Tag: Howard Cross

Notre Dame football: Injury updates ahead of Stanford game

Play him or be overly safe?

Notre Dame fifth-year cornerback [autotag]TaRiq Bracy[/autotag] has been a regular in the Fighting Irish secondary for literally years now but his status for Saturday’s home tilt with Stanford appears to be in major jeopardy.  At least if I was in charge it would be.

Marcus Freeman was asked Monday about Bracy, who exited the game against BYU with a leg injury.  Freeman didn’t make it sound bad but hardly made it seem likely that Bracy would be ready to play this weekend.

“He’ll be questionable. He pulled his hamstring. I just found out he had a virus illness and so he was probably a little bit dehydrated. He was playing a lot of plays and running around there. They said it’s a grade 1 and it is not really bad. He’s kind of freaky athletically. Hopefully he’ll bounce back. But we’ll see how he feels today. I saw him yesterday and he was confident. He was a little bit sore. We’ll see how he feels today. But right now he’s questionable.” – Marcus Freeman

I know the debacle against Marshall should serve as a reminder that nothing is given and with this Notre Dame makeup, although it’s plenty talented, there isn’t much that’s going to be really easy for them and Stanford would apply to that.

However, the thing with pulled muscles is they just like to kind of linger.  A day turns into a week, a week into a month, a month into a season.  Unless everything checks absolutely 100-percent fine with Bracy early in the week, I’d be giving him a week off to make sure he’s fully over what could leave behind a lingering issue.

Freeman also pointed out Monday that defensive lineman [autotag]Howard Cross[/autotag] is expected to play Saturday night.

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Five keys for Notre Dame to defeat Marshall

The Irish need to put work in on Saturday

This week is different, the Irish are heavily favored and should breeze through the Thundering Herd. With that being said, this week instead of keys, we are going to take a look at areas the Irish need to work on after their week one loss. Here are the five areas that we would like to see this Notre Dame team improve on from the first to second week of the season.

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

Follow Mike on Twitter: @MikeFChen

 

The day after: Looming thoughts on Notre Dame after losing to Ohio State

Better days ahead for the Irish

It’s been just about 24-hours (at the time that this was published) since the game started on Saturday, but my mind is still focused on Notre Dame’s loss to Ohio State. It was just one game and there are plenty of aspects that can be taken from it. Here are a few thoughts that have racked in my brain over the last day.

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

Follow Mike on Twitter: @MikeFChen

 

Blue vs. Gold Game: What we learned about Notre Dame Football

What stood out to you during the Blue & Gold game?

The next step is fall camp, but before the Irish get back to real football, we get our preview, the Blue vs. Gold game. Although most starters were held back and only played a bit, they are the known commodities. There were still plenty of take aways from the glorified scrimmage and here are some things that we learned after the spring practices.

Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes, and opinions.
Follow Mike on Twitter: @MikeFChen

Notre Dame vs. Georgia Tech: Fourth-Quarter Analysis

Quite simply, the Irish whipped the Yellow Jackets.

There isn’t a whole lot left to say about this game other than complete domination. Notre Dame entered its game against Georgia Tech as a heavy favorite, and it lived up to that billing. Nothing of note happened in the fourth quarter, but it was just as well. The Irish already had their 55-0 victory.

The fourth quarter mostly was just a series of punts. Howard Cross picked up his second sack for the Irish (10-1) in as many quarters, showing the Irish faithful what they have to look forward to next season. Sylvain Yondjouen forced a fumble on a sack of Tyler Buchner to give the Yellow Jackets (3-8) at least one defensive highlight for the quarter, so he has that for personal highlight reel. The Irish didn’t punt on their final possession, but that only was because the clock ran out.

Cole Capen was inserted at quarterback for the final play of the home season, during which he handed the ball to Audric Estime, who picked up the game’s final first down. It was the cherry on top of what was a fantastic day in South Bend. It’s too bad they all can’t be this easy.

Notre Dame vs. Georgia Tech: Third-Quarter Analysis

One quarter left in the home season.

It’s really just a matter of running out the clock at this point. Notre Dame has this game against Georgia Tech well in hand, but the scoreboard dictates there still is football to be played. Though the teams will play on, there isn’t a lot left to decide here. That’s the thought process as the Irish have a 55-0 lead after the third quarter.

The first three punts of the quarter ended in punts. At one point, Jack Coan nearly was sacked for a safety, but he got rid of the ball just in time. Perhaps that was enough to convince Brian Kelly that it wasn’t worth putting his top quarterback at further risk because he put Tyler Buchner in the next time the offense took the field. The underclassman ran for 68 yards on his first play, setting up a 26-yard field goal from Jonathan Doerer.

When the Yellow Jackets regained possession, Jordan Yates had a 54-yard run to put his team in the red zone for the first time. On third-and-6 at the Irish’s 11-yard line, Isaiah Foskey sacked Yates and forced a fumble, which Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa picked up and ran 70 yards the other way for the Irish’s second defensive touchdown of the game. An NBC interview with Tagovailoa-Amosa‘s family that took place right after indicated how emotional of a moment this was for the senior, who lost his dad in August.

With little left to play for except pride, the Yellow Jackets’ offense simply tried to move the ball and mostly used a running attack to get into Irish territory. A third-down sack from Howard Cross put the Yellow Jackets back in their own territory and forced them to punt again. That ended the quarter, and the game can’t end soon enough for the Yellow Jackets.

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Four Changes Notre Dame should make following the bye week

Which changes would you make this bye week?

The first “half” of the season is over and this week the Irish will surely work hard and do some self-scouting. Head coach Brian Kelly has a big time job to do, there are some holes that need to be fixed and now is the time to address them. Let’s take a look at a few changes the Irish make before the hit the field against USC on October 23rd in South Bend.

Throwback Thursday: Giants rout Washington, 41-7, in 1993

In the latest Throwback Thursday on Giants Wire, we go back to 1993 when the New York Giants routed Washington, 41-7.

1993 was a new era for the New York Giants. The short-lived Ray Handley era was over and the Giants had hired long-time rival Dan Reeves as their head coach. Phil Simms was reinstalled as the starting quarterback as Jeff Hostetler left to sign with the Raiders via free agency.

The Giants still had some remnants of their 1990 Super Bowl championship team, Simms and future Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor being two of the big names along with most of the offensive line. Two rookies on the roster would also go on to become Giants legends: defensive end Michael Strahan and linebacker Jesse Armstead.

The Giants began the Reeves era with three straight victories before dropping a 17-14 decision at Buffalo in Week 4. The next game would be against the Washington Redskins at RFK Stadium in DC.

Washington was just two years removed from their last Super Bowl win and were no coached by Richie Petitbon. The Redskins were past the days of the Hogs and the Three Amigos. They had lost three of their first four games coming into their meeting with the Giants and the game did not have the same feel it had for the past decade when Joe Gibbs and Bill Parcells were the opposing coaches.

Simms and Taylor were both in the final seasons of their careers and Taylor felt it could be his last hurrah at RFK.

“Now that I think about it, Lawrence seemed pretty sentimental,” Simms recalled. “He wanted it pretty bad, and I can’t remember him ever being like that. Maybe because this might be his last season, I don’t know. I wasn’t so sentimental. I wasn’t, because I plan on bringing my butt back here at least one more time.”

He wouldn’t. Simms was released the next offseason and then joined Taylor in retirement.

As for the game, it wasn’t much of one. Washington was banged up on defense but their offense still had Mark Rypien at quarterback, Ricky Ervins at running back and Art Monk, Ricky Sanders, Desmond Howard and Tim McGee at wide receiver.

The Giants rolled to an easy 41-7 victory, scoring the first 27 points of the game. Led by an odd trio of running back Lewis Tillman, tight end Howard Cross and wide receiver Mike Sherrard on offense, Simms hit on 14-of-17 for 182 yards and three touchdowns for a 150.9 rating.

Tillman had his second best game as a Giant, rushing 29 times for 104 yards and a touchdown. Cross and Sherrard caught two touchdowns apiece (one of Sherrard’s was a 42-yard option pass thrown by running back Dave Meggett) and the final was scored by fullback Kenyon Rasheed to further illustrate the point in history this game took place.

“It was one of those games where we wanted to come out immediately and establish ourselves,” said guard William Roberts. “At one point, I think it was maybe the second quarter, you could tell they were starting to have doubts in themselves and were getting tired. They just didn’t have the personnel this game to keep up with us.”

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