The ND "putdown" has already started.

Legal Jacket

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561
Ultimately I think this game is pretty much a toss-up, but I like our chances a lot.

At the beginning of the season, if you gave me the choice between the domers and us, I probably would have picked them just because of the road part of the game. Fast forward two weeks, take away their starting QB and starting RB, and I think I'd take us more times out of ten. Doesn't mean much though, which is why they play the games.
 
AE 87

AE 87

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GTG768B said:
My analysis: I'd hate to be this guy after his team gets smoked this weekend. He obviously flexed as much logic as he has to reason this out, and when it all ends up being wrong, my guess is that he'll turn into a "Fire Kelly" guy really quickly. Sad to see fans like that.
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I don't know. After his stupid statement of facts about our opponents, his 5 of 7 list is basically, "We have to dramatically outplay them on offense and defense if we want to win."

For example, he includes, "score more than 39." Last year, ND scored more than 39 against Rice, UNC, Navy, and Northwestern. So, it's not like scoring that many pts comes easy for them. Also, they had 14 drives against Northwestern to get to 40 and 15 against UNC to get to 50. I won't be surprised if they only have 10 or 11 drives against us.

Or, they "can't be forced to punt more than 3 times." That was true for ND last year vs. Rice, FSU, and Navy.

Or, they "must score TD's on at least 87% trips into Red Zone." They did this once last year versus UNC, 6 for 6. Otherwise, they reached 83% versus Navy. They averaged 64.5% TD in trips into Red Zone.

For them to win, according to the link, one of these has to happen plus all the others I didn't list (like turning us over 2 times without turning it over themselves at all)

It's not like he made the game out as a gimme with his list.
 

Legal Jacket

Ramblin' Wreck
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561
AE 87 said:
I don't know. After his stupid statement of facts about our opponents, his 5 of 7 list is basically, "We have to dramatically outplay them on offense and defense if we want to win."

For example, he includes, "score more than 39." Last year, ND scored more than 39 against Rice, UNC, Navy, and Northwestern. So, it's not like scoring that many pts comes easy for them. Also, they had 14 drives against Northwestern to get to 40 and 15 against UNC to get to 50. I won't be surprised if they only have 10 or 11 drives against us.

Or, they "can't be forced to punt more than 3 times." That was true for ND last year vs. Rice, FSU, and Navy.

Or, they "must score TD's on at least 87% trips into Red Zone." They did this once last year versus UNC, 6 for 6. Otherwise, they reached 83% versus Navy. They averaged 64.5% TD in trips into Red Zone.

For them to win, according to the link, one of these has to happen plus all the others I didn't list (like turning us over 2 times without turning it over themselves at all)

It's not like he made the game out as a gimme with his list.
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Right? His list reads almost like a no brainer of things you need to win (although I did like the analysis it was based on):

Don't turn the ball over. They turn it over twice.
Score at least 39 points, only kick one field goal on red zone attempts.
Have the TE position get 5 catches (basically, have the TE go for 60-80 yards receiving).
Make five sacks/tackles for loss.
Don't punt.
Limit big plays.

If I put together a list, it would go like this:

Don't turn the ball over. They turn it over twice.
Score at least 35 points, don't kick field goals.
Have the AB position get five broken (20+ yard) runs.
Make five sacks/tackles for loss.
Don't punt.
Limit big plays.
 

Skeptic

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gtg147g said:
Either you didn't read the OP article, or you missed the joke. ND has no more reason to be confident going into this game than we do.
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This is on the money. Let's let them worry about the things we're worrying about, because they should. And if they think playing Navy is the same, are they in for a shock.
 

Architorture23

Jolly Good Fellow
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176
I like playing teams at full strength but I'd rather beat a team with their 2nd string QB than lose to them with their 1st.

I'm not saying Zaire would necessarily be the difference in us winning or losing. I happen to think we can beat them with Zaire.

But part of being good is dealing with injuries. Sorry for Zaire, but not really sorry for Notre Dame. Our kids go and risk getting hurt every game and every practice just the same.
 

Jean-Baptiste Rochambeau

Banned
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Architorture23 said:
I like playing teams at full strength but I'd rather beat a team with their 2nd string QB than lose to them with their 1st.

I'm not saying Zaire would necessarily be the difference in us winning or losing. I happen to think we can beat them with Zaire.

But part of being good is dealing with injuries. Sorry for Zaire, but not really sorry for Notre Dame. Our kids go and risk getting hurt every game and every practice just the same.
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I wish Everette Golson was still on the team.
 
swampsting

swampsting

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Legal Jacket said:
I don't think there is bad blood coming from VanGorder. The issue is that VanGorder changed the GSU offense and made some derogatory comments about CPJ's offense. I haven't seen anything that suggests VanGorder cares one way or the other.
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It wasn't so much he made derogatory comments about the offense. He made derogatory comments about the program and its facilities as a whole. PJ's retort - and I believe this was in an AJC article at the time - was along the lines of "it didn't seem to bother us when we were winning national championships." BVG pretty much peed on everything about Southern and its traditions (gray facemasks, taking the yellow school buses to the stadium, et al). He changed the offense and the marketing folks came up with the now regrettable slogan of "There Is No Option" with his ugly butt mug on billboards. God, that was awful. Then again, so was the team that year.

I had someone who knows some of the big GSU boosters tell me that BVG wanted to hire Jeff Monken to be his OC, but Monken said no. I don't know how that true that is. But BVG did have to hire an OC very late in the process. And that guy, Darin Hinshaw, wound up being neighbors with ...

Mike Sewak.

Now, BVG's family let it be known they hated living in Statesboro. For someone like PJ, who loved it there and still has a bunch of really good friends there, them's close to fighting words.
 
swampsting

swampsting

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When PJ was coaching at Southern, I went to practices a lot, even after I moved from Statesboro. I would go by once every few weeks and a lot of times, it would be just me and PJ talking for the first five or six periods of practice. I came down once during a BVG era practice and some of the Southern admin types brought me over to meet him. He didn't seem all that interested - which was fine, I'm not some major power player in the world, though women who want a little more money out of me keep telling me I am - and I've held cold dead fish in my hands before, so his handshake had a familiar feel to it.
 

GT1992

Jolly Good Fellow
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161
swampsting said:
It wasn't so much he made derogatory comments about the offense. He made derogatory comments about the program and its facilities as a whole. PJ's retort - and I believe this was in an AJC article at the time - was along the lines of "it didn't seem to bother us when we were winning national championships." BVG pretty much peed on everything about Southern and its traditions (gray facemasks, taking the yellow school buses to the stadium, et al). He changed the offense and the marketing folks came up with the now regrettable slogan of "There Is No Option" with his ugly butt mug on billboards. God, that was awful. Then again, so was the team that year.

I had someone who knows some of the big GSU boosters tell me that BVG wanted to hire Jeff Monken to be his OC, but Monken said no. I don't know how that true that is. But BVG did have to hire an OC very late in the process. And that guy, Darin Hinshaw, wound up being neighbors with ...

Mike Sewak.

Now, BVG's family let it be known they hated living in Statesboro. For someone like PJ, who loved it there and still has a bunch of really good friends there, them's close to fighting words.
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Didn't we sign the son of one of his former players a few years ago?
 

Legal Jacket

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
561
swampsting said:
It wasn't so much he made derogatory comments about the offense. He made derogatory comments about the program and its facilities as a whole. PJ's retort - and I believe this was in an AJC article at the time - was along the lines of "it didn't seem to bother us when we were winning national championships." BVG pretty much peed on everything about Southern and its traditions (gray facemasks, taking the yellow school buses to the stadium, et al). He changed the offense and the marketing folks came up with the now regrettable slogan of "There Is No Option" with his ugly butt mug on billboards. God, that was awful. Then again, so was the team that year.

I had someone who knows some of the big GSU boosters tell me that BVG wanted to hire Jeff Monken to be his OC, but Monken said no. I don't know how that true that is. But BVG did have to hire an OC very late in the process. And that guy, Darin Hinshaw, wound up being neighbors with ...

Mike Sewak.

Now, BVG's family let it be known they hated living in Statesboro. For someone like PJ, who loved it there and still has a bunch of really good friends there, them's close to fighting words.
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Love the story. That said, it still doesn't seem like BVG has contempt for CPJ? Maybe I'm wrong - you definitely would know better than me.
 
swampsting

swampsting

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My interaction with BVG - and I've known and gotten along with just about every Southern coach from Erk through Monken - was limited to that greeting at practice. But none of my Boro peeps or anybody I know in the media who dealt with him had anything good to say about him.
 
thwgjacket

thwgjacket

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I don't get the ND defense hype I've been reading. Yea, #9 is really good, but they shutdown Texas, a team that ranked 106 in points per game last year and 111 in yards per game...in the Big 12. Virginia looked good against them offensively. They may come out and shut us down but it is encouraging to know that UVA, a team not known for it's rushing prowess, averaged over 5 yards a carry against them if you take out the Matt Johns sacks.
 

1979jacket

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652
I think every team would go undefeated if they could get 5 of the 7 every game - think about it - that's a tough list to accomplish.
 
dressedcheeseside

dressedcheeseside

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thwgjacket said:
I don't get the ND defense hype I've been reading. Yea, #9 is really good, but they shutdown Texas, a team that ranked 106 in points per game last year and 111 in yards per game...in the Big 12. Virginia looked good against them offensively. They may come out and shut us down but it is encouraging to know that UVA, a team not known for it's rushing prowess, averaged over 5 yards a carry against them if you take out the Matt Johns sacks.
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Can't remove sacks from the equation, sacks are part of the baseline.
 
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