Heading into their opener against Duke, Notre Dame was fifth in ESPN’s Power Rankings. After a lackluster performance against the Blue Devils where the offense was slugging to get going, the Irish dropped down two spots to seventh.
Honestly this shouldn’t come as a surprise. It was Oklahoma and Texas jumping the Irish after both their quarterbacks had impressive debuts. For the Longhorns it was Sam Ehlinger, who has seemingly been there forever, torching UTEP for 426 yards and 5 touchdowns with no picks.
The Sooners had a first-year starter at quarterback in Spencer Rattler, who unlike his 3 predecessors, will actually start more than just one year for Lincoln Riley. Rattler was very impressive as he was 14/17 for 290 yards and 4 touchdowns, no picks, in just a half of work.
Chris Low pointed out the star of the Irish offense yesterday, Kyren Williams, saying “the Irish will be looking for additional impact players on offense, and sophomore running back Kyren Williams has all the tools to be one of those guys.” It certainly was nice to see Williams make noise but the offense needs to find other options as well. The offense can not get one-dimensional.
If the Irish offense looked a bit mome competent, they probably wouldn’t have been jumped by both teams, but that wasn’t the case. Ian Book struggled early, but find a decent groove in the second half. There is still a lot to be desired from the 3rd year starter.
The good news is that the season is young and the Irish won’t be challenged much until the face Clemson on October 24, the eighth game of the season. It would have been nice to be viewed better but the talent is there. The Irish just need to translate it over from the practice field to Saturday’s.