturally going to get better than I can be going against when the top defensive lines in the country and the environment like I feel every Saturday. And so when you look at those things, I believe it was very, very obvious that they were designing plays to get the ball out now. They weren't asking their offensive lineman to block, you know, overly long. They knew they needed to get the ball out, but I mean, let's not, let's not forget they still ran the ball for 198 total yards on the ground. I think that's, you know, a huge stat considering who they were playing on the road. I just think now you're going to see more of, you know, development routes, not timing routes, development routes, down field, allowing wider receivers to kind of get open, you know, more down field, I guess is what I would say. Less timing, let's get the ball out. And we talked about this, I think, yesterday, Ryliner is not going to run the ball as much in these quarterback design runs over the next few games. I think, again, there's going to be a concerted effort to kind of get that pass game, you know, going and getting the offensive line into pass protection and allowing them to develop as well. Look who's here, it's our old friend, Vincent Ariel, how you doing? What's up, guys? What's going on, you know, in the home? Oh, we're good. The day job just gets in the way sometimes. Yeah, I hear you. I hear you. Yeah. Excited to be here, home opener. Here we go. Absolutely. 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 player stat projections and watch the winnings roll in. 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Get in before game one hits and you can predict how many passing yards your favorite college quarterback will hit. For me, I think Riley Leonard is going to go above two thousand five hundred and fifty and a half yards. So I'm going to take that one and I'm going to combine it with Quinn Ears to throw two thousand nine hundred and ninety nine and a half yards. Put those together and bang bang boom baby. I'm going to be a winner. You just wait and see. I'm coming up on my one year anniversary of depositing my first ten dollars and I received an instant ten dollar bonus. If you have the skills you can play for a shot at turning your ten dollars into a thousand dollars. Download the prize picks app today and use code Irish for a first deposit match up to a hundred dollars. That's code Irish on prize picks for a deposit match up to a hundred dollars. Prize picks run your game. You've had Wendy's nugs dipped in sauce. But have you had them covered in sauce? 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Yeah, granted you know like probably the most consistent runner was Riley Leonard but then Price and Love both had big explosive plays that added to that total. But you know again I think you can probably take that for granted but those guys just kept plugging away kept plugging away. Yeah, I think that Notre Dame has obviously been known for that the next level of the evolution though is definitely going to be Riley Leonard the passer in terms of we're not talking about it's got to be you know bombs all you know bombs away all day and stuff like that But the longest pass he completed was the 20. Well, yeah, yeah, the longest pass through the air anyway yeah was the 20 yarder right to bow Collins. Yeah I mean look I was expecting a little bit more from the offensive game one I don't lie I mean I was a little disappointed but at the same time I think this is also a game situation where the win is the most important thing and you do what you got to do to win. Maybe, you know maybe they had a bit of a different plan going into the game but then the flow of the game happened and it's like okay. Here's what we have to do to win this game you know what I mean and I think they dial the back just a little bit. Because I do think they missed a couple of things early you know where they could have maybe stretched the field and some things like that but as the game wore on I was like okay, you can kind of see what they're doing and I think you make a really good point in that they were just chipping away chipping away So look they had seven negative rushing plays like that's not good they need to cut that down obviously you know too much penetration guys go in the wrong direction whatever the case may be. But this offensive line was the best offensive line in the fourth quarter I mean that's when they got the bulk of their rushing yards was in the fourth quarter. That's what matters I mean I hate to say it but that's when it matters and they bullied him in the fourth quarter. No that's absolutely right and like Marcus Freeman said you know he was planning on winning a close game in the fourth quarter and they absolutely took over the game on that majestic touchdown drive with you know a pair of runs and finally Leonard a key third and five to Jaden Greathouse the key 20 yard pass to Bo Collins and of course Jeremiah love finishing off with the last three plays of the drive with with a couple of explosives in the last two there. Do you think as we've done the shows this week and obviously listeners can tell us otherwise after the fact because we do pre record this show this is the one that we record and we don't do live so we're not getting live feedback but you know so they can tell us. If they feel differently. Do you feel like the attitude toward the offensive line has been generally more positive or you know sort of you still have something to show me which direction do you think has been the majority. It's funny because I think the majority of fans are like super excited about the offensive line right now they're there over the moon. And it's you know when you look at it as a coach and you look back at it's like they didn't really play that well I mean they played. You know well enough right like that's one of the keys to the game like just don't screw up was basically for the offensive line right I mean it's like don't give up the big play and they didn't. They accomplished that and again in the fourth quarter they played well. There's a lot of mistakes man I mean there was a lot of mistakes that they got to get cleaned up and I see that happening. But I think overall it takes extremely positive because I think from a fan perspective they were expecting the absolute worst and they got better than average and they think it's amazing. You know what I mean so it's like it's an over reaction on both ends to be honest that you fly someplace in the middle. But at the end of the day I think it was a positive result I mean they didn't again they know sacks given up that's huge you know 198 yards on the ground that's huge. They didn't give up a ton of pressures. Have you heard this by the way there were people in the show yesterday saying that someone from other other sites or something we're saying that they went back and they ended up crediting Texas A&M with a sack. I haven't found it on any web you know like Notre Dame's website it's not there on the stats I hadn't. So I don't know who was talking about that but that was a solid question because did Riley Leonard get tackled in the backbuild one time yes but it was a designed run. Right. It's not exactly. He clearly tucked it and was trying to run the ball. He was going forward with the football yeah and he only lost a yard so he was correct. Only a yard Jaya believe of the line of scrimmage. So I'm looking at the official ESPN box score and they have updated to give Nick's score in the sack. I don't know what play it was on but when we looked at it yesterday there was no sacks and now that I'm looking at it again they do have a sack in the box score so I don't know when that was credited. I think it's kind of bogus that it's taken almost you know a week to credit that sack or whatever but you know one sack no sacks it's not like there was a handful of sacks at the end of the day. So there's nothing disputed sack. Yeah like and again like I think you know going back to your original question of positive or you know negative or what I have to say positive but ultimately optimistic because of what Vince was talking about too like this is still a raw group that can be developed and be even better than what they showed and being even better than finding a way to win against Texas A&M to me is you know something to be even more excited about. And I think the reason why you have to say it's positive is because everyone in the you know in the national media said that they were going to lose this game because of the young offensive line right. And so when you can find a way to do enough to win I think that has to be a positive. I think one of the positives as well as there wasn't a ton like a bunch of like false starts and things like that you know like jumping with all the crowd noise and knowing who's across from you and those kind of things like from a from a from a mental aspect. I think that's what you worry about the most when you've got young and inexperienced guys out there like how are they going to handle that aspect of it. Excuse me. And I felt like they did great from that aspect last week so I just, you know, again a very opponent specific game plan as it turned out they weren't asked to block for a long time you know like some blitzing and stuff like that. But that's more than just the offensive line running backs and those kind of things play into that as well but I just, I came away very. I won't even say pleasantly surprised but just encouraged from what we saw from the line last week I just I just felt like as a coaching staff. You would be committing career suicide if you were throwing a couple of young guys like that out there your entire left side of the line if you weren't 100% confident that they were going to go out and get the job done. Like so I had to I had to feel confident in that decision just based on that because again I don't think it was just Joe Rudolph making that decision I think Mike Dembrock and Marcus Freeman all had input on that because it was such an important decision in pair of decisions, you know with both of those guys getting those jobs. It was it was a ballsy for sure. But they obviously had confidence and yeah you know I don't blindly just say trust the coaches but in this regard since we saw basically no practice. You kind of have to say trust the coaches right and they obviously saw something that they liked. And at the moment after one game it's working out still has to the arrow still has to point up. And as they move forward but as of right now it's a it's an absolute positive. I mean the easy decision was pick your veteran. Coogan had 13 starts spindler had 10 starts. That was the easy decision just to let him play left him one of those two play left guard I mean that would have been the easy decision for sure. You know he's a little bit better than Josh Baker because of his experience that would have been the easy decision but you know nappy's obviously a little bit undersized he's he doesn't have like a classic tackle body. But he moved pretty well and he got the job done more times than not last week so again I was pretty encouraged by what we saw. It was about going into the game that Notre Dame's defense obviously specifically we all felt like there was really no national recognition of just how good and how big a factor Notre Dame's defense was going to be in this game. And obviously it was a huge factor. Connor Wigman. None of us were overly impressed with Connor Wigman going into that game and he didn't just play one of his worst games because of his own performance. He played one of his worst games because of what that what Al Golden and that Notre Dame defense did to him last Saturday night. Sorry I was distracted for a quick second. I was trying to find kind of you know the the QBR here for for Wigman but I know it was something super poor. I mean when a guy combines for a hundred yards and they're not able to get really anything going on the ground. He had to find a way to kind of you know create plays with his arm and that's what he was supposed to be known for a guy that can make. All the good throws he's got a good arm and that sort of stuff and I think he got himself in trouble with some air and throws he got he threw two interceptions. Obviously some points I think three points came off one and then no points came off of the other but it still goes towards that you know overall turnover battle and I think the part that was a little bit more frustrating to me is you know a lot of people were saying that he was better than Riley Leonard or there that he was comparable to Riley Leonard and I thought we would see more out of his legs as well considering it was you know a Colin Klein led offense and I still think that they truly didn't capitalize on maybe you know using his legs a little bit more especially when the throwing and the you know design runs to their running backs weren't as effective as they thought they would be so you know Riley Leonard proved to be the superior quarterback he's a true dual threat guy you can create with his legs and his arm. Obviously he did a little bit more with his legs but again Riley Leonard the quarterback found a way to move the ball for another day. Hunter Wigman didn't and his arm you know which again is supposed to be his best attribute didn't do anything. The QBR by the way 31.8 was Connor Wigman's QBR in that game that would be not good. I think anything below 50 is like considered you're just throwing an incompletion like every down so it was worse than bad. I mean a hundred yards passing two interceptions and a hundred yards passing and the only average one. Yeah one percent completion percentage right and they and you know unlike as a team they only average what like 3.6 per carry or something like that. So it was just a dominant performance by Notre Dame's defense and to us anyway it was very expected. Yeah I think that's the key right I mean I don't think anybody's surprise and how well this this defense played I mean there were some individual surprises maybe. Although I thought of Don Schuler was going to be good I don't know that I expected him to be as good as he was and the mistakes that he made were aggressive mistakes right and you know. I just I think it was a mistake for people who were handicapping this game and were commenting on this game to ignore Notre Dame's defense and that's what happened. They ignored Notre Dame's defense in this whole matchup. It was all about Texas A&M's front seven versus Notre Dame's offensive line. Guess who won that battle. It wasn't thought it wasn't the front seven for Texas A&M you know what I mean and and then the defense just said yeah we're really good too. We're the best defense on the field. Yeah. Secondary was every bit as good as we thought it was going to be it was elite like we knew it was going to be. To me though Jess and you can talk about this a little bit with all those. Relatively inexperienced linebackers running out there Jack Kaiser had the most snaps as we would expect but. All those other guys like played really well you drew up one of the the plays that Jalen Snead made on that tackle for loss where he grabbed the guys. T shirt and there was the one that was down inside the red zone as well where he crashed off the end and he made that huge tackle for loss I mean they just all like. I really I really liked the way they use those linebackers because I would have thought like you could get caught with. A guy on the field who maybe you didn't want on the with with just situationally with all the subbing and stuff like that but. They really played to their strengths I thought and it really showed I mean there were there were a couple early run fit issues but as the game went on. Wasn't an issue anymore again like when you look at the 3.6 per carrier whatever the specific number ended up being. Yeah I think you kind of hit the most important part there is. It felt like there was never a weakness you know with who was on the field and you never felt like man I wish. Drake bone was on or the KBA was on or Steed was on or Osborne is on they all played at a high level. And they definitely you know kind of started out slow in terms of the run fit but I mean that's natural these guys it's their first big start on the road in a big game. They're naturally going to settle in and kind of just learn to trust their reads instead of just kind of. You know when you're playing all jacked up on adrenaline sometimes you just can't. The game moves a lot faster than what it needs to right and so I think once their heart rate came down the game slowed down for them. A little bit and the most impressive part about those linebackers is the type of linebacker that Marcus Freeman is recruiting these are now Marcus Freeman recruits. All of these guys are fast all these guys can play downhill and there's a ton of athleticism to these guys and I think that's what was evident. You know on the field and into me the linebackers were a huge just a difference maker because look at Texas A&M's linebackers. Jadarion Price and Jeremiah Love put those their linebackers in the mixer or in the blender and put jukes on him. Like you didn't see that happen to nerdy linebackers. Once they got their hands on you or in open space they were getting you down. And I think a lot of you know those runs broke because of poor execution on the on behalf of the Texas A&M linebackers. So it was a pivotal part you know in that game especially in the fourth quarter but I just love overall the athleticism. They're not playing free and fast and you can definitely see it on the field. As we flip it now to this weekend in northern Illinois home opener and my biggest concern for this game has been just the whole is there going to be a mental let down. Like two years ago they go to Ohio State they open really close hard fuck game now obviously they lost that game but then they came home and they lay a massive egg to Marshall. Now they were a lot better last year in terms of taking care of teams they were supposed to take care of Vince. Do you have do you have any concern about that like how much do you think we find out about this team along those lines this weekend in this game. I think Marcus Freeman made it very clear that you know he can take care of the teams he's supposed to take care of last year. But last year is last year right I think we need to see it be a trend and this is the first opportunity that this team this year the 24 team is going to have to make that case right. I think if they can go through this year and you know you know basically I mean for lack of a better term put a beat down on you know Miami Illinois Army Navy if they can go and do what they've done to those teams like they did last year. Then I think it's a trend you know we always used to say under the last regime look Brian Kelly beats the teams he's supposed to beat. Sometimes it's ugly but he always beats the teams he's supposed to beat last year Marcus Freeman not only beat the teams he was supposed to beat but he beat the crap out of them. I mean I mean beat the crap out of them so I think if we see that again today or tomorrow or Saturday then we can start having that conversation that Marcus Freeman is now at least in that category that okay. So these are the games that he's going to win convincingly these guys are going to be ready for it. It's not going to be an issue. I'm going to go ahead and play this from his Thursday zoom. You it's there's no lack of motivation because all you have to do is watch the game and evaluate the plays and we as a group see the work we have to put in without a lot of work to do. As you look at the outcome of the Texas A&M game that's what you know that's what we want right obviously we want to win the game but when you evaluate you evaluate every play and there's a lot of different areas and plays specifically that we have to make sure we're improving that and that's as a unit on each side of all but that's also as individuals and so we pushed them we had really good Tuesday and Wednesday practice long physical tough. You know I think sometimes they're getting back here at four in the morning and you know lack of sleep at times can can have a trickle effect but we couldn't let up and we pushed them hard and I told the coaches we can't pull off the gas pedal. And so they probably were wondering you know we're going to pull back because you know we had a big win they knew right away that we doubled down so it was two really good weeks of I mean two really good days of practice. And now we have to fine tune some things before we get to Saturday. In that last half of that cut their Vince is really what stood out to me where he talked about we pushed him hard on Tuesday and Wednesday and we basically they had to make sure that this team stayed engaged through the fact that they weren't just going to now we're going to kind of take it easy because we're coming off a big win like they continued to push him hard and maybe cut the team by surprise a little bit the fact that they did push him off guard and I loved hearing that. But that yeah that's a good thing I mean look Northern Northern Illinois is a good Mac team they're good in their conference right there. I feel like you know after kind of watching them they're going to be a team that's going to be in it in the end in their conference right. And so you know they're a solid team they don't hold a candle to Notre Dame from a roster standpoint but their players know that too. And so you do have to kind of change the way you do things to make sure a team is still engaged in all of those I mean I think that's absolutely the right move on his part. We've seen what happens when you take a team lightly right back when you know the you know they had that game against Ball State. And they were basically playing all the backups during the week of practice because they were the ones that were going to get the reps and all this other stuff they didn't even really get in the game. Okay. I mean that is that was like just the completely wrong mindset to have from the beginning. Coming your team early in the week. This game is going to be such a blowout all you guys need to be getting practice reps because you're going to end up playing on Saturday. Completely completely wrong mindset. Yes the worst mindset you could possibly have and I don't think that will ever be the case under Marcus Freeman anymore and I don't think that's the mindset that he had against like Marshall or Stanford or whatever a couple of years ago. But it was definitely eye opening and now I think he's much more deliberate about making sure that this team is focused and ready to go. Yeah I think the key word and that whole discussion is mindset right if you come into practice and you're basically you know telling your players or not telling but allowing your players not to practice as hard or you're saying hey like let's make sure some of these backups get some reps because they're going to be getting into the game that just creates a complacency mindset on behalf of the players even if you don't you know it's just naturally what's going to happen right there not things are going to be taken as seriously. And everything is not as critical and so I think Marcus Freeman did the right thing of coming in and like he said doubling down like we're going to practice just as hard if not harder than what we did last week because you know it's it's it's a whole season you're not really looking at who you're playing you're looking at getting better accomplishing you know what you want to as a team and that comes from getting better offensively defensively. Like you said there was still after watching the game been said it earlier too like there's still a lot of room and improvement for the offensive side of the ball and the defensive side of the ball and so that's what you have to focus on is continuously getting better and not who your opponent is on Saturday. Yeah you can't worry about the backups until the starters do their job basically that's what I like to go ahead. I like to what you know we kind of were talking about the other day like if these starters want to get the rest and take care of your business and let the backups come in the fourth quarter that's that is when you're going to get your rest not during the week of practice you're going to get your rest when you come out and do your job and take care of business. And that's the charge that you give your starters right I mean that's you know that's what you say you don't you don't practice the backups more than you normally do you don't practice the starters any less than you normally do. What you do is it's like look if you play hard you do your job then you get to reward these guys for getting you ready to do your job like that that's the mentality that you have to have it is your responsibility as a starter on this team to your job so that you can give these guys over here an opportunity to play in front of their friends and family it's your job you put it on them. And I think that's the right mentality to have when it's when it's such a lopsided you know situation like this. You have to have the mentality of go out there do your job for your teammates. 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 podcast Spotify or wherever you get podcasts. So Northern Illinois specifically like you said good Mac team they were seven and six last year they won a bowl for the first time the Camilla bowl or is it. One at one a bowl for the first time in 12 years. Thomas hammock their head coach he's an NIU alum he was a running back for NIU and was a running backs coach for the Baltimore Ravens before he became the head coach at Northern Illinois I think this is yeah this is year six for him now but they've got 18 returning starters back on offense and defense. They've got 11 or had 11 players who have signed in a played rather in 40 or more games so I mean. A lot of experience what does that say to you because like to me in a transfer portal world it's like well you're you're pretty good and you got a lot of guys back. But if they were really good I think that they probably would have moved on and be on a power for program someplace. You know it's just good enough but how good really are they I think it all depends on the the culture that you have on your team and you know things of that nature and you know culture must be good enough that they're keeping guys around obviously they're going to have opportunities to play a long time but you're right I mean if they had guys that were all world they believe in and they be going you know off to green green pastures and all that stuff that's a good point to make. I think in the past the Mac has been a you know a league where guys stick around because it's not all about the football it's more than just that right and I think when that's the case you generally have guys stick around a little bit longer. But then you throw the curve ball of the new transfer portal and God you never know what's going to happen so I don't know enough about the Northern Illinois culture to you know really understand what it's like. But they obviously have something going on the guys want to stick around. I would largely agree with kind of everything that was said there I think that you know these guys are talented enough I mean look at look at the player on the the Chiefs last night he's technically the backup running back he is the the Chiefs kick returner he started at Ball State had some good years and then he got poached to go play at UCLA right like that's to me the natural progression if you are good enough in the Mac you're eventually going to get poached by some of these these these powerful schools look at look at Gary Deeter for example when he was at Bowling Green like he ended up going on to be in a grad transfer Alabama and got his way into the NFL as well so I was going to say Chuck Martin in the Miami Ohio kicker. You know remember a couple weeks ago losing he got poached by Alabama. When you win the Lou Groso award I mean it kind of put your name on the map you know. Yeah I think that they definitely have a solid core. And I think their core is maybe kind of hit their ceiling right because if they if they had more in the tank or or if that like like we're saying if they were this that super uber talented they're going to find a way to go get more NIL money find a way to get you know their name out there more and have a better opportunity to go on to the NFL so you know I think these players are good don't get me wrong any college you know football player is doing something right at the end of the day. But I don't necessarily buy that these guys are just so so good that they could be potentially playing elsewhere they have a good core that's staying kind of within their realm essentially. They beat up on Western Illinois last week, Ethan Hampton their quarterback 328 passing yards and five touchdowns they also ran for over 300 yards had over 700 yards of total offense this will be career start number six or the quarterback Hampton this weekend defensively number six pass pass defense in terms of yards last year number 62 run defense so what do you guys need to see from the Irish in this game. What I need to see from Notre Dame in this game is an offense that can develop passing plays down field especially kind of over the middle. I think you're going to see a lot of work done over the middle. And a good point kind of came up when I was watching the chiefs and Ravens game last night and I think that's something that's naturally going to help Notre Dame as well as Andy Reid loves having that speed sir in the room aka Chris Mitchell so you can stretch the field right like you're just on even if the play isn't designed to go to someone like him. There's occupying a certain part of the field right and I think the more he can get vertical the more that kind of that middle of the field can open and more of these pass plays can develop. That's what I'm looking for out of Notre Dame offenses you know more development of plays down field. The game is naturally going to be you know dominant I think Jeremiah love and gidarian price are going to have good days. That's kind of expected what I want to see is more more guys in the wider receiver room getting in the mix and more plays kind of developing down field defensively. Hold on. I just want to like piggyback like this is a game where Chris Mitchell's speed should really stand out a little bit tougher maybe against an SEC opponent with a pretty good secondary but this is a game where Chris Mitchell's speed and a guy like Harrison. As well like their speed should really pop in a game like this. Yes. And then just to kind of wrap up defensively what I was going to get into is. You know it's kind of hard to. Like they even played great last week I think that the only thing I would like to see is maybe some more sacks more pressures along the defensive line. I don't think he played horrible but I definitely think that you know that interior defensive line could do a bit more so again I'd like to see more of those pressures. We know they can do in coverage the linebackers just kind of continuing to build off of the game that they had. Don't want to see a lot of you know bad run fits or anything like that just just mental mistakes defensively because I think mental mistakes come from not being locked in or engaged throughout the entire game. Like we said I think that's the big focus is yes you're playing Northern Illinois but you still have to stay focused and do your job. Well it feels like like you mentioned Riley Mills and we've heard people throughout the week talk about Riley Mills and RJ Oben to some extent as well. Look you can't base your total evaluation of these guys on one game and one opponent. Especially when it is it's still an SEC opponent they had SEC bodies out there. Like I've said things are going to change over the next month because you're just not going to see the same kind of bodies now there'll be some good players that they face and stuff like that and other guys will still make plays but it's just going to look different. Because especially for those guys down in the trenches they're not going up like those were some of the biggest bodies one way or another that they're going to face all year. No doubt no doubt about it. I think what I'm looking for in this game. I want the number one they score on every drive. I want a couple. James Rendell no James Rendell in this game shouldn't need it shouldn't need it. I know I should have done an over under on the punt in rapid fire. Oh yeah. I'm not talking about when the starters are in right so they need to score on every drive. I'd like to see a couple of sustained drives and I want to see a couple of big plays. If they can do that in a half then I'm happy. I don't you know where I'm not counting national championships on Saturday that's not my goal offensively I just want to see the maturation process of this offense right I want to see the offensive line play better than they did on Saturday. And I want to see them push the ball down the field a little bit so some sustained drives few big plays called a day hang it up defensively. Look they can't get better than they were defensively yeah that's it's hard to even say anything in that regard. They just need to keep doing what they're doing and as long as they just continue to do what they do they're going to be just fine. So you know I don't think there's anything tangible defensively sure you'd like to see the the front seven maybe get a few more sacks you know that kind of a thing and I. I'm sure that Northern Illinois is going to have to pass more than Texas A&M was because they're going to be trailing you know that so they're going to have more opportunities pin their ears back and come after it. Look we know Al Golden's not going to take it easy on him right he's going to bring pressure and things like that so we're going to see more defensive explosive plays you know tackles in the backfield sacks things like that but. It's to be expected like I don't I don't need them to show that to me because I already know that they can do it so yeah I mean you know I expect to see what I need to see from the defense is just a quarterback who is harassed. Right yeah because because again this is a quarterback making his sixth career start he's been around for you know since since 2021 was his freshman year but he's made six career starts. And he doesn't have a whole lot of experience and like again look at look at how Connor Wigman looked last week this guy Hampton was not a five star recruit like Wigman was so I just expect to see a quarterback who's harassed with the kind of blitzing that Al Golden is going to do and one who's going to make some pretty costly mistakes. So that's what I need to see from the defense and offensively. I mean you guys hit it just to just to you know I do want to see more downfield passing from Riley Leonard and the wide receivers again I think this should be a game that that sets up pretty well for Notre Dame whether or not NIU was was good against the past last year or not they were not good against the run so I expect the combination of those two to make things really difficult for Northern Illinois in this game. You said something to the effect Vince of you know you're not counting championships in this game. Jess and I were talking the other day though about Notre Dame's chances to go undefeated this season because they're they're odds went up they've still got the best chance of any team in the nation to go undefeated and some people are kind of upset that we're even talking about that right now. What do you think you know like are we are we allowed to talk about it after a win like last week whether or not we think Notre Dame has the chance to run the table. I would be upset if Marcus Freeman was talking about it exactly if the players were talking about it but guess what we don't suit up we don't call the plays we don't run practice. We don't work my offices and at the goog it's on bittersweet so I don't think that what I say has any effect on the team whatsoever so you're darn right we can talk about them being undefeated. That's what we do. When anything I say has actual impact in terms of performance on the field I need a pretty big race. Yes that's you know 100%. Yes nobody's listening to us over there. We don't find. We don't affect anything that happens on the field so you know whether we're talking about undefeated or whatever else and some people are like oh you're going to jinx it and all that. Look whatever if you believe in jinxes like that come on listen. Like if you believe in like what you put out you know like that whole what manifestation or whatever you would be talking about going undefeated. Right exactly. If that if you believe in yeah karma manifest like you know what what you say becomes fact or whatever you like actually you know that kind of thing you should be talking about for. Now people are something else. [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. 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