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That's indeed.com/bluewire. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. There's no better feeling than a personal win. And the State Farm Personal Price Plan can help you do just that. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can bundle and save with the personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. [MUSIC] Notre Dame fans, welcome back to another edition of the Irish Breakdown podcast. It is Tuesday, September 17th. I'm Brian Drusko. I think you guys hopefully know who I am by now. And we're here to talk some Notre Dame football Saturday. Notre Dame gets another shot at it. It's another one of those 12 guaranteed Saturdays in which they get to play football. And Notre Dame is going to host Miami of Ohio. And so we're going to talk a lot about this game, this matchup. But today we're going to do a few different things. Number one, we're going to talk about building on success. And as we talked about after the Texas A&M win, said we're going to find out if Notre Dame can handle success. And this is a phrase that you heard Notre Dame use after the loss to Northern Illinois from Marcus Freeman, Riley Leonard and other players. We were asking that question before the Northern Illinois game. And we're going to get another chance to find that out this weekend. So we're going to talk a little bit about what that means. Obviously, beating Miami of Ohio in and of itself doesn't prove anything. It's about building blocks and building on the foundation of what you did last weekend. And that's going to be the key for Notre Dame. And we're going to talk a lot about that in today's show. So we'll have a lot to discuss when it comes to what I want to see from Notre Dame. And what I think all of you should be looking for from Notre Dame to say, hey, listen, is this another step towards putting the Northern Illinois game behind you? And who is this real Notre Dame team? I said this, I think on yesterday's show or Sunday's show, I've said this to multiple people, we've seen three Notre Dame football teams so far this year. We saw the really good top 10 to 12 caliber team in the opener against Texas A&M that has some things to work on, but it's tough, talented, well coached, all those different things and can go on the road and be the legitimate top 25 football team on the road. And then we saw the team that this, I don't, I mean, what borderline top 50 team against Northern Illinois, maybe, maybe that just couldn't get out of their own way and lost to Northern Illinois. And then we saw a team on Saturday that could be just about anybody if they play the way that they did on Saturday and all phases of the game. 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For a whole new way to nug, it's got to be Wendy's at participating US Wendy's. So that'll be the focus of our conversation today first and foremost is, who is the real Notre Dame? And what does Notre Dame need to do moving forward to really build on what we saw Saturday? And we'll talk kind of big picture about that. We'll talk about what the offense needs to do, then what the defense needs to do. And then during each of those sections, I'm going to talk about the injuries that happen this weekend. And obviously how those are going to impact Notre Dame and could impact Notre Dame and what they need to do to make sure that those things don't impact them negatively, because they had some tough losses from the from the player person, a personnel standpoint on Saturday. So we'll talk about that in the offensive segment. We'll talk about the offensive injuries, defensive segment. We'll talk about the defensive injuries, obviously. And then I'll wrap things up with just kind of a quick overview of Miami, Ohio, you know, what to expect from the Red Hawks this weekend and in Chuck Martin's crew. It's been a rough start to the season for them. They're having a tough time so far this year. They lost to Northwestern and the opener. They lost to Cincinnati this past weekend. And it's going to be in their backs against the wall. So we'll talk about the Red Hawks and what to expect from them as well. So that is the agenda for today. And I hope you guys are ready to rock and roll. As always, there's no mailbag on this show. If you have a question or a comment, you want to get read, just go and put it in the super chat tomorrow, one o'clock. I will be back at one o'clock tomorrow. And we'll have our bicehold after we do some different breakdown aspects of the Notre Dame Miami game. And then of course Thursday, it'll be Ryan and I, we will talk keys to victory and we'll talk predictions. Hopefully our keys to victory are as on point as they were last week. And I'm assuming that we're all going to predict a little bit wider margin for air than we did last week or margin of victory, I should say that we did last week. And then, of course, I'll be joined by Bill Bender on Thursday to talk about some of the great games that are going on this weekend. So as rough of a weekend is this past weekend was as far as marquee matchups, there's a lot of those coming up this weekend. So going to have some fun with that. And then, of course, Friday, we'll have a mailbag and then Saturday, it's going to be the postgame show. So a lot going on. That's why you need to be tuned in and locked in to to Irish Breakdown. So let's dive into just who know who is Notre Dame, right? I mean, I think that's the biggest question I have to ask myself right now. Who's Notre Dame? And I don't know that any of us know the I don't know that the Notre Dame players and coaches know that answer. Because as I mentioned in the opener, we've really seen two versions of Notre Dame or three versions of Notre Dame. Two of those versions are somewhat similar. You could argue that Notre Dame would have looked the same. I don't I'm not I'm not I think that they played better against Purdue than they did against Texas A&M. I think they executed better independent of how was the quality opposition. I think they executed better. They had an even better game plan offensively, defensively. I think that's the one we could say. The team that we saw on defense on Saturday was a better version of the one that we saw against Texas A&M, but it's at least similar. Maybe you could argue that the defense has been two different teams, but the offense has been three different teams so far. And so then you look at it and you say, I just who is the real Notre Dame? And if we're all being honest with ourselves, the answer is we don't know. I I know that who we hope the real Notre Dame is, but we don't know because when you have such a variety of of and not even just results, right? Because it's it's not even about a variety of results. We we've seen teams struggle this season. You know, I hear people talk about, well, you know, you're not going to beat George if you play like you did against Purdue. And I'm like, you know, you will if Georgia plays like they did against Kentucky. I mean, Notre Dame would have beat Georgia by two touchdowns, at least on Saturday, if they would have played against Georgia, the way that they did against Purdue and vice versa. Every team is kind of going through that a little bit. Oregon's had a couple clunkers so far in games as they've won. Now, the difference for Notre Dame is they they lost one of their clunkers and obviously that's something that needs to get improved upon. But it's not so much about is Notre Dame a finished product or not. It's, you know, and the results are not the same. I mean, you're going to have varying levels of you're going to have varying levels of execution this early in the season, especially when you have as many young players and and new guys of the system that Notre Dame has. It's so it's it's not that. It's honestly just you've seen very different teams from a confidence standpoint. You've seen different you've seen different teams from just an execution standpoint, but more so it's just it's energy and focus and toughness. A team that battles one week, doesn't the next at home and then comes back in battles and plays a great swagger the next week. It's just been that rollercoaster ride that we've talked about under Marcus Freeman for a long time. And and when you look at this matchup and for some of you making predictions about the show about the game and the chat, can we like chill? It's Tuesday? We're going to have a whole show about that on Thursday, right? So let's just try and somewhat stay on topic today. But when you look at this football team and who they are, I mean, we don't know what we're going to get. And so then you look at this question. It's like, I joked with somebody in the press box on Saturday and I said, look, Notre Dame needs to look at their schedule for the next 10 years and cancel every Mac opponent and schedule a big 10 team. And so when when you when you because think about this, Notre Dame lost Northern Illinois, they didn't play great against Central Michigan last year. I believe the last time they played a Mac team was then back in 2021. And they needed a last second touchdown pass to win that game. They blew out a Mac team in 2019, but then 2018, they only beat Ball State by eight. So this has been a problem going back well before Northern Illinois. The difference is those teams won those games and they didn't. Well, you've got another Mac team coming into town this weekend and they're not as good as Northern Illinois. I don't at least they haven't been so far. But they do some things that if Notre Dame comes in with the same laxadaesical, not focused, non competing type of attitude that they had against Northern Illinois, then this is going to be a much more competitive football game. And so this is an opportunity for Notre Dame to come out and say, Hey, listen, we're not that team. That was an anomaly. We've learned from it. We've moved on from it. Hopefully fans will be able to move on to it. Well, if you want fans to move on from it, then you need to show us that this isn't going to be there again, that that team that it was a one off. And this is a chance to take another step towards that against this Miami Ohio team. It's also about building on it's about building on the momentum you gained on Saturday. And it's not so much momentum from the standpoint of how you played per se execution wise or that you won by 59 or anything like that. It's about saying, Hey, look, you showed yourself to be a really, really good football team on Saturday. Can you now go out and say that, Hey, you're a football team that that is capable of bringing this type of energy week to week to week to week. And that's what Saturday presents is a step towards that and a step towards saying, okay, one step at a time, right? Because I don't know if there's a win on the schedule because how bad Florida State is between now and USC that gives us sort of that, okay, it's all good now moment because what we've seen from Notre Dame is that you you can be that team that's dominant for in one week. Go back to 2022 sandwich in between a horrible loss to Marshall in a horrible loss to to Stanford was a dominant win over a nine win North Carolina team. It was a really good win over a good BYU team. And so you've seen that later in the year, a couple of weeks after you get beat by a really bad Stanford, a bad Stanford team, you go on the road and smack Syracuse, you blow out a top five Clemson team by 21 points, you beat BYU 44 or BC 44 to nothing in the game, you could have scored 60 if you wanted to. And if you wanted to, and if it wasn't snowing. And so people talk about in the chat talking about, well, what about Louisville? Louisville doesn't tell me anything about Notre Dame. As far as are they that team still? Because if Notre Dame goes out and beats Louisville, okay, great. Before the season, who thought Notre Dame was going to lose to Louisville? It's a very good football team. Notre Dame should win that game. Here's the point. It's that it's not about an opponent like, okay, so here's my point. Beating Louisville doesn't tell me that Notre Dame is on the verge of going and playing with Georgia or on the verge of playing with Texas or on the verge of playing with Alabama. It doesn't tell me that. Okay. What it tells me is, it's more about can you sustain this high level for a longer period of time? That's what it's about. And so there isn't an individual game that's going to tell us, hey, Notre Dame has figured it out. Because when you look at Marcus Freeman's tenure, we've seen, we've seen big time moments. This is the point. You blow up Miami, Ohio. Okay. Cool. You blow out nine of the 10 teams you beat last year. It doesn't answer the question, but it's a step. What Notre Dame needs to now do is show that they can string together these types of performances. And so it's not about Louisville. It's not about Georgia Tech. It's not about Florida State. It's about you need to show that you can be a more consistent football team, a team that can go on the road and beat Texas A&M, a team that can blow out Purdue, but a team that doesn't have the Marshall, the Stanford, the Louisville like last year, the Clemson, and the northern Illinois games where you not only lose, but you lose because you didn't bring energy focus effort and those type of things. And that's what was so great about the Purdue game. And that's what they need to build upon is can you bring that type of energy and focus week to week? When I, when I look at Purdue game, like look, Notre Dame had a way more talented team. They had a way more talented team than Northern Illinois. They lost because they didn't have focus. They didn't play with great effort. They didn't play with great energy. They didn't play with any confidence. They weren't hungry. They lacked all those things against Purdue. They had all those things. 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. So when I look at this game against Northern Illinois, the biggest thing for me that I want to see is that this team is built on last week. That's going to tell me that this is a more focused football team than we saw. This is a football team that has the necessary leadership to be more consistent and then a football team that plays a little bit of a chip on her shoulder. And that's really something that was lacking. I want to present something to you all in the chat. And here's a question that I have for you guys, because I hadn't really thought about this. And a friend of mine said this to me and he was super mad about the Northern Illinois game. And the comment is not meant in any way, shape former fashion to be a justification or saying like, Hey, the Northern Illinois was a good thing. His comment was this. He said, he wonders if losing to Northern Illinois as bad as it was might not end up being a blessing in disguise for Notre Dame. I said, okay, explain to me what you mean. Because again, this is a, this is this is driving home from the Purdue game on Saturday night. And he was, he was sitting there talking about. Here's the point he was making. This is a Notre Dame team that was getting a lot of preseason hype and deservedly so talented roster coming back like everybody said, Oh, Notre Dame media is not guys like Jordan Reed who works at ESPN has Notre Dame is having a projected 11 draft picks from this football team. Like there's a lot of people that look at this team and say this is a very talented football team. And, and his comment was, he thinks that if they learned the proper lesson from Northern Illinois, that this could, this could bring this team the same, the needed focus and maybe chip like this team was feeling really good about itself. And that that kind of loss would do more for the team than let's say if they lost to a better team. Cause like in the, the point was that we were discussing, you know, I said, look, I had this team going 11 and one. And I couldn't tell you, I spoke at a, in front of a group of this Notre Dame club in, in, in Chicago before the season. And we do like this prediction sheet. And I do it, you know, to have fun with them. And, and they asked me my record, I hadn't heard him go 11 and one. And then the next one was, will they beat A&M? Will they beat Louisville or Florida state and will they beat USC? And the question, and I said, yes, they'll beat Texas A&M. Yes, they'll beat Florida state. Yes, they'll beat USC. So the, the question they had for me was, well, then who did Notre Dame lose to? And I said, I don't know, I don't know who they're going to lose to. I just think they're going to lose to somebody. And so his comment to me was, do you think losing to Northern, Northern Illinois was the sort of a wake up call for this football team? Cause we didn't know if it would be before the Purdue game, but to watch them come out against Purdue and absolutely annihilate them and play the way that they did, his thing was, I think this could be a wake up call. And it was a good argument, but he was, he was kind of my, my, my response to it was, I hope so. But we'll only know that if they can do that is, if this just kind of becomes who they are, if this was just a one off, then no, it wasn't a lesson learned. It wasn't a thing that galvanizes football team, the way that you would hope it would for them to go on a run. It doesn't do that. If it's going to be that type of lesson learned and the kind of wake up call that he was talking about, it's going to be something that forces them or causes them to have that level of focus week after week, after week, after week. So for the Notre Dame football coaching staff, it's going to come down to you've got to find a, a much more consistent, weekly approach to games. No more altering your practice schedule because of any other kind of reason. It comes down to saying, listen, this is who we are. This is what we need to prepare. If we got to pull some guys back, then we will pull those individual players back. Let's just say a Howard Cross or a Mitchell Evans or a Xavier Watts for whatever reason needs to have, you know, he's tired or this guy's tired, then pull some of those guys back, but keep your practice routine the same. And make sure that the things that sort of the frustration, the anger and those type of things that you had going to do to the, to the Purdue game, don't lose that. Keep that. If that's what you need for the B to fuel, then let it be. And so that was my comment to him was we need to see it consistently. And I actually think Miami, Ohio is the perfect opponent for Notre Dame this weekend. And hear me out on that to find out if this is, if this team is going to be that. Because what we have learned under Marcus Freeman is that when they played good teams, they're up for those games. They don't, they haven't won them all. They'd be lost to Ohio State twice. But you lost the USC in 2022. But did anybody watch the USC game in 2022 and think, boy, Notre Dame didn't come to play today. They weren't playing hard. They weren't, no, they were focused. They were playing hard. They didn't play well on defense, but they played hard. The offense played great. We're talking about the games where it just looks like they don't even show up, right? And so can this football team be sort of like what we've talked about all off season and after it's, can they stay here, right? Like the frustration with Kelly was, they're always here. Never got too high, never got too low. So they beat all the teams they're supposed to, but they couldn't beat anybody that was as good at them or better than them. This team has shown that they can play with those teams, but then they dip way down here and not only play to the level of some of their lesser opponents, they played beneath the level of some of those opponents. And so to me, a Miami of Ohio is a perfect game for that because let's just say Louisville was coming to town this weekend. Well, you know, that's short enough time after the North Illinois game and the Purdue game to say, listen, they're gonna, they're gonna, you know, they're gonna be really good. You know, they're gonna be really focused because this is a big opponent. It's at home. They're gonna be fine. You know, it's gonna be more like USC last year than it was Louisville last year. Okay. But would that really tell us anything about Notre Dame and the issue that Notre Dame has had? No, it wouldn't. To me, playing a Miami of Ohio team that's 0 and 2 lost to Northwestern, lost to Cincinnati. I believe they've only scored like 23 points in their two games combined. If that's the team that's coming into town, if Notre Dame has, has learned from the Northern Illinois game and they've developed an edge that's going to maintain, then we'll see it this Saturday. We'll see that focus this Saturday. We'll see the maturity this Saturday. We'll see the, the anger this Saturday. We'll see sort of the, we're not only trying to beat you, Miami, we're trying to embarrass you. We're going to destroy you. Like that's a big key for me. So when I think about what can Notre Dame do to build on Purdue, it's that right there. It's maintain that level of fire that we saw this weekend, maintain that level of intensity that we saw this weekend that backs against the wall type of mindset, because it is true. I mean, yes, you got the 66 to seven win, but you still got that one. We've talked about this, folks, winning by 59. You don't get brown brownie points for you. Don't get bonus points for you. You don't have now two and a half wins or three wins. You still only have two. You didn't beat Purdue so bad that I think I joked about this on Sunday that the NCAA is going to now retroactively take some of those points that you scored against Purdue and put them on the scoreboard against Northern Illinois. Now you're three and oh, you're still two and one. Your backs are still against the wall. So does this team maintain that edge? Do they maintain that chip or do they go back to where they were two weeks ago? We're like, all right, we fixed it against Purdue. We're good. So we can go back to being what we were. And then it's just again, it's more of this, right? Or is had they finally said, okay, enough is enough. We're going to fix this and we're going to be here. And I and that's why I believe mind people high is that kind of opponent because the thing about mind people high is I'll get into this here later, but I don't know if their offense is good enough. I would say I don't know if their offense is good enough to beat Notre Dame. But as we as we saw two weeks ago, you only really need 15 points to beat Notre Dame if their offense doesn't show up. So the question would be, okay, is my people high was defense good enough to stop Notre Dame? And that's a different question. I think their defenses played solid football through two games. That hasn't been great. And they haven't been great, you know, stopping the run so far this season. So I don't know that their defense is good enough to do to Notre Dame what Northern Illinois defense did to them. I don't know that they have the creativity on offense to do to Notre Dame what Northern Illinois did to them, but they do have a veteran quarterback and they do have some things with the very least it can be a much closer game than it should be. At the very least, they can make it a 24 to 17 game if Notre Dame doesn't show up. It doesn't bring energy doesn't build on last week if noted. And the reason that matters is because if like Akron was coming to town or Kent State was coming to town or like one of the really bad Mac teams or bad Sunbelt teams like, you know, like one of those teams is coming to town, then then I don't know you could just kind of roll the ball out a little bit and just dominate that team. And I don't know that that necessarily helps Notre Dame. I don't know that, you know, if a UTEP was coming into town this weekend or, you know, as I mentioned, a Kent State or an Akron is coming into town this weekend, I don't know that we would learn about a lot about Notre Dame because honestly, there are teams that Notre Dame could play this year where they could play the same way they did against Northern Illinois, but they're so much more talented than the than the opponents they would still, they would still dominate. And this is at least enough of a challenge to where if you don't play well, then you're going to get a closer game, which is going to tell us a lot about this team. At the same time, if you dominate Miami, Ohio from start to finish, right? Like Ryan and I are going to talk about this in the keys to victory. I'm going to talk more about it later, more about it tomorrow. This is not last year's Miami team. It's not completely different talent base. This is a much different team. But what this game, you know, so a blowout win doesn't mean, okay, Notre Dame's arrived, but it's a sign, a dominant 60 minute game or at least a 30 minute game. And then you pull the starters and then the second team does that. That type of performance is a step. It is an important step to say, okay, now you're playing a team that you otherwise have no reason to get up for. And that's the reason I say this isn't last year's Miami team. If Miami was 2 and 0, and they had wins over Northwest or Miami, Ohio, this Notre Dame team would absolutely take them seriously, but they don't. And there's a lot of bad film, like I should say bad film, there's a lot of very average film that these players are going to be watching these of these first two games, first two games, right? That's what it's going to show. But it's not going to show a very talented football team. So if they come out fired up and they wipe this team off the map, then what you're going to say is, okay, they weren't concerned about Miami, Ohio, they weren't in what I mean, they let me rephrase that. They weren't focused on the quality of the opponent, which is low. They were focused on themselves. They were focused on proving something to themselves, setting a standard, like who was it? Was it NH earlier that said it? You know, what is the standard at Notre Dame? I think that's what she said, what is the gold standard right now? It's a roller coaster, not a standard. And that's exactly the point. It's exactly the point. It is, it is, okay, who do you want to be as a football team? Do you want to be that team that that shines when your backs are against the wall? But then when you start to have a little success, you kind of, you know, go in the tank? Or are you a team that says, hey, listen, we're excited to come out and play together this weekend, right? This football team only gets so many opportunities together. And we're going to take advantage of all of them. We learned what it's like when we don't do that. That's not going to happen again, because if if Notre Dame plays their game of football, if they play their brand of football, they don't lose another game the rest of the regular season. That it may not be good enough to beat some of the, you know, the best teams in the country, but it is good enough to beat the next nine opponents on their schedule. What we don't know, however, is if that Notre Dame football team is going to show up for the next nine games, and Saturday is a step to that, that that's, that's important. So we're going to find out this weekend, if that's who Notre Dame is, can they build on the success? That's what's at stake against Miami, Ohio. I promise you one thing, I am not going to spend the next three days trying to convince you all that this is a really good Miami football team. I did that with Northern Illinois. We did that with Northern Illinois because that was a good football team. They had some good film on the board. They had a lot of guys coming back and you just really needed to bring your A game or not, you needed to bring your B game at least to win that game the way you should. This team is not that. They're not as good as Northern Illinois. You've got two games of film. Now we said, boy, this team is just not who they were last year. This is a different football team talking about Miami, Ohio. So it's not going to be about Miami. We'll talk about Miami. We'll prepare for Miami. You guys will have a good understanding of who Miami is, but understand that this game this weekend is about Notre Dame. It's about learning who Notre Dame is this weekend. It's about learning what kind of heart this team has, what kind of pride this team has, what kind of leadership that this Notre Dame team has. That's the key this weekend. It's like NH shed. It's about, it's about you keep talking. There's things that Marcus Freeman says that I don't know his team is necessarily buying or at least the way they play. They're not showing it. The gold standard is one, right? Being the best version of yourself is another. We don't see the best version of this football team from week to week. And it's usually an entire team problem, not always, but usually. And so there's clearly some sort of disconnect that they need to fix an address. And if they can handle Miami the way that they should, then that'll be another step towards telling us maybe they figured it out. And then of course against Louisville, it's another step. And again, but beating Louisville doesn't answer that question for me. It's not an opponent that puts the game against Northern Illinois completely out of my mind. Because how do we know that that team's not going to rear its ugly head against Virginia or Georgia Tech or Navy or Army or, you know, Stanford again, because like, look, this version of Stanford is better than the one that learning played in 2022 and got be by. That's going to be the keys. Can you start to bring it week after week after week after week? And that's going to be, that's going to be the key for this learning football team. So we'll see if they carry it out. So that's part one to show. I'm going to dive into the offense next and get specific about things that I want to see and what this football team needs to do on offense and defense to take that next step as a program. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]
