Tag: Notre Dame Football

Already the usual fluffy hype has begun, including the “woulda-coulda-shoulda” excuse-making that tries to celebrate a Notre Dame loss, because it was close and to a good opponent that might rise in the rankings. Heading into their game with Miami of Ohio, Notre Dame is, indeed, 3-1. And, like Gerry Faust, Kelly has Notre Dame floating in and out of the rankings. Yet, to look at it another way, Notre Dame is 0-1 against teams then-barely ranked in the top 15, they are 1-1 at home and they are 3-0 against teams that are unranked. Their three victories come against teams with a combined record of 5-6.

Kelly’s Lads now will show whether they can avoid coming out flat against a Miami of Ohio team that does not sound like a big name, yet is the Cradle of Coaches and is 8-3 across their last 11 games, including a bowl loss to an SEC opponent. Coming out flat is a not-uncommon occurrence under Brian Kelly, in an era pock-marked by close games where a Brian Kelly team played down to the level of the opposition, lapsed into a dogfight against a weaker or middling opponent and sometimes did not pull out the win.

Former Notre Dame assistant coach (and former Notre Dame player) Skip Holtz once brought a middling South Florida team (one that finished with a losing record that year) into Notre Dame Stadium and spanked Notre Dame with a three-point Bulls victory. Like Skip Holtz, Miami of Ohio Head Coach Chuck Martin is a former Notre Dame assistant, indeed the offensive coordinator during the only season in the Brian Kelly era where Notre Dame showed signs of almost returning to elite status. So, as a former Notre Dame assistant, Martin will by no means be intimidated by the stadium or the hype and supposed mystique.

Yet, for Kelly, Martin is a much worse scenario, since Martin has had longstanding association with Kelly himself. The situation is a bit more like when Notre Dame basketball coach Mike Brey goes up against Duke and Mike Krzyzewski.

Brey was a Duke assistant during Duke’s greatest heyday and has gradually morphed into a bit of a nemesis for Duke as Notre Dame head coach. That presumably is due to some combination of Brey’s basic ability, his lack of awe for his old stomping grounds and his familiarity with Krzyzewski and Coach K’s system and tendencies.

Kelly may have relinquished offensive play-calling, and his new coordinators may have tweaked things. Yet Notre Dame still is a Brian Kelly program, and Chuck Martin’s familiarity with Kelly goes way back to the small college level (where, incidentally, Martin, as a head coach, matched Kelly’s small college national championship tally).

In a stroke of poetic symmetry, Chuck Martin and Miami of Ohio warmed up for Notre Dame by blowing out Central Michigan last week, Brian Kelly’s former ball club where Kelly first broke into Div. I-A/FBS a little more than a decade ago.

Expect to see Notre Dame to have a marginal size and talent advantage, and try to ride their running game, uneven as it is, to some kind of plodding advantage. However, also expect to see Miami play harder, and Notre Dame potentially to be a bit flat. And remember, even in the games where Notre Dame won by multiple scores this year, things stayed even for a while. Against Michigan State, Notre Dame was even decisively outgained, and only acquitted themselves by seizing opportunities when the Spartans beat themselves with a rash of turnovers.

The law of averages might come back to bite Notre Dame on the neck, if their sporadic quarterback play produces some turnovers. And expect Chuck Martin to have his underdog ballclub to at least play with discipline and intensity.

So we might, indeed, see Notre Dame in a dogfight for at least part of the game, and
for that dogfight to drag on if Notre Dame has had a cozy week believing their own press clippings, and come out flat. Expect Miami to have a chance to win if Notre Dame starts making mistakes and committing turnovers while Miami plays disciplined and plays hard.

But is this a must-win game? Probably.

If Notre Dame loses, they take a 3-2 record into a road game in the Carolinas during hurrican season, against a North Carolina team easy to underestimate with a lulling record, who nevertheless hung within one or two touchdowns of multiple strong opponents. That’s followed up by a game against an elite Southern Cal and tough games against North Carolina State, at Miami of Florida, home against Wake Forest, and on the road against Navy and Stanford.

So if Notre Dame gets upset by Chuck Martin and Miami of Ohio, and falls to 3-2, even if they manage to rebound with a win at North Carolina — not at all a given — they could then find themselves struggling to stay above .500 against a slate of six opponents across the second half of the season who each have the ability to beat Notre Dame.

The Irish are still three wins away from bowl eligibility. One of the most embarrassing factors to emerge last season was not simply that Notre Dame went into the tank at 4-8, or that they curled up in a ball against Southern Cal once things started to go against them (in stark contrast to what the 4-6 Notre Dame team under Lou Holtz who staged an inspired rally to beat a ranked Southern Cal in the Coliseum to close out Holtz’s first season). What was even more embarrasing was the realization that, setting aside all that PR hype about academics, Notre Dame went into that game knowing that they were not, at all, guaranteed a bowl bid exception even if they climbed to a 5-7 record.  There has been no indication that they have improved their academic standing, by the actual NCAA measures that count, to go to a bowl at 5-7 (although the number of bowls has proliferated so much, who knows).

If Notre Dame can find a way to win against Miami of Ohio and Chuck Martin, and somehow avoid hurricanes and take care of business at North Carolina, they would at least be one win away from bowl eligibility before heading into the murderer’s row gauntlet of those final six games.

If they lose to Miami of Ohio, in addition to the mathematical implications, that could invoke yet another Brian Kelly tendency — the skid. In addition the the “Flat Game” tradition there’s the tradition of “The Skid.” Losing to Miami of Ohio, then heading to hurricane-ridden Carolinas against a North Carolina team that hung within 5 points of Cal, within 12 points of Louisville and within 10 points of Duke would not bode well for Notre Dame avoiding The Skid.

And, as mentioned, Notre Dame is 0-1 against teams in the top-15.  In that final stretch of six opponents, two are ranked in the top-15 and several more should be at least top-25, five of the six are getting votes in the polls.  The only opponent in that final stretch who is not getting votes yet is undefeated and has beaten Notre Dame multiple times in the past decade.

A must-win game is a game that helps if you win, and can have a catastrophic impact if you lose.

So is Notre Dame’s match-up with Miami of Ohio a must-win game for Notre Dame?

Probably.