Welp. There was definitely some room for doubt on Saturday night. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish lost a wild game on Saturday night to the BYU Cougars in what many considered a true litmus test for how the team actually is. BYU was the first team truly that gave the Irish a challenge in 13 calendar months. The loss stings for a lot of reasons, basically making a game against #1 Miami a must-win.
With a loss and how the Irish came out very flat in the first half with so many costly and uncharacteristic
errors in play and in coaching, we head into the Cheeseburger Bye Week with many questions.
So, a game like that will lend itself to MANY emotions and reactions, and definitely some overreactions. Here are a few from Saturday night that I saw online, and how this edition might be more “reaction” than “over.”
ND @ BYU: Overreactions We Saw Online
Was Saturday’s defensive performance fire-able? I don’t think so just yet, but I totally understand the sentiment. The defense seemed lost in the first half. It’s not like the defense lacks talent, but you had Leonard Moore get fooled a few times, KVA and the linebackers struggled, and you saw missed tackles from Shuler and others. I’m not sure what happened entirely, but it did look like Chris Ash wasn’t truly prepared for the tricky plays and gamesmanship that BYU showed, especially in the first half.
That all segues well into the next “not so over” reaction. Shoutout to Jude for bringing this one back, as usually this is pretty true in football games. Unfortunately, this ended up being wrong for once because BYU’s trickeration and confusion of the defense eventually rattled Notre Dame and got the Irish down by two scores.
Calling CJ Carr average is certainly an interesting take. CJ Carr generally speaking reads defenses very well, stays poised, especially in the pocket, throws a beautiful ball most of the time, and he can manage games well. Now, we haven’t seen him against a Top 10 team in over one year. But, he also just did not look like he was comfortable all night. So many overthrows, plus the fumble spike. I personally think he is way better than average. This might sound like loser behavior, but he did drive the team down ~70 yards to get a chance to win the game on the “final” play. He’s definitely above average, but he did show weaknesses that need to be addressed. We hope that was a one-off flukey, uncharacteristic game for him.
I had thought this, too, especially in the first half, but I’m shouting out Pat Rick here. That performance and losing that game felt like the days of BK. Not showing up in a tough road environment and causing all of the haters to be correct. It did feel like we went back in time with a game like that.
