“How come everybody wanna be keep it like the Kaiser?”Anthony Kiedis asked us in the early ’90s. Notre Dame football fans are hoping Kizer can keep it like Ohio State quarterbacks J.T. Barrett and Cardale Jones. That’s a tall order for freshman and new QB1 DeShone Kizer, who gets his first start against arguably the toughest team on Notre Dame’s schedule.
Clemson is good, but Tech is the class of the ACC. They slaughtered Mississippi State in the Orange Bowl and gave SEC power Georgia the what for last year. GT returns a deep, talented roster that is just as underrated as Florida State is overrated. For Notre Dame football nation, Saturday is a season defining kind of game.
Three games stand out on ND’s schedule- this one, at Clemson and USC. The Fighting Irish need to win at least two of those in order to have a realistic shot at a playoff berth. The ACC is the runt of the power five conference litter, so that portion of the schedule will do the Irish zero favors.
Unless of course, they sweep Clemson and Georgia Tech. If Brian Kelly accomplishes this, then he’ll likely run the table in the ACC portion of the schedule.
Spread: Georgia Tech -2.5
TV: NBC 2:30 Central Saturday
#11 Notre Dame Football Preview:
When you look at these stats, you see that the Irish aren’t experiencing all the much of a drop-off in game experience now at the most important position in team sports.
Malik Zaire: 3 starts, 47-75-0-694, 5 TDs
DeShone Kizer: 8-13-0-92, 2 TDs
However, the difference in mobility, and hence the element of the designed QB run in the playbook, is huge. Now that element will be largely missing in the game plan come Saturday. Here’s a link to detailed profile on who DeShone Kizer and who he is not.
Kizer on getting called into action last week at Virginia:
“Not much went through my mind, it was kind of funny. I go to bed the night before a game preparing for that to happen and I just kind of blanked. It was time to play football and that’s the only way I can look at it.”
Kizer on what his teammates said when it was time for him to lead them:
“Jaylon’s (Smith’s) words really stuck with me. He said he trusted me. Jaylon doesn’t say too much. He came up to me and said he trusted me and that we have to go win a game. We didn’t get the stop we needed and it was time for me to take over. With that in mind, there was no stopping the Irish. The coaches and I talked earlier about the 2012 team and how they went about their season.”
“They talked about never losing, so we just had to go out there on that last drive and not lose in that situation.”
People say that Notre Dame football is overrated every September and October, and last week the Irish did look like a team that should be ranked #9 in the nation. Yes, Virginia is probably the weakest link in the ACC. They’re down in the dregs of the league with Syracuse, Duke and North Carolina. When you’re losing to them with 13 seconds left to play….I’m still shocked that ND moved up in the polls and not down this week after that effort.
#16 Georgia Tech Football Preview:
DT Adam Gotsis is the best individual player on Georgia Tech as they true have depth and talent spread around on both sides of the ball, not concentrated in a few players. They’ve outscored their first two opponents 134-16, but that doesn’t mean much because they have yet to face a power five team yet.
Yes, their offense is stuck in the 1940s as GT likes to forward pass as much as I like to call Bank of America, Comcast or Verizon to speak with a “service” representative.
QB Justin Thomas has just 13 pass attempts on the year. The Yellow Jackets get it done on the ground with their option attack. Patrick Skov and Marcus Marshall lead the ground attack. Thomas himself as many rushes on the season as he does pass attempts.
The Rambling Wreck will blitz the daylights out of Kizer in an attempt to rattle him and make him as nervous as possible in his first start. No doubt he’ll try to emulate the lyrics of The Prodigy “bring the pressure, come play the game I’ll test ya!” with his play. The O-line is quite possibly the biggest strength of this Notre Dame football team, so I think they’ll handle it.
Also, Kizer showed cool under pressure on the game winning TD toss. To borrow a basketball phrase, from famed announcer Bill Raftery, it was an “ONIONS!” play. If you haven’t seen it, or want to watch it again, you can take a look below:
Will Fuller!!! #NDvsUVA https://t.co/USyvBaHsRk
— Jarrett Payton (@paytonsun) September 12, 2015
Side note, Georgia Tech was the opponent in the famed “Rudy” game. Here’s a link to the actual game footage from that moment in 1975.
Score Prediction: Georgia Tech 31, Notre Dame 24
There’s good news in that ND somehow won a game in which they were 0-10 on third down conversion. The Irish are the only team in the nation to beat two teams from a power five conference thus far. The Jackets just don’t turn it over at all.
“I think they’re something like plus-13 in turnover-takeaway, and plus, I think it’s plus-14 since the start of last season,” said Notre Dame football Coach Brian Kelly.
“They’re plus-3 this season already. You’ve got a very good football team. So we know what’s in store for us.”
So don’t expect ND to have an extreme advantage like +3 or +4 in the turnover margin on Saturday. If that does happen, then obviously ND will win, but otherwise, I don’t see it happening. The Yellow Jackets have the best O-line in the ACC by far, and the Irish are already a man down at the DT position, having lost Jarron Jones in the summer.
Now with Zaire and Taurean Folston gone for the season too, 9-3 or 10-2 is starting to look like the ceiling for 2015 Notre Dame football. of course, all bets are off if they pull the upset here.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is part of the FOX Sports Engage Network. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. He also appears regularly on numerous talk radio stations all across the country. Catch him Tuesdays on KOZN 1620 the Zone.
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