Piling up 55 points and 557 yards of total offense through three quarters, the 2015 Notre Dame football team did not fall into today’s “trap game” against the UMass Minutemen. On the heels of a hugely significant upset of #14 Georgia Tech, the #6 Fighting Irish could have stumbled against a program that has only been at the FBS level for a couple years.
With a visit to #11 Clemson coming up next week, it was quite plausible that the Irish might catch themselves looking ahead and underrating the Minutemen.
For the first quarter and a half, there might have been some of that going on. With six minutes left in the first half, the score read ND 21, UMass 20.
That didn’t last long.
With 8:34 left in the game, the scoreboard in South Bend said: Notre Dame 62, UMass 20.
Enough said about this one; time to look ahead to Clemson, where ESPN’s SportsCenter will be setting up shop.
Come on down! ?? @SportsCenter is #ALLIN… are you?#duhnuhnuh #duhnuhnuh https://t.co/iX0gnhQirL
— Clemson Football (@ClemsonFB) September 26, 2015
1. The 2015 Notre Dame football team is completely different from the 2014 Notre Dame football team
Last year’s team melted down (at least defensively) after Linebacker Joe Schmidt went down with an injury versus Navy. There were plenty of other injuries too, especially on defense, but this year’s team already has lots of injuries as well. The 2015 Irish have lost six starters entering week four.
The response to those injuries has been the polar opposite of last season.
2. If the Irish are underdogs this week at Clemson, that’s likely the last time it will happen this season
Last week, numerous players on this Notre Dame football team talked about how disrespected they felt that everyone had them as underdogs at home to Georgia Tech. They used it as motivation to thoroughly thrash the Yellow Jackets. If the Fighting Irish are favored in Death Valley on Saturday, it’s hard to imagine any game the rest of the way when they won’t also be favored again.
3. They live up to the preseason hype regarding depth
We heard about this all summer- the 2015 edition could be Notre Dame football Coach Brian Kelly’s deepest squad ever. That appears to be true, see point one for elaboration on this. ND has lost a lot of key guys already, and at the most important positions. With another injury to Corey Robinson, one of the key receivers from last year’s team, today Kelly had to find the humor in a situation that’s gotten absurd.
“Sprained knee, yeah. Unbelievable. He was going for some popcorn — no, I made that up. He was not going for popcorn. Don’t write that down,” Kelly said in postgame.
“He was just running some drills and sprained his knee. We just felt like it was important to keep him out of it. He didn’t feel 100 percent, and so we’ll get an MRI in the morning and we’re optimistic that it’s not anything major, but we want to make sure and get a look at it tomorrow morning.”
4. The weakness of Notre Dame football is pass defense
The Irish didn’t get an interception until today, the fourth game of the season. UMass, a pass centric team, was able to get plenty of big chunk pass plays versus the ND first team secondary. Ditto for lowly Virginia. You know how Clemson will attack them next week.
Cornerback KeiVarae Russell thinks that this generalization is a bit unfair. In his mind, the ND secondary hasn’t been beaten much straight up, only in trickeration and razzle dazzle plays.
“If you look at our secondary, we’re only really getting beat on these trick gadget stuff,” Russell said.
“Minus a couple (plays), there’s only been these deep scores on gadget plays. They’re not really beating us one-on-one. So we’ll see next week.”
Indeed we shall as Notre Dame versus Clemson is the national game of the week that everyone will be watching.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and sometimes writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. The website is also featured on News Now.
Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye. He also appears regularly on numerous talk shows all across the country. Catch him Tuesdays on KOZN 1620 The Zone.
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