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Notre Dame Upon Further Review - Offensive Breakdown

Bryan and Vince kick off the 2024 season with their Upon Further Review show. They take a closer look at the offense after watching the film. What did they like? What they didn't like and what were the game changing moments? Shop for Irish Breakdown gear at our online store: https://ibstore.irishbreakdown.com/  Join the Irish Breakdown premium message board: https://boards.irishbreakdown.com  Stay locked into Irish Breakdown for all the latest news and analysis about Notre Dame: https://www.irishbreakdown.com​ Subscribe to the Irish Breakdown podcast on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...​ Like and follow Irish Breakdown on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/irishbreakdown Sign up for the FREE Irish Breakdown daily newsletter: https://www.subscribepage.com/irish-breakdown-newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Duration:
45m
Broadcast on:
03 Sep 2024
Audio Format:
mp3

Bryan and Vince kick off the 2024 season with their Upon Further Review show. They take a closer look at the offense after watching the film. What did they like? What they didn't like and what were the game changing moments?

Shop for Irish Breakdown gear at our online store: https://ibstore.irishbreakdown.com/ 

Join the Irish Breakdown premium message board: https://boards.irishbreakdown.com 

Stay locked into Irish Breakdown for all the latest news and analysis about Notre Dame: https://www.irishbreakdown.com​

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That's code IRISH on PrizePix for a deposit match up to $100. PrizePix, run your game. 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 $11. Choose between flavors like buffalo, honey barbecue, garlic parm, or if you're a real heat seeker, try spicy ghost pepper only on Wendy's signature spicy nugs. I dare ya. 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 gotta be Wendy's at participating U.S. Wendy's. The first thing I liked about the offense was their compete level, and that was huge from events. 100%. Even positions that I don't think played well, I didn't think the receivers played well. I didn't think they played bad, but they didn't play great, but they competed. What do I mean by competing, okay, Bo Collins outplaying that guy for that football on that last drive? That's huge. Yeah. Right. And I liked that they went back to that because they actually had rent, I'm pulling up my play by play here, Vince, but they actually went to that play on the drive before, I think it was the drive before. Let me, where's my play sheet? I just had it here, looks like I moved my play sheet. Did I close it? I don't think I closed it. I have too many tabs open, first of all. That's a big part of my problem, because I have way too many freaking tabs. Oh, that's great. But that's a, that's a, that's a bit of a problem for me. But let me, let me find the, the play sheet here real quick, but they, I believe it was the play before where they had, there it is, where they had run that play and Riley just missed them. Yes, it was the, it was the throw, it was the drive before. It was a first in 10 at their own 35, and they ran a goes on the outside or a go on the, goes on the outside and then an end cut out of Max Pro. And so you had, you had that, you had that, that match up. And so they saw that bow had the one on one backside. They threw it Riley just missed it. So they went back to, they ran a different concept. This time they went three by one, and they ran their slot fade concept, but they still had bow backside because A and M was starting to adjust their coverage a little bit, were in the first half they were playing just too high, and their name wasn't attacking them and deep at all. Here they started to kind of rotate a little bit more down, verse three by one. So Notre Dame went three by one on that particular play. And through the backside now Notre Dame was getting the three by one a lot, Vince with motion, but A and M would handle that differently than if they just lined up in three by one, three by one means three receivers to one side and one to another for those that don't, I mean, I disrespect, I mean, some people may not know what I'm talking about, but so, so when they would line up in three by one, they'd get a little bit of a covered, different coverage structure, and they were starting to see that because A and M was starting to say, okay, they're just not going to throw the football down the field. And so when they saw that, they then took that first shot to bow on the backside of just double outcuts or double go cuts, and they had run that play on the play before they had run that same concept, but they stopped and he had a little comeback. So basically when you run a vertical concept, it's if they play, if they open up and they go vertical and they kind of try to play over top of you, you just stop it, you just break it off. And they ran that and they hit bow for a stop and then they went back to it, and then Riley tried to throw back shoulder and he just missed. They went back to it on the next series in a three by one, and it worked obviously perfectly. He competed like crazy for that football, Jayden Thomas, just that little thing of stepping to the ball. Yes. You guys have heard me say this in many times, step, don't wait on the football, step to the football. Because he didn't do that when he was younger. Right. We brought the Marshall game in 2022, but he did that on Saturday and it kept it from getting there. Yes. Go look at Jayden Thomas's block on Jadarion Price's touchdown run was great. So you look at Jayden Thomas. I had one catch for 14 yards, I had to make much of an impact. Oh, yes, he did, because he basically had a pass break up in the game, right? I mean, so number one, which prevented in there, prevented a pick six because he catches that at six. Yeah, it's a huge block on the long touchdown run. And we saw that like Jayden Harrison didn't make much of an impact. He had two really good blocks in the game. And they were far from perfect. Bo Collins missed on a, on a, an early crack attempt, but then I believe it was Bo. I'm actually going to go find out play events, but I believe it was Bo who had the, who had the block on the run by Jeremiah Love had the crack block, the crack block on the long run by Jeremiah Love. I'm actually going to play up here real quick, but that was something that I'll talk more about that player in a little bit, but I believe we can't run out play events if you're, if you're, if yeah, it was Bo Collins has a really good crack block. You know, he just, he was where patient where he needed to be and sealed that guy inside, but he did it aggressively, which then sucked the corner inside and got him outside of it. But the point being that Vince, when you, when you have receivers that just compete, you're going to be able to just make some plays, not as much as you'd like, but they just, they were, it makes some plays and when the quarterback then play with it, Bo had a drop in the game. I mean, so they were far from perfect, but they competed. Yeah. The offensive line competed their butts off. The running backs competed their butts off and the quarterback absolutely competed their butts off. Oh, yeah. His butt off, I should say. Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. No doubt. They just played hard and that allowed them at the end of the day to do what they needed to do to win. Just battle your butt off, man. That's all. I mean, if you're better than them, if you just play hard, more often than not, you're, you're going to win if you're just, if you have better players than the other team and the reality is, is A&M fans don't want to, don't want to recognize this. And people who obsess over recruiting rankings won't accept this, but the reality is no name has more talent than texting them across the board. There's some spots where A&M's better, but it's like one, right? And they may be older in some spots, but not better. And when you compete, that's going to win the day, Vince. Yeah. One of the things I really liked, you know, watching it live and then also on the look back was just the variation that Mike Dembrock kept bringing to the offense, whether it was formations, whether, well, I mean, there was a ton of, of motions and all kinds of different stuff. And we knew that this was coming, but it was still refreshing to see on a game day. Okay. I mean, you and I have sat in the press box and watched Notre Dame games, be like, okay, I know what they're running right here based on the way they line up. You know, I mean, that's just a fact and not denigrating. It's just a fact. This time around in this game, there was a lot of variation, you know, moving guys around, you know, putting three over three by one empties, you know, motions, you know, motion come back. See, all of these different things, just, just giving the defense more to look at more to process. And then also now that's on tape. And so now other teams are going to have to have that and they're going to have to have more to look at and more to process and more to practice. And, you know, did they use the entire playbook in game one? Of course not. Right. It was a, it was a very slim down version of, I think what we're going to see even for, you know, a few weeks from now and then moving forward, pass game wise for sure. Yes. But you saw, you saw the skeleton of what they want to do offensively. And I just love the variation of it. And there's going to be more, it's going to be more complex and it's going to get, you know, like again, Mike Dembrock said, don't judge us on game one. And then he said this before the game, don't judge us on game one, judge us on the improvement as we go throughout the season and what the offense looks like from week to week to week. But I love the foundation that was set in game one and, and everything that they put on tape. Agree. Another one for me, Vince, I thought speaking of putting on tape, run game adjustments were really good. The reality is Notre Dame felt they, they had a better shot of generating big plays in the run game in this game than they did the pass game and the reality is, is you and I talked about this for the season, Notre Dame's pass game is going to still be a, you've got to prove it until they do it. And that's exactly what A&M said, you're not going to run on us. You're not going to have your tight ends beat us. And when they realized Mitch Jeter was, or Mitch Evans wasn't in there, that they, they, they got even more aggressive coming downhill. But we saw Denbrock make several adjustments where you could just tell, he's like, I got to find a way to get my running backs to the second level. Because as, as you and I have said a million times when these running backs get the second level, that's where some things can happen. And so what A&M was doing is they were very stout up the middle, but they were bringing their safety down away from some of their runs, especially the inside zone runs, as they would bring their safety down on the downhill runs and then of course when they would run outside zone, they would bring their safety down towards the outside zone. And Notre Dame just didn't have any way to count for it. And so they made some adjustments. And when you look at some of the adjustments they made Vince, I thought that, that it was a huge part of the game. First example was you had the back-to-back runs with, with Jeremiah Love or Jadarim Price had, had his long run, but then on the very next play you saw it a little bit too, where Notre Dame did some things to try to, to free things up. So if you go look at the first long run by Jadarim Price, they got called back. They ran that a little bit differently because in earlier in the game, they were running inside zone with a read. So they would basically, or, or they'd have the tight end in the box to create that extra backside surface area and A&M was crashing it and they put that extra guy in the box. So the play that kind of sparked the offense initially was an inside zone lock play. It's what you call inside zone lock and you build it off of like a kind of an RPO read, but an inside zone lock is you'll have guys running routes and you usually do this without a tight end, but it means you're going to block inside zone front side, but back side you block out. So you kind of base block back side. So instead of blocking, everyone's going the same way in zone, which then creates the cut back where you've got to now read the defensive end, inside zone lock, basically from, you know, the guard over, depending on the look, you're going to base block. Well, in this particular instance, the way that they ran it Vince was out of a two-by-two formation where the tight end was out wide. And so he was in the slot, they were in the field, this tight end was outlined up over the SEC logo. They had two receivers outside and you look at it, they had five guys in the box and then two safeties and their safeties were coming from depth because they were now focused on outside. And so they run that inside zone and it's five on five Ashton Craig gets up to the backer. I didn't think that cold, cold should have been called. You did think the hole should have been called. The point is, if he, if he, whatever the case, they had a body on a body and now because that safeties coming from distance, he, it's now him versus Jeremiah, loving the hole. And I will take that match up all day and that match up incredibly well. Jeremiah ran right past the Jeremiah beat two safeties on that play. The first one, when you have fast backs and you're trying to come from 15 yards, you better be real sound and he wasn't, he just, he wasn't and Jeremiah just beat him. Yeah. And then the other safety tries to come down and Jeremiah ran him over and then bounced outside, but like, but that's what you do with backs like that. Like dude, get them in space and let them do their thing. Sometimes you may tackle me. Sometimes you won't. That was step one. So that was an adjustment. Okay. They're crashing hard and getting numbers. When we go tight in and attached, they're going to try to out numbers in the box. When we spread out, that's a higher pass game tendency. We're going to now run out of that. They did that again later. They did the same exact thing later on the touchdown run Vince where it was second and 14. It's a huge tendency breaker. You want to talk about tendencies. This is a huge tendency breaker. So Notre Dame comes out Vince and it's second and 14. They go trips left three and so your tight end is now out of the box. He is not attached. He is a passing situation. So I'm looking at A&M's defense. They have four guys in the line, a linebacker in the box. The other linebackers outside of the D and a little bit tighter. Their one safety is 14 yards off the ball and the other safety is 16 yards off the ball. Past situation. We're not going to let you throw the ball downfield. They were petrified of that. What does Notre Dame do? Fine. We won't. We'll run inside zone lock. He just giant hole opens up because it's five on four. The linebacker kind of steps, the linebacker kind of steps vertical. He gets blocked by the center and then now the second linebacker has to come from depth. Again, he's now got it. It's now a space play there and what did we, what do I say? You want to get the line, you want to get the running back when he first makes his cut or he hasn't made his cut because now he's not as dangerous. Once he gets downhill and it's in space, he's dangerous. The linebacker tries to tackle him in space and Jeremiah makes a miss and then just outruns the entire defensive sideline. So like that is great play calling. It's second and 14. Their thinking pass. What do you do? Line up in a passing formation and then run lock zone and then boom, big play. And then the other thing they did to that because you can't just, you can only do that so many times. They hit it twice. Then they ran the outside zone after the one play by Jeremiah Love gets called back. They go run outside zone on the next play and they did that out of a three by one alignment as well. Vince and they, they, you don't see this very often. They ran outside zone away from three by one, away from trips. And because the way that Mike Denbruck teaches his outside zone, it's more of an off. It's actually his outside zone is a little bit more like kind of mid zone than it is pure old school stretch. It's sort of an off tackle. It's outside zone, but it's more of an off tackle play, which actually can hit vertically. So you can, you can be a little bit more effective, but they basically ran outside zone to the weak side of three by one. And so there's a safety in a corner backside. That's it. And they were playing real aggressive with their corners. So what does Mike Denbruck do? He calls outside zone play. They had not run yet. Comes out wide, safety comes flying down, bulk columns, cracks them. It's not a punishing block because you can't do that anymore. He's got to come and get in the way gets in this way. And that corner does exactly what Notre Dame knew he was going to do to follow him in wheezes down on bow. Yeah. And so then Jeremiah reads it perfectly, Anthony Knapp seals the guy outside. Jeremiah cuts up inside, out runs them to the sideline. And it's big play. Final one, the touchdown run. Notre Dame ran counter on that play. They had run counter in that game, a total of three times. Once on the, I think it was the first drive of the game. They ran counter and gerum out of a, out of a doubles. So wide, air by wide, they motion the tight end in and he was the extra counter guy. So he came from backside. So they ran counter to an open side. As I've said in the past, open means no tight end. It's open at past attack and A&M blew it up. They ran it later than in the game with a quarterback counter and it worked out pretty well because it was this different look. They ran quarterback counter out of, they ran tray left. So this tight end, tray left wing. So tight end in a wing and then a corner and then they just kind of ran counter. So they, they got rid of the motion, goes for a seven yard gain with Riley Leonard quarterback counter. Then they came back on that last drive events and they ran 12 personnel. So this time they ran counter, same exact play. They got blown up early, but this time they had two tight ends in the game, which created an extra surface area. And that little bit of difference, a little bit of width that they gained from that alignment is what opened up that little bit, little hole. Plus you had a great block by Sam Pendleton. So you like the counter concept, obviously, but you didn't like it earlier because they were crashing the engine earlier and they did a great job of when they saw a puller, they would crash that puller hard. And if they didn't see a puller, they ran right at Riley Leonard. I mean, they were not going to let Riley Leonard beat them in the run game, which again, is makes it more impressive how successful he was. Because the fact that he did, yeah, an extra surface area out of 12 personnel is what created that crease for Jeremiah to hit. And so when you look at those, those schemes that he ran, those adjustments he made to how A&M was playing them when they had a tight end attached, A&M would try to outnumber them. When they were out, when they would spread out in more passing formations, A&M was more willing to go to go man to man in the box, then Brock saw it, adjusted, made the calls, and his God is running back big. You want to bring your safety down? Cool. We're going to run outside zone. We're going to crack that guy and good luck trying to catch Jeremiah love outside. You think we're in the passing down on 2nd 14? Hey, I got as much chance of hitting a home run with my running backs as I do my receivers. And that's not a knock on my receivers. That's because we got dudes running back, which we tried to tell everybody in the country all summer, now everybody knows, right? And so it just, that, I was much more impressed with his play calling in the run game after breaking it down because you could see the chess match he was using in the run game. And I mean, it was, it was very well done. And it wasn't just like, you first think, well, yeah, your backs, events, you're going to break one. Sure. But you schemed it for them to break one. Yeah. What they were doing, you countered and that got your guys in the second level because, I mean, literally every time the running backs got to us in the end of the, just past the line of scrimmage, they went for big play literally every time they went for a big play. Because they also had an inside zone run earlier where Jeremiah got through the first level. It was like two plays before the touchdown run. They ran inside zone and he got through that first level and then just made a dude miss and bounce it out the back and then it's 18 yard running literally every time that they got to the second level, they made a big play. That's pretty good. This day. I like those odds that you know, but I just, I love that those adjustments he made in the run game. I really did. And then using how they were overplaying the spread stuff to their advantage in the run game, that's called not being stubborn, right? This is what we thought we're going to do. We're not going to be stubborn and keep thinking. We're going to keep where it was our game plan. It's a just on the fly. This is what they're doing. This is how we're going to counter that and it created big plays. I loved it. Love that from them. Brock. Light it. 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'll 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 spot of fire or wherever you get podcasts. What's new from Apple? There's the new iPhone 16 Pro built for Apple intelligence and it comes with the all new camera control, giving you an easier way to quickly access your camera tools. The new Apple Watch Series 10 has our biggest display and our thinnest design ever. And this? It's the sound of active noise cancellation, now available on one of two new AirPods 4 platforms. So quiet. Check out all of the new products and new features at apple.com. You can even buy yourself something new see apple.com for product availability updates. Apple intelligence coming this fall. Anything else you liked that you want to hit on before we move to the next category? They answered and they finished, right? It's not how you start the game, Vince. It's how you finish it. They did start not great, but they answered that first drive, right? They answered. A&M gets a field goal to take the lead. You get, you tie it up. And then of course, when the game was on the line, Vince, it comes down to this man. It's simple. Who's going to step up and make plays? Notre Dame and all three phases of the game stepped up and made those plays, right? Watch down on defense, defense makes the first stop, offense scores. Defense makes another stop. Offense gets the ball, moves a little bit, special teams has got to put it away. They put it away, but the offense, the way that the offense and you mentioned earlier, Vince, the way that they played in the fourth quarter, that's the character in the heart of a championship caliber team. Now, do they have championship talent? Do they execute that way? All those things are still huge question marks. But that part, Vince, that you were talking about earlier, that part is there, that character of a football team, the culture of a football team. Will the execution come? Will they be able to throw the ball well enough to compete for championship questions that will have to be answered at some point in time in the future? But what we do know, if they can do every game, what they did this game, this is going to be a tough team to beat because if it's close in the fourth quarter, we're bigger than you, or we're better than you, we're faster than you, we want it more than you, we're better conditioned than you, even on your own field, even on your own field. Yeah. Sorry. This is just. Right. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. All right, let's pivot to what you didn't like after reviewing the film offensively. And I know, you know, we've discussed some of the fundamentals, not fundamental, but some of the mistakes that were made and some things like that. But, you know, what did you not like in your review of the offense? With two things we already talked about, so I'm literally just going to say them again, and then we already kind of hinted on them, but way too many miscues early, drop passes, not blocking well. The offense early on O line was doing a poor job on down angles. They were going to shallow, which was allowing A&M to get over top of them. Later in the game, they were doing a much better job of staying high. So clearly they made an in-game adjustment. Hey, we got to make sure we get over top of that guy on a downblock or an outside zone block. I mean, but still there was a lot of missed opportunities early, dropped balls, missed reads, missed throws, way too many miscues. Right. So you were able to get it done this game, but you can't live on that in a 14 playoff, right? You're going to have to get better in that regard, you know, so it's good enough to maybe beat Louisville and Florida State and maybe Georgia Tech. Maybe USC. Maybe USC. Um, but when you get to the postseason and pass the first round and made, depending on who, I mean, if you get like an old, I saw projection, they had Ole Miss as their names. Uh, first round. Hey, look, you can't, you're going to need to be prepared to score more than 23 against Ole Miss. Right. Oh, you, cause you're going to have to go probably score for score to a degree. Right. I mean, look, I love, I love it. I love it. We'll get to that. But yeah, I think that's a good point. Right. And after watching USC's offense again, I'm not super impressed, but we'll, we can cover that another time. Right. Anything else, sir? No. Uh, well, yes. The last one for me is I, I understand why they did not attack down, attack down the field. Yes. We talked about that before the show. Yes. Right. I understand it at first, but I understand it now that I look back on it. And also, as I remind myself again, what they needed to do to win this game. Right. I, I, so I get it to a degree. What I viewed it as we got a great defense. We don't think they can score on us. I'm just looking at it from the other end coaching standpoint. Yes. Right. Right. We don't think they can score on us. We know they have an elite offensive line, which they do. And they confirmed that in this game. We know they got pretty good front seven. They got a couple of safeties that are pretty good coming downhill. And they are a team that has the kind of pass rushing that they could maybe make a play. I mean, you think about the play where Riley Leonard almost gets sacked at his own two. Now, yeah, if he can get the ball out to, you know, out to Devin Ford, maybe it's a big play. But you don't want to rely on that. Right. And most quarterbacks aren't even getting out of that sack. Exactly. Cause they're already getting sacked. Right. There's some people that were upset about the fact that he didn't get the ball to Devin Ford is like, do you understand what he did to even get that ball off? Yep. Yeah. Right. Right. And so those are things that you look at and say, um, you've got to do a better job there. You've got to do a better job making some of those plays. But even within that, I still want to see a little bit more aggressiveness, try to generate some shots there. When you see that they're playing everything tight, try to find something and looking back at the film, I actually think a couple of times they did. Like I said, there was a play that they missed on an end cut to Chris Mitchell. You got to hit that play. That's a 10 plus yard gain. Maybe they lose his open on that same play. They had it. They ran a burst corner backside. It was basically, you know, the invert smash that people will do events where the outside guy runs the burst corner in up and out. And then number two runs an out cut. They ran that. That was the play they ran to get Jaden great houses first down, I believe. And on that particular play, let me go look at it real quick and see, yes, they ran a burst corner outside Jate, which also serves an ability to kind of isolate Jaden if it's going to be man or if it's going to be an off coverage. It's also a way to kind of do that, but they ran it earlier. And I thought Riley should have read it to go backside and I'll send you the play after we're done. And you're like, oh my gosh. But if he if he looks where I think he should have looked, I think it's a it's I mean, I don't think it's if he throws a good throw, it's it's it's a touchdown. And I'm actually going to show it to you now, Vince. It's actually play number 29, I believe. And so you can you can watch it. Well, actually you don't have the numbers, but it's it's in the second quarter. It was on the play, it was right after Jeremiah loves long run in the second quarter. So if you find that, if he reads that correctly, Bo goes up in and up and at the top of Bo's route, Vince, he sticks his inside foot in the ground in the corner, kind of leans towards him and falls down. And Bo is wide open, but Riley didn't read it correctly. He looks, I don't think he did looks the wrong way and then throws a bad path. So you had two guys open on that play. When you don't hit that, you got to kind of say, maybe Riley just doesn't have it today. You know what I mean? And then say, Hey, but let's figure out some other ways to win. So I didn't like it. I would have liked to seen a couple more shots, a couple double moves, maybe once you saw them adjusting a certain way, but the way they were playing too high early, it would have been a little bit of tight, a little bit tight. And, you know, those are things that that we're going to need to see from them, Vince, in order to, you know, moving forward in order to win some of these games. That's just the reality of it. And so, you know, we'll see if they can get it done, but I just would have liked to seen a little bit more. I'll say this. I was not as fired up. And I'm curious about you see it, just, right? Yes, go look at pre snap based on the numbers and leverage. Don't you think the back side is where he should have read that play the burst corner in the out? Yeah. Right? That's what I think. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And so, yeah, those are things that I look at, Vince, and I'm like, man, like those are those missed opportunities that you're talking about. You're me. He had his head to the left at first, but he went away from us a quick. He came off of it so fast that he didn't have a chance to see the corner fall down essentially. Right. Yes. Oh my goodness, that would have been a walk in touchdown because there's no safety help whatsoever. Yep. Yeah. Wow. So anyway, Vince, those are things that I look at and say, I would have still liked to see a maybe a couple more of those things. Go back to that play when you saw it open, maybe go back to it again. But at the end of the day, I kind of thought that, man, this is an opportunity for them to kind of look at this and say, the opportunities are there, you're just going to have to find ways to hit them a little bit better next time. That's going to be the key. And I think that, you know, when a couple of those things didn't hit, now you've got them on film, though, too, and you can go back and you can look and you can teach and you can be like, Hey, look at this. I mean, if you'd have gone here, you didn't come off this side as fast as you did, you know, this is what we had. And I think there's a lot of teaching moments here that are now on film that you can see. But I and I also understand, you know, the way the game flow was going and it was probably tighter longer than they had anticipated. They didn't want to put the ball in a position where they would go over with the way that the offensive line was struggling with. And then in Freeman's talk, like they were doing some pressure things that really messed up Notre Dame's protection count, the running backs weren't picking it up. There was a play where they had to run through like where I felt like the running back went the wrong way. They were just doing some things that Notre Dame didn't have a read on. So it's kind of like, Hey, do we really want to expose our quarterback who's just who's rushing his read say he's just mentally going too fast? Or do we say let's lean into what he does well. Yes. Let's lean into the run game. Let's try to find some of those opportunities and then go and then go at them. And then what Riley and the thing is what Riley Leonard does well. I mean, look, I think he will eventually throw the ball well and I think, you know, all that. But what we know that he does well is run the football and the margin for air, the margin for turning the ball over is much lower when he's running the football, right? I mean, it's much less risk and more reward at that point. And so I think they really leaned into that the last few series because, you know, Hey, look, we know he's going to do this. We know he's confident in doing this. Okay, let's get after it. And let's do this. We've got all this stuff on film that we can show them so that they can eventually get to that point. So I think the flow of the, I think the flow of the game had a lot to do with it too. And also the manner in which the team was playing played into the decision to kind of bring it back a little bit from a aggressive, though the ball down the field and things like that. They didn't like it per se, but I also understand it from a coaching standpoint. And from a, let's get the win and get the heck out of here, stand for two. Well, and I don't even know if it was a win and get the heck out of here. It's more of a, we're better than them. Let's not do anything to let them make a play. Right, right. Right. You know what I mean? And the way, don't give them unnecessary momentum. Yeah. After that first, they had a couple field goal drives, but outside of that, like, an M was doing nothing on this defense. Like they weren't going to go rip off a big play. They weren't about to go, you know, kind of take this thing. I mean, don't do anything to give them a, because you almost had a couple of those. It's like, look, we're not going to, you know, we're not going to allow that to happen. And so that's kind of where I'm at. I didn't love it, but I understood it. Yeah, totally, totally, totally agree with that for sure. Okay. Two points offensively, big moments, what do you have here for the turning points, the big moments? I've got a couple of my head. I want to hear what you had to say as well. A couple of small ones, Riley Leonard Scramble on the first drive of the game that converted a third down. And that was the, and then you got the targeting penalty. That was a big moment because number one, you've gotten Brooks out, which helped a little bit. Sure. Not to agree to some of your fans think, but it, that's what kind of got you into field goal range. Mm hmm. And it got you in a position where you could kind of make that early answer. But I honestly felt Vince that the game started to change really in the, the, like late third quarter when obviously the touchdown run, but that whole drive to me was the difference in the game. You weren't going to put him up 13 six being aggressive. But you came out that drive and you're like, Hey, let's hit our snag concept. We think we've got something here. They ran that to the tight end and boom, there you go. You get a big play. And then you come back on the very next play, you get a little five yard completion on an inside zone, right to, to both Collins or you run, or you run a read zone or you run a little, um, uh, under route, which, which gets minus yards. And so then you're backed up. It's first in 25 that little screen to both Collins where he goes in and makes an 11 yard gain was a huge play. Like, I'm so like a lot of people made point that a touchdown run, but here's why I think the plate of both Collins was actually the big play of that drive. You're in first and 25 if Vogue gets tackled for a five, six yard game, it's now a second and 20. I don't know if that same run works as well because A&M's probably deeper at safety. And so the angle is not as tight, but by, by, by doing it the way that Notre Dame did it, and by, or by getting that 11 yard game and having the success that they had, you know, you were able to kind of go out there and make some of the, you know, make that big play that on the very next play, I think that play set up the long touchdown run. Difference between first and 25 and second and 14 is that that, it, it, it, it, it, it enacted almost as a draw, but I liked the fact they didn't actually run a draw because I don't like that in that situation. I don't think you get enough movement up front. I think the running back has to then make it cut so far back that it ends up not working aside. Right. Right. So that's kind of where I'm at. The, I really, really, obviously you can, you can look at those couple of runs, the one that got called back and then the long run, you know, towards the end of the second quarter. I think at that point, I started to feel like, okay, they're starting to figure this thing out offensively. I'm really excited to see what they do when they come out of halftime. You know what I mean? You can score on that drive. Like I get it, but you started to see a climmer of light that they'll, okay, maybe they're starting to figure something out here, especially in the run game. You know what I mean? So that was a big one to me. And then I agree with everything that you said, but I loved the first drive out of half. The first drive of the second half where they went for it twice on fourth down. Oh, got you. Yeah, they started it with, with, you know, the past the plan again. And you know, I, the, the quarterback run on fourth and one, they get seven yards. That was a huge play. Then they go for it again on Fort that like, again, no points like I get it, but messages were being sent at that point by Marcus Freeman to his team, right? It was being sent to the defense that I trust you. That's why I'm going for it on fourth down, but it was also sent to the offense that I, I know you guys are going to pick this up. You know, that's, that's interesting. You say that Vince. Can I point something out? Because that drive was actually not very successful. That's why I was, you're like, that's right. I'm like, what are you talking about? They had a nine yard gain, a zero, a zero, an eight, a zero, a minus one, a nine and a one. Right. Like, you know, I get it, but I loved the, that's a, so I didn't think about, that's a great point though, Vince, because it wasn't necessarily an effective drive execution wise. Right. But it was an incredibly effective drive from a mentality standpoint, because you know what they did on the very next drive? It was the drive that I talked about or to touchdown. Yeah. Very next drive was that drive. Yes. And, and so it was a, I think it gave, like, I'm not saying that they, that the offense didn't have confidence in themselves or didn't think the coach had confidence, but like, he proved it. Like he, he, he, in a big moment, he's like, we're going for it on fourth down. And then we're going for it on fourth down again. And even though we didn't technically pick it up the second one, like, I've got confidence in you guys. This is how we're going to play. I, you know, I dig that I, I, I really, that drive said a lot to me. I felt really good after that drive. I really did. Even though you're right. From an execution standpoint, from a yard standpoint, it wasn't great, but I have like, I have two stars in that drive as I was like, writing it down as they were doing stuff. Like, two big stars. They got that first down by the way. That was a horrible. God, by like a full body, but whatever, like, yes, yeah, they absolutely, that game might be over if they'd have gone down and scored on that drive. Oh, yeah, like, yeah, yep. That would have been interesting. Because like you said, it was the first drive of the, of the third quarter. They come right out of halftime and just go down and boom. It's a touchdown. Yes. Yep. Yep. And I honestly, I thought that might have happened after they, where I thought that they got it on the second fourth down. I was like, oh, momentum is on Notre Dame side. Like they're going down and they're going to put this one in the end zone. Like I really did feel that way until the, obviously the call wasn't reversed and all that other nonsense. But then, you know, the defense comes out, they give up a first down only because of a mistackle, right? And then so first down run plus zero, second down, short pass mistackle, they pick up the first down, but then it's first down, one second down, incomplete pressure brought by the linebackers, you know, third down run for a yard and then fourth down, he just chucks it because he thinks Notre Dame's off sides. Offense gets the ball back. Then they take it down for a touchdown. Like the confidence level of Notre Dame at that point was through the roof, I think on both sides. Right. So yeah. Right. Yeah. That's going to do it for the, our offensive, uh, kind of evaluation, uh, watching the film, make sure you hit that like button, that subscribe button, that notification bell. Share with your family and friends. And of course, jump on the boards, boards that Irish Breakdown dot com, all kinds of good stuff. It's going to be coming up real fast starting tomorrow. So make sure you check that out and, uh, you will get your money's worth in one day. I can promise you that. 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