Tag: 2022 football season

Joel Klatt releases his new college football top-10

What would your top 10 look like as week 1 is nearly in the books?

Week 1 has come and gone for the most part in college football while just a couple of games remain this Labor Day weekend.  Who walked out of Week 1 the biggest winners and who has to go back to the drawing board and figure something or a lot of things out?

The week didn’t see any major upsets although North Carolina State had an extremely close call at unranked East Carolina.  In other places Georgia steam-rolled Oregon 49-3 while Ohio State outlasted Notre Dame in a battle of top-five teams, 21-10.

How will the teams show up in the rankings after week 1?  Fox Sports analyst Joel Klatt, who is on the call for Fox’s biggest game each week released his updated top 10 on Sunday morning.  Here’s how that goes:

Marcus Freeman recaps No. 5 Notre Dame’s loss at No. 2 Ohio State

How would you rate Marcus Freeman’s first regular season showing as Notre Dame’s head coach?

It wasn’t quite the storybook finish that Marcus Freeman hoped as he returned to Ohio State as the opposing head coach, but Notre Dame’s new leader had the Irish in a position to have a realistic chance to win the game entering the fourth quarter.  Although I’m not a believer in moral victories at Notre Dame, I am a believer in going from really good to truly great taking more than just a day.

There were things to get a bit upset about Saturday night if you’re a Notre Dame fan and things to get excited about in terms of the future.  Here is everything Marcus Freeman had to say following the 21-10 loss to the No. 2 Buckeyes.

Know the Opponent: No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes

Everything you need to know about the No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes

Notre Dame has opened up recent seasons in both memorable places and against some blue programs in recent years with trips to Florida State, Louisville, and Texas in recent years while home openers have included bouts with Michigan and Texas both as well.

No opener in recent Notre Dame memory will have drawn the attention this game draws Saturday however as the Irish hit the road to Columbus to take on No. 2 Ohio State.  Despite the close proximity it is only the seventh meeting all-time between the midwest powerhouses, with Ohio State having a 4-2 edge all-time.

Related: FIW staff predicts 2022 Notre Dame season game-by-game

Obviously Ohio State is loaded again as they’re one of the premier programs in all of college football.  What does Notre Dame have waiting for them Saturday night?

We sat down with Phil Harrison of Buckeyes Wire and got the 4-1-1 on all things Ohio State.  Check it out below.

What game can’t Notre Dame lose whatsoever in 2022?

Hint: It’s USC (@trojanswire) for a variety of reasons. Find out why @NickShepkowski and @alwaysirishinc think so here!

Notre Dame enters this season as a top-five team and despite having games at No. 2 Ohio State and against No. 4 Clemson, certainly seems like a team that will contend for a College Football Playoff spot.

But for a minute let’s assume the Irish go 10-2 and end up playing in the Orange Bowl.  Is that acceptable for Marcus Freeman in his first season?  We discussed that a bit a week or so ago and it came up again when I sat down with the Always Irish podcast.

We went with the assumption Notre Dame would go 10-2 and then discussed why there was one opponent of the essentially big three (Ohio State, Clemson, and USC) that the Irish absolutely could not afford to lose to.

Here’s a hint.

It’s USC and it’s not close.

Enjoy watching us discuss why and make sure to subscribe and hit like if you enjoy the content.

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Preseason bowl projections: Hurricane warning for Notre Dame?

It’s a U…of Notre Dame thing.

As the college football regular season inches closer and closer, we’ve been getting hit with more and more preseason predictions and projections for how just about every one of the 131 Football Bowl Subdivision programs will do. The latest is a set of bowl projections for every bowl game this season from veteran college football scribe Bill Bender of The Sporting News.

Bender sends Notre Dame to a bowl game we’ve seen several outlets project the Irish to already, but the opponent Bender projects is about as compelling a potential bowl opponent as there could be for the Irish, short of it being someone in the College Football Playoff.

Bill Bender’s Notre Dame Bowl Projection:

Orange Bowl – December 30, 2022
Notre Dame vs. Miami (FL)

If Notre Dame isn’t playing in the College Football Playoff (which I’m not sold on to be frank), then go ahead and sign me up for this one. The disaster that was the 2017 game at Miami, where the Irish were obliterated, 41-8, still leaves a bad taste in any Notre Dame fan’s mouth.

And whenever you put Notre Dame and Miami in the same sentence, the collective antenna of college football fans everywhere is raised.

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Texas WR Agiye Hall mentioned on 247Sports’ boom-or-bust candidates

Agiye Hall could be primed for a great run at Texas.

Former Alabama wide receiver Agiye Hall may be primed for a great run at Texas, according to Brad Crawford of 247Sports.

Crawford said the following about the new Longhorns receiver when discussing his boom-or-bust prospects from the transfer portal ahead of the 2022 season.

Hall appeared in seven games as a true freshman last season for the Crimson Tide and caught four passes for 72 yards. His best production came in the national championship game against Georgia after he caught two passes for 52 yards following an injury to starter Jameson Williams. He’ll try and break into the wide receiver rotation at Texas that includes Xavier Worthy, a freshman All-American last season, and Isaiah Neyor, a decorated transfer from Wyoming. The talent is deep in the wideout room and Hall, if he avoids any off-the-field distractions, could be an instant-splash type of playmaker given his skill set.

Hall certainly fits the description of boom-or-bust players, but the already loaded position group affords Texas to take time developing him.

While Hall won’t be asked to lead the team in receiving this year, he can make an immediate impact in Steve Sarkisian’s offense.

Contact/Follow us @LonghornsWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Texas news, notes and opinions.

Four ways the Texas defense can improve in 2022

The Texas defense can improve in many ways this season.

Texas defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski is hoping to lead a better defense after a frustrating first year. Continue reading “Four ways the Texas defense can improve in 2022”

Notre Dame football 1992 and 1993 – a look back

Who was your first favorite Notre Dame squad?

Who is your favorite team in all of sports and what year did you become a fan?  Perhaps there was a year your fandom became an obsession?

That was the case for me in the early-90s with Notre Dame football as I know I have been a fan for as long as I can remember but my first memories of watching the Irish came in the 1992 season that saw a 10-1-1 conclusion led by my first set of favorites in [autotag]Rick Mirer[/autotag], [autotag]Jerome Bettis[/autotag], [autotag]Reggie Brooks[/autotag], [autotag]Bryant Young[/autotag], [autotag]Jim Flanigan[/autotag], and plenty of others.

A year later we know what happened as the Irish, led by quarterback Kevin McDougal, had wins over No. 3 Michigan and No.1 Florida State in starting the year 10-0 before being upset in the regular season finale by Boston College.  I don’t care what the final polls say, I saw the 1993 “Game of the Century” against Florida State and despite it coming down to the final play, anybody who watched that game saw Notre Dame beat the daylights out of Florida State that afternoon.  Seriously, if All-American [autotag]Jeff Burris[/autotag] turns one of his several passes defended in that game into an interception then the Irish win by two or more scores.

Instead, Bobby Bowden received his lifetime achievement award from the Associated Press and his fellow coaches.

Notre Dame was the best team in the country in 1993 and I’ll never come down from this hill no matter how hard my Florida State fans try to get me to.

Even with the heartbreak from that Boston College game of ’93, I can’t help but be grateful of catching onto Notre Dame football when I did because had I been just a couple years younger I don’t know if things would have been quite the same.

Over those two years Notre Dame went 21-2-1, won a pair of Cotton Bowls over Texas A&M, and it was the last two years of the Fighting Irish being the “it” thing in college football under [autotag]Lou Holtz[/autotag] as things were never quite the same for him in South Bend after ’93.

With there being 93/92 days until the season kicks off this fall (Thursday and Friday), here is a look back at a few photos from the 1992 and 1993 seasons that I’ll always remember from my youth.

Notre Dame-Ohio State kickoff time officially set

Can we fast forward to September already!?

“You are looking live at Ohio Stadium in Columbus, Ohio!”

Alright, so Brent Musburger won’t be there to greet us when we tune into Notre Dame‘s 2022 opener at Ohio State but the start of the broadcast would certainly sound better if he was.

As expected, Notre Dame and Ohio State will take place under the lights in Columbus on Sept. 3 and will be shown on ABC.  That news was made official on Tuesday although anyone with the least bit of college football knowledge expected this to be the case but it will follow another week one helmet-game when Georgia and Oregon take the field in Atlanta.

Georgia may be the defending champs but you can go ahead and bet your bottom dollar that College Gameday will be in Columbus that weekend for Marcus Freeman’s first regular season game as Notre Dame’s head coach that just so happens to be at the powerhouse college football program he once played at.

Anyone else already sick of summer and ready to fast forward to fall?

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Notre Dame spring football 2022: Offensive Primer

What are you most interested in with the offense this spring?

Notre Dame opens up their spring football practices this Thursday, which just so happens to be St. Patrick’s Day.  While plenty of college kids will be getting wristband deals on green beer all day long the Irish will be hard at work getting set for Marcus Freeman’s first full slate as head coach.

The offense returns nearly the entire line but how exactly they’ll be arranged remains to be seen while changes are coming in terms of the starting quarterback, running back, and leading receiver.

To help you get ready for Notre Dame football in 2022 here is your “five things to watch offensive primer” for spring football.