MSU Duds and Studs

Diving right in...

Duds

Duval Kamara: Terrible route running almost made me put him on this list for the Michigan game, but a touchdown reception saved him. By all means, Kamara should be a go-to receiver this year. His height, speed, and strength combine to create what should be a huge mismatch problem for all secondaries, but poor route running, poor execution, and miscommunication have been the theme for his first three games. Clausen got credited for the two picks against MSU, but one of them came from Duval failing to out-jump a shorter DB on a risky, but in my opinion a pretty well thrown ball, and the other resulted from him failing to shorten his route to adjust to the corner blitz. Keeping that in mind, the line becomes blurred between who should have the INTs in their stat line.
Haywood/Weis/Latina: I know that all of these coaches break down countless hours of film (on our team as well as opponent's teams). I also know that these coaches also spend a good deal of time in person with the offensive line in practice. So how can coaches that know their personnel so well perceive such a glaring weakness (run blocking) as a strength? How can the offensive line get dominated play after play on run blocks, but the coaches continue to call exclusively running plays? Notre Dame's runningbacks picked up 30 yards on 15 carries during the game. Either the coaches need to adjust their blocking schemes, magically find much better run blockers, or admit that Notre Dame will not be a 'power running team' in 2008 and begin using the pass to set up the run.SBPD: Raiding nearly all student frequented bars to make sure bar tenders aren't serving underage? Fine by me. Allocating 5+ units for this task? Questionable, but still explainable. Taking the time to arrest (as in taking to jail, not ticketing) 40 students for drinking at a house party? Unless the students were rioting against the police, I find this one hard to explain. See JY's write up for more.

Brandon Walker: 0-3 in attempted field goals this year. Sure the team has had some problems with long snapping consistency. I don't care. My interhall football team was able to scrap together a field goal unit minutes before our game, and guess what? The one field goal we attempted was from about 40 yards out, one of our offensive linemen was kicking, and he missed... but I swear to you it was closer than Walker's was.

Studs

Tate/Floyd: No surprise here. These receivers have played their tails off all season. If other players could break a tackle like Tate did on his 3rd and 17 reception, I would like our chances much more this year. Floyd, despite his fumble, makes the list because he gave the extra effort on his TD reception that Duval should have given on his INT non-reception. The pair combined for 169 of the team's 242 receiving yards (70%), and Tate added a run of 24 yards. If that wasn't enough, MSU kicked away from Tate the entire game, which either says a lot about Tate, or very little about Allen.

Brian Smith: Another player who seems very comfortable in the Studs column, Smith played another solid game at linebacker, stripping Ringer for the only MSU turnover of the day.

Ethan Johnson: It looks like Notre Dame has found at least one freshman to contribute on the D-Line. Johnson looked at worst capable and at best disruptive during the game, logging two pass deflections from the defensive end position.

3rd Down Offense: The Irish entered the contest having converted only 6/24 (split evenly against Mich and SDSU) times on third down, but were able to perform considerably better Saturday, picking up the first 6 times in 13 chances. This stat was very encouraging, and shows that our offense isn't trying to keep the defense on the field the entire game.

Other Notes: Clausen played pretty well, completing 24 passes for 242 yards, but I would like to see a little more variety in his passing tree (i.e. less Grossman-esque fly routes). It still confuses me when the coaches put Allen in at RB when so far this season Hughes and Aldridge, while they haven't been great, have both been better than #5. I know that Yeatman probably shouldn't have been out drinking considering that a.) he just lost a winnable football game, and b.) that he is on probation, but keep in mind that the kid was just at a house party. Also, I haven't seen any reports about how much the kids had been drinking, so don't accuse him of throwing back a case when he could have been drinking much less. Otherwise, let's keep the home winning streak rolling.

Go Irish!