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I'm guessing that's why I have to take lots of notes. But let's kind of go through this thing and, you know, let's take it back. Zero, zero, Notre Dame's kicking off. They're going on defense, thoughts on, you know, the first couple of series, or at least the first series defensively for Notre Dame, obviously, the series has a whole 10 plays, 58 yards, A&M goes down, kicks that field goal. What are we thinking about this series, fellas? 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. 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For a whole new way to nug, it's got to be Wendy's at participating US Wendy's. One of the big keys to victory that we talked about on the show earlier this week was if the red zone defense was still going to be as good as it was last year. With how aggressive, I guess I don't want to say aggressive, but with just how hyped up Texas A&M came out, home crowd, Notre Dame's on the road, I was going to be interested to see how we handled that coming in. I think Notre Dame did a pretty good job, honestly. Not down to the red zone. You could tell that they were also juiced up, a couple of off sides, like very twitchy, which typically is a good thing, a little too twitchy for my taste on the first drive, but it was nice to see that the thing in question was not the physicality. The offensive line for both teams was a hot topic at conversation this week and the first couple of plays, man, I don't know if you guys are paying attention, I'm sure you were, but our D-line was getting a pretty good pop on their offensive line to start the game, and that's when I kind of could start to feel that it was, hey, this isn't like everybody talks about SEC ball and how they'll run over everybody else and we weren't, Notre Dame wasn't really moving backwards that much. Little bit of, you know, missed assignment here. We talked about it all last week that Colin Klein likes to do a lot with pre-snap motion, sure, young line-backing core, got a little distracted there in the middle of it, but overall first drive, first quarter, think the defense played okay, it's what I expected them to be at. Okay, if that makes sense. Yep. Sean? Literally after they kicked the field goal, I was like, we're good. We just gave them three points. We're good. Absolutely. I felt that our defense would be like a ball constrictor as the game went on and we were just tightened and tightened with each quarter, and I think that's what happened, and you start to see mistakes, but after that first drive, I was actually encouraged defensively. Trevor pointed it on. It wasn't like they just came out physically, moved the ball down the field and did what they wanted to do and out-screened us. That wasn't the case. They needed help. They needed help. They went back to Notre Dame, helped them stay in the game. They really did, and I think when they watched the film, they're going to say, oh, we, we should've killed this team. We had a better team. We just didn't play up to our standard, and so I felt good after that first drive. I really did, Vince. Ryan, thoughts on the first drive defensively? I think that, and me and Brian actually had a little conversation via text earlier in the week. I think that the way that you prepare for Texas A&M in this first game was you go and you watch Colin Klein and Colin Klein at Kansas State was a much different offense than what we saw. There were some run game principles specifically to the running backs that are similar to what he did at Kansas State, but overall, Connor Wegman is not a Kansas State quarterback. They're a little more athletic guys that run Power Read, guys that run quarterback counter at times. They do all these different types of nuanced things in the run game. I honestly think that watching the full scope of Kansas State over the last couple of years would give you wrinkles of what you saw tonight, but it wouldn't tell you the full picture of what to expect for Colin Klein in 2024 with text A&M with Connor Wegman as a quarterback. I just don't think he necessarily has the type of players in this offense that translate well to what he did at Kansas State. I think what shocked Notre Dame a little bit in that first drive, especially is why they drove the ball, decently in the first drive against the defense, was that they went against an offense that they just, they didn't really know, right? Like they came out and they were trying to be a little bit more spread oriented. They tried to go towards the strengths of Connor Wegman in the game and that took I think Notre Dame a little bit by surprise, but ultimately at the end, Notre Dame's stiffens and they were able to hold him to a field goal, which was a good thing to see, but I think that first drive, especially the first few plays was about an adjustment to not exactly knowing what an offense for text A&M was going to look like on your Colin Klein. So I think that was just kind of the, it's almost like the chess match a little bit, right? Because like you're doing your deep dives for weeks, a couple of weeks now of what Colin Klein is going to do with text A&M in reality, we had no idea what this offense was going to be under Colin Klein, like I feel like I had a much better idea of what the defense was going to be under Coach Elko than what a Colin Klein text A&M offense is going to be. So I think that was just a little shock to the system. They had to get their bearings, they had to get their footing and they were playing a lot of younger guys, right? Like we'll talk about Drake bone, we'll talk about Jalen Sne, we'll talk about Jay Nauseberry, we'll talk about Adon Shuler, Christian Gray. There were some younger kids that I think just need to get acclimated a little bit and I think the whole defense in general needed to figure out what a Colin Klein text A&M offense looks like. Yeah, it was a little disconcerting with a couple of penalties, specifically the first one on third and seven, like I felt like, I mean, they were on the verge of going three and out, you know, to start the game. And then, you know, Trey already jumps off sides, you get a penalty and that kind of sets them up for third and short, they pick it up, and then they start flowing, right? And that one was painful because I think if you make them go three and out on the first drive, you know, it changes the entire landscape of the game. You know what I mean? Yeah, granted, they only went down and got a field goal, which is great, you know, it's like, like Sean said, it's the bow constrictor, it's getting tighter and tighter and tighter. I think that's absolutely accurate. But like that penalty was like, you know, it was the first one of like very important timed penalties in this game. And like you said, they're going to go back and watch this film. They're going to be like, man, that was a backbreaker, you know, now luckily it didn't lead to a loss, obviously, and 11 penalties for 99 yards is way too many. But the penalty just came at such crucial times, and this is the first one. Like this was the first crucial timed penalty on third and seven because, you know, your playbook's not quite as open on third and seven as it is on third and two, you know what I mean? And if you make them go three and out, I think there's just a lot more momentum on Notre Dame side at that point. And maybe they even go down and put one in the end zone on their first offensive drive. And so that's kind of that was kind of my takeaway on in the first drive. That's like, okay, you know, they had a little trouble holding their water, you know, got to make sure that just staying on sides, you know, important times. And of course, then, you know, Riley Mills gets a flag, it was only second and eight, but then makes it second and short, you know, so on and so forth. So literally, we know that was kind of the beginning of multiple penalties moving forward, but that was the only disconcerting part of that drive for me was the penalty on third and sevens like that one hurt, like that one really, really hurt. Notre Dame was playing against themselves a lot tonight. Yes. I think was really symbolized in that first drive was that Notre Dame was playing good fundamental defense pretty much, but it was just like, it was just overrunning a couple of players in that first drive. And then in that, you know, where they were able to tie the game later in the in the second half. And then also the, I mean, just the shooting of the foot of it is so demoralizing when you have a team like third and six and then all of a second, all of a sudden it's third and one or it's like third and four. And then you go off size and it's an automatic first, it's just very, very frustrating. So that stuff though, and I think Trevor talked about it is like, that's very fixable, right? Like you can fix that stuff very easily. I thought actually coming out of that first drive, I actually kind of felt good about it because you were like, man, Notre Dame did not play well that first drive pretty much, but yes, they were still holding to a field goal, right? So I think that that was a symbol of like, that Notre Dame doesn't need to necessarily play their A game to win this game, but ultimately they did stiffen down the stretch of that first drive, which was good to see. So field goal happens. Notre Dame gets a football. We finally see a Riley Leonard slash Mike Dembrock led offense for the first time ends up being a nine played drive, 47 yards. It wasn't a 46 yard field goal by Mitch Jeter to tie the game at three. Your initial thoughts on the offense during that drive out fellas. Money Mitch, baby. Money Mitch. I mean, I mean, I need to talk about money, Mitch, I mean, it was, I need to make sure I know then she're the leader of tonight. So I know we're going to talk about Mitch Jeter because special teams guru, Vince De Derea, so I just wanted to throw a quick shout out, but like, for me, I think that it was a trying to think back exactly to that drive. So like the run game wasn't going, but I think you saw elements of why I'm excited for the rest of the year because Riley Leonard's dynamic folks like he is. There are times where the play is not going to be the right play or there's going to be a fumbled snap or there's going to be X Y and Z happening and he can make a bad play into a positive very, very quickly. I think we saw that on the first drive, you know, a couple of easy completions. I know he had the first down to Jaden Greathouse where that was a bad, I think it was a low snap and from Ashton Craig and he kind of had the, you know, stay calm in the pocket. But I think that just the calmness and the swagger and athleticism of Riley Leonard was what popped to me early. It was like, Oh, we're, we're not in Kansas anymore. All due respect to Sam Hartman, right, like Sam on that play where he threw it to Greathouse for the first down where the fumbled snap, like I don't know if that ends up in a good situation. Right. So I mean, yeah, Riley's play making building on that first drive is kind of what popped out to me. Second play of the offensive drive. They're in empty. Like that one, that one jumped out at me, first of all, like second play, they're going empty. Okay. Cool. This is a new Notre Dame. You're not used to Notre Dame and empty, huh? No, not even a little bit. And then of course it's a bad snap, but then he picks it up, you know, gets the completion to Greathouse for eight yards. Okay. And then a couple of plays later, you know, it's third and five. You get Riley Leonard scrambling. And look, Notre Dame's had mobile quarterbacks in the past, right? But it just looks different when he starts running the football. It just, it just looks different. It looks a little bit more effortless. It looks more like an athlete running the football. And then did anybody else's heart stop when he just got like fricking targeted, like right in the crown of the head and you're like, okay, here we go, you know, obviously easy call to make. It was absolutely targeting. It was late. It was all of those different things that's like, I really hope he's not out of the game after that. Cause that was a legit shot to the head. And he just popped right back up. I mean, this kid, if anything, you list the qualities. This kid is a tough, tough kid, man. He is a tough, tough kid. And that, you know, we saw that in the first drive hit it. Do you know that kid that got kicked out of the game? This is a really weird note. And then I'll kick it over to Trevor, cause I think he had something to add, right? Is that that Dalton Brooks was actually in Friday night Tikes. Have you ever seen Friday night? Was he really? Yeah. He was one of the, they had, I forget what the team was called. But they had, they had Dalton and Douglas Brooks. Douglas was the big brother who was like number 74. And then Dalton was the little shifty running back that no one could catch like that was Dalton Brooks. Yeah. That was hilarious. Do you just remember that? Or did you see that? No, no, no, I remember that. I remember Dalton Brooks and I looked him up one time and I'm like, yep, from Texas, from like the same area. Like that's, that's him. That's him. Oh my gosh. That is hilarious. Trevor hit it. I love Riley Leonard because he is just a football guy. Yeah. I mean, and it's, it's very obvious after watching the documentary and like the little series they did on him for the college game day this morning. It's cool. He's, he's about ball. He, you hear the coaches talking about how all through camp, he was asking to go live. Dude just wants to be hit. He just wants to play football to it's to the highest caliber and that's something that I respect. And I think you saw that a lot tonight. I mean, you saw it in the first drive, which is something that's a little different. Typically you don't see Notre Dame teams like that to Ryan's point, no disrespect to Sam Hartman. But there are some, there are just certain things that he was not physically able to do last year, that's not a knock on him, that's, that's just what the facts are. Throw Jack Kohn on to that list, throw Drew Pine on that list. Like it's not a Sam Hartman thing. It's been a Notre Dame recent quarterback thing outside of making Tyler Buckner once in a blue moon. Right? Yeah. It's not, it's not just the Sam Hartman issue 100% I'm, I'm treading lightly because I feel like I disrespected Maine and North Dakota, which I've heard great things about. So let me, let me clear that up right now. But, but I will say the thing that I noticed that jumped out of the page for me, for, for Riley Leonard is he's a guy that he'll fall forward and get you the extra yard. He has that it factor where it's, it's a small sample size and it's one game. But I feel like if there are situations in the future, which they will happen, especially if this Notre Dame team is the team that we think they're going to be and get into the playoffs, he's going to have to continue to make plays, just going to have to happen. And I feel a lot more confident that he has that ability in comparison to who we've had in the past. So I feel good about it. From a play calling standpoint, I think it was very vanilla. It was safe. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Very safe. Understandably so. And I think that comes from Marcus Freeman. He's a defensive minded head coach. I love that we have Mike Denbrock in town now, but I think it's a we're on the road. We just held them to a field goal. Let's not go out and turn the ball over as much as I would have loved for us to start pushing the ball down in the field. I think that's what the mindset was for them. But it was a very, very mild, very vanilla play calling, which still drove Notre Dame down the field, which still got us three points. There is a lot for me that I can look at and say, which is going to probably be my reoccurring theme for the night. There's so much to build on. It's going to be exciting. Yeah, I can't wait to look at the film because I think there were opportunities there for Notre Dame even early, but you know, as Trevor said, who goes to Mike Denbrock? I think his experience came through because I think as an office coordinator, he was very patient. He was very easy to go away from what you want to do in situations like that when you get frustrated with the way things are going and penalties and everything because I'm sure not only did he have to come in and get his left side settled on the offensive line and game plan to help them get into the game. That's not to get Riley Leonard, man, didn't have a spring as much as we like, oh, he's dynamic. You saw Rustiness. He admitted himself. Like, yo, I didn't settle into the game until the fourth quarter. It took me three quarters to settle in and you saw that with some throws that he should have made and yo, Mike Denbrock just found a way to stay with things and you depend on that kid being able to, because I think he's going to make even more pleasant. Like you said, that first drop is just the tip of the iceberg of what we were going to eventually see in the remainder of the game. Look, I wish he could have settled in a little earlier. Maybe if he was playing like, I don't know, Ocarin or something, like, all right, Archer in the chat. Well, Howard stinks. Can we move on from that? All right. I'm sorry. Look, I don't know, none of us here are going to debate that Riley Leonard's stats weren't great and that he missed some open guys and needs to work on some. Okay. Cool. You know, who's also the first person to say that? Riley Leonard in his post game interview, he's like, I don't know why you guys have the microphone in my face. I played horrible until the fourth quarter, you know? So you don't think he's going to get back in the lab and try to fix what was broken and all of these different. Of course he is because that's the kind of guy that he is, and I believe it was Trevor that said he's a football guy. Like that's, that's who he is. That's how he's going to be. And again, they weren't playing Akron. They were playing Texas A&M on the road, not at home, you know, that makes a difference. I would have, I would pay money right now to watch Will Howard against Texas A&M's defense. I'll just say that. Okay. But Riley Leonard, we talked about him and what he's going to be able to do for this tier. What do we need him to do as a fan base and all of those different things, right? And we talked about the fact there's going to be times where he's just going to have to put on the cape. I think that's Brian's terminology. He's going to have to put on the cape. He's going to have to put the team on his back. We'll get to the drive where that occurred, right? But we saw glimpses of it in this first drive, you know, where he scrambled, slid, took the targeting call, you know, the whole thing, got him into field goal range, you know, did what he needed to do. Now, there was miscommunication with Faison, you know, there were some other things that didn't just quite jive and that's why they had to settle for the field goal, but they got the field goal, they answered. Now it's three, three, okay. Gives it back to the defense. What is the defense to forces a punt? First punt of the ball game. Defense starts to settle in a little bit more, right? It starts to do what they need to do. You know, I think A&M started to try to pull out some stops, right? Some jet sweeps, you know, some toss and things to try to get to the outside, try to test the young linebackers, you know, tackling in space, you know, all of those things. And I believe it ended up being, let's see, one, two, three, four, five, six, a seven play drive that ended in a punt. So to Sean's point, the bow constrictor starts to constrict a little bit more. Defense starts to settle in a little bit. I thought this was a great second drive for the defense, gets the ball back to the offense. 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. And the next drive offensively, you guys don't have any. That's cool. Hey, offense gets the ball back. This was probably, this might have been the shortest offensive drive I think of the night. This was a three and out for Notre Dame. But this is also the first time that we saw a little QB power, where it was right at Leonard. This is a, this is a design run. We're getting it out where QB power, baby. Like here we come. It only got three yards, but it was like, okay, here we go. Like right at Leonard's part of this game plan with his legs. So I did like that, even though they went three and out because of an incomplete pass. And then that was the one where Riley Leonard got some pressure on him and like spun out of it. And if he just gets that ball up a little higher, there was green grass to run. If he, if he completes that pass, right? And it just ends up going into the grass. What an athletic play by him, though. I know he didn't complete the pass, but like how the heck did he get out of that? Do we see like it was wild? Yeah. I think that that, that early glimpse of the quarterback run game though, I think is big vince cause like we saw him obviously scramble a couple of times, but I'm here to tell you guys and I believe this and I know some people will not like this because he's our starting quarterback and he's coming off an injury real season. But Riley Leonard needs to be the short yardage runner like he just, like I, like I, I love Jeremiah. Love. I think it'll turn into that guy at some points. Cheidorian price. I think you can do a little bit of that. Maybe a Nias Williams or Kijer Young could develop into that at some point this season, but I want the ball in that kid's hands in the biggest moments. Like I just do. I think that that was one of the main takeaways. So like, yeah, that drive obviously didn't go where he wanted to, but I think you saw the elements of something big here, not only just quarterback run game and big moments that we'll see. I think that incredibly past vince, like that was a show of, there was going to be some big plays this season because Riley Leonard has that special trait to him. Unfortunately, just wasn't able to get enough on it under chaos to out to the running back out to Ford. But you know, we still saw some glimpses of good in that drive. It just unfortunately, they weren't able to sustain success in that drive, obviously. Right. Well, I, I appreciated their willingness to do it. You know, you hear all camp that Riley Leonard is back to fully healthy. And even back in the spring game, Marcus Freeman came in and said, yeah, I mean, I fully believe if we suited up for a game today, it'd be hard to keep them off the field. You know, you hear all those things. But I found a lot of comfort in that play calling wise. Denmark was completely fine for design quarterback run plays for Riley Leonard that put my mind at ease. And then my mind got put it not a lot of ease because then I had to accept the fact that our starting quarterback is just going to be a part of the run game pretty consistently. So that's, that's the flip side, but Notre Dame doesn't have a lot of dual threat quarterbacks like that. So I, I, I say all of that to say I am, I am happy with the decision to run him consistently. I do think we can go back and look at the film and there are a couple of down and distant situations where missed have a number seven in the backfield. There were a couple of those, but that's all new kinks to this offense that we'll get figured out as the season goes on, I have full confidence in that. So they punt the ball, three and out defense gets their third shot. This is where they, they do allow A&M to go eight, eight plays 31 yards. This is where they, they kick the field goal to go up six to three. This is the last time, no spoiler alert. Last time that Notre Dame is trailing in this game was the third drive for the defense. And you know, Concline tried to throw a few different things at this defense, right? Again, jet sweep, trying to get it to the outside again. There were some penalties. There was a wide receiver screen that Schuler actually made a really, really good play on, but just didn't come down with the tackle. I think if he makes that tackle, maybe he's out of field goal range, right? Because I think once they broke the tackle, he got another like eight yards and ended up being a 49 yard field goal. So now you're talking about, you know, 55, 56, 57 plus of a field goal. And I don't think they even attempt a field goal at that point. So it was a great play to get there. You just got to complete it, right? You just got to make that open field tackle. But they do end up kicking the field goal. They go up six to three. Any takeaways from this drive guys? The only thing for me, and this is more overarching, not just with this drive specifically, but for the defense, I think that they played a fantastic game. It was awesome to see it confirmed a lot of what we have all talked about about how good we think this Notre Dame defense can be. I do think some of it, and you can chalk it up to it's the first game of the season. And I don't think they tackled poorly. I think sometimes it was just a little sloppy. You can tell sometimes they weren't bringing their feet. They were reaching a little bit, but I can almost guarantee you if you go back and watch the entire slate of all the college football games this weekend, that was abundant in every game. So again, chalk that up to the things that I know will get corrected throughout the course of the season. But that's, I mean, I know real major complaints from the defense. Well, I think it was mostly the young guys that were the ones missing in space, which like you, you, you, you expect, right? I mean, Don Schuller coming in a little bit out of control, Christian Gray missing an attack on space. Like they're the young cats, man, they're going to miss it one occasionally. I mean, it's especially in the first game and playing against SEC speed. So I understand that there were some missed tackles or things to clean up, but like I didn't have a major cause for concern with that performance defensively as far as tackling space because like, honestly, I expected a Don to maybe, you know, go a little out of control occasionally, like I expected that that's what you love the kid. And I mean, Mike, my pushback and I think I mentioned in the chat Vince is like, yes, you would love him to come to balance and be able to make that play. But I would argue that like, if he comes to balance and doesn't really attack, maybe they just pop it in general, right? And I mean, he did force it back to at least the middle of the field, but like either way, young kids going to miss in space occasionally. This game is about maturation. The great news is that you have a pretty easy three game stretch until Louisville. So that's where you really keep working on the small parts of the craft. Yeah, double R, but we talk about it all the time. They're going to make mistakes, right? Especially against good teams. They were young on the offensive line. They made mistakes, but they fought their tails off. They fought their butts off those two youngsters. They fought their tails off. What else can you ask? What else can you ask? We don't talk about the youngsters on defense. Yeah, they made mistakes, but they would come right back and make it impact the play. Yep. Which lets you know they're locked in to get that play. I know why I messed up. I'm on to the next play, and that's what's so encouraging, not just that these kids are talented, but they're able to move on. And that means, as Trevor pointed out earlier, they have a reflection of their head coach and their coaches that when you see youngsters not allowing things to be a domino effect and snowball, and they can let it go and move on and play the game. It's fantastic to watch, man. It was honestly, it was an ugly game, but it was so many beautiful things in it. Right. No doubt. It was like a great horror film. That's what it was like, a great horror film. It really was. So I want to combine kind of the next two drives, right? Because you got Notre Dame goes, I think, six or seven and out, six and out. They punt the ball away. But then on the first defensive play of the next drive, that's where you get the pick by a Don Chula. So we just gave it a hard time for maybe not making a tackle in space. But then he comes right back and which is really the next play that he's on the field, by the way, because I don't even know if he's on field goal block. Doesn't really matter. Right. So the very next play he's on the field. He ends up playing a great center field. Yes, it was an overthrow. I get it. Might be the easiest pick of his career at the end of the day, but he was in the right place at the right time, makes that pick, which then leads Notre Dame to get another scoring drive, only a field goal, which, to be honest with you, was a little disappointing given, you know, the turnover and the change in momentum and, you know, all of those things you want to punch it into the end zone, but they did put points on the board. They tie up the game at six and the play is made by the young cat, a Don Chula, after making what you could call a mistake. I get where you're coming from, Ryan, but, you know, he misses the tackle, then he comes right back and makes the interception. Huge. Yeah. Now it was massive because I would say too, is like on that play, and I can't wait to see the old 22 angle on it, but it looked like it on the broadcast that a Don was in a good position that if that guy, if it was a catchable pass, there would have been a major collision there. Right. And probably who knows if he would have held on, if it would have been a pass, you know, a broken up pass, like who knows what would have happened, but he was in the right spot. And I think you just saw the flash of athleticism, especially after he called the football, I'm like, again, we're doing the all do respect thing tonight. Like older DJ Brown, it's probably not an interception on that play more than likely. I mean, the back end was just so athletic tonight. It really was. I mean, because again, we'll talk about like a Don shoulder coming out of control in that one play that we talked about right then. So we'll talk about Christian Graham missing in space and having the passing or fairness during the game. Like this was from every starter included, both corners, both safeties, even through Jordan Clark in there as far as like the starting secondary. This was the most athletic secondary from player one to player four that I have seen in several years because like last year, yes, Cam Hart was a freaky athlete on the other side of Benjamin Morrison and you still had Xavier Watts, but like upgrading the athleticism at Shuler compared to DJ Brown, like that is immense, man. That's really is. So Notre Dame secondary is scary, guys, like it's not going to be fun for some of these teams because there's not a lot of great passing offenses, especially kind of down the stretch. Like there's really not. I mean, Florida State has their questions. Louisville should be good in theory under Coach Brom, but like who knows about the quarterback position. This secondary is legit. And I think that you saw the emergence of a Don shoulder on that drive and throughout this contest. Yeah, double R watched a little bit of Northern Illinois. Yeah. I watched Miami, Ohio against Northwestern today, double war. It's like these might be like back-to-back shutouts. This could get rid of others. But I do think Frank Martin, they like to spread it out a little bit. They like their quarterback. He's coming back from a little bit of an injury. So I think they might challenge a little bit early, just schematically. See how they attack the defense and attack Al Bowden. But you're right. There's not too much lead on the bone when it comes to offenses left on the schedule that are really going to challenge this by Nair's defense, right? So only a couple of more drives in the first half will kind of, you know, quickly get through them. I think that the highlight, the next defensive highlight was the lone sack of the game by Howard Cross, third and 12, you know, a chance kind of for the defensive line to pin their ears back. You know, come after Connor Wigman got him, forces the punt, makes it fourth and 23. They lose like 11 yards on that one. It was a huge play and a huge moment for Howard Cross because, look, they were moving the football, right? They had a couple of first downs already on that drive. They were moving the football. This was immediately following the scoring drive for Notre Dame. So this was an opportunity for A&M to answer the score with a potential score. Howard Cross comes through, gets the sack. Who knew with all of the question marks for both offensive lines in this game? And it felt like there, it felt like there was an A&M offensive lineman going down like every other play. Like that, I don't know if they were coming back in, if they were going, I don't know what the situation was, but I just saw a lot of big guys going down for them. But no sacks giving up by Notre Dame's offensive line, this entire game, no sacks. And I would venture to guess, maybe on one hand, the amount of hurries, I haven't looked at pro football focus or if that's even up yet, Leonard got hit a couple of times. But no, no sacks there. One because he spun out of it and was just an amazing athlete. One he got hit pretty hard. Those are the two that I remember specifically, but no sacks, right? Got to give the O line some credit on that one, obviously. But you also have to give, right, you know, we talked about it, right? Having, right, Leonard has the quarterback is also going to mitigate those sack totals and things like that. But I want to, you know, tip my hat to Howard Cross, the lone sack of the game in a very important time. It was, you know, like I said, it was third down and it forced that punt by Texas A&M. No name gets the ball back, doesn't do anything with it, really, flags, penalties, pretty much kill bad drive, kind of a, kind of a theme, obviously, then the defense gets the ball and then it's pretty much halftime. So thoughts on the first half, guys, overall, going into halftime, six, six. Where's your head at going into half? Well, I put, I put an article out after kind of a recap piece. I mean, and I kind of broke it down first half to second half, but like the first half for me was the battle of two offenses that were trying to get comfortable and there were a lot of mistakes and that both went from a penalty perspective and just not a capitalizing on opportunities perspective. And it was a battle of defenses. I mean, it really was. I think that Texas A&M's defense came to play, especially for the most part in the first half. I thought they did a really good job. I mean, we were like in the second quarter at one point and I think Notre Dame had 15 yards rushing at one point like it was until Jadarion broke that long one that got called back and then Jeremiah broke one like the play after that, right? So it was a defensive battle in the first half. I think what you saw was Al Golden year three, the defense knows what they're doing. They have a young talent that was filling in, but I think that there is a, there's a standard on the defense side of the football. I think the offense was still trying to figure that out a little bit, especially in the first half and I don't even know if they fully figure that out tonight, which is the interesting part, right? So I think we saw a offense in flux trying to find their footing for Notre Dame. And I think that their defense played a fantastic game, which is why it was a six six ball game at halftime. Go ahead. I was going to say you could definitely tell the difference of experience on either side of the ball defensively. You could tell they had been in this situation before they've played in front of this type of environment at this type of magnitude and on offense, they were still getting their feet wet a little bit. And they played well enough to where they didn't make that catastrophic mistake that I think based on how the game was being called Kirk Herb Street was just waiting for it to happen for somebody to do it. But it, it, to me was very much offense was getting comfortable. You had three transfer wide receivers, very much in the rotation, new starting quarterback, a young offensive line, as we were so kindly reminded of every second that, that, did you know they only had six career starts as a unit? Did you know? I did. Anthony Knapp is in fact a true freshman. Yes. So now everybody knows. But I think it was, it was a tale of two different kinds of experience in this game defensively. You could tell Notre Dame was very, okay, this is just kind of what we do now. And on offense, it was, what do we do now? So, and it was cool to see that progression in the second half, which I know we'll get to. Trevor, let me, let me throw this back at you. Do you think, I agree with you, by the way, completely, do you think the, not only were the young guys on offense, kind of, you know, getting their feet wet, kind of feeling their way through it to a degree in the first half? You think part of that was also Mike Denmark, kind of feeling his way, trying to get to know his guys, what they can do in a game, you know, what that looks like, what these guys playing together and, you know, all of that, you think that's part of it too? I do 100%. I think it's complimentary because you don't want to throw something at your guys that they're not ready for. And it doesn't want to be like a baptism under fire sort of thing. It's like, I think they're ready for this. So let's try this play out. It's, you started to see it in the play calling. It was a little bit more. And then a little bit more. And it's like, all right, let's see if you almost kind of knock it out in tears, right? All right. Well, let's see that offensive line could hold up for this type of play. Let's see if we can push the ball a bit farther, you know, they were okay with this line game. They tried to do a little bit of tight end coming back on a, on a crack back motion. You know, so left guard could move up to second level. They did that well a couple times, but that was more in the second half. They tried it once in the first half and it was like, Cooper Flanagan missed a block. Let's go away from that. So to your point, I think it, I think it was a little bit of both. It was Mike Denbrock was almost waiting for his players to get more comfortable. So then he would get more comfortable. John. Yeah, I look at it as a heavyweight fight, right? And Notre Dame, as I said before, I think Mike Denbrock showed a ton of patience as a play call of the night. I think he really did and they had a game plan going in. I think they felt like because of the situation, it was going to be a four quarter game either them being ahead, having to hold Texas in and off or what eventually ended up happening. It'd be in the tie game going to the four 40, either way, they knew the fourth quarter is going to be where we separate ourselves and they prepared themselves and had a game plan for that. So, you know, sometimes we talk about this so much, man. Sometimes you just want to skip down the script, right, based upon situations and things acting frantically. You've been a coach, like, you know, as if you go take a picture out like one batter too soon or you leave them in, you know, it's like, that's the battle within as a coach, like knowing the right time being patient and staying with the guys. And I think he did an incredible job of staying with Broly Leonard. He did an incredible job, staying with his offensive line. He did an incredible job playing to what he knew he had defensively. I know I have a great defense that they can't do anything against. Good point. So, there's no reason for me to panic. There's no reason for me to make a mistake as a play caller. Eventually, we have set up to dominate the fourth quarter. And that's exactly what they did. So, you know, that for me is something that I think really stands out that connects to what Trevor was talking about and with double R stated, you know, at halftime. It was almost like, all right, let's let's hit the gas. For me, it was just like, all right, let's hit the gas because this crap we just put on the field and like double R said, we did this and there it's a tie game, right off. And we already know they can't do anything off this. Let's go. You know, I think we're this. It's going to be a very dangerous team, ladies and gents, the HST. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] And that's that podcast hosted by Mark Serperman and myself, Algaldi, is the top rated podcast covering the Washington Nationals with an episode appearing the morning after every Nat's game, that that's that podcast is proudly part of the Blue Wire podcast network available on all podcast platforms and at bluewirepods.com. [MUSIC]
