Breaking down what the Notre Dame defense must to do improve on its strong first game, and also will be keys in shutting down Northern Illinois
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But what we are going to see this week, you're not going to see on the Northern Olympic defense, is there's a couple potential pros, at least one for sure on this defense and a really dynamic. You know, I said the Mac used to have a lot of these really short, athletic, dynamic players and they don't have as many anymore. Well, one of them in the Mac is on this roster. Yeah. And that's Trayvon Rudolph. But, Ontario Brown is a very dynamic player. I really like what they did and they opened her from just a scheme and play calling standpoint. Now, some of that stuff worked because Western Illinois is not very good. I mean, let's be honest about that. But some of it was like, boy, that's really good scheme. That's really good stuff. He's not just relying on my guys to be better than the dudes across from me. It's let's let's create some opportunities. So this is going to be a good test for Notre Dame in the areas that I think are important for this defense that continue to mature because the exciting thing for me, Ryan, and I'm I'm throwing this to you because I want to get your opinion on this. I broke down the game when I came out of that defensive form performance saying, dude, there's a they did not plain were close to their best football against Texas A&M. Now, they were dynamic because they're just really talented and guy stepped up and make big plays, but there's a lot to clean up when you look at just and not even like, well, yeah, A&M did this. It's just mistakes by Notre Dame where they didn't make a mistake or they didn't execute. There's a lot to clean up. And I think this Northern Illinois team, the way that they run their system is going to force Notre Dame to have to show improvement in those areas if they're going to shut down Northern Illinois the way that they should prize picks is America's number one daily fantasy sports app with over 5 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 get in on the daily action with your friends and become part of the prize picks community today. You can now win up to a hundred times your money on prize picks with as little as four correct picks. You can turn $10 into a $1,000. I'm a Bears fan, so this one gets me really excited. One Caleb Williams passing yard gets you one win on prize picks every week in September. That's right. 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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 well I think they're going to need it because honestly like I came out of the the first game and the caveat again is we're playing western Illinois and all due respect to the leather necks like they're not a very good FCS team right so like it's it's just it's not the easiest data points to just look at and know and think that that's what northern Illinois is compared to them just playing a bad team a bad opponent but I will say this about them is that when you isolate them offensively I think they I think they have a couple NFLers just from the scope position perspective like I think into Ontario Brown actually had six round grades from the NFL like midday three grades type of stuff from the NFL in this preseason so I think that kids gonna get drafted the running back he's a little a little under 510 he's five nine and six eight so five nine and three quarters and 221 pounds physical pretty explosive short areas like he doesn't have a top gear but like he's pretty gets to his top gear very fast though and he even caught a pass last week where I mean it was a check down but like he went for like 40 yards on the play right so like I think that he has really good feel for space he worries me a ton of from Notre Dame if you're not gap sound against that kid or you're just kind of being a little bit passive at the point of attack and you just allow a little bit of a crease Ontario Brown can hurt you a little bit and same thing with that like the Trayvon Rudolph kid had a jet sweep for a touchdown in that game he had four catches for 104 yards and a touchdown in that game he creates some big plays and then the guy that's like the biggest mismatch potential for them just in a vacuum I think is the Grayson Barnes kid who's like the tight end slot who is 65 225 I mean like he's a difficult player to match up to if you're a smaller defensive act because of his length and he's also difficult because he's pretty good in a straight line I mean he have five catches for 95 yards it's 19 yards a clip last week he averaged over 20 he averaged about 20 last year Ryan I mean so it wasn't like he had a like here's the thing like and this is the point that Ryan's making it's like you watch some of these games against FCS teams you're like oh Iowa scored 40 points I'll have a lot to say about those 40 points when we get to it later in the show but you know I mean you needed what three touchdowns and a fourth quarter to get to that point time you've got to be careful when you play these in this right so this is a bad FCS team I believe they're only I believe Indiana States only win last year was over western Illinois who went 0 and 11 last year I mean they're not good so you sometimes have to be very leery of looking at that but then you look at what Grayson Barnes did last year he had 23 catches for 422 yards and led their team with five touchdowns 18.4 per catch for tight end that's pretty good so this is not an that does not a oh well yeah he did well against a team that's really not good no he kind of did this a lot last year and you know in the bowl game had five catches for 105 yards you know went two for 66 and a win over Ohio went three for 44 and a win over eastern Michigan he only had one catch against Toledo and again but it went for 28 yards so this is a kid two for 31 against BC in an upset went over BC last year this kid's a legitimate you know good football player that you have to count for and so when you can have that many different types of weapons Ryan it does make your offense I mean it's it's a it's a their quarterback is not a super talented kid but he made great reads and got the ball accurately where it needed to go last week yeah and that's that's the key he did everything he was supposed to last week and I think they moved the pocket a little bit for him I don't think he's a bad athlete I just think he's like a functional pocket passer right like so he can move a little bit but he the ball's accurate and it's on time usually and ultimately he knows that he has guys around him like again like I'm telling you guys if they'd run a jet suit to Trayvon Rudolph and whoever your rover is or your nickel is doesn't have a good run fit like that kid could break it for 20 plus yards I mean like he has that type of juice to him Grayson Barnes could out leverage a defensive back down the field for a 20 something your catch that could happen Ontario Brown can make a 5 yard run into a 10 15 yard run if tackling isn't good enough minus two into a plus five yeah right like in keeping drives going so let's let's actually get right into the keys to his victory Ryan right there because that's that's a big part of it number one is be disciplined and not only because because Northern presents two unique challenges to you number one is they have guys can make you miss or beat you down the field right just just buy their skill set number two this is a offensive system that does a lot pre snap I mean they're gonna they were lining up in 14 personnel on first and 10 and doing like motions and shifts and stuff out of it last week and then the next snap they're in 12 personnel and they're they're doing you know creating like these huge spaces on one side and then running away from it on a jet sweep I mean a lot of bootlegs like you said they did a great job of moving the pocket last week they do a really good job of some of their levels concepts they do a lot of post snap switch type stuff a lot of jet sweeps they also lined up last week and brought in is that Jordan Lynch's little brother is that who that is the Justin Lynch kid number two I'm not sure if they're really is he looks like him but they brought him in and they did some wild cat running back stuff where they literally took the quarterback off the field so it wasn't like they just wasted the quarterback over on the sideline they just said hey this is what we're going to do now yeah it was great that it worked against western Illinois last week and I don't expect that particular thing to work against Notre Dame but the point is Ryan you got to prepare for a lot and it requires you to be very disciplined pre snap and post snap and if you are you'll shut them down but if not they'll get you some gas plays and make this thing more competitive early on than it should be well they try to the as the defense they're trying to make you guess wrong ultimately right because you mentioned like the level stuff I mean you you also mentioned that they did the thing where they have Ontario Brown next to the quarterback but they have a running back behind the quarterback as well so they're running some two running back stuff but off of that they'll run some play action where they send Ontario Brown to like the flat but then they'll run like a deep over and they'll have the guy on the front side run just like a deep route where you're just you're creating levels like you're trying to make a flat defender or a or a cover two defender make a decision on if he's going to jump or if he's going to stay back and ultimately I mean they made a lot of plays off of that so the offensive coordinator super creative man I don't know anything about him I even forget his name because I think it was a little bit hard to pronounce yeah I have no I'm not even going to try to pronounce his last name right but but I did look him up because I'm like because I honestly I did that with the um I did that with what game was I watching there was a game I forget what was it I can't remember I'll remember it later but there was a game I was watching where I literally wrote down the offensive coordinator's name because I'm just like that's super interesting like I think that that might be somebody to keep a close eye on long term because they do some super intriguing things kind of just you know on the Georgia text offensive coordinator I can't remember his name but like that dude super interesting offensively what they're doing Northern Illinois has some of that as well I don't think it's quite to that degree but like I was watching her offensive I'm like that's unique like Al Golden is going to have to have his team very studious this week because they're going to see some formations they're going to see some concepts that they did not see last week like this is a very unique different offense like you've seen levels but have you seen levels out of the formations that they ran last week not as much like it was very unique in that way so I think that the preparation is going to be empty big for this team because they present a lot of challenges because it's just going to take one player doing a little too much or one player in a wrong spot for Trayvon Rudolph or Ontario Brown or somebody else to create a big play like they have that type of upside with Hampton and quarterback 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 a king supers 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 supers pharmacy so come and get the protection you need while protecting those around you king supers a world of care is in store visit king supers dot com slash vaccines for more restrictions and exclusions apply seasight for details what's interesting is he he was actually a head coach in that really good wisconsin league before he came to to to to there and the interesting thing is they weren't very good and they didn't score a lot of points and uh which i thought was really interesting because i was like man that i expect them to be a lot better but he does some really interesting things for them no question and he's got some good athletes to work with i mean they do have a just and lynch type athlete for again when we're praising this it's it's not so much that it's going to necessarily work saturday but that's going to be really hard for mac defenses to shut down with all that stuff they got going on and as long as no remains disciplined they should they should be effective in part of discipline key number two ryan is kind of part of discipline but you obviously the the penalties got to get cleaned up that's a given we'll need to spend time on that but they got to tackle better yeah and and in today's football the reality is most teams aren't going to tackle super great and openers just because the way that you just can't tackle like you used to you got to get better and better progressively as the week goes on you have to tackle better in this game a because you as a team as a whole you just got to tackle better number two if you don't tackle some of these athletes and you let them get in space i'm just going to say it anm had much bigger athletes last week these are a lot quicker athletes absolutely that concern me much more with the ball in their hands and the kids at anm i'm not saying that they're better football players they're just different and for a team that did struggle to tackle last week that's the kind of thing that can maybe result in a score or two that you otherwise wouldn't have given up so being really sound tacklers is going to be very important this week in this matchup and then of course building in the future games yeah i would say what text saying am just like a quick note is that like until they start getting syrus allen more involved and they start getting terry busy some reps like they're just not gonna be a dynamic offense or just not i mean they have big body passcatchers they don't have dynamic ability and while it might be different northern only does have some dynamic athletes like they have some guys that if you give them space they can create a play and they can do those types of things and in today's game man it is just so important to tackle in space because why do we praise these offensive coordinators is because they understand how to create space they understand how to manufacture space they at the end of the day an offensive coordinators responsibility is to put a player in a best possible scenario to be successful and in today's game that's about space whether that is screen game whether that is diverse run game whether that is different concepts that you run in the passing game you're trying to create space and if they create space for Trayvon Rudolph and Antonio Brown and a couple of these guys they have chance to make some big plays so Notre Dame needs to be both in the right spot but also don't let any like no missed tackles in space man like don't let don't tackle Trayvon Rudolph for a three yard gain on a jet sweep and instead of letting him burst for 15 plus like just don't let that stuff happen those hit that hidden yardage that can come back to bite you in a bigger football game this one it probably wouldn't be the end of the world but you still want to see a team improving that aspect because down the road when you're talking about them playing against Erik Singleton and the running back from Georgia to that number from all Hanes number 11 and some of those types of guys in those games even Virginia when you have to go against like Chris Tyree and like that type of stuff you want to make sure that you are not allowing second effort running you're not allowing second effort yardage you're not allowing explosive plays and that's I think it's a good test in that regard because Trayvon Rudolph honestly surprise he's playing for Northern Illinois right now I'm surprised him and the running back are still at Northern Illinois to be honest with you yeah shocked that the Ontario Brown is like why wouldn't a I don't even know an example of a team but like why wouldn't a low a low one to five school be like hey pick a big 10 team outside the top five and why why is he not there you know what that means like Illinois why is running back in the state of Illinois is this kid in my opinion yeah right now for sure in college anyway yeah Brian last key I'm sorry go ahead I thought you're no no no I just say you need to limit the place in space and not allowing you create a bunch of explosives last key for me Ryan is I want to see more disruption from Notre Dame this week from their front that includes being more disruptive against the run that includes I thought the timing of the pressures last week were a little telegraphed a little late on some of them when they were timed well right through the hole and getting pressure on them so not not a surprise for week one we saw that last year to Ryan with the defense where the blitz packages kind of got progressively better as the season went on and they had more experience and that was with veteran players so I would like to see that be a little bit more effective I think it's especially important in this game on early downs if you can put this offense in a lot of just like last week when you can put this offense in a lot of passes like higher passing scenarios they're just going to be less effective because some of the trickeration and the different things move in the pocket just won't be as effective if they're in some long down and distant situations so if you can have some you know more negatives this game you know more tackles for loss you know bring the quarterback down more hits on the quarterback you're going to be a lot more fun this is a kid that completed 90% of his passes last week I don't care who you're playing Ryan I mean Riley Leonard didn't complete 90% of his passes in pregame I think I think I think one of his passes was dropped last week too so he might have played 95% so it's pretty there you go pretty insane man I would say this too is that and this is more specific to like pass rush being able to get to Hampton as a quarterback is that one thing that I did want to see more of last week from Notre Dame that I don't think we did is the pressures that they got was based upon a lot of like movement up front and some like some blitz package stuff I would like to see more true wins in the passing game right like I want to see Jordan Matello just win outside track I want to see Boba Cartreori slip a block and cross face like I would like to see a couple these guys have Riley Mills have more wins in the past game against guards as well don't get me started on Riley Mills but that's another conversation for another day but yes I want to see more high quality wins because every year we talk about like these players that like put up these sack numbers right but then you go back and you're like a lot of them are like coverage sacks and like not high quality wins and like that doesn't translate to the big games like in the big games if Notre Dame plays an Ohio State or an Oregon or whatever you know a good team in the playoffs if they get there even a USC at the end of the year I guess is a good example I want to see Notre Dame have guys that can just win like I don't have to have a guy you know do a twist a stunt like you want to do that on top of the compliment of I can just send four and they can get home because that stuff is more effective when you can have those wins right I mean when you're worried about that that's when those things become even more effective so I want to certainly see that that's our final key for the defense so that's going to do it for the defensive breakdown we're going to get the predictions next folks but before we do don't forget to hit that like hit that subscribe and hit that notification bell and as always if you haven't done so make sure you're signed up at boards dot hours breakdown dot com. 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