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 X has our biggest display in our thinnest design ever. And this? It's the sound of active noise cancellation, now available on one of two new AirPods 4 models. 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. This episode is brought to you by Microsoft Azure. Turn your ideas into reality with an Azure-free account. Get everything you need to develop apps across cloud and hybrid environments, scale workloads, create cloud-connected mobile experiences, and so much more. Discover what you can create with popular services free for 12 months. Learn more at azure.com. That's azure.com, and sign up for a free account to start building in the cloud today. I've been Asian Sports Talk on a Monday along with Vince Diario. Sean Steyers, I know you've had a plenty busy weekend, Vince, how are you today? I mean, this is almost like the Jerry Lewis telethon or something for you. Like as many hours as you put in with a computer in front of you and a microphone this weekend. I was actually thinking about it on the drive home. It's like, OK, we did a show Friday. Did a very long show Saturday. Did a good amount of show Sunday doing a show Monday. Like, OK, hey, let's roll, man. Like, it's football season, you know, there are no off days. Well, at least not for us during football season. And even though Marcus Freeman kind of gave them the day off on Thursday, there's no off days for us. So, hey, man, we're back at it and happy to share the screen with you, sir. And I'm going to be back with you. Get your thoughts on this debacle. I know. I guess I'm one of the oldest, like Jesse and I are like probably the only two who haven't shared thoughts on it. So far, we actually got to have a little fun watching football yesterday. That's true. Went over to Cleveland. Like, after the Notre Dame game, I finished my stuff in the press box, jumped in the car, drove straight to Cleveland, got in around midnight. We went and did a little tailgating on Sunday, went and saw the Cowboys beat the brakes off the Browns yesterday. And like, actually, you know, got to do fan stuff and enjoyed watching it. So that was a lot of fun. So, we'll probably touch on maybe a little bit of that tomorrow and make it completely nauseous with Cowboys talk. So, there's Lea Fau. You know, he was supposed to be, they listed him on the depth chart like he was going to start. I don't know if I ever saw him actually take any reps at linebacker. He wasn't on special teams and stuff, but didn't see him do a whole lot more than that. Interesting. DK, you can drink all you want. I got my share myself yesterday. I mean, we were actually at the game. So did you really think that I wasn't going to make any mention of it? Come on, especially with me one, you know, it's true. I was very worried that I was going to go there and the whole weekend was going to be a complete bleep show, you know. So, well, I mean, to be honest with you, outside of outside of the Notre Dame game, which dictates a lot of my life. Like, I have gotten to the point though, where it doesn't like ruin my life. It doesn't like depress me where I can't get out of bed or anything like it does for some fans. Like, I am not that way at all, but it's my job to talk about it and then it makes it very, you know, interesting, obviously. But like, you know, had a great Saturday morning with my daughter and then, you know, Saturday afternoon, the evening sucked, obviously. And then the Bears won, although the Savior quarterback played horrible. So that was fun to watch all my Bears friends in there, you know, kind of shut them up a little bit. I need to go to W. He is a rookie. I was telling my daughter that he is a great, you know, like, still made me feel good. So still made me feel good that he looked like absolute steamy pile of garbage. Yeah, 148 yards, a total offense, Sean. Like, that's awful. That's awful. I, you know, I always felt like there was a little bit too much hype on Williams in the Bears. It's probably not even fair to be honest with you. Yeah, but like, holy cow, I mean, wow. Well, you know, Vince, I know you were not a game of Thrones watcher, but there's this game of Thrones episode. The title of the episode is The Rains of Castamere. OK, and casually, that means nothing. If you're a game of Thrones watcher, you might know where I'm going. But it is not known for rain and it's not known for Castamere. Game of Game of Thrones fans know that that episode is known as the Red Wedding episode. And maybe you've heard me talk about this. I have heard of that, but I don't know that I could pinpoint exactly what it means. OK. So I won't give away any, you know, plot spoilers for those who haven't watched it in the last decade. Maybe you still plan on watching Game of Thrones or your early on in your Game of Thrones watching. But in a nutshell, everything in terms of like big picture macro plotline appears to be going in one direction. Families converge for what's supposed to be a big, you know, festival, a joyous wedding, you know, marrying two families together. And then boom, ambush arrows fly through a slit, a bunch of major characters in the show all get killed at the Redding, hence the Red Wedding, major plot twist in the show. And that to me is where Notre Dame is right now. They beat Texas A&M. Everything seems to be pointing in one direction. All the conversation in the talk is going in one direction. Play off in this and that and everything else. Then here comes Northern Illinois and arrows fly plot twist. The season has been thrown into chaos. Yeah, you know, the star quarterback is in doubt. And coach is in doubt, wasn't supposed to go this way, but here we are. And you know, this isn't going to be a show where I'm going to be Baghdad mob and try to convince everybody all as well. Those guys not falling and all that different kind of stuff. I did see some people say that, you know, like they were hoping for kind of a pick me up today. I don't know that we're ready for a pick me up yet because there's still plenty to talk about. Oh, yeah. And because now, you know, we had comments from Marcus Freeman at his press conference today. How revealing are they? I don't know, but he did, you know, address a few things. And, you know, we're going to we're going to get to some of that. We've also got the comments that he made. I know you guys touched on this and mentioned them in your some of your shows over the weekend. The stuff on NBC was Zora Stevenson about Riley Leonard before the game and very weird how when I got home and I turned on the recording of that game literally, that's where the recording starts where that question is being asked. So I didn't have to look very far to find it, fortunately. But we've got a lot of it from today's press conference. I don't know how how ready you are to jump back in. I mean, look, there's nothing good to talk about until we see this team play again. Yeah. I mean, let's be honest, until 3 30 on Saturday rolls around, you're not going to get sunshine and lollipops for me because this is literally and it sounds like Coach Speak, but this is literally one game at a time like you're going to have to prove to me from a lot of different angles that things are back on the right track after Saturday because as we mentioned numerous times over the what almost eight hours of show from Saturday and Sunday, there's a lot more on and it's bigger than Riley Leonard. So, you know, lot to happen. Lot to happen. Yes. 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 $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. Only one yard gets you an automatic win every football weekend in September. Four weeks of free W's. Don't miss this deal on prize picks because it's gone when September ends. Think Tyreek Hill get more than 90.5 yards in week one. Aaron Jones runs for more than 66 and a half yards. Cook up hot takes with your friends and win real money this football season when you and your crew run your game on prize picks. Prize picks also has college picks all ready to go for you as well. Get in before game one hits and you can predict how many passing yards your favorite college quarterback will hit. For me, I think Riley Leonard is going to go above $2,550 and a half yards, so I'm going to take that one and I'm going to combine it with Quinn Ears to throw $2,999 and a half yards. Put those together and bang bang boom baby, I'm going to be a winner. You just wait and see. I'm coming up on my one year anniversary of depositing my first $10 and I received an instant $10 bonus. If you have the skills, you can play for a shot at turning your $10 into a $1000. Download the prize picks app today and use code IRISH for a first deposit match up to $100. That's code IRISH on prize picks for a deposit match up to $100. Prize picks 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 got to be Wendy's at participating US Wendy's. Freeman was actually struck by the press conference with some of the answers that he gave because he was fairly expansive I felt like with his answers and I don't know how much you've had a chance to watch or listen or anything like that, but he went on and he was really in there. I think basically because after a loss like that, a complete no-show, he probably felt like he had some explaining to do, I guess, you know, but all big time. I was going to start in a different direction, but I thought that I would just start with this. This is part of his opening statement and about how his team has to handle success and how, essentially, they didn't handle success against Northern Illinois. To me, the biggest thing I've been reflecting on in the past 48 hours is I think we have to learn how to handle success and that, to me, is really what spoke to me, watching a film but really thinking about it. You know, this is the first time in my three years as a head coach that we have won the big game early in the season, right? Two losses to Ohio State and then all of a sudden we win and everybody says, "Hey, you're going to the playoffs. You've got an easy schedule." We all hear it and I think we started to believe that and there is a physical approach to preparing for a game and I think physically we prepare the right way, but there's also a mental approach and a mindset that you have to have every single week and I think that's where we fail and so we've got to challenge ourselves to make sure, no matter who our opponent is, that physically and mentally, our approach to the game is the same way and that, to me, is really what we have to learn from this is that we have to be able to handle success and how you do that is you don't change the way you approach in your mindset each week. No matter what people say, no matter what you hear as much as you can, you've got to try to tune out the noise, right? It's easy to listen to the good things. Nobody wants to hear the bad things people say, but nothing neither of them should matter. Your approach should be your approach, your routine should be your routine and that's the challenge we have as a football program is how do we handle success and make sure each week we're approaching the opponent the right way. I mean, Vince, it's a lot of things that he touched on there, but your approach should be your approach, your routine should be your routine, but it doesn't sound like they followed their routine. Exactly. That's the problem. So if you want to talk about the wrong mental state of mind that your team has, it starts at the top, it starts with the head coach and it doesn't sound like the head coach because you know, okay, you can practice hard on Tuesday and Wednesday, but if all of a sudden you're just doing walkthroughs on Thursday and Friday, you know, specifically on Thursday because Friday is always going to be a little bit lighter. Sure. Anyway, whatever you're going to do, but specific to Thursday, if you're not even having a real practice, it sounds like and you're doing walkthrough stuff like what message are you sending your team when you are going from Texas A&M to Northern Illinois or whoever it happens to be. Yes, I completely agree with you. That was a nice way to spin it that you need to handle success. They didn't handle anything very well last week and then obviously into Saturday and it does surprise me that he talks about having your routine and all that and then they completely changed it. Like they went harder on certain days. They didn't go really at all on other days, it's like what are you doing? What are you doing? I don't, I guess it doesn't really matter what he says, to be honest with you. It's you're going to have. No, and I mean, honestly, nothing. I'm going to have to show me. Nothing he said today was going to impress anyone, especially the fans who, I mean, you know, they're, you know, better than me because you were sitting in here late Saturday night at an early Sunday morning for over five hours doing a post game show with plenty of fired up ticked off fans. Right. Who wanted his job? I mean, you know, there were there were plenty of people who would have been plenty happy if people of Aqua would have announced that they were firing Marcus Freeman Saturday night, you know, that's that's just, you know, now, now obviously, I think that that is a drastic staff. That's a knee jerk reaction game at the same, you know, there's there's a lot of knee jerk reactions, but that also happens after upset losses when you rank fifth in the country and a Mac team comes in and hands you a loss. But I agree with what Andrew says, he was, I absolutely spinning it. I would have liked to have heard for a guy he didn't, he didn't point a finger at his team or his players, but he also did point the finger at himself. I don't think enough and just say, look, the buck stops here. This starts with me. I think that's what Marcus Freeman needed to say. Now again, it would have fallen on deaf ears for a lot of the matter anyway, because the bottom line is now you have to go out regardless of anything that he said today or any other press conference for the rest of the season, he's got to go out on Saturday and prove it because what we saw this past Saturday was just a mess. That's all it was. Talk to bottom. And again, it sounds like the mess started between the ears because no one's no one's mental state was what it needed to be Saturday afternoon. Yeah, no, it was a debacle from start to finish from the top to the bottom. I mean, nothing went the way it was supposed to go. And I would have liked to hear a little bit more personal accountability. But again, it doesn't really matter what he says. It matters what he does and what this team does. So say whatever he wants. It really, honestly, Sean does not matter to me what he says, I need to see it in action. And we won't even, like I said, we're not going to know anything until Saturday. I'll talk to you Friday. Come down to kickoff. Friday will. Oh, they're funny for us to talk about, but what I'm saying is, and I don't care what he says, because he said all the right things leading up to this game. He didn't do the things that he should have done leading up to this game. That's the point that I'm making. And the problem, obviously the bigger picture problem is, this is not year one. This is year three. Yeah. This is something that I brought up last week. And it was pretty unanimous. Everyone thought that Freeman and Notre Dame was past this kind of thing. Yes. After last week. I mean, last year. Yeah. With the teams that they played that there were this level, it blew them out. I mean, this was my biggest question coming into the season, Vince. I don't know if you're like, I know we've talked about a lot of, but this was literally my biggest question coming into the season. And again, I feel like everyone felt like this was a thing of the past. How was he going to, because you do have a schedule that was completely manageable. And this should have been a win. And I don't want to hear about, look, I realize, okay, Northern Illinois, a lot of experience, all these different things. This is still a team that was 500 going into the chameleon bowl last year. Exactly. They had to win the chameleon bowl over, I think, Arkansas state to finish seven and six. So they're a nice, they're a nice little team. You know, they do some stuff. I mean, literally, you know, they've got a couple of players, including Ontario Brown from the Southern footprint of my father, the best player on the team. Yeah. And we talked about him during the preseason. Second best running back that the, you know, Notre Dame's going to see this year. But there's, you know, 21 other starters that you needed to worry about or, you know, that aren't as good as him, that, you know, look, the name shouldn't have lost this game, period end of discussion. And they did for a lot of reasons. It's a problem. It's a big problem. So what does mental preparation look like to Marcus Freeman? How do you actually, like, how do you enact that? How do you get more mentally focused? I think about, you know, what I'm going to tell the team is the mindset you have right now. The way you want to go and attack this week should be the same way it is, no matter what happened in previous week, right, in that I'm sure not many people want to read social media this week or not many people want to turn on ESPN. It's natural to see ESPN saying, "Hey, they're talking about the Notre Dame win over Texas A&M. Let's watch it." But, like, that doesn't help you mentally get prepared for this upcoming week. And that's what I want to make sure our guys, they have the same hunger, the same approach in terms of their mental preparation for a game in respect for their opponents that no matter who we play. And so, no matter what happened in previous week. And so, that is a question only the individual can answer, right. You as an individual can answer that because I can't always get into the head of what you're thinking in what you're doing outside of this football program. But I always say your choices reflect your choices reflect what you value. And so, we have to make sure if we value the mental approach, we value the right things. Our choices are going to truly reflect that. Look, they have Vince's rolling his eye. Look, again, it starts with the head coach, but they've got mental performance coaches over there. I've met some of the mental performance coaches and they've got this new guy that Mike Barradino has been asking about it since fall camp with the visualization and all these different things. They've got all the resources to this, sorry for banging the microphone, my hand talking is going crazy today. It starts at the top, it just, that's where it starts. And I think that was the tone that was set, it seems like last week. Well, he said you are, I forget exactly what his quote was, but something about you are the choices that you make or something along those lines will, Marcus, you made the choice not to have a practice basically on Thursday. And that's not the right approach to have. That's not, that what you're telling your players is that we don't really need to practice today because the opponent isn't that big of a deal. Yes. So how can you then turn and say, well, we have to have the same mental approach every single week when that clearly wasn't the case last week? And that part bothers me because you're clearly saying something that is completely contradictory to what you did last week. That's a problem. And kids aren't stupid, they're going to see right through that. And I think Marcus Freeman is a pretty genuine guy. I don't think he's trying to be hypocritical, but to me, that's the way it's coming off. Just to answer Paul, we're going to get to the analytics thing and the analytics guy in rapid fire. So there's, there's a lot we're going to get to in this show. So that, that will come up, but we're kind of, we're, we're kind of sticking to it. But yeah, you're absolutely right, Vince. You know, again, that's, that's why I would have liked to have heard a little bit more personal accountability today because of all those things that you're talking about right there. It just, it, it, it didn't look like a team that had the right state of mind, the right mindset going into Saturday's game. They obviously didn't play that way. And ultimately that's the results that you got was a loss to an inferior team. And you know, look, I know you can say, well, okay, Brian Kelly lost to South Florida. He lost to Tulsa. And it's funny how many people I saw over the weekend, like bring up Toledo, but don't, Toledo ended with a victory, but, but a lot of people have the, have the impression that Notre Dame lost that game. And at the time it, it felt like Notre Dame lost that game, even though they did win that game because of the, you know, the obvious expectation, it was a Mac opponent. Now Notre Dame, by the way, has lost to a Mac opponent for the first time. But yeah, like big difference when you're able to play poorly, because from a talent standpoint, there's no comparison in the kind of talent that was on each roster. But when you're able to play poorly and pull it out in the end, okay, sure, you overcame that. But that's not the position that they're in right now. And again, it's like, this is year three, you know, because even, even USF and, and Tulsa were, were year one and two for Brian Kelly, and we know how year three turned out. Everyone's talked about the magic of year three at Notre Dame for coaches and all that stuff. And they may not ultimately end up because at this point, I don't want to talk about what they can still make the playoff today, you know, like, yeah, that's not a conversation for probably another two months, frankly, yeah, there's a lot that has to happen. They've got to string together. I mean, they've got to string together consecutive series where they look like a playoff team, let alone consecutive games where they look like a playoff team, because you started each drive first half, second half with touchdowns. And what happened after that, it just complete, complete and utter no shows by the offense. So I know you guys referenced these next comments on your shows over the weekend. This is Marcus Freeman talking with NBC sideline reporter Zora Stevenson before the game. He asked Marcus Freeman what he needed to see from Riley Leonard Saturday against the Huskies. You want to play with them the offense? I don't need any. We don't need anything spectacular. We do exactly what your coaches tell you to do, play within the game plan, and the rest will take care of itself. But we start trying to make plays and throw the ball down the field, then also we're playing out of character. Just do exactly what we want you to do and the rest will take care of itself. It's not out of character, Sean, but that's the problem that that's that's right inside of Riley Leonard's character is to make plays and throw the ball down the field and do all the things and and play outside the offense and all that is what you need to do. Like what he said there in pregame and thank goodness I didn't hear it live because I'd have lost my mind, but that's not who Riley Leonard is. And so if you don't want that, why did you go get him? That's my biggest thing. I want to play it one more time because I've only heard it twice over. I'm going to play it one more time, okay, play within the offense. I don't need anything. We don't need anything spectacular. Do exactly what your coaches tell you to do play within the game plan and the rest will take care of itself. But we start trying to make plays and throw the ball down the field, then also we're playing out of character. Just do exactly what we want you to do and the rest will take care of itself. We don't want you to make plays and throw the ball down the field, basically. Make plays and throw that guy. Did you watch Riley Leonard at Duke? I mean, I realized he wasn't, he wasn't deep ball thrower all the time at Duke. He saw a lot more short to intermediate type stuff from Riley. But like the playmaking stuff, he is literally a playmaker. That's why you go out and get Riley Leonard. 100%. He thought we thought that's why you did. You can't ask a guy to not be himself on a football field. You can't do it. And if you're going to do it, you're going to put a muzzle on them or whatever analogy you want to use, if they don't go back and say, look, we're not allowing Riley Leonard to be Riley Leonard, then you, yes, you need to bench him and go to somebody else because there's no point bringing him in at this point. And but here's the other thing. If you bench Riley Leonard and you don't change any of your philosophy, the next guy's going to look like garbage too. I mean, that's just a fact. So changing the quarterback is not going to, that's not the answer. That is not the answer to this whole equation. And I mean, you do. So much bigger than that. Right. You do have to look, Riley Leonard didn't forget how to throw the football from when he was at Duke, but he's being asked to do different things. And he did look uncomfortable and I heard, you know, I've heard you guys make some Ian book comparisons, like Ian book, because it was pounded into him so much. Don't turn the ball over. Don't turn the ball over. And that's essentially without saying don't turn the ball over. That's basically what Marcus Freeman, defensive minded head coach, is saying to Riley Leonard by saying that stuff. So, you know, we don't need you to be a playmaker. We don't need you to throw in the ball downfield. Well, why did you, you know, again, like, why did you bring in Riley Leonard? Why did you bring in a guy like Chris Mitchell with all this speed who's not being asked to do anything like he did at Florida International? Why did you bring in these guys if you don't want them to make plays? I mean, do you want opposing defenses just squatting on everything within seven, eight yards of the line of scrimmage? Because that's what they're doing right now. That's what they did. And Riley Leonard does not look comfortable at all, just being asked to stand in the pocket and not use his innate ability to make plays off script again, that like that's why you get Riley Leonard because of his ability to do those things. So you beat Texas A&M by letting him do some stuff, you scored a touchdown early, you know, right off the bat, your first possession of the game by letting him do some stuff. And then after that, it's no, no more of that. Let's not, let's not do any of that. Well, you know, why would we go that direction? I just, I don't get it. It makes zero sense. I don't know. I don't even know what to tell you. It makes zero sense. So it is baffling and nothing is going to change, folks, until the philosophy changes. They may win games. I mean, even with this crap philosophy, they still should have won the game on Saturday. But the point is this now highlights the fact that the philosophies crap, it just magnifies it. You know what I mean? I don't know what the offense is trying to do because again, we were told that the game plan for game one was an opponent specific game plan because of how great Texas A&M's defensive line was and all that stuff. And then it was going to look different in that essentially there would kind of be some tweaks opponent to opponent, you know, trying to, you know, trying to play away from the strengths of, you know, whatever the opponent happened to be. But, you know, again, like, they don't throw down field all game and then the one time, you know, two times they throw down field, you had an unfortunate drop by Jaden Gradehouse and then you've obviously got the inner seat on like the best ball Riley Leonard through all day. You had it drop and you can say, well, it's a drop everybody, drop whatever. Look, that's, that's probably at a minimum three points in a game that was decided by what it was decided by, you know, two points. Three points is big in that situation. Three points would have been big, obviously, at the end with the interception as well. And we'll talk about that as well in rapid fire, you know, as we kind of try to parse this stuff. But I don't know what the offense is supposed to be it. It doesn't look like what Mike Denbrock ran at LSU, the last couple of years and you and this offensive line isn't prepared or read, I shouldn't say prepared. They're not ready to be a team where the quarterback just sits in the pocket and picks people apart either. You know what I mean? Like you need to do other things and having Riley Leonard as your quarterback should benefit you in that regard, right? Moving the pocket, getting him outside, letting him be creative, you know, doing these different things and they're not doing that and you're right after the first drive where they did do that and they went down and scored, they just stopped. It's like, oh my gosh, and I used scored on us. What do we do? And the offense was punked and they couldn't figure it out. They went three and out immediately after that. So yeah, this is a, again, this is bigger than Riley Leonard. There's no doubt about it is bigger than Riley Leonard. Riley Leonard can throw the ball. I challenge you to throw in any game that he played at Duke. Yeah. He can throw the ball, folks. Don't forget how to throw the ball. He can throw the ball. So there are bigger issues here, you know? Your two best players on offense on Saturday didn't touch the ball at the end of the game. That's a problem. Correct. You didn't run in the offense. You didn't call plays to highlight what your quarterback actually does do well, right? That's a problem, right? So the problems are bigger than, oh, just bench Riley Leonard. That's a lazy take. That's lazy. Right. No, you're right, DK. I think I said that. Yeah. The great house was perfect. It was like I said, it was probably the best throw that right, especially like from a deep standpoint, it's probably the best deep throw that he's made all season. It was a dime. Yeah. It was right there. Unfortunately, great house didn't hold onto it. But you know what, Sean, that happens, like guys are going to make mistakes. You know what I mean? I'm not saying everybody's got to be perfect, but I'm just like in a game that's, you know, again, like if how much did it come down to something as simple as mature focus? No, no doubt about it. And they should have had other opportunities to make plays that shouldn't have come down to like that one play. You know what I mean? There were plenty of other opportunities to make plays in that game and they just weren't made period. And that was obviously the one of the ones that was highlighted because it was so wide open. Yeah. You know, the defense couldn't stop the run either and you're like, like, like, absolutely. That's, you can't give up 190 rushing yards to Northern Illinois. You just can't because I know I've heard a lot of people saying, well, the defense played good enough. They only gave up 16 points. Well, yeah, from a point standpoint, but the way that Northern, like Northern Illinois made the plays when they needed to make them and they largely did it by running the football. And like it was amazing how many times that Brown would take the ball and you're thinking, okay, this is a one or two yard game and the next game. And the next thing, you know, he's six, seven yards downfield, like he averaged five yards per carry. He just kept moving, he just kept moving through guys and Notre Dame defenders not bringing him down. They got, they got pushed around at the point of contact up at the line of scrimmage and obviously the linebackers now there were some, they were, you know, they're, again, like it's not a, I don't want to make a blanket statement. There was good and bad, you know, there were, there were guys like Jayden, Osbury, Josh Burnham. I felt like they both played really good games, but there was just a lot of inconsistency across the board from a defensive standpoint, again, specifically against that running game. And look, the front seven did not play well overall, overall, the front seven didn't play well. It's not just the linebackers. It's not just the defensive line. Defensive line was getting blown off the ball, right? It was, it was bad. And the Brown kid obviously had a very, very good game. He didn't play the entire fourth quarter. And I will remind everybody once again, Notre Dame had the lead when Northern Illinois got the ball with six minutes to go in the game. And they drained the clock, five and a half minutes by running the football and then kicking a field goal. So right, you had an opportunity as bad as everybody played on Saturday. This elite defense had an opportunity to win the game for Notre Dame and they couldn't do it because they kept getting blown off the ball, blown off the ball, blown off the ball. And it is crazy to me that they put together a double digit drive of play, double digit play drive and only picked up 31 yards. Right. They use almost five and a half minutes and 11 plays to go 31 yards. Now some of that had to do, but Notre Dame did accept the penalty. So you know, you've got some more time running off the clock there and that kind of stuff. But like it was, it's literally a textbook on how you win the game, like, because then they were facing third and whatever they wanted. And we all, we all agreed that accepting that penalty was the right thing to do because now you put them in third and long. It's like, was it third and 12? Right. Like your defense can't make two plays in that situation with the game on the line. Yep. Exactly. So don't tell me the defense isn't culpable. Yeah. Any of this. Everybody's like, oh, they did their job. They only gave up 16 points. They didn't do their job. Like, yeah, take away. I'm sorry. They did not do their job. They did not do their job. Period. Yeah. I agree, Anthony. I was burying Burnham. I think they did. And then I freaked out when Burnham got hurt. Like, oh, great. I know. One of the only guys is playing well. Josh says third and 11. Thank you, Josh. Fair enough. But third and 12. Either way, it's third and long. And they gave it up. They started. Like. So, yes, plenty of blame to go around. No side of the ball played well, offense, defense, or special teams for that matter. Nobody played well, period. Correct. Man, I'm looking back, like, through this play-by-play sheet and it, like, goes on forever, on that last drive. That last drive. Play after play after play. Yeah. So, in any case, let's get into the Riley Leonard stuff. Oh, here we go. A little bit. So, Steve Angeli was throwing on the sideline in the second half. And there was that shot that Riley Leonard took at some point and there was a lot of speculation was Leonard. Her was Angeli ever going to go in the game. And that question came up, you know, what did Riley Leonard get hurt? And was there ever consideration to putting Angeli in the game in place of him? No, there was no consideration of that. We had a lot of belief in Riley and him running our offense and, you know, we got a lot of belief in Steve too. That's not a shot at Steve. We got a lot of faith in Steve too, but no, there was no consideration of that. You know, again, the quarterback is just like the head coach, right? He is going to, and rightfully so, he is going to get the blame and he's going to get the praise. There are times that he has to throw the ball better. He knows that. And his fundamentals have to be better. His decision-making has to be better. But we also have to be better around him. And that's coaches, right? And what we're asking him to do and what we're asking him to read. And that's players wise too, like we got to catch the ball when he throws a, we got to be better on contested balls, right? They made some contested catches, right? And we didn't when we needed to make as many contested catches as we're supposed to. And so it's, the fingers at everybody, we're pointing finger at everybody and starts with the coaches. It's always us. And we got to make sure we have a plan that our players can execute. Like you can love your plan, but you better love what your players can execute. And I got a lot of faith and belief that we'll make sure we do that. All right. Still faith and belief didn't answer the question as to whether Riley Leonard got hurt at all. Well, that was part of the question. That was part of the question. Right. That was asked. Here's the deal. Would Angeli have made a difference? Like what do you think? No. Absolutely not. Look, if, let's, let's, let's, let's say that that Riley Leonard was hurt either met, you know, concussion or what, like let's say he was hurt. They had not one point did they think about putting in Steve and jelly. That should tell you exactly what this coaching staff thinks of Steven jelly. That's, that's, that's what I took out of what he just said. Because it's, it was pretty clear that I think to everybody that, right, he wasn't a hundred percent. Whatever that means. I don't think he was a hundred percent, even Riley, even Riley Leonard at not a hundred percent. They're like, yeah, we're not putting in Steve and jelly. That's, that's not going to happen. So if anybody thought that he was going to change quarterbacks for Steve and jelly this week, then you are a very misguided person. Look, you would have put in a less mobile quarterback and also a quarterback from a passing standpoint. He was not going to make any throws that Riley Leonard wasn't making. Like the offense was not going to get more downfield with Steve and jelly. Have you watched Steve and jelly in any live action going back to whether it was the the Jersey scrimmage in the spring or the blue, gold game in the spring or any other live stuff that we've got it like the, we talked about this early in camper like mid way through camp when they had the scrimmage at Notre Dame stadium and they showed the live plays. The one play that they had of Steve and jelly was a check down pass. Right. That's the best thing they could come up with. That was the highlight they came up with for Steve and jelly was a check down pass. And that's all you were going to get. Just you weren't going to go going to get any more than that from Steve and jelly in that game. Yep. Look, as much as people want, you know, the second string quarterback is most popular guy on the roster and all this other stuff. Steve and jelly is not the answer, folks, period end of discussion and you can bring up the bowl game all you want. Steve and jelly is not the answer. They would not have gone any better. They probably would have gone worse if that's possible. So sorry. That's just how I feel. This is like the 80s guys says they don't call any pass plays down fields and how much confidence do they absolutely call pass plays down field. Again, there were guys running great house pass. There were other guys there were guys down field. It's just that Riley Leonard, like he was like watching some of those plays, he had some pretty good pockets. It's not like he was just for last and Harry'd all day. Like, I guess I should actually play this next sound bite because it kind of leads into what I was just going to say next just about the pocket feel that Riley Leonard has. Again, you are asking, you know, it's a little bit like the best quarterback analogy I could think of like Barry Switzer once recruited Troy, Troy Aikman to go to Oklahoma and Aikman somehow goes there knowing that Barry is going to run the wishbone, right? And so after a year there, Troy is like, well, I'm going to UCLA where I can actually go be a quarterback in this system that I fit in, you know, and like it's a little bit of the same thing, but kind of in reverse. We know the system that Riley Leonard came from. We know the kind of plays that he can make both as a runner and as a thrower. But now it definitely feels like, and again, when you look at and listen to the comments that Marcus Freeman made before the game, like they want him to just stand in the pocket and be a pocket passer more, it seems like, and it doesn't look like he is comfortable being that guy right now. Agreed. 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. Hey, Irish breakdown listeners. It's Matt liner. I've got a podcast called throwbacks with actor J for R will be talking all things sports, but also so much more. We'll give you the behind the scenes stories from my days as the quarterback on an iconic college football team to Jerry's days as a star on an iconic TV series. So subscribe to throwbacks on YouTube, Apple podcast, Spotify or wherever you get podcasts. An interesting comment that Freeman made kind of again in regards to some of this. He was asked about going hard at practice last week and, you know, going physical on Tuesday and Wednesday that we talked about last week and if maybe they were too physical and so he responded to that, he answered that and like the actual answer to that, I'm not going to play. He basically just said it wasn't a problem in his many words, but then in the middle of answering that, he transitioned into this regarding the quarterback. The other thing is sometimes quarterbacks being in a red jersey gets them a little bit of false sense of security and we got to continue to work on our footwork at the quarterback position, step up in the pocket and believe that you have more time than maybe you perceive with an edge rush and that's where the red jersey sometimes creates with a little bit of bad habit. All those different things are areas in practice that I believe we have to get corrected that you're every week going to have some failures in practice. That's what practice is for, but we're not going to pull back from a physicality because I don't believe that the performers on Saturday had anything to do with the physicality of practice. So again, he kind of finished up with the physicality of practice, but interesting about the red jersey and the quarterbacks being in the red jersey, so it gives you that false sense of security. What do you think of that? I mean to a degree, but Ryan Leonard had 20 plus starts under his belt. So I don't really buy it. That's what I don't get. I don't buy that. I'm sorry. I don't buy that. I'm sorry. All of a sudden because Ryan Leonard didn't play in the spring and he's had a little bit of an injury like all the sudden that's an issue now. There's one player on this team that that would be a decent excuse for, James Rendell, because he's never played the game of football before these last two games. Right. And it looks like it. So like, yeah, I mean, you know what I mean? You know what I mean? Yeah, exactly. Like it was a bigger issue this week than even it was against Texas A&M because there's like when you're back there, it's one thing to be booting the ball away at Broke in Australia. Right. Nobody around. Yeah. That's right. So live Russia's coming at you and you really have no feel for how quickly they're going to get correct or any of that. So he's the only one on the roster that I would take that excuse for. Every single other person on that roster has played the game of football before live on a Friday night or a Saturday afternoon and I'm sorry. That's not a false sense of security. That is ridiculous. I don't like that at all. Yeah. You know, again, once you get to college, you're in the Red Jersey all the time. Right. This is nothing new. He's been in a Red Jersey ever since he got to college. You know, and all the other guys are as well that hasn't been an issue. Like that specific thing hasn't been an issue for other quarterbacks. So I just have a hard time like how that would all of a sudden be this major issue for Riley Leonard. That's the thing that's holding him back. If anything, like I just, you know, again, like opening drive of the game. Okay. He got hit a couple of times. Maybe he was shaking up a little bit. He just looks like you want like like a little bit of a different version of fielder Kovac in that blue, gold game when he was asked to stand in the pocket all the time and was not allowed to run. And remember how ticked off he was afterwards about the, you know, like they won't let me play my game. It's a little bit of the, you know, absolutely. It's the thing basically, but they're asking Riley Leonard to do it in a real game. Here's all the things that we saw from Riley Leonard in 26 games at Duke that made him a successful quarterback, but we're not going to let him do it 90% of the time now when he was at Notre Dame. That's ridiculous. If I honestly, if I were right of Leonard, first, the first thing you do is you look in the mirror and you, you know, admit that you had a poor game because he did. He had a very, very, very, very poor game, played like crap, right? But they did nothing to help him, in my opinion, to get him going, you know, some quarterback powers and some things like that, that's, that's coaching malpractice, in my opinion. You can't do that. And again, if you're not going to do that kind of a thing, then, then you should bench him and you should play somebody different, right? But I don't even understand why they went and got him in the first place if this is the offense that they wanted him to play in. Right. And you know, look, that 80s guy, he says, I'm not trying to be a jerk, just don't believe in Riley Leonard as much as everyone else, I guess, look, he hasn't given you that many reasons to believe it in another game uniform with the exception of the fact that when the game was on the line at Texas A&M just a week earlier against a better opponent, an opponent that blew out its opponent over the weekend, by the way. And you can say, well, it was, I believe it was McNeese State or whatever it was, you know, and they blew the doors off him and Connor Wigman, by the way, was the highest rated quarterback in the country in that game. And again, you can doubt, you can talk about how bad the opponent was, but you can't tell me that Texas A&M wasn't supposed to beat that team anymore than Notre Dame was supposed to beat Northern Illinois, you know, like, that's what everyone thought of Northern Illinois coming into this game, whether they've got all the experience back or not. But my point is Riley Leonard, let a game winning touchdown drive, sure did, and he did it. How? By putting the game on his shoulders, letting him start off with a run. He made another big run. And then you got his juices flowing, you got him into the big gases and he made a couple of clutch throws. You can't throw, or a guy who can't throw, I'd say those two throws are pretty decent. He made, he made two big throws when he needed him. Ask Texas A&M if they'd like Connor Wigman to have been able to make that kind of throw when they needed him to in that same game against Notre Dame. Leonard was making throws in that game. The throw to Jaden Greathouse, boom, right where it needed to be. Clutch first down, the throw, you know, obviously it was a contested throw to Bo Collins, but he let, he threw it, he let Collins go up and make a catch, but he put it where he needed it to be. And Andrew makes the point for me right here. They did it on the first drive, never ran it again with him after the second quarter. Bingo, that's the problem in my, that is the biggest problem here is they did not let him be himself. Right. You don't have to like Riley Leonard. You can think that he's garbage because so far he has not been good in a Notre Dame uniform. I get it, but we have video evidence from his time at Duke with lesser players around him, he can play. He hasn't done it at Notre Dame. No one is debating that except on that last drive last week, but he hasn't done it. I get it. People are pissed off. Okay. The answer is not benching him because you're benching him for somebody. If they go with the, what the depth chart says, you're benching him for somebody with a heck of a lot less talent. Yeah. I'm not going to give you a sense. So according to you guys, Leonard's the only quarterback who can make a throw on the team and only sometimes. And that's not what I said at all. Again, one, it's not, look, again, like that's what it looks like right now because he's being asked to, to play a system that he was not asked to play, but look, go look at, go look at it. Two and a half years of highlight reels from Duke and tell me that Riley Leonard can't make a throw. There's, there's, there's, there's proof in real games that Riley Leonard can make throws. Like there's proof in one game against an inferior opponent Oregon State that Steve Angeli could, you know, again, if, if Notre Dame is, is not stretching the field vertically, how is Angeli going to make those going to make the offense any better than Riley Leonard was going to make it less mobile quarterback and all he wants to do is throw short. They're not going to stretch the field anymore with Angeli than Leonard was. Nope. And I'm not just like blanket defending Riley Leonard. I'm just, he just, he, he looks to me like he's completely uncomfortable. Yes. Agreed. Because it's not, it's not his strengths. They're not playing to his strengths. And we've talked about it before, like, and I know Marcus Freeman and some of these other coaches have talked about it before play to the strengths of the guys that you have in your team. And it just doesn't look to me like that's what they're doing. Right. It's, it's game two. Do you really want to be, do you really want to be playing quarterback roulette now in game two of the season when you do have all this, the, the stakes that you have in this season with all the expectations that were on this season? Is that the game that you want to start playing? We'll just yank him and go to somebody else in game two. How did that work out for Deshawn Kaiser and Malik Zaire in, in 2016 when you just decided you were just going to start going back and forth between quarterbacks all the time? How did that work out? How did the season work out for Notre Dame? It didn't work out too well. Right. Now I'm not saying that you have to ride Riley Leonard Hill or high water, but he does need to start making more plays, but you also have to instill the confidence back in him that you're going to let him make plays because again, he has shown that he can make plays both with his arms and in his legs and win football games against quality opponents with both as well. That's my point. Yep. You want to talk about the receivers? We certainly can. If this is your show, baby, this, you're the pilot. That's just my show. I mean, I'm here to just whatever you throw at me, baby. I got you. Okay. All right, because the, you know, the receivers are a bit of a question, I guess, as well. Like, like have they shown in practice that they have the ability to make contested catches? Yeah. They're battling. I mean, you can see it in one on ones. You can see it. We go good on good. Um, you know, it's, it's always about, all right? If we're making too many contested catches on offense and you're saying defense, what are we doing? Defense, you know, and if we, if we're, if we're winning every single ball, we're going to look at the offense. It's been a great 50 50 battle. Um, but at the end of the day, we got to do it on Saturdays too. What do you think? What's your confidence? I mean, I don't think this is a wide receiver issue, honestly, I think there were a lot of times that wide receivers were open and the throws were either missed or not thrown. So, you know, I don't, I'm not ready to start throwing wide receivers under the bus just yet. Uh, I need, I needed more before I'm ready to do that, um, but, you know, everybody can play better. I mean, that, that's the biggest thing. They can all play better, but I saw plenty of wide receivers being open and I saw wide receivers standing there wide open and the ball went like way over here or way over here. You know what I mean? So it's not the plays, Gino, sorry, not the plays. It's the execution of the plays. Oh, so, so we're back to execute. So yeah, you're, I'm in favor of it. So now you're in favor of executing everybody. Okay. I look, again, I'm not saying the wide receivers, they were coming off the ball a little bit slower and not really as aggressive as I would have liked, but they were open enough. I mean, on that I've seen the replay of the long interception on second and one, you know, at the end of the game, enough times to know that there were three wide open guys that he could have checked down to and gotten the first down, not even checked down, but a guy wide open right over the middle of the field, what about a 15 20 yard, you know, play and he decides to take that shot. You know what I mean? So it's a bit decision making, which is execution, right? And, and executing that throw. Here's the other thing, if he executes the throw to the decision that he made at the very least, it's an incompletion, not an interception, and you're back at third and one. You run the ball. You get a first down. So, well, you know, let's save that because I've got it coming up and we're going to dig deeper into that conversation here in a minute, one, that decision and there, there are people talking about run the football. Where did the running game go and we'll get to that here in just a minute. Tyler, thank you for the super chat. He says feels like two steps forward and two steps back. I mean, that's the dance that they're in, one step forward, one step, two step, yeah. I guess if it's two and two, you're at least in neutral, but if it's one, yeah, I don't feel like they're in neutral right now. I think they're, they're behind the eight balls, so to speak. I can't completely disagree with that either. [Music] [Music] A King Super's Pharmacy Care is making it easy to get vaccinated. Care is helping you stay protected from flu, COVID, and RSV. Seasonal vaccines are available seven days a week with evening hours. Care is giving you a shot at staying healthy this season. Walk in whenever is best and get multiple vaccines in one visit at your local King Super's Pharmacy, so come and get the protection you need while protecting those around you. King Super's a world of care is in store. Visit kingsoopers.com/vaccines for more restrictions and exclusions apply seaside for details.
Irish Breakdown has comments from Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman about his team's stunning loss to Northern Illinois. We react to Freeman's comments on his team's mental preparation, quarterback Riley Leonard, wide receivers and more. We also hear and discuss his comments on NBC about what he wanted from Leonard against NIU.
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/irish-breakdown/id1485286986
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
