George Clooney and Brad Pitt's new movie, Wolfs, is on Apple TV Plus, September 27th. That's where I want you to be now. So if you want to see George Clooney and Brad Pitt, go to Apple TV Plus. You got to start the story there? Or if you want to see Brad Pitt and George Clooney, go to Apple TV Plus. I am enjoying the show. And if you want to see their new movie, Wolfs. You can't do it, win help yet. I can do it. Do it. Definitely go to Apple TV Plus. The minute is cool. Okay, fine, it's very cool. Wolfs, streaming September 27th on Apple TV Plus. We are. At King Super's Pharmacy, care is making it easy to get vaccinated. Care is helping you stay protected from flu, COVID, and RSV. Seasonal vaccines are available seven days a week with evening hours. Care is giving you a shot at staying healthy this season. 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 kingsuper's.com/vaccines for more. Restrictions and exclusions apply seasight for details. Let's hit the defensive keys to victory for Miami. And the first defensive key, Brian, shut down the run game. There aren't as many keys for the Notre Dame defense, which is more about just what you do. The unit has to simplify how it is focused and playing hard when it does. That is the group is outstanding, but there are some things that we need to see from this group and it starts with shutting down the Miami run game. Miami has struggled mightily with its ground game, rushing for just 64 yards in its first two games combined. This is what makes this matchup very different than the Northern Illinois game. But Notre Dame can't just take their run game struggles for granted. They need to keep that going and completely shut down the Miami run game. I doubt the Red Hawks abandon the run game initially. As the coaches likely know, they need to have some semblance of balance. If they're in the game, I got that right. They definitely came out and tried to be balanced. Yes, they did. I mean, yes, they did. So I'll just, I'm going to break it down further later, Vince. But in this particular instance, I give it a minus. I do too. Even though the numbers, I mean, look, 28 carries for 110 yards, 3.9 yards per carry. Okay, that's great. The problem is you had 30 yards lost on sacks. If you look at what the running backs did, the running backs had, I think it was 119 yards on it was 119 yards on 22 carries. This is what the running backs did, which I think is about 3.3 yards per carry. For a group of running backs that 3 of the guys were sub 2 yards per carry coming into the game. I don't care the reasons why you were willing to give them some runs. And I'll break that down later. The fact is, is you didn't execute well enough in the run game, even with the game playing understandably being what it was. For another week in a row, we watched the defensive tackles get pushed off the football. And it's just by, by a, you know, like I was talking to some in the press box and they're like, you know, this guy's a fifth year. And I'm like, I don't, they're not good. I know they're veterans. I know they're big. They're just not good. And they're inside guys, especially. We're just not good. And I will say that I thought Howard Cross played better than he has so far this season, but not nearly good enough. Yeah. And they were smart every now and again. Yeah. Wait, Riley, Riley Mills was like okay in the game. But I expect the guy like Riley Mills to not just be okay against my people. And, and, you know, Jason Onyay didn't play as well this week as he did last week. He wasn't bad. And then there were some other issues where you did have a couple of young guys in the game that would stun around and not finish off the stunt, which allowed them to, you know, to, to get, bounce it and hit the hole. So there were some youthful mistakes in the game as well. But overall, like overall, give them a minus. You allowed a team that ran for 64 yards in their first two games to run for a restaurant 110 yards. It's not good enough. Yeah, it's not good. No, completely. I'm with you on that one. It's not just about the numbers. I want to be very clear on that. It's about the expectations for this defense in this game, right? I mean, you look at it from a bird's eye view. You're like, okay, you know, you held them to three, whatever, three point, whatever yards of rush, you know, you did all this. You did all that. Okay, cool. That's great for a lot of defenses. But is that what we're doing? Are we setting the bar here or are we setting the bar here? I think the bar needs to be here. And that's why it's a minus. And I know I'm not even in the chat right now, but my guess is people are like, what are you talking about? No, I mean, don't assume that that's doing things. Just stay on like that. There's plenty of reasons to legitimately be upset about that part of our show. We don't need to make things right. So we say about the team, right? There's plenty of reasons to be upset about. I had, I had somebody, I'm trying to think of what it was, but I had somebody said something about Riley Leonard and I'm like, okay, there's plenty of things you'd be critical for. You're literally just making that up. Like that didn't happen. You know what I mean? It's like, you don't need to make stuff up to be critical of Riley Leonard. There's things there that you can go after, you know what I mean? As long as you're willing to also look at the things that he did do. So sure. Yeah, but no, I mean, there were some people on the board that said that. But and to a degree, I kind of understand what they're saying. Like, look, if you just look at the stats, 110 yards on 28 carries is not a great game. But by allowing them to kind of lean on you at times, you allowed them to put a couple drives together that that milked some clock. Sure. And gave your offense less chances to kind of, you know, get the ball back. And so that was sort of my thing is is, you know, they put back to back four down drives together in that game. One was eight yard, eight play. They only went 27 yards, but but they took, they ran eight place. It took almost five minutes off the clock in the, in the first half Vince. And then they had another drive in the first quarter that ended up in the second quarter. But they went 10, 10 plays 59 yards and took four minutes off the clock. That's, that's almost nine minutes of game time in the first half on two drives because you were, you were making mistakes at a run game and letting them get the ball in the, you know, kind of going a little bit in a run game. And so those are the things I look at and say, hey, those things have to get better and should be better, but they weren't bad. They just weren't dominant. And that's, that's why they might might, they needed to dominate the run game. Right. They didn't dominate the run game. Did they play bad against the run? No, they didn't. They were solid against the run 110 yards on, on, you know, but, but again, your four running backs combined for 119 yards on 22 carries average over five yards carry that guys, that's not good. It's not bad, but it's not good. It's not good. Yeah. Prize picks is America's number one daily fantasy sports app with over five million active members. Prize picks is the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports. 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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's 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 Ewers 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 thousand dollars. Download the prize picks app today and use code IRISH for a first deposit match up to a hundred dollars. That's code IRISH on prize picks for a deposit match up to a hundred dollars. Prize picks run your game. You've had Wendy's nugs dipped in sauce, but have you had them covered in sauce? 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If the defense can put pressure on him with some consistency, he'll have a tough time making plays. I would say this is check to a check plus, frankly. I give it a plus. Here's the deal. Okay, good. As frustrated as I was by that part of the game, this part was dominant. Yes. I mean, this part was dominant and here's the numbers. Brett Gabbert, who we mentioned has over over 6,000 career yards, over 60 career touchdowns. I'm sorry, over 8,000 career yards and over 60 career touchdowns went 14 of 35 for 119 yards, got sacked four times, had to scramble other times, which at the end of the day, they didn't do a good job on containing those. But if Brett, if Brett Gabbert scrambling and not throwing a ball to Cole Mcdonald or Reggie Virgil, that's a win, you know, and, you know, it was his completion percentage was 40, 40%. So I'll give you guys some context of this performance for Brett Gabbert. Okay. So the last time, actually, the last time that Brett Gabbert had a completion percentage that low was back when he was a true freshman in 2019 against Ohio State. That is the same year that it was also the last time he threw for the slow yards was all, guys, Ian Book still had a full season of eligibility left after the season in which the last time Brett Gabbert had a completion percentage as low as he had on Saturday, or few as through for a few yards as he did on Saturday in a game where he actually started and, and played the whole game. But that's dominant. And again, he does have weapons. And I talked about Cole Mcdonald, made a he beat Xavier Watts early in the game to set up that first potential touchdown drive on after the muff punt. You know, does a nice job beating him. They held him to four catches for 52 yards. He had a really long game early. Reggie Virgil had one catch for 12 yards. So the two really good receivers that we were concerned about. And we talked about how how good Cole McDonald was coming into the game. He's a guy that had over had eight catches in each of the first two games, Vince, and had over 1000 or had over 100 yards in each game. You know, that kid came into the game with in just two games with 16 catches and 240 yards. And their name held him to four catches for 52 yards. And he didn't get in the end zone. And so, and he also was one of the best punt returns in the country last year. And he got one return for 10 yards. That's it. So you neutralized him in this game. One of the few kids that had a chance to beat you, he was one of the guys I talked about as a potential game wrecker. They shut him down. And part of the reason they shut him down was good cupboards. But the other part of the reason they shut him down is they never let blank Brett Gabbard get comfortable. He could not get comfortable that entire game. And there weren't like a whole lot of balls were like, boy, if he makes that throw, that might have been there's a couple, but he often he couldn't often get it because they just they were on him all game long. So this is this is a plus for me. Because again, when you have a sixth year senior quarterback with 8,000 plus career yards, he goes 14 of 35 for 119 yards and two picks. You had yourself a day. You absolutely had yourself a day. And some of the stuff is, you know, Brett made some nice throws, but like the read to Christian Gray, the first pass breakup that Christian Gray had. I mean, dude, that was the proper read. Teams aren't supposed to be able to drive on that route in that situation. But most teams don't have guys like Benjamin Morrison and Christian Gray. And so he drives on that route. And so it was a really good game point. And here's some else Vince. Did you notice something from the Notre Dame defense that we haven't seen that I've never I don't remember ever seen from from them until this game cover two. We saw a lot of cover two in this game. And so there was a there was a play where I thought like, man, Benjamin's like, he's got beat by that guy. And if it's not for a Don Shuler, like coming over and breaking up that pass, Benjamin might have got beat. And then I look because I don't cover two is not even in my my thought process with this. Oh, yeah, because they don't run it. You know, and then I saw the film, like I, you know, because like we watch it live. And then I look at the TV. And then they run the TV play. And you're like, dude, they were playing cover two. And so Benjamin actually rode the guy outside and he's playing trail position. And you play trail position because you got help over top. And then you're there to break if they run any out breaking route, you're there to kind of take those. So he actually played it well. But in my head, I'm as I'm watching it live, because I I wasn't looking at that side of the field at first, I was looking at the other side and looking at the line and backers. I'm like, man, I think Benjamin might have got beat a little bit on that play. And well, and behold, they're playing cover two. And there were just some things they did coverage wise that I thought confused Brett Gabbard. And he wasn't quite sure where to go with the football. And and so I thought in that regard, Vince, I thought they absolutely shut them down, absolutely shut them down. So big time plus on this one. Yeah, yeah, this is, this is a scary secondary for anybody to go up against. And you know, you can go across the board, right? Because Christian Gray is now becoming a very obvious weapon for Notre Dame and a guy that I mean, he's already alive. He's a star like, we should have five interceptions right now. Yeah, exactly. He should be leading the nation interceptions. There's no doubt about it. But going into the season, you know, as you're looking at Notre Dame's defense, right? You circled Benjamin Morrison, you circled Xavier Watts, you're like, okay, we'll kind of attack this other side of the field or these other guys. And all of a sudden now, okay, well, Christian Gray just makes plays that's just what he does. And so now, okay, we got to circle him now. And then there's a Don Schuller who he might be out of position every now and again, but he comes down like a heat-seeking missile and and covers pretty well, too. So it's like, okay, where's the weak spot in this secondary? I'm not sure there is one right now. So teams are going to struggle against this secondary against this defense, which then I want to go down rabbit hole, but then allows the offense to do what the offense does and incrementally get better and we can go down that road later. But the defense is what it is. And I'm going to have some top in our game on Saturday, but so far this season. I mean, this is the second time this they've only played four games. And in half the games they've played so far, they've held their opponent to 3.3 yards per pass attempt. That's ridiculous. Yeah, that's ridiculous. And that's from an SEC team and a team that won 11 games last year. You know, they're not that team right now, but still boy, that is that is really impressive. That's 10 feet. You know, I mean, like, that's what they're allowing. They're only 10 feet. So pretty impressive, pretty impressive. 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 Jay Farrar. We'll 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. Final point for the defense, then the keys to victory was limit big plays. The fears that if Gabbard gets into rhythm and gets clean pockets, he'll be able to get the ball to his talented pass catchers. Miami has three receivers capable of ripping off big plays and this is especially true of slot receiver Kate McDonald. The 5'11, 200 pound wide out is one of the nation's best point returners. He's a weapon after the catch and he has the speed to beat teams down the field. McDonald caught eight passes for 105 yards against Northwestern and again eight passes for 135 yards in the loss of Cincinnati. He's a pain and Notre Dame can't let him take over this matchup against Jordan Clark. I mean, Vince, I call this a huge, a huge check. I mean, this is a, this is a plus for me actually. You know, you look at, you know, you look at Cincinnati, you know, Cincinnati is three and one right now. They beat, they lost a pit in the game, they blew a 24 to three lead. Then they beat Miami of Ohio by 11 and then this past week and they beat Houston 34 to nothing. And in that game against my, where Miami played Cincinnati, Cincinnati won by 11. So again, this is a power five team that is now three and one with two wins over other power five teams, or excuse me, a win over power five team and a one point loss to a power five team. They, Miami had catches of 50. They had a 58 yard touchdown reception, a 51 yard reception by another player, a 37 yard reception by another player and a 35 yard reception by another player. Their longest, they had two plays on Saturday of over 20 yards. That's it. Kate McDonald had a 21 yard game and they had a 20 yard run. That's it. So, you know, we said the only chance Miami has is to rip off some big plays in this game. And the only, and the, and here's thing that the longest play he had was on their second, it's kind of at the extension of their first drive. It was after the muff punt. The second down play, he beat Xavier Watts on a 21 yard game. You go from first and 10 on your 26 to first and goal at the five. Next play, you break it up, get a pick down in the red zone. The next time they were down in the red zone is still nothing, nothing game. They get first and goal at the seven yard line and they throw two fade routes. I believe let me find it here. They throw two fade routes in the red zone to Reggie Virgil against Benjamin Morrison. And Morrison locked them down both times. First down and third down, they threw fade balls to their six foot four receiver that I just talked about in that thing. And he blocked them down both times. Benjamin locked them down both times. And, and so huge check, or I mean, plus for me, I mean, those two kids combined for five catches in 64 yards in this game. That's, that's, that's half of what Kate McDonald had against Cincinnati by himself. You know what I mean? So yeah, that's a, that's a huge plus, in my opinion, huge plus. So yeah, they didn't play one the run game. And I'll talk more about that in this next segment. But when it comes to do what you do best, Notre Dame absolutely did what they did best in this game. Because I said before the game, these receivers are not bums, man. These are good football players. Kate McDonald's a good football player, you know, and Notre Dame shut them down. I'll take that. I'll take that. So yeah, it's a plus definitely, definitely a plus. So not even a check, Vince. I think it's a plus. Oh yeah, completely agree. Two plays of over 20 or 20 and a 21 yard gain for against a team who the week before against another power five team had three, had four plays of 35 yards or more, including two of over 50 in the past game. And you gave up one play. Matter of fact, their longest gain outside of that, I think was 13 yards in the past game. It's pretty good. It's pretty good. Agreed. Those are our defensive keys revisited for the Miami, Ohio game. Please make sure you hit that like button, the subscribe button, the notification bell, share with your family and friends. And of course, jump on the boards, boards on average breakdown.com. Because there will be some pretty good breakdowns this week. As Brian had mentioned before, every throw of Riley Leonard will be on there at some point tomorrow. Probably later in the day, but they will all be there. And that's going to be for board members only. I mean, being honest, right? That's a lot of work. It's a lot of work, man. Yeah, it's not something that just happens, right? It's not like poof. There it is. So, so but again, those are, that's only for board members. So you got to be on the boards, boards at Irishbreakdown.com. If you want to get that kind of analysis, but you can only get here at Irish Breakdown. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]
