Bryan dives into a first glance look of the Miami (Ohio) Redhawks, and what the Irish need to show this weekend.
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That's indeed.com/bluewire. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. 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. All right, so finally, let's talk about Miami of Ohio. I'm just joking. It's Miami, Ohio. I just said that because there was some guy that went to Miami that put something out on Twitter the other day where he got a little salty about how people say that school. It's Miami, Ohio, Miami University, the Red Hawks. Coached by Chuck Martin, former Notre Dame assistant. One of my favorite people in coaching, by the way. I absolutely love Chuck Martin. He's such a funny dude. He's a very honest guy, good football coach. Chuck Martin won two national championships as the head coach at Grand Valley State. And also, I believe was the defensive coordinator for both of Brian Kelly's national championship teams, which is why coach Martin got the head coaching job at Grand Valley after Brian Kelly left. So he went 74 and seven during his 10 year at grand, six year 10 year at Grand Valley State, won two national championships, made it to the semifinals another year, made it to the national championship game in another year. And then two years and they made it to the quarter finals. His last season at Grand Valley State, they went 13 and two. Their losses were to Hillsdale and to Northwest Missouri State in the national title game by seven. And got the rematch win over Hillsdale, by the way, in the College of Wall playoff that season. So that was obviously good. But when I look at this Miami, Ohio team, you look at what Chuck Martin's tenure there. He is now going into boy, his first year is four. So I think this is year 11 or 12. So three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. This is his 11th year at Miami, Ohio. They are a hundred and he is 56 and 64 during his tenure at Miami, Ohio. They do have a winning record in the league. They're 44 and 31. Miami, Ohio was given to a bowl game in four of the last five years. The only year they didn't go to a bowl game was 2020 because they only played three games because the Mac didn't really have much of a football season that year. So in the four last four years, they have had a full season. Miami, Ohio has been in a bowl game the year before in 2018. They did not make a bowl game, but they still went six and six. Coach Martin has led them to five bowl appearances in his 11 years. He took over a Miami, Ohio team that was struggling. They went 0 and 12 the year before he took over. Took him a little bit of time to get things rolling. If you remember, they had a previous Notre Dame coach, previous Notre Dame assistant coach there. Two coaches before Coach Martin, if you remember Michael Haywood was their coach. He was the last guy to lead them to a bowl game. And then Don Treadway took over and did not do well. 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. 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 ten dollars into a thousand dollars. I'm a Bears fan, so this one gets me really excited. 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For a whole new way to nug it's got to be Wendy's at participating U.S. Wendy's. So coach Martin has this team rolling to as much as Miami can roll right now. They're coming off of an 11 and 3 season last year. Made it to a cure bowl lost a cure bowl but they in a competitive game they lost to Miami Florida in the opener lost by four points of Toledo and then lost by four points in the bowl game to App State. They got payback against Toledo in the Mac championship game beat them lost 17 to 20 21 17 in the regular season at home. Got Toledo in a rematch in Detroit and beat them 23 to 14. They also beat Cincinnati on the road last season as part of their 11 one year. Cincinnati kind of got a little payback this year by beating them on Saturday 27 to 16. They also lost their opener against Northwestern 13 to 6. So they have been competitive in the two games that they've lost but they obviously have not played very well offensively in those two games. I think their defense is scrapped. Their defense is battled. It's they got talent linebacker. They got a very good defensive end. Their secondary is just kind of okay in my opinion but their front seven has a chance to be a pretty decent pretty decent squad when you look at what the Red Hawks have done so far. There's nothing there's nothing about them schematically that it's not like Northern Illinois where there's necessarily things that they do schematically that give you a lot of problems on either phase of the game in my opinion. You know offensively they're just they're they're a normal offense. You know defensively nothing exotic that they do. They're they're just a really well coached team. They fight hard. They've got some decent athletes and spots. They lost a lot from last year's team to the portal. So they're struggling in that regard but through two games they're really their offense has been a problem. They lost as I mentioned in Northwestern 13 to 6. They only had a 267 yards of offense. Against Cincinnati they were a lot better thrown to football and I'll talk about that here in a second but they threw for 356 yards but only ran for 24. They only ran for 40 against against Miami or against Northwestern. So their run game has struggled quite a bit and throwing for 356 against Cincinnati is good but Cincinnati's past defense is pretty bad this year. They also give up 302 yards to pit in a game where they blew a lead against pit and lost that game late. So Cincinnati's defense not great not very good. My people high I was able to rip off some big plays in the past game in that game and that's going to be the thing that you know name is that to be concerned about is their run game has not been very good but they do have some some legitimate past game weapons. Brett Gabbert is a very experienced quarterback. He is a sixth year senior. He passed for 2,411 yards and 11 touchdowns in 2019. So this kid who starting in 2024 was Miami, Ohio starting quarterback for two years in which Ian book was also the starting quarterback at Notre day. If that tells you a little bit about how long this kid's been around. Obviously the COVID year he was able to save a year with the COVID year. He also got hurt in 2022. And so he was able to he got hurt in the opener against Kentucky came back for three games got hurt again. And then he also missed time last season with an injury as well. Miami was able to kind of salvage their season but he was on pace for a pretty solid season for Miami last year passed for 1634 yards, 14 touchdowns, five picks out of 8.7 yards per attempt in in got hurt in the Toledo game did not play the rest of the year. Kemp came and comes out this year. He's off to an okay start statistically. He is passing so far this season. Brett has passed for 566 yards in two games. Really feasted on big plays. I actually hit two post routes for big long games against Cincinnati. One was outside one was inside they ran a play action pass for a 50 song about a 50 to 54 yard touchdown against Cincinnati. And then of course let came back later in the game and hit a big path hit a post route for a to not it wasn't a touchdown was a big play to their slot receiver. And that's the only other thing that in my opinion Cincinnati has going for him is they have some very good like a Mac level talent at receiver. They've got two kids that you need to keep an eye on. One is Kate McDonald. He is the slot receiver. He'll play inside and outside but he's he's a weapon in the slot 511 200 pound kid a fifth year senior you know last season had 28 catches for 355 yards for them has not really been a factor receiver for them last year was his first year in that regard was a pretty darn good punt returner for them last season. But this year he's off to a red hot start at receiver he had eight catches for 105 yards and a no touchdowns against Northwestern. And then against Cincinnati he had eight catches for 135 yards in a touchdown. So his touchdown was a shorter a shorter play but very dynamic weapon very good athlete good route runner. The the big play he had against against Cincinnati he it was a slot route he ran. Push the guy guy was outside put presses vertical snapped him off the top beat him inside just a heck of a play in my opinion. And you know he's a he's a talented player. You have to you have to keep an eye on him. And then they've got another receiver that's had a bit of a strong start as well for them. And that's their outside receiver big 6-4 kid by the name of Reggie Virgil. He is a guy that's had another guy that hasn't done a whole lot coming in the season he had one catch in 2022 had one catch last year. But this past week he came off of a game in which he had three catches for 77 yards including a 50 plus yard touchdown against Cincinnati at three catches for 32 yards against Northwestern. He's a guy that runs one's runs well for that level can stretch the field big kid good ball skills from what I've seen so far. So we've got a big 6-4 kid from Florida on the outside in Reggie Virgil. You've got a very shifty slot quick guy also with some speed in the slot in Kade McDonald and it's something that you have to be aware of. I mean those are two good football players. Should Notre Dame have problems with them? No. But are they if Notre Dame's not locked in can these kids hurt you? Yeah they can because you've got a six-year senior quarterback who's thrown for a bunch yards. Let me look up Brett Gabbard's career stats and give you a sense of what this kid has done in his college career. So as I mentioned he's in a six-year college football. He has thrown for 8,459 yards in his career. He's attempted over a thousand passes in his career. He's thrown 61 touchdowns in his career. He's rushed for 450 yards in his career and he's also passed for a rush for seven touchdowns. So you're talking about a kid that within the next two weeks is going to go over 9,000 career yards of offense. That's a veteran quarterback. You've got two talented kids at wide receiver that if you're not locked in, if you're not getting pressure in a quarterback, if you're making mistakes, they will beat you. They will hurt not beat you in the game but they will beat you on particular plays. And so they're going to have to be aware of that. This is a unit that outside of that struggles. It is. Their offensive line has not been good so far this season. They've got good size. I mean you look at their depth chart. They're left to right. They're 68307, 66324, 64316, 66316 and 66306. They're tied in as 65258. So they have very good size but they're they lumber and they don't move very well and that's a big reason why their run game is really struggled. It's not a very creative run game either. I would imagine that they're going to watch a lot of film this week and maybe try to recreate some of the things that they saw Northern Illinois do. I mean that's what a good coaching staff should do so I would think that they're going to try to take some opportunities in that but overall this just isn't a team that should really do a whole lot against you but if Notre Dame's not motivated and focused then it may. And so that's why I say we're going to learn a lot about a lot about this football team. Are they going to be ready to come out and play? Are they going to be able to be as locked as they need to do and shut down this Cincinnati team or this Miami team? Because again guys I mean the numbers don't lie. They ran for 40 yards in the first game of the year against Northwestern and 24 yards against my against Cincinnati. They've thrown the ball well but that's been partly out of necessity. They were losing pretty big it was like 17 to 3 at one point time to Cincinnati and it's also out of necessity because they can't run a football and so Notre Dame's going to have to be able to get to Brett Gabber because look this is the kind of kid that if you don't put pressure on him he will find open receivers and make throws and hurt you. You have to put pressure on him. He's also a quarterback that if you pressure him will make some bad throws. I mean the thing about Miami is they actually moved the ball pretty well on Cincinnati early in that game. I mean I think it's the first drive of the game. They got close to the red zone and then they brought a pressure I think it was an inside blitz and Gabber kind of panics and throws it off his back foot throws an interception into the end zone. So they had some missed opportunities in that game where they could have made that game a lot closer but that's going to be a key for Notre Dame is you can't let him get comfortable in the pocket. This has killed over a thousand career bass attempts. He's not going to get rattled just playing in Notre Dame stadium. He's going to get rattled because you've got guys coming at him from everywhere. That's where he's going to get rattled and so Notre Dame is going to have to find that out. As Ryan pointed out in the chat their guards and center are not good. If Riley Mills and Howard Cross don't wake up in this game I just don't know if it's going to happen. You know this is a game where they should feast and then hope be that sort of the catalyst they need to give them the confidence and the boost they need to get rolling. Light it. Hey Irish Breakdown listeners it's Urban Meyer. This fall the game changes. Join me, Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram and broadcaster Rob Stone as we bring you a new perspective on football and culture every week. We 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 Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get podcasts. Hey Irish Breakdown listeners it's Matt Liner. I've got a podcast called Throwbacks with actor Jay Farar. 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 Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get podcasts. So I you know again this is not a great football team. It's a scrappy football team. Their defense especially is going to compete with Notre Dame and I don't mean compete meaning like they're going to go toe to toe and stop them. I mean they're going to battle Notre Dame. Their defense is going to absolutely come in and bring it on Saturday. You're going to have to be prepared to scrap against this front seven. If you play assignment football, if you play physical football, you'll win those battles but you're going to have to earn it. You're going to have to physically earn it. And then I believe Notre Dame should be able to have a lot of success on the outside. That is a place where I do think Notre Dame should be able to use some take advantage of some speed. But in some ways they're a lot like Northern Illinois. They're not super athletes but they're veterans and they're long. They're nickel 61216, their corners are six foot and 62, their safeties are six foot and 62. So you know this isn't a team that's just a bunch of small slow guys. They're a long secondary. Their D line is 64636463. Their linebackers are 61230 and 62, almost 250, 249. So again, they're going to bring it this weekend. They're absolutely going to bring it. They're going to be well coached. They're going to be hungry in this game. Their backs are against the wall. They're 0 and 2. They need to do something to kind of get their season right. I don't know that beating Notre Dame is that but they're going to battle. And this team desperately needs something to go right for them. And so they're going to come into Notre Dame looking to I mean they've got they've got nothing to lose folks. Nothing to lose. So why not have some trick plays up your sleeve? Why not throw some coverages at Notre Dame that they haven't seen before in hopes of getting Riley Leonard to make a mistake? Why not run some pressures that they haven't seen a whole lot in hopes of creating some big stops? Why not use motions and shifts that maybe haven't used a lot of to create some big play opportunities? Why not? And that's what that's what Miami's going to do. They're they're going to throw some things at Notre Dame that they they haven't seen because Chuck Martin's a smart football coach. You guys get that. I mean we all get that. We all as far as I know, Notre Dame fans have always spoke very highly of Chuck Martin because we know he's a smart football coach. We know he's a good coach. And he's a pretty honest guy too, which I like. He's going to have this team mentally ready to play. What Notre Dame is going to need to do is make sure that that that they don't gain any confidence. And we'll talk about that in the keys to victory. But it look, this is just this is a team that Notre Dame should handle a team that Notre Dame should beat convincingly, but it'll have to be earned. That's a key is it'll have to be earned. And we're going to find out if Notre Dame has the right mindset to go out there and earn it on Saturday. I actually was looking at this. Do you guys know that in Miami of Ohio's opener against Northwestern at Northwestern, they only had 12,000 people in stands? That's embarrassing for Northwestern. They're coming off of a bowl game that 12,000 people in their stands. Miami of Ohio had twice as many people at their home opener as North and Western had at their home opener. They only and here's a crazy thing. They only had 11,000 people at their home at their night game against Duke the next week. That's embarrassing. Like, I mean, there's FCS teams that have more bigger crowds than that. They've had three home games. Their biggest crowd so far is 12, though. I know that is that because of the temporary stadium? Like, is that all they can have? Is like, is that the biggest that they can get? Like, you guys said, exactly, they have 15,000. They can't even fill a 15,000 C stadium. That's crazy. That's embarrassing. Like, if you only have a 15,000 C stadium, you should be able to fill that. That's that's ridiculous. That's that's ridiculous. That's a good point, Raymond. That could be that could be that could be it. The guys I get that they have a temporary stadium and I don't it's it's not like the it's not the new stadium, right? It's somewhere else. Am I correct on that? It's not like they're remodeling like Vanderbilt's doing it. It's somewhere else, but you have room for I what you guys said, 15,000 people, right? They're not even getting to that. That's bad. That's bad. And they're two and one close to three and all they lost they lost to Duke and overtime. So yeah, we'll see. Anyway, so that's it for today's show. I do have a couple super chats. I want to get to from Raymond Harten. Thank you very much, Raymond. Go Irish beat Miami. I'm with you. AST12321 says my friend who watches crude social media, I would have a talk with your friend and say maybe you need to find something better do with your time than that. But hey, he said he's noted a pivot on Deuce's Instagram follows to be more Notre Dame focus used to be all Auburn last month. I'll tell you now what I tell you all the time. Do not try to to figure out what a recruit is doing by what he's doing on social media. Just it just don't. I mean, I remember going into signing day last year or not signing day, but you know, when Kingston was going to make his decision. And Ryan and I kept telling trying to tell you guys guys, no name's a good place here. Everybody else is trying to tell you all the national sites. Oh, how state feels good. They're in a great place. We kept trying to say, Hey, listen, we like where Notre Dame is at. Well, but his social media, he's tweeting this. He's liking this tweet. He's liking that tweet about Ohio State kept telling you guys, we like where Notre Dame is at this. There's a lot of reasons that could be the case. I don't really care to speak a lot about Deuce other than that. I put an Intel piece on the board the other day, AST12321. I would encourage you to read that. That's the latest on where things stand with deuce night Notre Dame. So other than that, I've said it even if deuce says tomorrow, Hey, I'm shutting down my recruitment and I'm signing with Notre Dame. I'll feel comfortable with that the day that Notre Dame announces that he has a signature and that that's when I'll, I mean, it's just the reality of it. So great kid, great player. Just don't really care to talk too much about that recruitment right now. I put and if I do, I'm gonna do it on the board. So check out that message board post that I made. I think it was late last week is when we put it up because I think that's a good indication of where things stand. So we'll find out if he makes another visit to campus. That'll tell us a lot. So until then, I just, I don't have a lot to say about that one right now, but I didn't put, I don't put a lot of stock. I just, again, I don't put a lot of stock in that stuff. What guys do on social media? Just don't. The only time it really matters if like a kid like takes all of something off of it. Okay, maybe that's a sign, but I mean, we've seen that Duceus had a tendency to kind of jump back and forth on things. And so I'm not going to get too down when he's talking about somebody else. I'm not going to get too up when he's talking about Notre Dame. We'll just, you guys know him say, let it play out and we'll find out like December's when I'm going to care at the, I mean, that's, that's just where I'm at on this particular one. So anyway, that's going to do it for today's show everybody. I thank you all for being with me today. Really appreciate the time. Be back tomorrow and we will dive into a little bit more about this matchup with Miami, Ohio, and then also some players from Notre Dame that we want to see step up. And then of course, we'll spend a lot of time with our bicehold. So Salty has already put up the, the post on the message board about the bicehold. So there's already submissions in there. Make sure you jump on there. That is for message board members only. I have a full breakdown statistical and a 23 minute video breaking down the run game from Purdue. I'll get some pass game stuff up either tonight or tomorrow. And I'm also hoping to get some defensive stuff up this week, although I don't know that there's a lot to really break down with that. But we'll see when I when I get back through going through that again. But I'll definitely have some pass game stuff on there tonight or tomorrow, probably tomorrow. And then of course, the run game stuff went up today. Some very fascinating numbers in the run game also. So you'll check that out. That's only for board met premium members as well. You can't see that stuff. You can't see the video. You can't see the stats. Unless you're a board member at boards at ours, breakdown.com. Definitely check that out. You can get the Intel piece that I put up on do tonight last week is still on there. Anytime you're looking for something, just click on one of the tags. So like if if I've got an Intel piece up about like the injuries yesterday and you click the green Intel tag, it'll take you to a page with all of the Intel. And then you can find like the most recent one saying with the film room, if you're like, Hey, what have you done past film rooms, add a link at the top that has a link to all the film rooms. But then if you also hit the film room tab, it'll take you to all the film rooms that we've done at our breakdown on one page. You can check that out as well. But that is definitely a members board members only feature just like buy so hold is a members only feature from submitting questions. So if you want to get a buy so hold submitted, go to the message board at boards on our breakdown.com and you'll see salt these posts asking for questions for buy so hold and I'll bring those up and we'll have some fun with that tomorrow. Thursday, one o'clock, we'll be back with our keys to victory and preview of the Notre Dame game. And then also the national games, Bill Bender and I were texting about this last night. We are, we are going to discuss, we're going to talk about Illinois, Nebraska, Utah, Oklahoma, state, Tennessee, and Oklahoma. And then of course, USC and Michigan. So those are the four games that we will preview and break down on Thursday. And then Friday, we will hopefully have a mail bag. So definitely want to check that out. So thanks everybody for being with me today. Y'all have an awesome rest of your day. I'm sure we'll continue some of these conversations on the message board and have some fun with it. So make sure you're checking that out at boards on our breakdown.com until then, or at least I should say until five o'clock when you guys jump over to Ivy Nation Sports Talk, I will talk to you all again very soon on the Irish Breakdown podcast. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] You
