Shockingly, the Irish embarrassed themselves in front of their home crowd. After excellent showings in the past couple of weeks, Notre Dame was a 16.5-betting favorite against the then 1-4 Stanford Eagles. That being said, if this season has taught us anything for this team is that nothing is a given.
Notre Dame falls to Stanford in a head-scratching loss. With Stanford coming into South Bend on a four-game losing streak and the Irish on a three-game winning streak – it felt all but certain that Notre Dame would continue rolling. However, under lukewarm offensive play-calling, Drew Pyne and this offense put up 14 pitiful points in a snoozefest as the Irish embarrassed themselves.
This marks the second time this season that Notre Dame came in as double-digit favorites and lost by single digits. The first loss of this kind was to Marshall in their second game of the season.
How were the Irish Embarrassed?
Notre Dame was riding a momentum wave after winning three straight against California, North Carolina, and #16 BYU. This was heavily attributed to strong defensive play and allowing this trio of runningbacks to run over their opponents.
OC Tommy Rees went away from this game plan and decided it was Pyne time. Well, Pyne time produced 0 points through 35 minutes of play. In the first half, the Notre Dame offense had 4 punts, a fumble, and a turnover on downs. On the other side of the ball, despite pitiful offensive play – the defense only surrendered 13 points until the offense put points on the board.
https://twitter.com/tbhorka/status/1582155130576592896?s=20&t=IySrWEBhCg9T5aSXNc2vnw
The above shows a bit of how the Irish embarrassed themselves on offense. Pyne, while he did have a couple of nice throws, saw many passes sail over his WRs. The biggest headscratcher was the lack of touches for Estime, Diggs, and Tyree.
In their three-game winning stretch, collectively, they saw 30+ touches in both the rushing and receiving facets of the offense. On Saturday, they saw single-digit carries. Diggs and Estime averaged 6.3 and 7.1 yards on the ground, respectively, meaning that they were highly efficient. OC Rees did not agree.
While the Irish embarrassed themselves as a unit, this is a message to OC Rees, please remember to…
https://twitter.com/CoreyRadio/status/1581432933264805888?s=20&t=nYqnL8VpjPw2K2ZueLgDBw
What Now?
It was a pipe dream that Notre Dame would be considered for the New Year’s Six bowl games, but with this deflating loss and sitting at 3-3 makes that even less likely. While they are still playing for a bowl game, they have to still have to play three top 15 teams in their remaining six games. Two of which, are in the next three weeks against Syracuse and Clemson, no less.
Boston College will likely give Notre Dame fits as well. The season could end at a 5-7 record and that’s being generous. OC Rees needs to feel how badly the Irish embarrassed themselves on the offensive side of the ball and make a change for the better and shift back to his running backs. Rees must deter himself from putting too much on the shoulders of Pyne and his arm as he’s not built to live up to Rees’ expectations.
Notre Dame (3-3) will host UNLV Rebels (4-3) this Saturday, 10/22. Let’s hope that further embarrassment is not in the near future.
Until next time, Notre Dame Family remember to Play Like a Champion! If you like my content, please shoot me a follow me on Twitter at @KingpettyFFB!
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