Postgame: ND 31-GT 13

[bobongo]

The snaps were a bit higher than normal. Our holder, who’s only been doing this for a relatively brief period of his athletic career, couldn’t handle the higher than usual snap.

Shanahan has had a pretty good year all-in-all until yesterday, but the fumbled snaps are on him. For field goals, maybe we should have a QB back there.

 

[bke1984]

That's what I look for more than anything - did they play hard? Once again yesterday, I would say yes, they did.

Playing hard isn’t enough though. Hard, smart, and mistake free is what I want to see. We played hard yesterday, but lacked in the other two areas. Just gotta get better.

 

[tomknight]

*EDIT* While I was typing, I see that NorthAvenueNation (love that, btw) posted before me. I second everything he says. To wit:

First, did we REALLY expect to beat Notre Dame? Anyone who says, "I expect to win every game," is either lying or a fool.

Second, is the team better today than it was in the not-too-distant past? Anyone who says, "No," simply has an axe to grind.

Third, will we have a better season NEXT year than we will finish with this year? Anyone who says, "No," hasn't looked at the schedule.

Tech is on the rise. We have an excellent coaching staff, and our investment in recruiting the state of Georgia is paying dividends. Everyone (except some of the people on this board) seems to understand this.

I'm just glad I don't live next door to some of you Johnny Rainclouds.

so you think we played our best game? nothing to fix? just got out-talented?

 

[bobongo]

Playing hard isn’t enough though. Hard, smart, and mistake free is what I want to see. We played hard yesterday, but lacked in the other two areas. Just gotta get better.

I agree. To my mind playing hard is the most important but that's not to discount other aspects of the game, though I've never seen one that is free of mistakes. But there is room for improvement, to be sure.

 

[MountainBuzzMan]

Wanted to wait a day to post.

We were surprisingly still within reach for most of the game even with all of our issues.
The team never quit and played hard the whole game
We are not there but are really close to getting over the hump and can play with anyone.
No major complaints on the offense. Played decent considering how good the ND Defense is.

WTH is going on with special teams?!?! This game was winnable if they just performed
Dont know how much it hurt missing #44 but the defense seemed to take a step back with a lot of missed tackles.
(Nothing like TFG though) Just not good tackling
The eyeball test seemed to indicate the the D-line and Safeties and DB's continued to take another small step forward.
They got 2 stops that were reverted due to bad special teams play on fake punts on 4th down.

In summary wrapping up a little better and a normal special teams performance and we had a 50/50 shot or better to win that game

 

[bobongo]

Wanted to wait a day to post.

We were surprisingly still within reach for most of the game even with all of our issues.
The team never quit and played hard the whole game
We are not there but are really close to getting over the hump and can play with anyone.
No major complaints on the offense. Played decent considering how good the ND Defense is.

WTH is going on with special teams?!?! This game was winnable if they just performed
Dont know how much it hurt missing #44 but the defense seemed to take a step back with a lot of missed tackles.
(Nothing like TFG though) Just not good tackling
The eyeball test seemed to indicate the the D-line and Safeties and DB's continued to take another small step forward.
They got 2 stops that were reverted due to bad special teams play on fake punts on 4th down.

In summary wrapping up a little better and a normal special teams performance and we had a 50/50 shot or better to win that game

The line drive punts seem to me to be the result of poor blocking. I've noticed Shanahan kicks line drives when he's rushed. He's had a few almost blocked and did a good job just to kick the ball out of there.

 

[bobongo]

I don't usually complain a lot about officiating, but it's surprising to me that two non-calls have gone unmentioned, unless I missed it. One is an obvious running into or roughing the kicker which was ignored on a punt, and the other is an intentional downing by ND that was very obvious because the throw which was way out of bounds didn't come anywhere near crossing the line of scrimmage. Both calls were potentially turnover calls, or rather non-calls.

 

[BurdellJacket]

I am not trying to be an *** but how would you feel if you can only make it to one game a year because of how expensive it has become and that was what you saw?

Perhaps you could choose an easier opponent like VMI for your one game per year?

 

[Randy Carson]

so you think we played our best game? nothing to fix? just got out-talented?

Not what I said. Not even close.

Thanks for checking in.

 

[BleedGoldNWhite21]

8 rushes, 15 yards for Jamal. The run game wasn't working today against ND's DL.

He’s a former WR, find other ways to get him involved. He had 10 offensive touches after having 178 yards last week. A better OC doesn’t just give up on their best weapons because the defense takes them out of it. They scheme to get their best players involved. Buster seemingly gave up.

 

[bobongo]

He’s a former WR, find other ways to get him involved. He had 10 offensive touches after having 178 yards last week. A better OC doesn’t just give up on their best weapons because the defense takes them out of it. They scheme to get their best players involved. Buster seemingly gave up.

I'm pretty sure Buster did not give up. He called the best game he could, and it is not at all clear that throwing to Haynes more would have worked better.

 

[CubeE]

Perhaps you could choose an easier opponent like VMI for your one game per year?

Yea overreacted. Wasn’t expecting a win but wanted to see us at least compete. Was frustrated because it felt like we were never really threatening. Disregard previous rants haha

 

[Lil G]

I was hardly able to watch while at a wedding, did Efford get hurt? Ever even see the field? We NEED him

 

[BleedGoldNWhite21]

I was hardly able to watch while at a wedding, did Efford get hurt? Ever even see the field? We NEED him

He didn’t play due to undisclosed injury

 

[BleedGoldNWhite21]

Ya’ll love punting seasons. “Next year…” “some day” As Creedence Clearwater Revival once said “Some day never comes”

 

[57jacket]

This game also pointed out our need for DL and LB. As I've posted before, this should be priority one in our NIL spending. GT has always had trouble recruiting big, tough academicaly challenged DL. O'Leary spoke of it often. So let's buy some in this stupid age of semi pro college sports. Sigh..

 

[Southern psu fan]

We lost 31-13 to the 12th ranked team without 2 of our best players one being the starting QB and ND was trying their best to beat us as bad as they could. Thats a different games yesterday if we are healthy.

 

[slugboy]

I was hardly able to watch while at a wedding, did Efford get hurt? Ever even see the field? We NEED him

He was held out due to an injury. Taj Butler started in his place. Rodney Shelley (Nickel) was also out. Neither played a snap

Participation report and final stats here

https://ramblinwreck.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/notre-dame-10-19-final-book.pdf

 

[roadkill]

I don't usually complain a lot about officiating, but it's surprising to me that two non-calls have gone unmentioned, unless I missed it. One is an obvious running into or roughing the kicker which was ignored on a punt, and the other is an intentional downing by ND that was very obvious because the throw which was way out of bounds didn't come anywhere near crossing the line of scrimmage. Both calls were potentially turnover calls, or rather non-calls.

Key was asked about the no-call on the roughing the kicker in his post-game presser. Obviously, he couldn't say much about the refs without getting fined, and didn't.
Intentional grounding should have been called and could have made a difference. That said, intentional grounding is one of the NCAA rulebook's more subjective (and confusingly described) rules.

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

We lost 31-13 to the 12th ranked team without 2 of our best players one being the starting QB and ND was trying their best to beat us as bad as they could. Thats a different games yesterday if we are healthy.

No one is upset we lost the game. We are simply discussing that we did not give ourselves a chance because we played like a very unintelligent and poorly coached team. We had both King and Efford for the Syracuse and Louisville games and we were out coached and out played in those games. Yesterday would have been no different.

This has been an issue since CPJ retired. We are never going to out athlete most teams (VT included next week) so we have to play smart and disciplined which we haven’t done in a long time.