It used to be us making fun of this game saying that a rivalry is a game where the other team wins occasionally. Now, and for the entirety of this season, we’re the punchline. We’re 0-3 in our last three games to ND. Yes, this one was closer, but they don’t give you “you lost, but hey at least it was close” awards. Spaz has never beaten Notre Dame, and has given us precious reason to believe he’s ever capable of doing so.
2W) The BC Tease
Wow Mike , that is definitely a gut check first round pick, I unfortunately agree.
On my second pick , I am going to go with something close to that. As the gameprogressed, I honestly thought we could get a W.. Maybe it was my own will but I was really thinking it would happen. But we just couldn’t produce the points to make it happen.
3M) The dropped D-Fletch INT
I’m as big of a D-Fletch fan as you’ll find, but he had a game to forget on a couple of really key plays. I’m only going to address one here: the dropped INT on the goal line. ND only wound up getting three out of it, but as it turns out—those three points could have made quite the difference and certainly would have moved momentum in our direction much earlier in the ballgame. For a player like Asprilla orALJ, or any other of the green D-backs this drop would have been borderlineexcusable. First game at ND, big rivalry game, not a lot ofexperience, etc., but D-Fletch has had all of those things and is a very good CB. That drop really hurt us early on…and sadly correctly set the tone for how the game would go.
4W) Freese onsides kick
Rightwhen you knew this was going to be what gave us another opportunity to win, or be the nail on the coffin. We all witnessed what may have been the worst onsides kick in BC history.
I like Freese, I really do he is a very talented player, but that onsides kick gave us no opportunity to recover
5M) Wasting Quigley’s Day
Oh man…Wesley, I couldn’t agree with you more. What a fantastic kick in the junk that was. I stilllike Freese and think that while this year has been tough for him, he’s a good kicker overall—but man oh man was that onsides kick a thing of legend (in as bad of a way as possible). If Ididn’t know better, I’d think this was a secret Spaz strategy to catch them off guard 30 yards down the field. Brutal way to end the game.
I’m going to flip the coin theother way and talk about the wasted efforts of the silver lining that was Ryan Quigley’s day Saturday. Simply put, he kept us in the game. If you look at the total offense numbers, it’s a blowout on paper. It was only due to Twig’s amazing punting day that we even stayed close. This is not to forget the awesome day the punt coverage team had as well—certainly not a one man show and together they were simply terrific. Truly a shame that such a performance was wasted on a loss. Had we won, this likely would have been a top 3 best of the best call-out.
Lastly, let’s take a moment toappreciate how GOOD our punters have been recently. Much of the talk recently has been about how spoiled we’ve been as fans/alums for the QB play we had prior to / including Crane (this is where most split). While that’s a fair topic, let’s not forget Johnny Ayers and his outstanding four years and now the three plus that we’re getting out of Quigley. You only really notice them, generally speaking, when they do something bad. We haven’t paid attention to the punting game inalmost a decade. We need to appreciate this fact.
6W) Not getting over 14
Really the Defense had a good gameplan and executed it. Holding ND to 16 points is what it needed to do to obtain a win, so I would say that the defense did their part. The offense on the other hand was nothing short of offensive. After being put in repetitive good position with the ball, the offense reminded me of groundhog day as it was uber predictable. Not enough shots down field, when tosses toPantale were working they didn’t continue to go there. You need to play to win, and I have to say our Offensive game plan seemed to play not to make mistakes.
7M) O-LinePassProtection
Agreed on the point line, Wesley. It’s a little sad when you look at this year—and Spaz’s tenure for that matter—and you realize we’ve only scored over 20 points something like four times in two years against FBS competition (Duke, Wake, Kent State, and Maryland. I won’t even bother at that collective winning percentage; you can make a healthy guess). That’s not even addressing the 13.33 (13, 13, 14) pts/game average in the three recent bowl games—not that we’ll have to worry about that this year.
Sigh.
Here with my 4th pick, 7th overall I’m going with the O-Line pass protection. Yes, I know they’ve been beaten up all year, but now folks are getting after Rettig more and more. I’m not. When Chase has time to throw and sets his feet (this happens maybe 1/5, 1/6 plays), he throws a tight, accurate ball. When the line breaks down, Chase admittedly gets happy feet and when that happens he’s as accurate as a drunk throwing beads at Mardi Gras—except it looks like he’s not having nearly as much fun.
So yes, I agree Chase needs to calm down those happy feet—but look to the cause…the lack of protection from the O-line.
8W) Hearing the ND band play our song
Now Granted I like hearing Shipping up to Boston over and over, and the Notre Dame band did about as well as any French bandcould do. But let me set them straight real quick.
That song is associated to Boston College, Irish and tradition. All things that Notre Dame has tried to be attached to for years, but has failed miserably.
9M) Jonas Gray injury
No kidding. It’s not like the name of the City of Boston isn’t right in the song title or anything for “Shipping up to BOSTON”. Sheesh. ….and these are the kids who like to pretend like they’re wicked smaht. What a bunch of retahds.
For number nine I’m going with the Jonas Gray injury. I know it wasn’t a BC player but the announcers did talk at length at how the young man has turned his life around and had worked so hard at becoming a better football player and person—and that it was all finally paying off for him and he was now looking like a strong candidate to be drafted into the NFL. It was very sad to see the knee injury occur and all you can do is wish this young man the best and tell him if he needs a roadmap for how to overcome adversity and make your way into the NFL, check out #58 for Big Blue on Sunday Night Football.
10M) The rest of the BC programs getting losses as well
Mike I agree, Gray was absolutely destroying us as well, he is just a huge back to bring down. Hope nothing but the best for the guy.
It wasn't just a rough weekend for the football team. Hockey, Basketball, and pretty much every other team that was fielded over the weekend came back with a loss.. A'int that a kick in the pants.
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