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Just go to indeed.com/bluewire right now and support our show by saying that you heard about Indeed on this podcast, that's indeed.com/bluewire. We all get cut off guard sometimes, I guess, for the music stops. Hope you had a great weekend, enjoyed the game on Saturday, how Irish English just having to rub it in a little bit. Friday night you had Kansas and UNLV on one channel. It's like welcome back, by the way, ESPN channels on DirecTV just in time to see the Jayhawks lose to UNLV and then over on Foxy had Kansas State just beaten up on Arizona. So it was, it was one of those to get my weekend started. Things got better Saturday and then I don't even want to talk about what happened. Yes, that was, that was not great, you know, I guess at least when we shelled out all the money to go to Cleveland. They won for you. They won. That's right. We've got that. We'll always have that. We also don't need to talk about the fact that college footballs on Friday night stupid. Don't like it. Don't like it. I know you don't. I know you don't. Some people do. Some people don't. I will say this, you know, since I don't have Friday night games, you know, high school games to go to. It is kind of nice when I'm sitting here bored out of my go or flip on a game to watch. That's fair. But you know, I just feel like Friday should be reserved for high school. I'm just going to say it. Yeah. And I'm biased. I don't disagree. I was doing, I was calling games for a while and then now I'm at going to games as a dad and all of that. So I am definitely biased. There's no doubt about it, but I just, you know, I'm not a big fan of the NFL being on weird days outside of Sunday and Monday. You know what I mean? Friday's for high school, Saturdays for college, Sunday, and I guess now obviously Monday is for the NFL. Oh, you have to say, is everybody get off my lawn? That's really, you know, seriously, you know, and by the way, I hear that you're telling people what to think these days, like you're not letting people think on their own, have their own opinion. I don't know what this is. Oh, yeah. I don't know why I decided to get into that fight with that idiot, but I did. Oh, you're going to make him even happier. You're calling him an idiot. So, well, he is the microcosm, unfortunately, I'm not even going to bring up because people are going to jump on this bandwagon. But unfortunately for this, this person, he embodies the ridiculous notion that every single Notre Dame game that is, that is broadcast needs to have a Notre Dame football player. Yeah, where that came from, one of the fan groups on where you were going back and forth with somebody. I originally, first he was talking about how, you know, they need a Notre Dame guy in the booth because everybody was mad that Danielson did the game because he went to Purdue. Okay. Well, I don't usually respond, but whatever reason I responded today, and I said, look, you had another name guy in the booth for the past few years, and he was awful. Right. So you got to be careful what you wish for didn't do any good. That's right. And then he responds with, I'm, he never played football. His dad and his brother played football, but he never did. I said, so now it has to be a football person, like a football alum. I said, and yeah, I don't think he's responded yet, but basically I said, name me a football player who's an, you know, an alum, an alum of the football team who is a qualified to do a national broadcast and be wants to, because I don't think anybody like that exists. Not right now. You know what I mean? Aaron Taylor is doing studio work on C, yes, did he ever do like color and all that kind of stuff? I mean, he may have done, you know, like some CBS sports note, you know, like the cable ride, some games or something like that, and obviously Brady Quinn is mostly a studio guy as well. He's got some games from time to time, but he works for Fox and that's exactly that's the disconnect. Like Brady Quinn has a really good thing going over at Fox where he's got his, his Saturday TV stuff. He's doing his thing, you know, he's not bebop and all over the country, like Kirk Herb Street is doing, you know, maybe Brady would want that if he had that opportunity. I don't know, but he's also got the radio deal. Yeah. It's part of it as well. He's got a really good thing going over there. If he wanted to be in the, why would he, why do we want to give all that up? Exactly. Half a season of Notre Dame home football games. If he wanted to be in the booth someplace, he would be. He has a great thing going. And that was my point because I, you know, he mentioned those two guys, he doesn't want to do that. That's not what he wants to do. He's doing what he wants to do. You know, we've already gone down this rabbit, we've started down this rabbit hole, I guess. I mean, we've talked about this with announcers before it's, it's just, you know, we just beat our heads up against the wall, you know, because everyone is going to automatically perceive bias because like you're, you're, you're a fan of Notre Dame. So you're automatically, if they're not related, if they don't have some direct connection to Notre Dame, you're always going to perceive and receive what you consider to be bias. If they're not saying all rosy things about Notre Dame, right? I thought most part, you know, like from a, from a, from a bias standpoint, I mean, sure, like, you know, they, they mentioned Gary Danielson played for Purdue. I mean, he was obviously disappointed a little bit deflated when it was 42 to nothing by a half time. You know, I felt like they probably could have been a little bit more prepared for guys deeper on the roster. I don't think they, they were not well prepared. I agree. At that point, like, that's my biggest criticism is they weren't prepared enough. You know, like, did they really know who Kennedy earlocker was? You know, they, you know, like they, they obviously knew the last name. Did they really know that that was Brian earlocker's son? Nope. And they didn't know Bryce Young was related to Bryce Young. Yeah. That's right. That's right. And sons of two Hall of Famers out there on the field and they had no idea. No, they had no clue. And they obviously didn't go past the two deep on the roster to learn. And in a normal circumstance, I would not really give them a whole lot of garbage for that because who studies the third and fourth string quarterback for a team that you're going to call one time. You know what I mean? Like it's not these guys aren't going to be calling Notre Dame over and over again. But the caveat is their son's a Hall of Famers and that should stick out. But that's also the challenge of doing college football as opposed to the NFL. The rosters are a fraction of the size in the NFL and you have fewer guys to prepare for. But in a college game, I mean, look, I'm not going to say that I would be up on every single person, but Bryce Young was on the two deep and Kennedy earlocker. You know, again, it's like, if I'm just looking at the roster and I see earlocker on that roster, which at the very least, I should be, you know, if I'm Gary Danielson and or Brad Nestler, like you're going to at least go through the roster and see what names stand out. If I see earlocker, the first thing I'm going to do is find out if there's any relation. Right. That's not a common name. You know what I mean? That's right. And as far as the, you know, again, like as far as a four string quarterbacks, like where the quarterbacks are concerned, since that is the most important position on the field, like they should have one nugget, one note on each of the scholarship quarterbacks on the roster. Right. That's what I would say. And they obviously kind of whipped on that as well. They did. They did. With. For sure. Okay. Well, we went down. I didn't realize that that's where that, that that's where that game from. Well, you know, with the whole telling people, I didn't realize that it was connected to the announcer thing. I didn't know we were going to go there. That's where it was. That's what started the whole thing. Prize picks is America's number one daily fantasy sports app with over five million active members. 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I definitely looked at Marcus Freeman's reaction just to see if he would give the reaction that I would have given and he was surprisingly stoic on that one. But I tell you what, I feel like, you know, just sitting there watching him and kind of watching him for the last week or so. Like I don't want to say, you know, like when I when I look at his demeanor, I don't want to say surly, but there's a little more intensity, a little more, a little more bite. Oh yeah. Good Marcus Freeman. He's not Mr. Happy Go Lucky. No. That's for sure. I mean, look, he and Riley Leonard deservedly so had dealt with a lot of crap over the last eight days or so or whatever it is, right? And that wears on you after a while. Look, man, you're not you're going to get it in the grocery store. You're going to get it, you know, obviously in the media and you can say that you don't look at that stuff, but you look, you're getting it and you're going to get it from people that you know, people that you kind of know. I mean, it wears on you and I think it shows that it's wearing on him a little bit. He needs to get the further and further away he gets from that as long as they continue to have success. I think you'll see him, you know, loosen up a little bit and be the more jovial version of Marcus Freeman, but to be honest with you, I'm okay with him being a little salty right now. I'd take I don't like salty Marcus Freeman at all. He should be. They obviously found a different kind of focus this past weekend and they need to continue with that. It's to you know, kind of, you know, make little like laser eyes at us in the media or whatever it happens to be. That's fine. Yeah. Tell you what, it's a lot more fun to parse errors, you know, after a win than after a loss like last week, so we're going to, you know, we're going to get into some of that here in a minute. There was definitely some interesting questions that were being asked. I was like, really? That's what you came up with? Like it was, I don't know. It's like, well, they won 66 to seven. I don't know what to ask them. Like that's what it felt like from, from some people, but press conference is also 10 minutes shorter today. It was 21 minutes long on the YouTube link. So I don't know if his questions were just or his answers were a little bit shorter. I thought he gave pretty good answers to things and we'll hear obviously some of them here. Andrew on the announcer thing, he says, Daniel's must, Danielson must be doing something right. He's been CBS's lead college football analyst for over a decade. 30 plus years as an announcer, people get huge courses. Yeah. I mean, I didn't have a problem with it to be honest with you. I don't, I don't either. You know, again, it felt like they could have been a little bit more prepared. Sure. One thing to, to remember is CBS for a long time, they were doing SEC football. This is their first year doing this 10 thing and this was part of the, this is CBS's Big 10 package because it was a big 10 team that Notre Dame was playing. It did, it did feel like Brad Nestler, you know, really missed the SEC. Oh, yeah. He definitely made, and that wasn't anti Notre Dame. That was just, he's used to and I don't have a problem with that. Really. Yeah. Look, I, I also did not have any problem whatsoever with them reminiscing about, you know, Daniel since time at, at Purdue and you're right there, if that's a softball, of course, you're going to do that and you're going to find an old picture of him and some old footage and you're going to talk about when he played Notre Dame and like, those are all layups, man. Like you knew all of that was coming. But from an analysis standpoint, he was not overly, you know, judgmental towards Notre Dame or hateful towards Notre Dame, even when they scored their 66 point, they were both talking about how, hey, it's Purdue's job to stop them. Like I don't have a problem with them scoring right here. When Menchie went in and score, like they were totally cool with it. So they had opportunities to, to bash on Notre Dame and they didn't take it. So I don't have any issue with the way that those guys call it the game. None. I don't either. I don't either. Connor, by the way, I saw him asking this before the show started. He's coming in, sounds like for the Florida state game, first week of November, trying to figure out a gauge of the weather, trying to figure out what the weather might be like as people who have lived here for a long time, it's his whole life. I mean, you could get sunny in 60 degrees. You could have a foot of snow on the ground. That's the first week of it. I remember like the first year I lived here, there was a massive, literally, we got like two feet of snow in early November one year, it might have even been still October, like the last couple days of October, you know, like, and we haven't seen the snow like that in a long time, but it just, it's all over the place in, in, in South Bend in November. You just never know what you're going to get. So true. I would just keep an eye on the weather and I would pack some different sets of clothes. Yeah. Pack layers, pack layers, bring it, you know, bring a coat, but also be ready to wear maybe a long-sleeved t-shirt or just a sweatshirt. Yeah. So it was supposed to push 90 today or tomorrow or what, what I don't know, it's, it's like 15 degrees warmer than the norm, like this week. So we're in a heat wave now. Next week, we could be at a cold snap, like you just, it's welcome to Northern Indiana, have every, like that's why my, when I used to coach a football, I had a fricking wardrobe in my car because you literally never knew what the weather was going to be like, whether you had to throw on a hoodie or a winter coat or whether you needed shorts and a t-shirt, like it could change from the time that you left the house in the morning until the end of the day. Like a rain slicker and all this different stuff, like I had everything in the car. So you just never know, man. Come prepared. It's just the way to go. Bring a stocking cap, bring a mesh trucker cap, you know, like a little bit of breading. Make sure you bring some gloves. It's all kinds of IBM that you can get. I mean, I would, I would guess best case scenario for a night game, that first weekend of, of November, best case, it's still going to be in the 50s. So at the very least, you probably need a sweatshirt. I would, I would hope so. That's best case. So I mean, I know you haven't probably taken your kids out trick or treating in a while. No, but October 31st, it is, it's snowed on me before. I was going to say I've had snow, I've had rainfall and then other years, yeah, I mean, 75 degrees. Yes. Correct. Oh, it goes my light. Okay. It's supposed to be here today, my new one, but I had it propped up. That didn't work out too well. Ghost there in your basement pushing around. Well, I think I just accidentally just knocked the desk back with my knee and everything went flying. I see dead people. Can you hear the little voice on the other side of the door? Where they make the hairs on the back of your neck stand down. It's almost, it's almost like you do this for a living. You want to talk about the injuries before we talk some quarterback? Yeah. I mean, we kind of saw it coming, but to get confirmation, it just stinks bottom line. But I'll let you kind of say what they are and, I mean, you know, the bottom line for anyone who hasn't heard Ashton Craig, the center is going to be out for the season with a knee injury. Jordan Batello, fiber defensive end is going to be out for the season with the knee injury. They are hopeful. Sounds like a high ankle sprain for Billy Schrauth. So it's not going to be season ending, but he's going to be out for at least a few weeks. Maybe it helps if they've got a buy coming up here in a couple of weeks after they go to Miami, Ohio, then Louisville, and then buy and then Stanford after that. I mean, biggest thing is it stinks for both of these guys. Batello and Craig, obviously, anytime you're, like, Craig won a job and was doing pretty well. Batello, it just sucks because this is a guy that everyone's been waiting on for so long. He stayed here. He didn't transfer. He kept working, kept trying to get it right. Here he is, having his best season so far, looking, you know, just so much more disciplined. He was in great shape and the whole thing, and now he's, he's done for the season. So. Yeah. And that, that one's pretty devastating, to be honest with you, obviously, it's going to give an opportunity for some of these younger guys to step up and make some plays. I mean, Buba Cartreori is going to, is going to probably get a bunch of those reps and, and he obviously showed out in the game on Saturday and I think people are probably excited about him, but Jordan Batello, I mean, this was his breakout year. I mean, he was on, he was on pace to, to have a really, really good year and potentially launch himself into, you know, a potential NFL draft pick. Now he's going to have to come back and do it all over again, if he wants that to be the case because he doesn't have enough on film. I don't think to probably get drafted. Maybe he signs an undrafted free agent deal or something along those lines, but, you know, it's not going to be what he wants. So I'm sure he's going to end up coming back, which I maybe could be a good thing for the future, but, you know, the offensive line injuries obviously could have been worse if they were both out for the season. Stinks that Ashton Craig is out. He's one of my favorite linemen. He's arguably your second best lineman, but your best lineman also went down and it sounds like he'll be back in a few weeks. So the problem is you lost your best defensive lineman production wise in 2024, right? I mean, you can make the argument for Riley Mills, you make the argument for Howard Cross, but from a production standpoint, Batello was your best defensive lineman right now. And you lost-- Well, Burnham is doing well too, but obviously he's out right now. Well, there you go. Fair enough. So-- and you lost your two best offensive lineman at the same time. So that's tough. That's a blow. There's no doubt about it. But as Ryan Roberts said in the post-game show, the two guys you replaced your two offensive linemen with and all of a sudden you doubled your experience on the offensive line. You got more experience bringing in the backups, which is nuts. That's just crazy. Now, one of them obviously at a different position with Kooken playing center, but here's Freeman talking about that depth on his line today. Yeah. Back to the depth, the job the coach Rudolph has done with that offensive line, you know, to have Pat Kooken go in there and Rocco Spindler, you know, I said this after the game, but two guys that could easily, you know, then get what they wanted after fall camp. They wanted to be the starters. They weren't. And they prepared. They were great teammates and leaders for that room, and now they're in there. And you know, we have a lot of confidence in those guys, but also some of the other guys I thought Sullivan Abscher played well, Gerby Lambert played well, Chris Tarrick played well. So, you know, you hate to lose, asking for the year in Billy for a couple of weeks. But man, I have a lot of confidence in the depth of our offensive line. Yeah. I mean, just like you said, they get more experience by these guys coming in, Kooken started 13 games last year. Spindler started 10 and they didn't miss a beat when they came in. Those aren't the guys I'm concerned about. I'm kind of where Andrew is saying, I mean, there's nothing Anthony Knapp can do about it right now, but he's that, that left tackle such an important position. He's the one who's trying to get it figured out, but, you know, the guy is a true freshman. And you know, even the, even the other potential option, Tash Baker has been hurt the last couple of weeks. Yeah, right. And I don't, and I think he's, is he questionable for this week or he's, or he's out? Credit to the depth. Oops. Sorry. I forget exactly what it was. Oh, the injury report, which I've never, if they've always done that, I don't remember them having an actual injury report where they say who's out for the season and all that kind of stuff. Come on, Vince. Get with the times. I know. This is 2024. They started doing it this year. This is this year. Okay. Well, I don't feel so bad. I mean, they've done it. Yeah. I've never seen it posted before. I saw. I didn't realize you didn't realize that. Yeah. It's in the notes. You know, we're talking about game prep and what announcers prepare and what announcers don't. You know, we know who's looking at game notes and definitely didn't look at the game notes that came out today, Sean. I didn't look at it. I'm sorry. But. Ash Baker is questionable. Okay. Josh Burnham are both questionable all right this week. So as far as nap is concerned, he's struggled in past blocking. No doubt about it. He was dominant in the run game. So he won the job. Him and Pendleton both won the job because of what they can do in the run game, not in the past game. So they're going to have to figure out how to get those two up to speed in the past game sooner than later, right? I mean, they're going to have to get better. They're doing fine in the run game, obviously. They're doing fine. It's the past game. They're going to have to get figured out. And I just don't think Anthony Knapp is a true tackle. I think if they had their eyes, he just needs to put on about 20 more pounds and be inside. You know what I mean? Yeah, exactly. The length to play out there, but you know, like what he does have is pretty good footwork and it allows him to move. Like he can move a lot better than Tosh Baker to at least try to get in front of some of these guys. And I think that that had to have kind of helped him in that battle to win that job, just the way he's able to move in comparison. But you know, he's not. I mean, he's undersized both from a, you know, even though he's strong, he's still undersized just from a girth and from a height and length standpoint and those kinds of things. So doing the best he can, you know, again, like it was supposed to be jaggos on and there's nothing that you can do at this point. So yep, that's true. You know, I think the biggest, you know, again, like I have no concern with the guys who they put in there. Coogan in Spindler, no drop off, I mean, but where I get concerned now is if something else happens to any of these guys, when you have two guys go down within about, what, 15 minutes of each other and real time out there in the first half. And so you got, you got Coogan and then Pendleton one and two as, as the centers. And of course Pendleton is the number one left guard and you got Sullivan Abscher listed number two behind him on the two deep and then Spindler is number one at right guard and Chris Tarrick is number two behind him. So it's kind of how things look right now. It's very, very interesting again, nope, no problem, but the guys who are going to be starting out here, I think, I think they'll be fine, but you can't afford to get anybody else banged up right now. I completely agree, I completely agree. Somebody mentioned decaf 18 mentioned the Matty Westpelled news and she did announce that we're going to save it, you know, we'll get into it deeper in rapid fire because obviously the first segment on Mondays, I mean, it's, it's about football, right? So, but we'll get into it. She did announce that she's got a foot injury and she's going to miss some time. Yeah, there was no time table. Yeah, no timetable for return or anything like that. But we'll get into that and the impact and, and that kind of stuff in a little bit in rapid fire. Is that your everything's about to blow up when we start talking about quarterbacks now? Oh, no, I'm, I'm, I, I kind of, I think I got my point across during the pregame show. And then again, in the post game show about the quarterbacks, I feel pretty good about my, my take on the quarterbacks at the present. You're pretty good. Yeah. Leonard lit it up with his legs, a hundred yards, three touchdowns. I mean, he was almost striking a Heisman pose out there with that stiff arm that he had on that pretty cool on that touchdown run. He throws for 112 and he was, he was at least efficient, you know, you know, he still wasn't going down field, but he was 11 of 16, no touchdown passes. Give us the, give us the cliff notes version. You know, I know you've been into it quite a bit over the weekend. Like you said, between the post game and everything else, what, what did you think of what you saw of Riley Leonard? I mean, they, it's a, it's a bit, there's a big picture and then there's a, a more micro picture, right? The big picture is, you know, Mike Denbrock, Marcus Freeman, whatever, however it went, right? They allowed Riley to be Riley. They allowed Riley Leonard to be Riley Leonard and they allowed him to use his legs and they allowed him to get into the game and they allowed, you know, him making some, some easy pass plays and, and getting guys, you know, they were open, he was able to get him the ball, converted first downs with his arm, he converted first downs with his legs. There's still some things that he has to do better in the passing game, obviously, but he was dominant in the first half. I mean, bottom line, he was dominant. When you have 100 plus yards on the ground, 100 plus yards through the air, three touchdowns. I mean, in one half, in one, as I'm saying, in one half, now it's not an, you can't just be like, well, if he just doubled that, but I mean, you can, because he did it in one half. So if he had 200 yards rushing, 250 yards passing and six touchdowns, how is that a bad performance? I mean, that, that's my biggest thing. And I've been, I was, I want to say I bit my tongue, but I like, I had a whole post like for the message board and that I deleted because people were just, they're all the way out there on some of the, on some of the threads, right? And the thread for the players of the game got a little out of control on the board. And I almost responded, but I was like, no, I'm not going to, but basically the gist of my post was the job of the quarterback is to lead the team to touchdowns. That's the job. Does it matter? Does it matter if the touchdown is scored via pass or via run? Does not matter to me, not even a little bit, because they're all the same amount of points. You don't get more points for throwing it into the end zone, correct, running it into the. Unless it's, well, I was going to say, unless it's fantasy football, but it's the other way around. That's fair. It's fantasy football. You would actually get more points for running it in fair than throwing it in. But he had seven possessions in the first half. He led the team to five touchdowns, scored three of them, scored three of themself himself. So I'm good. I honestly, look, seeing, like Lenny is saying, he can't like that basically he can't play like that versus a good team. Well, look, yeah, I mean, the thought crossed my mind, sure. But you know, look, how about you got beaten by a Mac team the week before you didn't run that offense? Yep. Like, you wanted a win, right? And not only did you win, you handed Purdue the worst loss that it has ever had school history ever, ever Notre Dame and Purdue started playing each other in 1946, or at least that's when the continuous series started. They might have even played each other before that. This is not just the worst loss in a Notre Dame Purdue game. This is Purdue's worst loss ever. And people still want to like rip Riley Leonard apart. You know, how about, how about you just let the offense breathe and make a little progress before you start nitpicking? The only question is, did it look better than the week before when they lost? The answer is yes. And they weren't playing another Mac team. At least they were playing a big 10 team this time. And they fricking mopped them up off the field in the first 30 minutes of the game. We just, we just like live on that. Like the fact that Riley Leonard looks so much more comfortable out there. He looks so much more confident out there. He made good decisions. Is there a room for him to grow in the passing game? Obviously. He still threw for a hundred yards and ran for over a hundred yards and he scored three touchdowns. And like you said, led the team, helped lead the team to the end zone five times out of seven. Then he, then he got to go chill on the sideline and hang out in the second half and the other guys play. A hundred percent. Look, we all want the passing game to be more dynamic, but give it a second. Okay. Give it a second. This is the first time in three weeks that we saw and we saw a Riley Leonard centered offense that highlights what he's good at. If you give it some time and they continue with this philosophy, now that's a big F right now. That's a big F. We've seen a different Notre Dame team. I feel like offensively over the first three weeks, like a different team week one, different team week two, different team week three. What are they going to be week four? What are they going to be week five? What are they going to be week six, et cetera? I think that is the most important thing right now. If they continue to build on what they did in week three against Purdue with that same philosophy, you will see Riley Leonard get better. He will start pushing the ball down the field. His confidence was destroyed after week two, as was a lot of different guys. For obvious reasons, he played very, very poorly and he took it on the chin all week long. Whether he deserved it or not, he took it. It takes time to build that back up. You start with what he's really good at and they did that and that's the key. Start with what he's really good at and that's what Marcus Freeman said after the game. That's what Leonard said after the game. They had a little, they had a little, you know, conference during either, you know, last weekend watching game film or going into the week, those two and Mike Denbrock and they talked about like weeding some things out, like, you're good at this, hey, maybe we don't need this. This is not really what I like. Points are all that matters. They scored a lot of points and this is actually, this is a good point, you know, like Michigan. Think about Michigan, like, you know, the games where they would run the ball twice in the second half or are past the ball twice in the second half last year with JJ McCarthy, you know, like even against Penn State, like he says, you know, like it is valid to say, well, how's this going to hold up against the better teams on the schedule? And I'm not sure exactly what this is directly pertaining to, Lenny, because Lenny says Texas A&M played with the new quarterback. It was hard. Yeah, they didn't bench him. Like if that's what you're thinking hurt, Wigman was hurt and they still went on the road and beat Florida. So like, and that's nothing but good. You want, you obviously Texas A&M to keep winning 100% ball, right? They didn't. Yeah, he didn't get benched. He was injured and they let him try to do it in the pregame and they decided they were going to go with the backup or whatever. But he was injured. Like that was not a benching. And if you look at his stat line from last week, I think they played McNeese State or something. His stat line was amazing. Connor Wigman looked like a freaking, you know, Heisman Trophy winner in week two. So he definitely did not get benched. So I'm not exactly sure what that is even meaning. DK gets points. Lenny is right. Yeah. I like that. Lenny's enjoying himself. That's cool. Lenny, you're entitled to your opinion, man. It's all good. Yeah. Vince isn't going to tell you how to think. That's OK. Nah. I mean, I'll tell you. Not on this one. Tell you if you're wrong. Yeah. Yeah. So about the offense, I asked Freeman, is what we saw Saturday, is that the offense? Or is it a piece to the puzzle that they're kind of building to something else? Yeah, that was the offense that we felt gave us the best chance to succeed versus Purdue, you know, and that fit his skill set and what we thought he did best. This week we have to continue to do that in terms of what we feel will give the best chance for offense to succeed, including Riley versus this defense. It's a different defense than what we saw last week and every week as you go into preparation, you have to take into consideration what your guys can do well, but also what's going to help you have success first, the defense you're going against. I mean, translation, it's not going to look exactly. Go ahead. Vince, you're shaking your head a little bit. Well, when he first started out that comment, I remember hearing it live when he's like, well, that's what gave us the best opportunity to win. I'm like, oh, here we go. We're going to see another offense the week for like that is immediately where my head went. I was like, come on, Marcus. Come on, dude. Right. But then he, he was able to clarify his comments and that we're going to build off of it and what he does well and okay, I got a great story for you, by the way, off and as the most important things, the most important thing, continuing to build off what Riley Leonard does well. Go ahead. Yes. No, I was going to say, I've got a story for you off the air that I need to tell you, but this is, this was a vintage Mike Denbrock offense. That's the thing. That's what people need to understand. First two weeks, I'm not even sure what it was to be perfectly honest with you. I don't know if it was a, Hey, I'm Marcus Freeman. I'm the head coach. You need to stay within these parameters. I don't know if that's the case and then in week three, Mike Denbrock, either Mike Denbrock said, look, we're going to do it my way. If I'm going to have my name attached to this or it was Marcus Freeman saying, look, Mike, my bad. You do you. I don't know exactly how that went down, but it was a completely different called game from a formation standpoint, from a personnel standpoint, from a play calling standpoint, just all of the above now players executed it better too, but it was a completely different offensive philosophy like take Riley Leonard, you know, out of the equation. What were we talking about last week, Jeremiah Love and Jadarion Price need to see the ball more. Now they still only combined for 18 carries, but obviously you got to get guys like Kydron Young and Nanaias Williams and, you know, those guys have Ford into the game more in the second half. So 18 carries for, you know, what they were when they were in there is still a pretty good number. Vince, they averaged 10.8 yards per carry, you know, with the game plan that was predominantly, we're just going to run the football, you know, and the quarterback's going to be part of this whole thing. But the two running backs, the two best players on the offense average 10.8 yards per carry out there on 18 carries and like, I don't know what more you want. If it's now, you know, again, like if Riley Leonard is forced into a situation, end of game, all those kinds of things where, you know, he needs to throw like he's already shown he can do that. He showed that he could do that against Texas A&M. He had a couple of clutch throws against A&M, but his legs were also part of the deal. And when you allow him to do that, I just, it just feels like even if it's just from a pure confidence standpoint that like allowing him to be him and play that style of ball, it just comes out differently, whether he's running the football or throwing the football or whatever he has to do. Once comatically, it makes a lot of sense to when you've got that, you know, ability to run the quarterback and you've got, you know, his legs and what he's able to, he's a, look, he's a dynamic runner when he has the football. I think we can all agree on that at least. You know, it adds a, it adds a dynamic to the offense and it allows you to do some different things. I mean, look, Purdue was selling out to stop the run guys, selling out to stop the run and they only had 300 yards, they had one safety back the whole time and they were, you know, moving around, you know, right, crowding the line, all that, like they were packing it in, trying to stop the run. They literally running a five man front, like a five two is what they were running basically to stop the run. And they couldn't do it. Might as well have been Brian Van Gorder trying to stop the triple option. I mean, it was ugly, it's ugly, you know, and Notre Dame took care of business. Okay. I'm not saying they're going to be able to move the ball like that against other teams, but it does give you a bit of a schematic advantage when you add the quarterback as a runner. That, that's just an exes and owes thing. It's not a Riley Leonard thing. It's just an exes and owes thing when you have an additional guy who can run the football because normally when you run the ball, Sean, you're handing it off. And now you've got 11 guys versus 10 because the quarterback's out of the mix, right? And you add the quarterback, now you've got 11 on 11. And so therefore you've got more blockers and you've got more of an opportunity. So I mean, it just, it's a numbers game and it helps you out schematically. So just give Riley Leonard a minute to get this thing figured out with his arm and he's going to be fine as long as they build off the philosophy and the way they were doing things on Saturday. So he still has no passing touchdown. This is true through three games and he's on pace for a little bit less than 1,800 passing yards this season after he threw for nearly 3,000 two years ago in that full season at Duke. So how can they coax more out of Leonard in the passing game? We need to throw it to have success. I'm sure we'll game plan in a way that, you know, we'll have to throw it, but it's about what's going to have success against the defense you're going against. And Riley did a great job running and making the throws. I think it was 11 of 16 in the first half and, you know, did a really good job of executing what we asked him to do. And so we're not looking for stats. We're not looking for how much we throw it, how much we run it. We're looking for success against the opponent. Stats are for losers, Vince. Just win, baby. Just win, baby. Look, he's absolutely right though. You just have to stack it. You have built up his confidence as a quarterback and what he's able to do. I mean, he played with confidence on Saturday. There's no doubt about that. And if people weren't telling me that he had a shoulder issue, you know, going into that game, I would have said you were crazy based on the way he played. But I was going to say, did he look like a guy who had a shoulder issue? No. Did he run like a guy who was even like it was even in the back of his mind that he had some kind of shoulder issue or even a leg issue, you know, like that's when like on that run that where he ended up with the stiff farm where he got past that guy on the sideline and he's down around his ankle and saying, Oh man, what's going to happen? And then he'd frickin breaks away from him and he just keeps on going and they just could not tackle him. I mean, look, Purdue did a very poor job in tackling on Saturday. But some of that was because their names got some pretty dynamic runners of the football as well. And they're fairly elusive and they run through tackles. And so, you know, they just need to build him up and you start it. So I'll say it. Yeah, play action is going to be really, really important because people are going to sell out to stop the run and they're going to be able to take some shots and it's going to happen. Everybody needs to just breathe, just breathe and stop following certain people on the beat and just breathe about whether Riley Leonard can throw the ball downfield or not. I am still a little baffled though, Vince, because, you know, like, he did throw for nearly 3000, two years ago and I don't really understand like how, you know, even if you're in a new system, you're still your ability to read the defense, your ability to see the field. None of that is any different because you go from one system to the next. So I don't quite understand what it is that's like keeping him from making some of those throws because there are open guys to throw to that he's, that he's not thrown to. I don't know if it's, you know, again, like it doesn't go back to, you know, a little bit of the psychological with, with the leg injury that he does have and with an offensive line that's now, you know, that's kind of piece milled together a little bit. I don't know how much that comes into it, but it does look different. I will say, you know, because again, like the guy was saying earlier, well, look at what Michigan did last year, you can bulldoze people all season. And when you look at Notre Dame schedule compared to what Michigan's had last year, it's not that much different, you know, like theoretically Notre Dame should be able to play the exact same style of football that they did against Purdue the other day and be just fine. Really until they get to the end of the season and as of right now, maybe you call it a toss up when they go to USC. I mean, we still need to see a little bit more of each of them, but you, but you would also hope that over the course of those next eight games before you get to USC, that, that passing game and that confidence and whatever does continue to grow up because really that's, that is the biggest concern to me is can Riley Leonard do it against a good team? Can Riley Leonard, if you're down by a score in a two minute drill at the end of the game in the fourth quarter, can he lead that because he is going to have to hit some, you know, some passes in that situation. What happens when you get to third and eight, third and 10, those kind of situations that, you know, if they, if they stop the run up, you know, like that's, that's, I think the question that Riley Leonard still needs to answer. But again, I mean, I think he's got plenty of space in front of him to, to figure out how to answer those questions. I'm not going to nitpick a 362 yard rushing performance of two guys, quarterback and running back, both going over a hundred yards and another running back, coming close to getting to a hundred yards. I think Joe hit the nail on the head and I was going to say something along these lines, but I'll just kind of piggyback off of this comment. He says great risk, great words, but Freeman has scared them into no turnovers. I think if you look at the last few quarterbacks for Notre Dame and their lack of, and their lack of willingness to throw the ball down the field, I do think it's being pounded in their heads. Take care of the football. Don't turn it over. Don't turn it over. Don't turn it over. When Riley Leonard is rolling out to the right and he's got a decision, do I try to chuck it deep to somebody or do I just hold on to it myself and get the first down? He's going to hold on to himself and take it first down, like that's what he's going to do. And I think it's going to take some time to get him out of that mentality. And that's, we talked about this last week with Marcus Freeman. And Marcus Freeman is very clear about the offense that he thinks he wants to run, right? It is ball control, it's don't turn the ball over, take care of the football, run the ball, control the trenches, right? And that wasn't happening in week two. They weren't controlling the trenches. They weren't doing a good job of that. So they had to throw the football. Well now in your head, as a quarterback, you're thinking, wait, don't turn it over. Don't turn it over. Don't turn it over. And then it causes you the whole paralysis by analysis thing and you don't play well. So they need to break him out of that because Riley Leonard is a playmaker and he has to be allowed to make plays. That's what we talk about when we talk about Riley being Riley. They need to break him out of that bowl because he'll never be a good quarterback if that's the mentality that is being forced into him. So we're going to go there. We're going to go to Vince's favorite subject. Yes. This is fantastic. Hey, Irish breakdown listeners, it's Urban Meyer. This fall, the game changes. Join me. If you want to 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. We'll give you the behind the scenes stories for 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. The backup quarterback, Steve Angeli got to play most of the second half. Kenny Manchi and CJ Carr both got in. That was kind of fun. Yeah, it was. Manchi or Angeli goes six of nine hundred yards. Two touchdown passes. The first two touchdown passes of the season. No interceptions. Oh, man, he played really well, which I knew we would. We have a lot of confidence. Steve Angeli made good decisions, took care of the ball. I know he wishes that he wouldn't have took those sacks, but man, I was really pleased and proud of the way Steve played. But he did take the sacks. Exactly. He did take the sacks. He said all the right. Hard. Yeah, he said all the right things there. That's exactly what you say as a head coach talking about your backup quarterback. Oh, really pleased with the way he plays. He plays with confidence. You know, okay, yeah, yep, all of the above and then he wishes he wouldn't have taken those sacks. Yeah, if he was your starter, you'd be wishing that too because that is what you're going to get with like, I think I said this in the postgame show and all right, said it to you. I can't read it. It's all blur usually by Monday, but that game in the amount of plays that he played, that was a microcosm of who Steve Angeli is. Okay. He was very effective in the past game that they asked him to play was one read, make the read and or move on, right? Because and then he was successful, right? The touchdown passed to to bowman. It was a rub play. You throw it to the open guy. That's simple. It's it's one or the other, right? It's a one read play, okay? If he has one, if he has multiple reads, he's either going to check it down or he's going to get sacked and that's what happened later, right? If you want to talk about the difference between Angeli and Leonard as passers, it's not that Angeli, you know, threw a few more balls and he had a couple of nice balls and completed a couple of touchdown passes. It's that they get, you know, like they essentially, in that game specifically on Saturday, they set Angeli up with some some real nice, easy reads. If it's there, you throw it. He did, you know, over the shoulder to hair, so that was a good throw. Great ball. Right. Great ball. But the biggest difference is he's a one read guy. And if it's not there, he's going to check it down. Where's Riley Leonard is just rushing through his right? Right. Yes. Luckily, like 100% is making his reads. He's just doing it way too fast going through it way too fast and that's holding him back and he ends up running the ball or, you know, or doing something different. I mean, that's, that's the difference and you and I were texting about this Saturday. I think it was, it was either Saturday or Sunday, again, it had blurred together. But like for people who want to say, well, Leonard couldn't make that throw or like, let's not forget, he put it on Jaden, great house, his hands, other side of the field, but basically the same throw, same throw, same throw. He put it there. Great house dropped it. Bottom line. End of story. That's all it is. Riley Leonard can make that throw too. So don't correct. Don't tell me just because one was completed means the other guy can't do it. Like that's, that's not what it was. Completely agree. And that's, that's everybody's like, Oh, what look at the throw that he made? Yeah. Right. Leonard made the exact same throw the week before. The identical throw just to the other sideline identical. It's just one guy caught it. One guy didn't. That's the difference. Great house makes that catch, Notre Dame probably wins that game to be perfectly honest with you, because I think he's still running and it's a touchdown. And there was no chance that Northern Illinois was going to score another touchdown on the defense field goal. Yes. Touchdown. Not a chance. So it's just a completely look at the end of the day, Sean, and you know this. If you are a angeli guy, there is nothing that angeli can do wrong and change your mind. And everything Riley does is bad. If you're a Riley guy, it's a complete opposite, right? And if you're someplace in between looking at it logically, like we try to coach people up about, then you're in good shape. And you know that right then Leonard is the starter, right? But the, the, the angeli apologists, there's just no he threw for two touchdowns. He looked amazing. You know, look, I don't know if you saw Pete Samson's tweet the other day, he had a tweet where he had like two cuts of the plays, like Riley Leonard runs a play in the first half. He hands the ball to Jeremiah Love. It's a four yard run. But if you look at Cooper Flanagan in the slot, Purdue lets Cooper Flanagan go. He's wide open. Mike Denbruck comes back to that when Steve Angeli is in the game, runs the exact same play. Again, one read all Steve Angeli has to do is, you know, he's like, Flanagan, Flanagan should be wide open on the play. If he is, you hitting and that's exactly what he did. They ran the exact same play for Steve and Deli led him ahead of touchdown. And they looked at that play on the sideline. All the quarterbacks are together. They looked at that play on the side down and like, if we run this again, you know what I mean? If we run this again, and there's also the, the stuff in the ears, right? And so when Mike Denbruck calls that plan, I'm not saying that this happened, but I could almost guarantee you on a backup quarterbacks in the game, he's like, Hey, we're going to call this play Flanagan's going to be wide open. That's your first read. Right. And he was by the way, the advantage of having those headsets. Yeah. He was laid on the throw to Sean, just FYI. So just saying, yeah, I mean, you're right. Like if you're an Angeli guy, you're not going to back off. That's fine. That's cool. There's still plenty of people, excuse me, who would like to see that the conversation we had on Friday was, you know, kind of playing a little devil's advocate. If they were going to run the offense that they were going to run against Northern Illinois, would you be any worse off with Steve and jelly? Well, they didn't run that same offense because they played to Riley Leonard's strengths. And we saw just a massive difference in what that meant in letting Riley Leonard just be Riley Leonard. That's really seems like that's all it took. DJ. This is fantastic. He was, I would have sent Riley Leonard in to throw that pass to shots of people out. Just let him have it. I totally did. I totally agree with you, DJ. I totally agree with you. That's hilarious. And VR big Steve and jelly guy. Okay. That's cool, man. It's all right. He also had a 42 point lead that does well, you know, because he, you know, he did end up playing with a lot of twos out there as well. 42 point lead. Like, you know, you're not really out there with any kind of pressure whatsoever. Oh, except when you get sacked three times, I guess that was too much pressure for literal pressure. Yeah. Clontarf. Who's the best and jelly Reno high tower or Paul Cruz? I know who the last one is. I don't know the middle. A little Cruz guy. Like the original Paul. Oh, okay. Not Adam Sandler. Paul Cruz. I'm talking about Bert Reynolds Paul Cruz. That's right. Jersey mean machine, baby. Yeah. Let it rip. Who's Reno high tower? Help me out here. I don't know. I don't know what movie reference that is. I'm trying to remember which movie it was now to somebody might want to help me out on that. The best of times. It's Kurt Russell. Oh, Kurt Russell. That's right. That's right. That's not a bad one either. 1986 Reno high tower was pretty good. But obviously Robin Williams like could he could he make the catch that movie doesn't get enough play. I have never heard of this movie before. It's got Robin Williams. They go back Robin Williams is the is the receiver. Okay. And Kurt Russell is the quarterback and they go back and they replay this big game from high school. We're Robin Williams like dropped the big pass at the end of the game. Okay. So like they got to actually relive their high school stuff. That's hilarious. I might have to look this one up. That's fantastic. Okay. Uncle Rico. And you could throw it over that mountain. Okay. Okay. [BLANK_AUDIO]
